In this poignant book, humanist psychologist Richard Sylvester provides readers with unique insights regarding life’s most difficult question: Who are we? The human mind is compelled to search for meaning. But when we let go of our notion of the self, we are often confronted with the emptiness of the world. However, even in that emptiness, love and purpose can be found. In The Book of No One, Richard Sylvester continues to communicate the radical and uncompromising view of non-duality expressed in his first book, I Hope You Die Soon. With clarity, humor, and compassion, Sylvester answers many questions about the harsh truths of reality, especially the nature of non-duality, liberation, and enlightenment.
Challenging perceptions of discrimination and prejudice, this emotionally resonant drama for readers of Lisa Wingate and Jodi Picoult explores three different women navigating challenges in a changing school district—and in their lives. WINNER OF THE CHRISTY AWARD® When an impoverished school district loses its accreditation and the affluent community of Crystal Ridge has no choice but to open their school doors, the lives of three very different women converge: Camille Gray--the wife of an executive, mother of three, long-standing PTA chairwoman and champion fundraiser--faced with a shocking discovery that threatens to tear her picture-perfect world apart at the seams. Jen Covington, the career nurse whose long, painful journey to motherhood finally resulted in adoption but she is struggling with a happily-ever-after so much harder than she anticipated. Twenty-two-year-old Anaya Jones--the first woman in her family to graduate college and a brand new teacher at Crystal Ridge's top elementary school, unprepared for the powder-keg situation she's stepped into. Tensions rise within and without, culminating in an unforeseen event that impacts them all. This story explores the implicit biases impacting American society, and asks the ultimate question: What does it mean to be human? Why are we so quick to put labels on each other and categorize people as "this" or "that", when such complexity exists in each person?
According to Thomas Metzinger, no such things as selves exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience. The phenomenal self, however, is not a thing but an ongoing process; it is the content of a "transparent self-model." In Being No One, Metzinger, a German philosopher, draws strongly on neuroscientific research to present a representationalist and functional analysis of what a consciously experienced first-person perspective actually is. Building a bridge between the humanities and the empirical sciences of the mind, he develops new conceptual toolkits and metaphors; uses case studies of unusual states of mind such as agnosia, neglect, blindsight, and hallucinations; and offers new sets of multilevel constraints for the concept of consciousness. Metzinger's central question is: How exactly does strong, consciously experienced subjectivity emerge out of objective events in the natural world? His epistemic goal is to determine whether conscious experience, in particular the experience of being someone that results from the emergence of a phenomenal self, can be analyzed on subpersonal levels of description. He also asks if and how our Cartesian intuitions that subjective experiences as such can never be reductively explained are themselves ultimately rooted in the deeper representational structure of our conscious minds.
The Book No One Wants to Read is a highly visual full-color chapter book that uses humor, interactivity, and meta-storytelling to help even the most reluctant reader breeze through reading time, feel successful at reading, and even laugh! You’ll read a book . . . without really reading! A lonely book makes a deal with its reader: "You keep turning my pages, and I'll make it FUN!” If you think reading is boring, then you can pretend to read this book! All you have to do is sit here and turn the pages. Everyone will think you’re reading. Are you ready? Let’s get started… The ability to read by third grade is critical to a child’s success in school and beyond. But learning to read can be frustrating. The Book No One Wants to Read by Beth Bacon validates the experience of reluctant readers and rewards them with laughter.
FINALIST FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE & A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2021 WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE “A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice “Wow. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book. What an inventive and startling writer…I’m so glad I read this. I really think this book is remarkable.” —David Sedaris From "a formidably gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review), a book that asks: Is there life after the internet? As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?" Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary. Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.
Featured in multiple “must-read” lists, No One Tells You This is “sharp, intimate…A funny, frank, and fearless memoir…and a refreshing view of the possibilities—and pitfalls—personal freedom can offer modern women” (Kirkus Reviews). If the story doesn’t end with marriage or a child, what then? This question plagued Glynnis MacNicol on the eve of her fortieth birthday. Despite a successful career as a writer, and an exciting life in New York City, Glynnis was constantly reminded she had neither of the things the world expected of a woman her age: a partner or a baby. She knew she was supposed to feel bad about this. After all, single women and those without children are often seen as objects of pity or indulgent spoiled creatures who think only of themselves. Glynnis refused to be cast into either of those roles, and yet the question remained: What now? There was no good blueprint for how to be a woman alone in the world. It was time to create one. Over the course of her fortieth year, which this “beguiling” (The Washington Post) memoir chronicles, Glynnis embarks on a revealing journey of self-discovery that continually contradicts everything she’d been led to expect. Through the trials of family illness and turmoil, and the thrills of far-flung travel and adventures with men, young and old (and sometimes wearing cowboy hats), she wrestles with her biggest hopes and fears about love, death, sex, friendship, and loneliness. In doing so, she discovers that holding the power to determine her own fate requires a resilience and courage that no one talks about, and is more rewarding than anyone imagines. “Amid the raft of motherhood memoirs out this summer, it’s refreshing to read a book unapologetically dedicated to the fulfillment of single life” (Vogue). No One Tells You This is an “honest” (Huffington Post) reckoning with modern womanhood and “a perfect balance between edgy and poignant” (People)—an exhilarating journey that will resonate with anyone determined to live by their own rules.
"Blade-sharp, whip-smart, and genuinely original — a thriller to refresh your faith in the genre, your belief that a story can still outpace and outsmart you."— A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in The Window "Clever and surprising...The superb character-driven plot delivers an astonishing, believable jolt."—Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Deserves two big thumbs up. Readers will be gripped by this astonishing story in which one gasp-inducing twist follows on the heels of another. A unique page-turner that just begs to be turned into a movie." —Booklist (starred review) A smart, witty, crackling novel of psychological suspense in which a girl from a hardscrabble small town meets a gorgeous Instagram influencer from the big city, with a murderous twist that will shock even the most savvy reader. On a beautiful October morning in rural Maine, a homicide investigator from the state police pulls into the hard-luck town of Copper Falls. The local junkyard is burning, and the town pariah Lizzie Oullette is dead—with her husband, Dwayne, nowhere to be found. As scandal ripples through the community, Detective Ian Bird’s inquiries unexpectedly lead him away from small-town Maine to a swank city townhouse several hours south. Adrienne Richards, blonde and fabulous social media influencer and wife of a disgraced billionaire, had been renting Lizzie’s tiny lake house as a country getaway…even though Copper Falls is anything but a resort town. As Adrienne’s connection to the case becomes clear, so too does her connection to Lizzie, who narrates their story from beyond the grave. Each woman is desperately lonely in her own way, and they navigate a relationship that cuts across class boundaries: transactional, complicated, and, finally, deadly. A Gone Girl for the gig economy, this is a story of privilege, identity, and cunning, as two devious women from opposite worlds discover the dangers of coveting someone else’s life. "Both amusingly satirical and darkly bloody."—The Washington Post
"Jerry Grey is known to most of the world by his crime writing pseudonym, Henry Cutter--a name that has been keeping readers at the edge of their seats for more than a decade. Recently diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's at the age of forty-nine, Jerry's crime writing days are coming to an end. His twelve books tell stories of brutal murders committed by bad men, of a world out of balance, of victims finding the darkest forms of justice. As his dementia begins to break down the wall between his life and the lives of the characters he has created, Jerry confesses his worst secret: the stories are real. He knows this because he committed the crimes"--
When Josette Landry reluctantly takes a job as photographer and camerawoman for a local paranormal group, she finds herself drawn to the mysterious Cadegan, a condemned immortal.
