Selected as a best book of 2017 by Forbes , The Times , Huffington Post , Bloomberg, Greater Good Magazine , Stanford Business School and more. 'A timely, intriguing book' Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take ' This profound book will change your life. An instant classic' Cass R. Sunstein, bestselling co-author of Nudge Part of our daily job as humans is to influence others; we teach our children, guide our patients, advise our clients, help our friends and inform our online followers. We do this because we each have unique experiences and knowledge that others may not. But how good are we at this role? It turns out we systematically fall back on suboptimal habits when trying to change other's beliefs and behaviors. Many of these instincts-from trying to scare people into action, to insisting the other is wrong or attempting to exert control-are ineffective, because they are incompatible with how the mind operates.
"Renault's best historical novel yet.... Every detail has solid historical testimony to support it."- New York Review of Books After Alexander's death in 323 B.C .his only direct heirs were two unborn sons and a simpleton half-brother. Every long-simmering faction exploded into the vacuum of power. Wives, distant relatives, and generals all vied for the loyalty of the increasingly undisciplined Macedonian army. Most failed and were killed in the attempt. For no one possessed the leadership to keep the great empire from crumbling. But Alexander's legend endured to spread into worlds he had seen only in dreams.
Black holes. Dinosaurs. Exploding particles. Ever had the feeling that you are missing out on some truly mind-blowing science but never had the time to do something about it?
Ben Miller was working on his Physics PhD at Cambridge when he accidentally became a very successful comedian. But first love runs deep, and he has returned to his roots to share his favourite bits of science in the simplest way possible. What does the behaviour of molecules have to do with baking a Victoria Sponge for Gordon Ramsay? You''ll have to read this book to find out.
Boring, complicated science - be gone! This is the stuff that you really need to know. Not just because it matters, but because it will quite simply amaze and delight you.
''Books like these should act as gateway drugs for the incurably curious'' Observer
''Miller has a gift for making complex ideas seem comprehensible . . . enjoyable and educational . . . full marks, Miller, for a tricky job well done'' Mail on Sunday
Margaret Atwood est une Mata-Hari discrète, un personnage mystérieux et violent [...] qui se dresse telle une pyromane contre un monde trop propre et trop ordonné.
Michael Ondaatje.
Une peste créée par l'homme a ravagé la Terre. Les rares survivants forment une communauté avec une espèce inoffensive, fabriquée pour remplacer les humains, les Crakers. À sa tête, un couple au passé tumultueux, Toby, experte en champignons et abeilles, et Zeb, mangeur d'ours et fils d'un prêcheur maléfique. Dépositaire et garante de la mémoire, Toby transmet aux Crakers, curieux comme des enfants et avides de légendes, l'histoire des hommes. Au contact les uns des autres, humains et Crakers posent les fondements d'un nouveau monde...
Avec une verve extraordinaire, une imagination et une inventivité d'écriture sans limites, un humour décapant, Margaret Atwood joue de la dystopie pour bâtir un conte d'un genre unique. Mêlant tout à la fois récit d'aventures et histoire d'amour, pamphlet politique et écologique, réflexion sur la science et la religion, la sexualité et le pouvoir, elle nous offre ici une oeuvre d'une grande maturité, un roman total qui conclut magnifiquement le cycle commencé avec Le Dernier Homme et Le Temple du déluge.
A FINANCIAL TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE MONTH (APRIL 2017) Humans have become subservient to algorithms. Every day brings a new Moneyball fix - a maths whiz who will crack open an industry with clean fact-based analysis rather than human intuition and experience. As a result, we have stopped thinking. Machines do it for us. Christian Madsbjerg argues that our fixation with data often masks stunning deficiencies, and the risks for humankind are enormous. Blind devotion to number crunching imperils our businesses, our educations, our governments, and our life savings. Too many companies have lost touch with the humanity of their customers, while marginalising workers with arts-based skills. Contrary to popular thinking, Madsbjerg shows how many of today's biggest success stories stem not from 'quant' thinking but from deep, nuanced engagement with culture, language, and history. He calls his method sensemaking . In this landmark book, Madsbjerg lays out five principles for how business leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals can use it to solve their thorniest problems. He profiles companies using sensemaking to connect with new customers, and takes readers inside the work process of sensemaking 'connoisseurs' like investor George Soros, architect Bjarke Ingels, and others. Both practical and philosophical, Sensemaking is a powerful rejoinder to corporate groupthink and an indispensable resource for leaders and innovators who want to stand out from the pack.
