With a masterful ability to connect their social contexts to well-chosen and telling details of their personal lives, Claudia Roth Pierpont gives us portraits of twelve amazingly diverse and influential literary women of the twentieth century, women who remade themselves and the world through their art. Gertrude Stein, Mae West, Margaret Mitchell, Eudora Welty, Ayn Rand, Doris Lessing, Anais Nin, Zora Neale Hurston, Marina Tsvetaeva, Hannah Arendt and Mary Mccarthy, and Olive Schreiner: Pierpont is clear-eyed in her examination of each member of this varied group, connectng her subjects firmly to the issues of sexual freedom, race, and politics that bound them to their times, even as she exposes the roots of their uniqueness. "Pierpont['s] graceful essays are at once erudite and personal in their focus." ?The Boston Globe "One of the most ceaselessly interesting books I've read in some time." ?Lorrie Moore, The New York Review of Books

The coauthors of the bestselling Peak Performance dive into the fascinating science behind passion, showing how it can lead to a rich and meaningful life while also illuminating the ways in which it is a double-edged sword. Here’s how to cultivate a passion that will take you to great heights—while minimizing the risk of an equally great fall. Common advice is to find and follow your passion. A life of passion is a good life, or so we are told. But it's not that simple. Rarely is passion something that you just stumble upon, and the same drive that fuels breakthroughs—whether they're athletic, scientific, entrepreneurial, or artistic—can be every bit as destructive as it is productive. Yes, passion can be a wonderful gift, but only if you know how to channel it. If you're not careful, passion can become an awful curse, leading to endless seeking, suffering, and burnout. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness once again team up, this time to demystify passion, showing readers how they can find and cultivate their passion, sustainably harness its power, and avoid its dangers. They ultimately argue that passion and balance--that other virtue touted by our culture--are incompatible, and that to find your passion, you must lose balance. And that's not always a bad thing. They show readers how to develop the right kind of passion, the kind that lets you achieve great things without ruining your life. Swift, compact, and powerful, this thought-provoking book combines captivating stories of extraordinarily passionate individuals with the latest science on the biological and psychological factors that give rise to—and every bit as important, sustain—passion.

In The Passionate Mind, Joel Kramer asserts that "what we believe determines much of what we think and do: the way we move, the way we respond to people, how we think of ourselves, how we see the world in general." His basic message, stated in short, clear prose, is that passion is to be found only in the present moment, and mainly through becoming aware of the thoughts flowing through our minds, and through the primal process of observing our thoughts, they begin to self-correct. From the author of The Guru Papers, The Passionate Mind is a wonderful journey for anyone seeking to discover how to look at oneself.

The popular stereotype of the scientist as mad boffin or weedy nerd has been peddled widely in film and fiction, with the implication that the world of science is far removed from the intellectual and emotional messiness of other human activities. In Passionate Minds, distinguished scientist Lewis Wolpert investigates the style and motivation of some of the most eminent scientists in the world. In this stimulating collection of conversations, scientists in fields as diverse as particle physics and evolutionary biology explore how their backgrounds have shaped their careers and discoveries - how being an outsider or an "innocent" can play an invaluable role in overcoming conventional barriers to new understanding. Being a little crazy does seem to help. As Nobel laureate for physics Sheldon Glashow says, "If you would simply take all the kookiest ideas of the early 1970s and put them together you would have made for yourself the theory which is, in fact, the correct theory of nature, so it was like madness..." These personal explorations with individual scientists are not only accessible and truly fascinating in their insights into the minds of some of the greatest men and women of science, but they also provide a strong case that the life and works of our leading scientists are at least as illuminating and interesting as the personalities of the latest literary prizewinners. A sequel to A Passion for Science, this book will delight and intrigue scientists and non-scientists alike.

David Bodanis presents this history of the turbulent love affair that fired the Enlightenment's intellectual revolution.

In her new book, Wendy Lawson examines traditional theories about the autism spectrum (AS) and reveals their gaps and shortcomings. Showing that a completely different way of thinking about AS is needed, she sets forward the theory of Single Attention and Associated Cognition in Autism (SAACA), an approach that explains autism in terms of the unique learning style of AS individuals. The SAACA approach suggests that whereas neurotypical people can easily shift their attention from one task to another, those on the autism spectrum tend to use just one sense at a time, leading to a deep, intense attention. From the perspective of this new approach, Wendy describes practical outcomes for individuals, families, and places of education and employment, and shows that when the unique learning style of AS is understood, valued, and accommodated, AS individuals can be empowered to achieve their fullest potential. This is a fascinating read for anyone with a personal or professional interest in the autism spectrum, including clinical practitioners, educators, researchers, individuals on the spectrum and their families, teachers, occupational therapists, and other professionals.

A respectable marriage reveals private passions and dangerous secrets in this “sensual and intriguing” Victorian romance (Publishers Weekly). Lucy Ashton had long ago given up her quest for true love. Instead, she plays the expected role of a society lady: flirting, dancing, and dabbling in the new fashion of spiritualism. She even marries when—and who—she’s supposed to. If the stuffy Duke of Sussex cannot spark the passion she craves, he can at least give her a family and a home of her own. But when her polite marriage reveals a caring and sensual man, Lucy begins to wonder if she can indeed have it all. As a member of a secretive organization, Lord Sussex is not the man London society has come to admire. Meanwhile, Lucy harbors a few troublesome ghosts of her own. Thus, when a blackmail scheme turns to threats of danger, the newfound peace of the Sussex marriage is cast upon the rocks. Passion has a price, Lucy learns. And not all ghosts stay buried.