Creative Engineering

In this classic, the world’s expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association....

What is consciousness? Why are we here? Where did it all come from - the laws of nature, the stars, the universe? Humans have been asking these questions forever, but science hasn't succeeded in providing many answers - until now. In The Grand Biocentric Design, Robert Lanza, one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People", is joined by theoretical physicist Matej Pavšic and astronomer Bob Berman to shed light on the big picture that has long eluded philosophers and scientists alike.

For generations, we’ve been taught there are two ways to succeed - either from talent or practice. In Decoding Greatness, award-winning social psychologist Ron Friedman illuminates a powerful third path - one that has quietly launched icons in a wide range of fields, from artists, writers, and chefs, to athletes, inventors, and entrepreneurs: reverse engineering.

In a fascinating tour of creativity and the brain, Nancy Andreasen, professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa and the winner of the National Medal of Science, explores how the human brain achieves creative breakthroughs--in art, literature, music, and science--the role of genes and environment, extraordinary creativity vs. ordinary creativity, and the question of genius and insanity.

Telekinetic is the first of a series of post-apocalyptic stories featuring the Hyllis family. The collapse of civilization has reduced their people back to iron and horsepower. The Hyllises tend to inherit “tele-talents” such as telekinesis and teleportation. Tarc Hyllis’ mother (and his grandfather before her) could “feel” things with their talent. Tarc’s father can “push” objects with his mind. Then some strangers show up to scout the town where the Hyllises live. Could Tarc’s powers, weak as they are, play a role in resisting this invasion?

Indescribable: 100 Devotions About God and Science will engage curious minds and help them discover that God’s design truly is awe-inspiring. In 100 devotions on topics such as creation, the universe, our amazing bodies, and weather, kids will understand what millions of adults have gleaned from Louie Giglio’s beloved message Indescribable

You may think you don’t have the time or the money to start a big permaculture project. But permaculture doesn’t need to be overwhelming. You can start as small as you like, and you can move at a pace that suits you. Don’t feel you have to learn everything in one go and rush out to transform a whole wilderness in a year. Just deal in manageable chunks, and you’ll do just fine. Even if all you have done is tend to a few tomato plants on your window ledge, you can become an expert gardener; all it takes is a little time, patience, and practice.

“There is no good reason why human societies should not be described and explained with the same precision and success as the rest of nature.” Thus argues evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer in this uniquely innovative book. Integrating recent insights from evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and other fields, Boyer offers precise models of why humans engage in social behaviors such as forming families, tribes, and nations, or creating gender roles.

When Robert Zubrin published his classic book The Case for Mars a quarter century ago, setting foot on the Red Planet seemed a fantasy. Today, manned exploration is certain, and as Zubrin affirms in The New World on Mars, so too is colonization.

The Pyrocene tells the story of what happened when a fire-wielding species, humanity, met an especially fire-receptive time in Earth's history. Since terrestrial life first appeared, flames have flourished. Over the past two million years, however, one genus gained the ability to manipulate fire, swiftly remaking both itself and eventually the world. We developed small guts and big heads by cooking food; we climbed the food chain by cooking landscapes; and now we have become a geologic force by cooking the planet.

According to the prevailing scientific paradigm, the universe tends toward randomness; it functions according to laws without purpose, and life is an accident devoid of meaning. Thanks to a new understanding of evolution, as well as recent advances in our understanding of the phenomenon known as emergence, a new cosmic narrative is taking shape: Nature’s simplest “parts” come together to form ever-greater “wholes” in a process that has no end in sight. Bobby Azarian explains the science behind this new view of reality and explores what it means for all of us.

This tale of healers with “talents” is the sixth in a series of stories featuring the psychically talented members of the Hyllis family. Hundreds of years after a plague induced apocalypse collapsed civilization back to iron and horsepower, the Hyllises have a genetic tendency to inherit “talents”. Eva Hyllis and her ancestors became healers because their talents let them feel inside their patients. This helps them diagnose the underlying causes of many illnesses. In this audiobook, they set out on a treacherous journey to treat Eva’s sister who’s dying of cancer.

In his new book, leading neuroscientist Gordon M. Shepherd expands on the startling discovery that the brain creates the taste of wine. This approach to understanding wine's sensory experience draws on findings in neuroscience, biomechanics, human physiology, and traditional enology. Shepherd shows that creating the taste of wine engages more of the brain than does any other human behavior.

Healers is the third in a series of stories featuring the Hyllis family who tend to inherit “talents”. The stories are set after a plague induced apocalypse which resulted in the collapse of civilization and reduced mankind back to iron and horsepower. Eva Hyllis and her ancestors became healers because they could feel the insides of their patients with their talents. Then they enter a kingdom where practicing the art of healing is forbidden. Treating patients brings her into conflict with a powerful king.

The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

Eva Hyllis and her ancestors became healers because their talents let them feel inside their patients. This helps them diagnose the underlying causes of many illnesses. Having made a diagnosis, sometimes they can do something. Unfortunately, often they cannot. However, Eva’s children Tarc and Daussie have inherited telekinetic and teleportation talents.

Best-selling author Simon Winchester writes a magnificent history of the pioneering engineers who developed precision machinery to allow us to see as far as the moon and as close as the Higgs boson. Precision is the key to everything. It is an integral, unchallenged and essential component of our modern social, mercantile, scientific, mechanical and intellectual landscapes. The items we value in our daily lives - a camera, a phone, a computer, a bicycle, a car, a dishwasher perhaps - all sport components that fit together with precision and operate with near perfection....

Hundreds of years after a plague-induced apocalypse collapsed civilization back to iron and horsepower, the Hyllises have a genetic tendency to inherit “talents”. Eva Hyllis and her ancestors became healers because their talents let them feel inside their patients. This helped them diagnose the underlying causes of many illnesses. Eva’s children Tarc and Daussie have inherited telekinetic and teleportation talents.

We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution’s creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves, we hear our kinship to beings as different as snapping shrimp, toadfish, and whales.

Gene Logsdon's The Man Who Created Paradise is a message of hope at a time when the very concept of earth stewardship is under attack. The fable, inspired by a true story, tells how Wally Spero looked at one of the bleakest places in America -- a raw and barren strip-mined landscape -- and saw in it his escape from the drudgery of his factory job. He bought an old bulldozer and used the machine to carve patiently, acre by acre, a beautiful little farm out of a seemingly worthless wasteland.