Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate or we "blink" and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind’s black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they’re discovering that this is not how the mind works.Our best decisions are a finely tuned bl...more
A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator. Includes illustrated notes throughout the text explaining the historical background of the story.
Like the one-time bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sniff a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful method of entertaining an audienc...more
Offers new clues about the identity and murder of Kaspar Hauser, who was kept in a dungeon for his entire childhood, found in 1828 at the age of sixteen barely able to walk or speak, and then murdered in 1833. 25,000 first printing.
From one of the world’s best-known development economists—an excoriating attack on the tragic hubris of the West’s efforts to improve the lot of the so-called developing world In his previous book, The Elusive Quest for Growth, William Easterly criticized the utter ineffectiveness of Western organizations to mitigate global poverty, an...more
'The Wall', the lead story in this collection, introduces three political prisoners on the night prior to their execution. Through the gaze of an impartial doctor - seemingly there for the men's solace - their mental descent is charted in exquisite, often harrowing detail. And as the morning draws inexorably closer, the men cross the psychological ...more
An extraordinary picture of life in France during the critical eight days before the signing of the fateful Munich Pact and the subsequent takeover of Czechoslovakia in September 1938. Translated from the French by Eric Sutton.
Kafka on the Shore is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like th...more
This wildly propulsive novel by the acclaimed author of A Wild Sheep Chase focuses on a man searching for a former lover who vanished mysteriously from a seedy hotel. But each new clue to Kiki's whereabouts leads him deeper into a labryrinth of physical violence and metaphysical dread. "A world-class writer."--Washington Post Book World