In this classic, the world’s expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association....

In this delightful, acclaimed bestseller, one of the world’s leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness?

Since the original publication of Nudge more than a decade ago, the title has entered the vocabulary of businesspeople, policy makers, engaged citizens, and consumers everywhere. The book has given rise to more than 200 "nudge units" in governments around the world and countless groups of behavioral scientists in every part of the economy. It has taught us how to use thoughtful "choice architecture" - a concept the authors invented - to help us make better decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society.

In The Wise Company, legendary management experts Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi highlight how various companies have confronted the challenge of rapid change. The key: a relentless self-renewal process where companies realize the future they envision, rather than only responding to changes in the environment.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence.

"What is a minimalist life? It's one that is stripped of the unnecessary, to make room for that which gives you joy. It's a removal of clutter in all its forms, leaving you with peace and freedom and lightness. A minimalist values quality, not quantity, in all forms." So writes Leo Babauta, the creator of Zen Habits and author of The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life. A joy to read, this little book will help you clear out clutter, be content with less, and simplify your life - with tips on everything from creating a minimalist workspace to going paperless. In short, it will help you enjoy a simpler, happier life!

E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.

A brilliant book by Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel, The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind - our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions - and how mind and brain relate to art.

Viktor E. Frankl was a medical doctor at a psychiatric hospital in 1942 when he became a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps in World War II. In 1946, he published this book about his camp experiences and a method of psychotherapy he developed. Forty-five years later, it was still named one of the most influential books in the United States. Part One describes his three years in four Nazi concentration camps, which took the lives of his wife, father, mother, and brother. He closely observed inmates’ reactions to their situation, as well as how survivors came to terms with their liberation.

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Gary Gutting presents a wide-ranging but nonsystematic exploration of some highlights of Foucault's life and thought. Beginning with a brief biography to set the social and political stage, he then tackles Foucault's thoughts on literature, in particular the avant-garde scene; his philosophical and historical work; his treatment of knowledge and power in modern society; and his thoughts on sexuality.

What is that magic quality that makes some people instantly loved and respected? Everyone wants to be their friend (or, if single, their lover!) In business, they rise swiftly to the top of the corporate ladder. What is their "Midas touch?"

World politics is entering a new phase, in which the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of international conflict will be cultural.

Paul Auster's signature work, The New York Trilogy, consists of three interlocking novels: City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room - haunting and mysterious tales that move at the breathless pace of a thriller.

A deft mixture of memoir and history, modern biology and behavior, In Search of Memory brings listeners from Kandel's childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna to the forefront of one of the great scientific endeavors of the 20th century: the search for the biological basis of memory. Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel intertwines the intellectual history of the powerful new science of the mind - a combination of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology - with his own personal quest to understand memory.

In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding. His starting point is moral intuition - the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right.

Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? is one of the great science classics of the 20th century. A distinguished physicist's exploration of the question which lies at the heart of biology, it was written for the layman but proved one of the spurs to the birth of molecular biology and the subsequent discovery of the structure of DNA. It appears here together with "Mind and Matter", his essay investigating a relationship which has eluded and puzzled philosophers since the earliest times.

Life is hard enough for a teenage girl in 1950s suburbia without having a mother who may—or may not—be a witch. A single mother at that. Sure, she fits in with her starched dresses, string of pearls, and floral aprons. Then there are the hushed and mystical consultations with neighborhood women in distress. The unsavory, mysterious plants in the flower beds. The divined warning to steer clear of a boyfriend whose fate is certainly doomed.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the iconic figures of the 20th century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb but later confronted the moral consequences of scientific progress. When he proposed international controls over atomic materials, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and criticized plans for a nuclear war, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup during the anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s.

He is a brilliant math professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only 80 minutes of short-term memory. She is an astute young housekeeper - with a 10-year-old son-who is hired to care for the professor. And every morning, as the professor and the housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them.

Conservationist Rachel Carson spent over six years documenting the effects on DDT, a synthetic organic compound used as an insecticide, on numerous communities. Her analysis revealed that such powerful, persistent chemical pesticides have been used without a full understanding of the extent of their potential harm to the whole biota, including the damage they've caused to wildlife, birds, bees, agricultural animals, domestic pets, and even humans. An instant best seller that was read by President Kennedy during the summer of 1962, this classic remains one of the best introductions to the complicated and controversial subject.

Thousands of years ago Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote these meditations as a guide for his own self-improvement, and they're still relevant today. Bedtime stories are narrated by the world’s most celebrated voices and written with no beginning, middle, or end so you don’t stay up to hear what happens next. They're interesting enough to give your mind something to focus on, but delivered in a way that encourages sleep.

Synthesizing the work of thinkers including Freud, Diderot, Nietzsche, and Einstein, delineating the enticing strategies of characters throughout history, The Art of Seduction is a comprehensive guide to getting what we want - any way we can. Controversial but never dull, timeless and up-to-date, it's destined to be Greene's next best seller.

The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose research overturns the long-standing belief that emotions are automatic, universal, and hardwired in different brain regions. Instead, Barrett shows, we construct each instance of emotion through a unique interplay of brain, body, and culture.

In his earlier best sellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in the final audiobook in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crisis through selective change - a coping mechanism more commonly associated with personal trauma.

Power is changing. Private corner offices and management by decree are out, as is unquestioned trust in the government and media. These former pillars of traditional power have been replaced by networks of informed citizens who collectively wield more power over their personal lives, employers, and worlds than ever before. So how do you navigate this new landscape and come out on top? Adam Grant, Wharton organizational psychologist, went to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the epicenter of power, and sat down with thought leaders from around the world, to find out.