Personal Science

In Girls on the Edge, psychologist and physician Leonard Sax argues that many girls today have a brittle sense of self-they may look confident and strong on the outside, but they're fragile within. Sax offers the tools we need to help them become independent and confident women, and provides parents with practical tips on everything from helping their daughter limit her time on social media, to choosing a sport, to nurturing her spirit through female-centered activities.

Confidence has been scientifically proven to directly affect our happiness. As pressures from society increase, low self-esteem, and social anxiety have become all too common for many amazing people. This phenomenon shows itself in a loss of words, public shyness or an inability to connect with others. Thankfully, confidence is a skill that almost anyone can learn.

Better Vocabulary in 30 Minutes a Day offers a lively and entertaining method for adding a more impressive list of words to your everyday speech, and for learning how to use them effortlessly and accurately. Besides giving definitions, this invaluable guide also provides root meanings and elements of words so you can increase your vocabulary base by thousands of exciting new words and use them with aplomb in sentences.

National leader Stacey Abrams has written the guide to harnessing the strengths of being an outsider and succeeding anyway. Leadership is hard. Convincing others - and yourself - that you are capable of taking charge and achieving more requires insight and courage. Lead from the Outside is the handbook for outsiders, written with an eye toward the challenges that hinder women, people of color, the working class, members of the LGBTQ community, and millennials ready to make change.

In The Science of Social Intelligence, you'll have over 30 studies, new and old, broken down in a way that answers the question, "How can I use this science in my everyday life?" Rely on findings from psychology, cognitive science, and behavioral economics, rather than one person's anecdotal advice of what works.

In this profound and funny audiobook, Lamott calls for each of us to rediscover the nuggets of hope and wisdom that are buried within us that can make life sweeter than we ever imagined. Divided into short chapters that explore life's essential truths, Almost Everything pinpoints these moments of insight as it shines an encouraging light forward. Candid and caring, insightful and sometimes hilarious, Almost Everything is the audiobook we need and that only Anne Lamott can write.

When we align with circumstance, circumstance aligns with us. Using a cutting-edge scientific theory of synchronicity, Sky Nelson-Isaacs presents a model for living "in the flow" - a state of optimal functioning, creative thinking, and seemingly effortless productivity. Nelson-Isaacs explains how our choices create meaning, translating current and original ideas from theoretical physics and quantum mechanics into accessible, actionable steps that we can all take to live lives in better alignment with who we are and who we want to be.

It seems like every time a new mother turns on her computer, radio, or television she is greeted with news of yet another scientific study about infancy. Ignoring good information isn't the right course, but just how does one tell the difference between solid studies, preliminary results, and snake oil? In this friendly guide through the science of infancy, Science of Mom blogger and PhD scientist Alice Callahan explains how nonscientist mothers can learn the difference between hype and evidence.

In this important and ground-breaking, deeply personal investigation, Jones writes of the emerging concept of “matrescence”—the wholeness of becoming a mother. Drawing on her own experiences of twice becoming a mother, as well as exploring the latest research in the fields of neuroscience and evolutionary biology; psychoanalysis and existential therapy; sociology, economics and ecology, Jones writes of the physical and emotional changes in the maternal mind, body, and spirit and shows us how these changes are far more profound, wild, and enduring than have been previously explored.

Most mothers have experienced exhaustion, pain, forgetfulness, indecision, low energy levels, moodiness, or some form of baby brain. And it's no wonder: The process of growing a baby depletes a mother's body in substantial ways. But with postnatal care ending after six weeks, most women never learn how to rebuild their strength and care for their bodies after childbirth. As a result, they can suffer from the effects of depletion for many years, without knowing what's wrong as well as getting the support and treatments that they need.

What exactly is sexual attraction and what is it like to go through life not experiencing it? What does asexuality reveal about gender roles, about romance and consent, and the pressures of society? This accessible examination of asexuality shows that the issues that aces face - confusion around sexual activity, the intersection of sexuality and identity, navigating different needs in relationships - are the same conflicts that nearly all of us will experience.

In this audiobook inspired by her popular TED Talk, the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code urges women to embrace imperfection and live a bolder, more authentic life. By choosing bravery over perfection, we can find the power to claim our voice, to leave behind what makes us unhappy, and to go for the things we genuinely, passionately want. In Brave, Not Perfect, Saujani shares powerful insights and practices to help us let go of our need for perfection and make bravery a lifelong habit.

Memories are the cornerstones of our identity, shaping who we are, how we act, and how we feel. In his work as a happiness researcher, Meik Wiking has learned that people are happier if they hold a positive, nostalgic view of the past. But how do we make and keep the memories that bring us lasting joy? The Art of Making Memories examines how mental images are made, stored, and recalled in our brains, as well as the "art of letting go" - why we tend to forget certain moments to make room for deeper, more meaningful ones.

The emotional questions we face can define our lives. If you’re expecting an interaction to go wrong, that expectation can make it so. That’s spiraling down. But as esteemed Stanford psychologist Greg Walton shows, when we see these questions clearly, we can answer them well. Known to social psychologists as wise interventions, these shifts in perspective can help us chart new trajectories for our lives. They help us spiral up. This is ordinary magic: The ordinary experiences that help us set aside the ordinary worries of life to unleash extraordinary change.

Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: "Nothing will shake a man - or at any rate a man like me - out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself."

In this valuable and revealing anthology, cultural critic and best-selling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are "routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied" for speaking out. Contributions include essays from established and up-and-coming writers, performers, and critics.

We spend vast amounts of time acquiring confidence in narrow technical fields: quadratic equations or bioengineering; economics or pole vaulting. But we overlook the primordial need to acquire a more free-ranging variety of confidence - one that can serve us across a range of tasks: speaking to strangers at parties, asking someone to marry us, suggesting a fellow passenger turn down their music, changing the world. This is a guidebook to confidence, why we lack it and how we can acquire more of it in our lives.

Do you know anyone who's truly living The Good Life? Traditionally, philosophers and psychologists have thought of the Good Life in terms of happiness or meaning, or some combination of both. But, if it’s really that simple, if all you need is more happiness or meaning to get to the Good Life, why aren’t more of us achieving that truly “good” life? You’ve hit all the traditional markers, jumped on the happiness train, committed to a gratitude practice, sought purpose in your work, and yet The Good Life you’re seeking, is still out of reach.

In Raising Trump, Ivana Trump reflects on her extraordinary life and the raising of her three children - Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka - and recounts the lessons she taught her children as they were growing up. As her former husband takes his place as the 45th president of the United States, his children have also been thrust into the media spotlight - but it is Ivana who raised them and proudly instilled in them what she believes to be the most important life lessons: loyalty, honesty, integrity, and drive.

In Talk, Harvard professor Alison Wood Brooks shows how simple changes in how we communicate can enhance our relationships, our performance at work and our lives; who we talk to affects our happiness; and how to talk across differences. Her original research, based on thousands of conversations from sales calls to speed dating, provides fascinating insights.