Book Choices to Read: Library Picks for January 2016

Earlier Post: Book Choices to Read: Library Picks for February 2016

1. Presence : Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges By Amy Cuddy

Contents:

• 1. What Is Presence?
• 2. Believing and Owning Your Story
• 3. Stop Preaching, Start Listening: How Presence Begets Presence
• 4. I Don’t Deserve to Be Here
• 5. How Powerlessness Shackles the Self (and How Power Sets It Free)
• 6. Slouching, Steepling, and the Language of the Body
• 7. Surfing, Smiling, and Singing Ourselves to Happiness
• 8. The Body Shapes the Mind (So Starfish Up!)
• 9. How to Pose for Presence
• 10. Self-Nudging: How Tiny Tweaks Lead to Big Changes
• 11. Fake It Till You Become It

2. NeuroLogic : The Brain’s Hidden Rationale Behind Our Irrational Behavior By Eliezer Sternberg

CONTENTS

Introduction: Our Unconscious Logic xi

1. WHAT DO THE BLIND SEE WHEN THEY DREAM? 3
On Perception, Dreams, and the Creation of the External World
Filling in the Gaps . . . The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of . . . Down the Rabbit Hole . . . A Vision for the Sightless . . . Luke Skywalker Lives in Your Temporal Lobe . . . A Corridor of Sound . . . The Dream Machine

2. CAN ZOMBIES DRIVE TO WORK? 38
On Habit, Self-Control, and the Possibility of Human Automatism
Zombies Among Us . . . Vision Without Seeing . . . Mice in a Plus-Maze . . . Focusing by Being Unfocused . . . How to Identify a Fake Smile . . . Why We Forget to Pick Up a Gallon of Milk . . . Why Do We Eat When We’re Not Hungry? . . . Executive Dysfunction . . . Murder on Autopilot . . . Two Systems for Multitasking

3. CAN YOUR IMAGINATION MAKE YOU A BETTER ATHLETE? 71
On Motor Control, Learning, and the Power of Mental Simulation
The Internal Simulator . . . Flexing Mental Muscle . . . PETTLEP . . . Insights from Stroke . . . How Do You Scratch a Phantom Itch? . . . Neuronal Mirrors . . . Why Is Yawning Contagious? . . . Empathy, Pornography, and the Autism Spectrum . . . Gut Feelings

4. CAN WE REMEMBER THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED? 99
On Memory, Emotion, and the Egocentric Brain
A Web of Snapshots . . . The Brains of Rival Sports Fans . . . Why Do We Remember Where We Were on 9/11? . . . Brains in Midtown and Downtown . . . Ignorance Is Bliss . . . “It’s Not a Lie If You Believe It” . . . Fairy Tales in the Confabulating Brain

5. WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE IN ALIEN ABDUCTIONS? 127
On Paranormal Experience, Narrative, and the Development of Strange Beliefs
“I Was Abducted by Aliens!” . . . Sleep Paralysis . . . Afraid of Your Shadow? . . . Conversations with God . . . The Walking Dead . . . Cheating on Your Wife—with Your Wife? . . . Visions from the Brink . . . Fighter Pilots and Heart Attack Victims . . . Hostage Hallucinations . . . Attack of the “Old Hag”

6. WHY DO SCHIZOPHRENICS HEAR VOICES? 149
On Language, Hallucinations, and the Self/Nonself Distinction
Whispers from the Microphone . . . “He Can’t Speak If I Interrupt Him” . . . “Someone Else Is Speaking Whenever I Speak” . . . How Are People Similar to Electric Fish? . . . System Failure . . . Can the Deaf Hear Voices in Their Heads? . . . A Disorder of Self-Monitoring . . . Why Can’t You Tickle Yourself? . . . Déjà Vu

7. CAN SOMEONE BE HYPNOTIZED TO COMMIT MURDER? 178
On Attention, Influence, and the Power of Subconscious Suggestion
You Are Getting Very Sleepy . . . The Cocktail Party Effect . . . Overcoming the Stroop Effect . . . Eat Popcorn, Drink Coca-Cola . . . Invisible Faces . . . Brand Names in the Brain . . . When the Brain Makes Excuses . . . “The Knife Went In” . . . One Brain, Two Systems

