Orwell's 1984 Summary

We all have our fandoms.
We all have those certain books we can’t stop talking about, those movies and TV shows we can’t stop re-watching, those video games we can’t stop re-playing, and those musicals that whenever the tour comes to town, we watch them again and again. We have all found escape into either an adventure or experience, whether it be in our modern-day world or a completely different place and time. Thanks to writers and directors, there are conflicts that get our hearts racing and more often than not, there are universal truths where we learn more about ourselves, others,...

Alan Weisman
2007-2008
St. Martin’s Press

– A fascinating eco-thriller … Gripping

The simple but irresistible premise of Alan Weisman's The World Without Us - what would happen to the planet if human beings simply disappeared - lit up imaginations even as it ignited controversy around the world.

Weisman's "thought experiment" examines what would happen in both the immediate and distant future to the land, the animals, the oceans, our cities, our art, and all manner of things we take for granted if we were no longer here. Would the seas again teem with fish? Would our concrete jungles crumble...

Daniel J. Levitin, 2006, 320 pages

Why human beings make and enjoy music is, in Levitin’s telling, a delicious story. In this unprecedented meeting of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music – its performances, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it – and the human brain.

Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin argues that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. ‘This Is Your Brain On Music’ is an ear-opening,...

Daniel Goleman, 2006, 334 pages

Goleman in his groundbreaking book reveals that neural linkages between humans influence the brain and the body. These invisible bridges give us the ability to change people's moods, emotions, and health - as these people can do to us. Relationships not only shape emotional states and general psychological experience, but also the very physiological matter that makes our body. Our interactions with people influences our immune system, circulation, hormones, and breathing for example.

Social Intelligence expands from the one-person psychology within an individual...