A tale of enveloping, encapsulating suspense: a deliciously unsettling story of fractured lives, revenge and how the devil can conjure the most brilliant of disguises.
When her brother arrives on her doorstep, Hester Monk is shocked - as much by the unexpectedness of the visit as by the reason for it. For since her marriage to Monk, Charles and his elegant wife, Imogen, have kept their distance. But now Charles needs Hester's help. He believes Imogen is having an affair - there can be no other explanation for her recent strange behaviour. However, before Hester is able to investigate, a tragedy occurs. In a nearby artist's studio two women have been brutally killed. Having left the police force with extreme ill feeling between himself and his superior, the last thing Monk wants to do is face the demons of his past. But, in the course of his work, Monk is left with no choice but to visit his old adversary, Runcorn, and involve himself with the sensational murder case.
'Ranging expertly across business, politics and the arts, Tim Harford makes a compelling case for the creative benefits of disorganization, improvisation and confusion. His liberating message: you'll be more successful if you stop struggling so hard to plan or control your success. Messy is a deeply researched, endlessly eye-opening adventure in the life-changing magic of not tidying up' Oliver Burkeman The urge to tidiness seems to be rooted deep in the human psyche. Many of us feel threatened by anything that is vague, unplanned, scattered around or hard to describe. We find comfort in having a script to rely on, a system to follow, in being able to categorise and file away. We all benefit from tidy organisation - up to a point. A large library needs a reference system. Global trade needs the shipping container. Scientific collaboration needs measurement units. But the forces of tidiness have marched too far. Corporate middle managers and government bureaucrats have long tended to insist that everything must have a label, a number and a logical place in a logical system. Now that they are armed with computers and serial numbers, there is little to hold this tidy-mindedness in check. It's even spilling into our personal lives, as we corral our children into sanitised play areas or entrust our quest for love to the soulless algorithms of dating websites. Order is imposed when chaos would be more productive. Or if not chaos, then . . . messiness. The trouble with tidiness is that, in excess, it becomes rigid, fragile and sterile. In Messy , Tim Harford reveals how qualities we value more than ever - responsiveness, resilience and creativity - simply cannot be disentangled from the messy soil that produces them. This, then, is a book about the benefits of being messy: messy in our private lives; messy in the office, with piles of paper on the desk and unread spreadsheets; messy in the recording studio, the laboratory or in preparing for an important presentation; and messy in our approach to business, politics and economics, leaving things vague, diverse and uncomfortably made-up-on-the-spot. It's time to rediscover the benefits of a little mess.
Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how does it work? Even in this age of cloning and synthetic biology, the remarkable truth remains: nobody has ever made anything living entirely out of dead material. Life remains the only way to make life. Are we missing a vital ingredient in its creation?
Like Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, which provided a new perspective on evolution, Life on the Edge alters our understanding of life's dynamics as Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe Macfadden reveal the hitherto missing ingredient to be quantum mechanics. Drawing on recent ground-breaking experiments around the world, they show how photosynthesis relies on subatomic particles existing in many places at once, while inside enzymes, those workhorses of life that make every molecule within our cells, particles vanish from one point in space and instantly materialize in another.
Each chapter in Life on the Edge opens with an engaging example that illustrates one of life's puzzles - How do migrating birds know where to go? How do we really smell the scent of a rose? How do our genes manage to copy themselves with such precision? - and then reveals how quantum mechanics delivers its answer. Guiding the reader through the maze of rapidly unfolding discovery, Al-Khalili and McFadden communicate vividly the excitement of this explosive new field of quantum biology, with its potentially revolutionary applications, and also offer insights into the biggest puzzle of all: what is life?
