Books in my brain
Explore a curated collection of books that shape the mind, from sci-fi classics like *The Forever War* to Murakami’s surreal fiction and neuroscience picks like *Kluge*.
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The Quiet War
by Paul J. McAuley
From the teeming cities of Earth to the scrupulously realized landscapes of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, "The Quiet War," an exotic, fast-paced space opera, asks the question: Who decides what it means to be human?
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Kluge
by Gary Marcus
A New York University psychologist argues that the mind is a "kluge"-a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption-as he ponders the accidents of evolution that caused this structure and what we can do about it.
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Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and one of the world’s greatest storytellers comes “an insistently metaphysical mind-bender” (The New Yorker) about a teenager on the run and a deceptively simple old man. Now with a new introduction by the author. Here we meet fifteen-year-old runaway Kafka Tamura and the elderly Nakata, who is drawn to Kafka for reasons that he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, acclaimed author Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder, in what is a truly remarkable journey. “As powerful as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.... Reading Murakami ... is a striking experience in consciousness expansion.”—Chicago Tribune
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The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman
"Private William Mandella hadn't wanted to go to war against the Taurans ...."--p. [4] of cover.
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The Summer Tree
by Guy Gavriel Kay
Taken to a realm of magic and war, five men and women from our world embark on an epic journey in the first novel in Guy Gavriel Kay’s classic, critically acclaimed fantasy trilogy, The Fionavar Tapestry. It begins with a chance meeting that introduces the five to a man who will change their lives: a mage who brings them to the first of all worlds, Fionavar. In this land of gods and myth, each of them is forced to discover what they are and what they are willing to do, as Fionavar stands on the brink of a terrifying war against a dark, vengeful god...
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Everything Bad is Good for You
by Steven Johnson
From the New York Times bestselling author of How We Got To Now and Farsighted Forget everything you’ve ever read about the age of dumbed-down, instant-gratification culture. In this provocative, unfailingly intelligent, thoroughly researched, and surprisingly convincing big idea book, Steven Johnson draws from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and media theory to argue that the pop culture we soak in every day—from Lord of the Rings to Grand Theft Auto to The Simpsons—has been growing more sophisticated with each passing year, and, far from rotting our brains, is actually posing new cognitive challenges that are actually making our minds measurably sharper. After reading Everything Bad is Good for You, you will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again. With a new afterword by the author.
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What It Is
by Lynda Barry
"Deliciously drawn (with fragments of collage worked into each page), insightful and bubbling with delight in the process of artistic creation. A+" --Salon How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? For decades, these types of questions have permeated the pages of Lynda Barry's compositions, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps on moving. What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. Composed of completely new material, each page of Barry's first Drawn & Quarterly book is a full-color collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: "The ordinary is extraordinary."