Explore some of our most anticipated new releases for March
This month: an introduction to the world of paranormal beliefs; the much-anticipated second volume in the Curie Society series; an exposé of the American prosecutorial system and its racial inequities; and more. Explore these books and a selection of our other new and soon-to-be-released titles below.
The Science of Weird Shit: Why Our Minds Conjure the Paranormal by Chris French
Ghostly encounters, alien abduction, reincarnation, talking to the dead, UFO sightings, inexplicable coincidences, out-of-body and near-death experiences. Are these legitimate phenomena? If not, then how should we go about understanding them? In this fascinating book, Chris French investigates paranormal claims to discover what lurks behind this “weird shit.” French provides authoritative evidence-based explanations for a wide range of superficially mysterious phenomena, and then goes further to draw out lessons with wider applications to many other aspects of modern society where critical thinking is urgently needed.
You might also like Extraterrestrial Languages by Daniel Oberhaus
The Curie Society: Eris Eternal by Heather Einhorn, Adam Staffaroni and Anne Toole
Our heroic teen science prodigies are back for a new mission with the Curie Society, an elite secret organization where brilliant women can pursue the furthest reaches of their intellect, and this time they face a threat more serious and more sinister than anything they’ve encountered before! Maya, Taj, and Simone are supposed to be spending their summer broadening their horizons, but their plans take a strange and puzzling turn when the Curie Society’s original chapter, at the Sorbonne in Paris, calls on them for help. Daksha, a Society alumna, is promoting cutting-edge science and technology startups at a showcase event, but someone has threatened to stop her and the proceedings. When Daksha is poisoned, the team swings into action to investigate. Along with new friends from the Paris chapter of the Curie Society, the team is thrown into a globe-spanning quest and a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a shadowy villain intent on controlling the world’s wealth through advanced biotech. The Curie Society will need all their specialized science skills to stop this scheme before it’s too late!
You might also like Power On! by Jean J. Ryoo and Jane Margolis
Get Off My Neck: Black Lives, White Justice, and a Former Prosecutor’s Quest for Reform by Debbie Hines
In Get Off My Neck, Debbie Hines draws on her unique perspective as a trial lawyer, former Baltimore prosecutor, and assistant attorney general for the State of Maryland to argue that US prosecutors, as the most powerful players in the criminal justice system, systematically target and criminalize Black people. Hines describes her disillusionment as a young Black woman who initially entered the profession with the goal of helping victims of crimes, only to discover herself aiding and abetting a system that prizes plea bargaining, speedy conviction, and excessive punishment above all else. In this book, she offers concrete, specific, and hopeful solutions for just how we can come together in a common purpose for criminal justice and racial justice reform.
You might also like Waiting to Inhale: Cannabis Legalization and the Fight for Racial Justice by Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Tahira Rehmatullah
The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience by Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser and Evan Thompson
It’s tempting to think that science gives us a God’s-eye view of reality. But we neglect the place of human experience at our peril. In The Blind Spot, astrophysicist Adam Frank, theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson call for a revolutionary scientific worldview, where science includes—rather than ignores or tries not to see—humanity’s lived experience as an inescapable part of our search for objective truth. The authors present science not as discovering an absolute reality but rather as a highly refined, constantly evolving form of human experience. They urge practitioners to reframe how science works for the sake of our future in the face of the planetary climate crisis and increasing science denialism.
You might also like The Outer Limits of Reason: What Science, Mathematics, and Logic Cannot Tell Us by Noson S. Yanofsky
The Inhumans and Other Stories: A Selection of Bengali Science Fiction edited by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay
Kalpavigyan—science fiction written to excite Bengali speakers about science, as well as to persuade them to evolve beyond the limitations of religion, caste, and class—became popular in the early years of the twentieth century. Translated into English for the first time, in this collection you’ll discover The Inhumans (1935), Hemendrakumar Roy’s satirical novella about a lost race of Bengali supermen in Uganda. Also included are Jagadananda Ray’s “Voyage to Venus” (1895), Nanigopal Majumdar’s “The Mystery of the Giant” (1931), and Manoranjan Bhattacharya’s “The Martian Purana” (1931).
You might also like Of One Blood by Pauline Hopkins
Decisionscape: How Thinking Like an Artist Can Improve Our Decision-Making by Elspeth Kirkman
Why are so many of our decisions regrettable, and what can we do about it? Decisionscape maps the surprising ways that our decisions are influenced and how thinking like an artist can help us deliberately arrange our perspective to make better choices. Introducing the concept of a “decisionscape,” Elspeth Kirkman blends art and science with insights from moral philosophy, sports, geopolitics, and elsewhere to explore decision making in a refreshingly original way. A broadly appealing and relatable book, Decisionscape asks us to confront the prejudices, blind spots, and hypocrisy in our day-to-day thinking.
You might also like The Hidden Powers of Ritual: The Journey of a Lifetime by Bradd Shore
The Biology of Kindness: Six Daily Choices for Health, Well-Being, and Longevity by Immaculata De Vivo and Daniel Lumera
The science is in: being good is actually good for you. In this bracingly original book, The Biology of Kindness—the first in a trilogy on the topic of daily wellness—the science of mindfulness and the findings of biology come together to show how kindness and optimism improve overall well-being in profound, organic, and demonstrable ways. Daniel Lumera, an expert in meditation and mindfulness, and Immaculata De Vivo, a preeminent researcher in molecular epidemiology, outline a revolutionary approach to health, longevity, and quality of life—and explain the scientific evidence that supports their work.
You might also like Happiness by Tim Lomas
Man’s World by Charlotte Haldane
In the not-too-distant future, England’s population quality and quantity are under scientific control: Only those deemed the fittest are permitted to procreate. Women are groomed to be “vocational mothers”—or else sterilized and put to other uses. Written by an author married to one of the world’s most prominent eugenics advocates, this ambivalent adventure anticipates both Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale. When a young woman rebels against her conditioning, can she break free?
You might also like A World of Women by J. D. Beresford
What’s That Smell? A Philosophy of the Olfactory by Simon Hajdini
Why is it that, in Indo-European languages at least, we have no language to describe smells, leaving us (and famously Juliet) no choice but to call the scent of a rose simply “sweet”? In What’s That Smell?, a groundbreaking exploration of the intersection between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the oft-neglected sense of smell, Simon Hajdini sets out to answer this complex question. Through new readings of traditional and modern philosophical texts, Hajdini places smell at the very center of a philosophical critique of the traditional notion of truth, challenging the idea that smell is the antiphilosophical sense par excellence.
You might also like Dictionary of Gestures: Expressive Comportments and Movements in Use around the World by François Caradec
The Ghost in the Addict by Shepard Siegel
“The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house,” Jean Cocteau once wrote. In The Ghost in the Addict, Shepard Siegel offers a Pavlovian analysis of drug use. Chronic drug use, he explains, conditions users to have an anticipatory homeostatic correction, which protects the addict from overdose. This drug-preparatory response, elicited by drug-paired cues, is often mislabeled a “withdrawal response.” The withdrawal response, however, is not due to the baneful effects of previous drug administrations; rather, it is due to the body’s preparation for the next drug administration—a preparatory response that can haunt addicts like a ghost long after they have conquered their usage.
You might also like OD: Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose by Nancy D. Campbell