Meet Norm. He's 31, 5'9", just over 13 stone, and works a 39 hour week. He likes a drink, doesn't do enough exercise and occasionally treats himself to a bar of chocolate (milk). He's a pretty average kind of guy. In fact, he is the average guy in this clever and unusual take on statistical risk, chance, and how these two factors affect our everyday choices. Watch as Norm (who, like all average specimens, feels himself to be uniquely special), and his friends careful Prudence and reckless Kelvin, turns to statistics to help him in life's endless series of choices - should I fly or take the train? Have a baby? Another drink? Or another sausage? Do a charity skydive or get a lift on a motorbike?
Because chance and risk aren't just about numbers - it's about what we believe, who we trust and how we feel about the world around us. What we do, or don't do, has as much do with gut instinct as hard facts, with enjoyment as understanding. If you've ever wondered what the statistics in tabloid scare stories really mean, how dangerous horse-riding is compared to class-A drugs, or what governs coincidence, you will find it all here.
From a world expert in risk and the bestselling author of The Tiger That Isn't (and creator of BBC Radio 4's More or Less), this is a commonsense (and wildly entertaining) guide to personal risk and decoding the statistics that represent it.
Christine Aktouche, spécialiste de la vue et des défi ciences oculaires, fait ici le point sur notre oeil et notre regard à travers trois grandes parties : le regard à travers l'art et les cultures, nous montre l'importance du regard dans l'art. Le monde contemporain et l'image nous renseigne sur l'importance du « par être » et de l'image en tant que symbole communiquant. La vision chez l'humain se concentre sur l'aspect médical. Et la vue ? est une mise au point sur notre oeil et notre regard, à travers la connaissance que l'on en a aujourd'hui.
« Qu'es-tu venu faire dans cette galère ? » C'est la remarque que Nicolas Hulot a le plus entendu lorsqu'il s'est présenté comme candidat à l'investiture d'Europe Écologie-Les Verts, en 2012. Pourquoi quitter la simplicité de la nature et entrer dans cette ronde du pouvoir ? C'est justement par amour pour la planète qu'il s'est lancé dans ce combat. Sur le ton de la confidence, Nicolas Hulot revient pour la première fois sur sa décision, et nous raconte l'itinéraire de sa vie : son enfance, ses passions, ses engagements et ses combats.
Un guide pour organiser son alimentation en fonction de l'index glycémique, et de se maintenir en bonne santé.
De nombreux conseils et recommandations simples et faciles à suivre vous aideront à sélectionner les aliments qui vous conviennent le mieux et à vous sentir bien dans votre corps des recettes gourmandes et diététiques et des tableaux indiquant pour chaque aliment l'index glycémique, la teneur en glucides, la charge glycémique vous permettront d'atteindre rapidement vos objectifs. une méthode adaptée aussi bien à la perte de poids qu'à un simple régime-santé.
Who hasn't noticed how well-behaved French children are, compared to our own? How come French babies sleep through the night? Why do French children happily eat what is put in front of them? How can French mothers chat to their friends while their children play quietly? This book deals with these questions.
Touchée par l'exode, le développement des villes, la mécanisation du travail agricole, la disparition de l'artisanat et des petits commerces, la campagne française s'est très rapidement transformée pendant les Trente glorieuses. Dans ce livre écrit en 1971, Bernard Charbonneau analyse le bouleversement du sud-ouest, et avec lui de toute la société française.
Avec ses observations de terrain et sa plume pamphlétaire, le personnaliste déplore l'urbanisation incontrôlée, l'industrialisation du tourisme, l'invasion automobile, la destruction des écosystèmes et de la culture villageoise. Tristes campagnes est à la fois un document historique qui évoque la fin d'un monde rural, et une critique écologiste du "progrès" économique.
Livre qui traite de l´exploitation des bois, des moyens de tirer un parti avantageux des tailles, demi-futaies et hautes futaies, et d´en faire une juste estimation, avec la description des arts qui se pratiquent dans les forêts.
