Rewording the Brain

Rewording the Brain

Author: David Astle

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2018-09-26

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 1760637548

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Master wordsmith and crossword guru David Astle shows how cryptic crosswords can boost your brain power and improve your memory and cognitive capacity. Recent studies have shown that puzzle-solving and wordplay are among the most effective ways to boost the power and agility of your brain. A cryptic crossword a day can help keep memory loss at bay. Why? The answer lies in the art of teasing out a clue, a discipline that calls for logic, interpretation, intuition and deduction as well as the ability to filter nuance and connotation. All these challenges and more are found in the cryptic crossword. And all are invaluable in increasing your brainpower and improving your memory and cognitive capacity. In this entertaining and essential book, cryptic crossword guru David Astle explains how your brain responds to and benefits from attempting these crosswords. A growing body of research suggests cryptic crosswords are the ideal workout for your brain, and Astle shows how regular training of this kind can be fun as well as fundamental. If you've always been intimidated by cryptic crosswords, fear not! Rewording the Brain is an accessible guide to developing and sharpening your puzzle talents. Novices and expert solvers alike will gain plenty of cryptic insights. There has never been a better time to start solving, nor a better teacher than the legendary DA. Also included are 50 cryptic crosswords hand-picked to keep your brain abuzz, ranging from beginner-friendly to fiendishly complicated!


The Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise

The Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise

Author: Kathryn Friedlander

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-08-22

Total Pages: 660

ISBN-13: 1040101003

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This much-needed book introduces readers to the related fields of expertise, creativity, and performance, exploring our understanding of the factors contributing to greatness in creative domains. Bringing together research from the fields of creativity and expertise, it provides fresh insights for newcomers and seasoned scholars alike with its approachable guide to the multidimensional complexities of expertise development. It transcends traditionally studied fields such as chess, sports, and music, instead exploring the intersection of expertise with creativity and the performing arts. Dedicated applied chapters cover eight fields, including mind-games, music, dance, creative writing, acting, art, and STEM. The book also examines the facilitators of creative performance, including aesthetic sensitivity, creativity, and mental imagery, as well as the obstacles to performance, such as burnout, procrastination, and gender-related challenges. The book concludes by engaging with pressing issues facing expertise, including the impact of AI. Student-friendly pedagogy is featured throughout, including 'Spotlight on...', 'Check it out...', and 'Consider this...' boxes to position material within context and engage students' learning. Whether revealing how an actor brings their part to life, how writers conjure up their storylines and vibrant characters, or what lies behind scientific invention, The Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise offers a fascinating insight into the multifaceted journey towards achieving creative excellence. This is a valuable resource for final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students, and scholars across a range of disciplines, including expertise or skill acquisition, the psychology of performance, and creativity.


James Vs Darwin

James Vs Darwin

Author: Frederick Bauer

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2009-08-26

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1440164495

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James yearned to weave science and religion into a popular philosophy useful for the everyday life of everyday people of faith. He saw that many of them were defenseless in an increasingly agnostic, even atheistic culture. "Thousands of innocent magazine readers lie paralyzed and terrified in the network of shallow negations which the leaders of opinion have thrown over their souls," he wrote in 1882. To which he added, "If I, . . . like the mouse in the fable, have gnawed a few of the strings of the sophistical net that has been binding down [the human heart's] lion strength, I shall be more than rewarded for my pains." Were he to return, he would surely be even more unhappy with the leaders of opinion, but also with the responses of people of faith, who either seek refuge in untenable fundamentalist reliance on religious scriptures or else view science and religion as two wholly separate, independent spheres of knowledge. Building on three previous books about Jamess philosophy, as well as on three books about related topics, the present text will explain why no one professing to do science in this third millennium can ignore the psychology behind all discoveries.


Puzzles and Words 2

Puzzles and Words 2

Author: David Astle

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 1743318545

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Puzzles and Words 2 is the second pocket-sized puzzle book from Australia's best known puzzle-maker and word nerd, David Astle. There are over 175 original puzzles from anagrams to riddles and quizzes for all ages and all levels. Accompanying these are some 250 of David's entertaining word stories - What does zemblanity mean? How does cosmic link to cosmetic? Where does a seahorse sleep each night with an almond? Puzzles and Words 2 will keep your brain active and entertained for hours.


What's Wrong With You?

What's Wrong With You?