8. WHY CAN’T SPLIT PERSONALITIES SHARE PRESCRIPTION GLASSES? 210
On Personality, Trauma, and the Defense of the Self
Finding One Self . . . A Brain Divided . . . See No Evil . . . The Fragmentation of the Mind . . . The Hypnotist Within . . . An Eye for an I

3. Figures of Catastrophe: The Condition of Culture Novel by Francis Mulhern

(from the first chapter)

By the end of the nineteenth century, the question of working-class education in Britain was hardly a novelty, however controversial it remained. The principle of universal, publicly supported elementary schooling for children had been established in law for the greater part of a generation. Adults had been served by the Mechanics’ Institutes since the 1820s, while the Woking Men’s Colleges sponsored a liberal arts curriculum from the mid-century onwards. Yet it was now that the topic caught fire in the imaginative fields of the English novel, in two stories of working-class educational aspiration that furnished the occasions for general assessments of the current state and prospects of culture. In doing so, Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure and E.M. Forster’s Howards End pioneered a new genre, the condition of culture novel.’ p.15

4. Democracy against Capitalism : Renewing Historical Materialism by Ellen Meiksins Wood

Renewing Historical Materialism | Solidarity

Ellen Meiksins Wood argues that with the collapse of Communism the theoretical project of Marxism and its critique of capitalism is more timely and important than ever. In this book she sets out to renew the critical program of historical materialism by redefining its basic concepts and its theory of history in original and imaginative ways, using them to identify the specificity of capitalism as a system of social relations and political power. She goes on to explore the concept of democracy in both the ancient and modern world, examining the concept’s relation to capitalism. Wide-ranging study of Marxism and democracy, covering history from ancient Greece to the US Constitution, and thinkers from Weber to Thompson. More accessible than most writing in the field; Will appeal to historians, philosophers and sociologists as well as political theorists

5. Between Debt and the Devil : Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance by Adair Turner

New Yorker:

Lord Turner argues that countries facing the predicament of onerous debts, low interest rates, and slow growth should consider a radical but alluringly simple option: create more money and hand it out to people. “A government could, for instance, pay $1000 to all citizens by electronic transfer to their commercial bank deposit accounts,” Turner writes. People could spend the money as they saw fit: on food, clothes, household goods, vacations, drinking binges—anything they liked. Demand across the economy would get a boost, Turner notes, “and the extent of that stimulus would be broadly proportional to the value of new money created.”

6. What is to Be Done: A Dialogue on Communism, Capitalism, and the Future of Democracy by Alain Badiou & Marcel Gauchet

Table of Contents

Foreword: The Future of an Alternative, by Martin Duru and Martin Legros
1. The encounter with communism
2. From Marx to Lenin
3. Totalitarianism
4. The return of the communist hypothesis?
5. What is the meaning of the crisis?
6. The end of imperial logic, or the continuation?
7. The deconstruction of capitalism
8. Why we re not finished with politics
Conclusion: In search of a lost deal?

7. Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts By Stanislas Dehaene

1. Chapter Summaries (with comments)
2. New Ways Into the Brain’s ‘Music Room’ – The New York Times
3. Sizing Up Consciousness by Its Bits – NYTimes.com
4. A New Method to Measure Consciousness Proposed: Scientific American
5. What Is the Fundamental Nature of Consciousness? [Excerpt]: Scientific American
6. Your Brain on Metaphors – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education
7. Lucy Film Hinges on Brain Capacity Myth | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network
8. Think Different: Scientific American
9. The Folks You Meet on the Border Between Consciousness and Dreams
10. The Neurologist Who Hacked His Brain—And Almost Lost His Mind | WIRED
11. The Brain, in Exquisite Detail – NYTimes.com
12. Daniel Wolpert: The real reason for brains | Video on TED.com