En 1988, Anne Bouferguène a 15 ans lorsqu´on lui annonce qu´elle est porteuse du virus du sida. À l´époque, c´est une condamnation à mort. Une « mauvaise rencontre » aura suffi à faucher la jeunesse de cette adolescente précoce. Mais la suite de l´histoire est tout sauf tragique. La jeune fille va trouver une parade : se construire en résistance contre le VIH, jusqu´à feindre complètement de l´ignorer. Elle a beaucoup de chance, car aucun symptôme n´apparaît. Grâce à une grande force de caractère, ce déni va lui permettre de bâtir une existence normale, couronnée par la naissance de deux enfants en parfaite santé et une belle carrière professionnelle. Jusqu´au jour où le mur de silence dont elle s´est entourée se révèle une prison étouffante, et l´incite à dévoiler la face cachée de son existence. Profil atypique, bien différent de celui généralement associé aux porteurs du virus du sida, Anne Bouferguène décrit un quotidien de femme moderne ayant mené de front sa vie professionnelle, sa vie familiale et son combat contre la maladie. Avec ses mots à elle, son énergie débordante et son sens de l´humour, elle offre un éclairage original et personnel sur le VIH. Certains aspects, tels que différence entre séropositivité et stade sida, possibilité de concevoir des enfants séronégatifs grâce à des protocoles de grossesse spécialisés, difficultéà se déplacer à l´étranger pour les porteurs du virus, handicap des effets secondaires des trithérapies dans un contexte professionnel, sont encore méconnus du grand public. Parce qu´elle touche à l´intimité, l´infection par le VIH n´est pas une maladie perçue comme les autres. La jeune Anne aurait-elle bénéficié des mêmes perspectives d´avenir si elle avait par exemple révélé sa sérologie à son entrée dans la vie active ? Au sommet de sa carrière, et n´ayant plus rien à prouver, elle a décidé de briser le silence dans lequel la société l´avait enfermée, et de parler au nom de tous ces hommes et femmes qui vivent encore leur maladie dans une clandestinité forcée, par crainte du jugement moral posé sur eux. Témoignage d´une miraculée dont la volonté et l´optimisme constituent un modèle, ce récit révèle un parcours de vie bluffant (dans tous les sens du terme) qui pulvérise un grand nombre de clichés sur les porteurs du VIH. Une occasion de faire évoluer les mentalités en modifiant le regard porté sur cette maladie encore taboue.
We are in the midst of a sleep deprivation crisis, and this has profound consequences - on our health, our job performance, our relationships and our happiness. In this book, Arianna Huffington boldly asserts that what is needed is nothing short of a sleep revolution. Only by renewing our relationship with sleep can we take back control of our lives.
From author of the popular and acclaimed Inflight Science and The Universe Inside You - extremely approachable, enjoyable popular science Perfect non-fiction for fans of Luke Rhinehart''s The Dice Man The proof, at last, that we do all live in a random and irrational universe...
Les grands pouvoirs des petites bactéries.
Vous prenez vos décisions avec les tripes? Vous ne croyez pas si bien dire, car ce sont peut-être les bactéries de vos intestins qui prennent les décisions à votre place.
La vie microscopique qui s'agite dans notre corps, et principalement dans nos intestins, a un impact étonnant sur nos vies.
Notre santé, notre humeur, la qualité de notre sommeil, nos goûts alimentaires, et même la probabilité de se faire piquer par les moustiques, peuvent se lire dans les petites créatures qui vient à l'intérieur de nous.
Une plongée pleine d'humour dans un univers étonnant.
What can a brain scan, or our reaction to a Caravaggio painting, reveal about the deep seat of guilt?
How can reading Heidegger, or conducting experiments on rats, help us to cope with anxiety in the face of the world's economic crisis?
Can ancient remedies fight sadness more effectively than anti-depressants?
What does the neuroscience of acting tell us about how we feel empathy, and fall for an actor on stage?
What can writing poetry tell us about how joy works?
And how can a bizarre neurological syndrome or a Shakespearean sonnet explain love and intimacy?
We live at a time when neuroscience is unlocking the secrets of our emotions. But is science ever enough to explain why we feel the way we feel?
Giovanni Frazzetto takes us on a journey through our everyday lives and most common emotions. In each chapter, his scientific knowledge mixes with personal experience to offer a compelling account of the continual contrast between rationality and sentiment, science and poetry. And he shows us that by facing this contrast, we can more fully understand ourselves and how we feel.