Author: Sarah Holper

Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing

Published: 2021-06-16

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1743587821

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Take a tour through your body and the many ways it can fail in What's Wrong with You? An Insider's Guide to Your Insides. Everybody has a body, and everybody gets sick. But unless you go to medical school, the mechanisms behind your medical symptoms remain a mystery. Why do you get diarrhoea when you’re stressed? Why do both teenagers and bodybuilders get acne? Why do you feel like yawning when you’re tired, nervous, or when you think about yawning (like now)? Why do many men go bald, but women don’t? Over a billion health-related Google searches – more than one in every 15 Google enquiries – are made every day. Ask ‘Dr Google’ about your headache or fever and it will spew forth a bewildering, and often terrifying list of possible diagnoses, invariably topped by brain cancer or a parasitic infection. What Dr Google won’t tell you is the infinitely more interesting bit: what's actually going on in your body to make you feel sick. In What's Wrong With You? Dr Sarah Holper takes you on an extensive tour through your body, explaining how its failings cause your medical symptoms. Packed with memorable patient encounters, cultural diversions, historical oddities and insider doctor secrets, Dr Holper arms you with the knowledge you need to understand why your body reacts to illness the way it does. If you’ve ever wondered why you’re dizzy, burpy, baldy, chesty, deafy or sniffy – What’s Wrong With You? is for you.


Fled

Fled

Author: Meg Keneally

Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre Ltd.

Published: 2019-04-15

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1785768824

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A fierce and heart-breaking historical debut, perfect for fans of The Light Between Oceans and based on the incredible true story of convict Mary Bryant. Highway robber Convict Runaway Mother Jenny Trelawney is no ordinary thief. Forced by poverty to live in the Devon forest, she becomes a successful highway woman - until her luck runs out. Transported to Australia, pregnant and alone, Jenny must face harsh challenges in an unforgiving land. When famine hits the new colony, Jenny becomes convinced that those she most cares about will not survive. She becomes the leader in a grand plot of escape. Setting sail in a small open boat on an unknown ocean, she will do anything for freedom, but at what cost?


Wordburger

Wordburger

Author: David Astle

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2015-11-18

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1925268853

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How to be a champion word puzzler in 20 quick bites! Packed with word puzzles, tongue twisters and brain teasers, this book will give readers all the ingredients they need to solve cryptic crosswords. Kids of a certain age become obsessed with crossword puzzles: what are they? how do they work? when can I solve one all on my own? Word wizard David Astle has come up with a sneaky way to introduce children to the mechanics of cryptic crossword puzzles, by taking them through different kinds of wordplay - anagrams, pangrams, spoonerisms, tongue-twisters, homophones - before presenting them with crossword puzzles to solve using everything learnt so far. 'DA' puns and word plays abound, making this the word nerd's bible of wordy trickery and puzzling.


Joyful Fluency

Joyful Fluency

Author: Lynn F. Dhority

Publisher: Corwin

Published: 2006-03-22

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13:

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"Do you have learners in your classroom who speak English as a second language? Are you are a foreign language teacher? This essential resource links brain research-based teaching practices to language learning presents exciting new ways to encourage second language acquisition in students of all ages. Find hundreds of helpful brain research-based techniques for lesson planning and presentation to promote improved vocabulary retention, better understanding of grammar, and enhanced speaking and writing skills"--Publisher description.


Away with Words

Away with Words

Author: Joe Berkowitz

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2017-06-13

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0062495623

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"[Away with Words] is low wit in its highest form. . . Mr. Berkowitz is sensitive throughout to the evanescence and contingency of punning and to the fleeting chemistry of a live pun-on-pun matchup crackling with energy." –Wall Street Journal Fast Company reporter Joe Berkowitz investigates the bizarre and hilarious world of pun competitions from the Punderdome 3000 in Brooklyn to the World competition in Austin. When Joe Berkowitz witnessed his first Punderdome competition, it felt wrong in the best way. Something impossible seemed to be happening. The kinds of jokes we learn to repress through social conditioning were not only being aired out in public—they were being applauded. As it turned out, this monthly show was part of a subculture that’s been around in one form or another since at least the late ‘70s. Its pinnacle is the O. Henry Pun Off World Championship, an annual tournament in Austin, Texas. As someone who is terminally self-conscious, Joe was both awed and jealous of these people who confidently killed with the most maligned form of humor. In this immersive ride into the subversive world of pun competitions, we meet punsters weird and wonderful and Berkowitz is our tour guide. Puns may show up in life in subtle ways sometimes, but once you start thinking in puns you discover they’re everywhere. Berkowitz’s search to discover who makes them the most, and why, leads him to the professional comedian competitors on @Midnight, a TV show with a pun competition built into it, the writing staff of Bob’s Burgers, the punniest show on TV, and even a humor research conference. With his new unlikely band of punster brothers, he finally heads to Austin to compete in the World Championship. Of course, in befriending these comic misfits he also ended up learning that when you embrace puns you become a more authentic version of yourself.