A composite picture of a girl in a strait-jacket sitting inside an eye. This is surrounded by four color wedges; clock-wise they are brown, green, blue and purple.

When I drink, am I killing my brain cells? Does cramming for an exam work? Why can't you tickle yourself? Can you improve your brain with video games? Written with a light touch, but using hard science, this book will answer all the questions you've ever had about how that amazing three pounds in your skull works.

Praised by fan favorites including Hoda Kotb, Kim & Khloe Kardashian, and Jimmy Fallon! Inspired by the eagerly awaited birth of her daughter, Kaavia James Union Wade, New York Times bestselling author and award-winning actress Gabrielle Union pens a festive and universal love letter from parents to little ones, perfect for welcoming a baby to the party of life! Reminiscent of favorites such as The Wonderful Things You’ll Be by Emily Winfield Martin, I’ve Loved You Since Forever by Hoda Kotb, and Take Heart, My Child by Ainsley Earhardt, Welcome to the Party is an upbeat celebration of new life that you’ll want to enjoy with your tiny guest of honor over and over again. A great gift for all occasions, especially Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, baby showers, and birthdays.

One of the nation’s chief architecture critics reveals how the environments we build profoundly shape our feelings, memories, and well-being, and argues that we must harness this knowledge to construct a world better suited to human experience Taking us on a fascinating journey through some of the world’s best and worst landscapes, buildings, and cityscapes, Sarah Williams Goldhagen draws from recent research in cognitive neuroscience and psychology to demonstrate how people’s experiences of the places they build are central to their well-being, their physical health, their communal and social lives, and even their very sense of themselves. From this foundation, Goldhagen presents a powerful case that societies must use this knowledge to rethink what and how they build: the world needs better-designed, healthier environments that address the complex range of human individual and social needs. By 2050 America’s population is projected to increase by nearly seventy million people. This will necessitate a vast amount of new construction—almost all in urban areas—that will dramatically transform our existing landscapes, infrastructure, and urban areas. Going forward, we must do everything we can to prevent the construction of exhausting, overstimulating environments and enervating, understimulating ones. Buildings, landscapes, and cities must both contain and spark associations of natural light, greenery, and other ways of being in landscapes that humans have evolved to need and expect. Fancy exteriors and dramatic forms are never enough, and may not even be necessary; authentic textures and surfaces, and careful, well-executed construction details are just as important. Erudite, wise, lucidly written, and beautifully illustrated with more than one hundred color photographs, Welcome to Your World is a vital, eye-opening guide to the spaces we inhabit, physically and mentally, and a clarion call to design for human experience.

A bold, brain-based teaching approach to culturally responsive instruction To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation—until now. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction. The book includes: Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships Ten “key moves” to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection

Did you know that we (and all life) are unknowingly imprisoned? That your perception of Reality has little to do with the truth? In these ways, our existence is like the virtual reality in the movie, The Matrix. The differences are more overwhelming, including that our Real Matrix emerged through abiogenesis and evolution processes without intention nor direction (i.e., no sentient machines), and that there is no escape through taking a Red Pill. Welcome to Our Real Matrix proves all this using accepted science taken to its logical conclusion. It then explores the consequences of this truth and the possible paths for how and why to live this life, including the philosophies of Stoicism, Buddhism, and Existentialism. Finally, it introduces a community, the Purplepills Society, that has been established to continue the scientific and philosophical discussion.

Harness your hidden talents, empower communication at home and at work, and nurture your best self with this guided journal based on the #1 New York Times bestselling phenomenon Quiet. Susan Cain’s Quiet permanently changed how we see the psychology of introverts and, equally important, how introverts see themselves. Now here is the companion journal for the textbook introvert, the natural extroverts, and everyone in between, with a self-assessment quiz and powerful prompts that take you on the Quiet journey to becoming a stronger, more confident person. In part one, you’ll learn more about yourself and your own mindset and temperament, make progress towards self-awareness, and realize your own authentic qualities and worth. Then, in part two, you’ll put that knowledge into practice with prompts for taking action to better empower yourself when communicating with family, friends, or colleagues. With a lay-flat cover, smooth writing paper, and a ribbon marker, Quiet Journal is a beautiful and accessible tool for reflection and exploration.

World Relief staffers Matthew Soerens and Jenny Yang move beyond the rhetoric to offer a Christian response to immigration. With careful historical understanding and thoughtful policy analysis, they debunk myths about immigration, show the limits of the current immigration system, and offer concrete ways for you to welcome and minister to your immigrant neighbors.

How you can become better at solving real-world problems by learning creative puzzle-solving skills We solve countless problems—big and small—every day. With so much practice, why do we often have trouble making simple decisions—much less arriving at optimal solutions to important questions? Are we doomed to this muddle—or is there a practical way to learn to think more effectively and creatively? In this enlightening, entertaining, and inspiring book, Edward Burger shows how we can become far better at solving real-world problems by learning creative puzzle-solving skills using simple, effective thinking techniques. Making Up Your Own Mind teaches these techniques—including how to ask good questions, fail and try again, and change your mind—and then helps you practice them with fun verbal and visual puzzles. The goal is not to quickly solve each challenge but to come up with as many different ways of thinking about it as possible. As you see the puzzles in ever-greater depth, your mind will change, helping you become a more imaginative and creative thinker in daily life. And learning how to be a better thinker pays off in incalculable ways for anyone—including students, businesspeople, professionals, athletes, artists, leaders, and lifelong learners. A book about changing your mind and creating an even better version of yourself through mental play, Making Up Your Own Mind will delight and reward anyone who wants to learn how to find better solutions to life’s innumerable puzzles. And the puzzles extend to the thought-provoking format of the book itself because one of the later short chapters is printed upside down while another is printed in mirror image, further challenging the reader to see the world through different perspectives and make new meaning.