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Me, but better : the science and promise of personality change / by Khazan, Olga,1986-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In the vein of 10% Happier and Year of Yes, The Atlantic journalist Olga Khazan embarks on a year-long experimental romp through the riveting, emerging scientific field of personality change. For years, Olga Khazan had been spiraling toward an existential crisis. Though she treasured her loving long-term relationship and her dream job, she often caught herself snatching dissatisfaction from the jaws of happiness. Her anxious and neurotic overachieving had always been a professional asset, but lately, Olga felt that her brittle disposition would shatter at any moment under the weight of just one more thing. She knew something had to give -- but was it really possible to do something as radical as change her personality? In Me, But Better, Olga embarks on a year-long experiment to see if it's truly possible to change your personality, sample size: one. Scientifically, personality consists of five sliding-scale traits: extroversion, or how sociable you are; conscientiousness, or how self-disciplined and organized you are; agreeableness, or how warm and empathetic you are; openness, or how receptive you are to new ideas and activities; and neuroticism, or how depressed or anxious you are. But research shows that you can alter these traits by consistently behaving in ways that align with the kind of person you'd like to be. And that, in turn, can actually make you happier, healthier, and more successful. So, for a year, Olga decides to fake it until she makes it. She reluctantly clicks 'yes' on a bucket list of new experiences, from meditation to improv to sailing, that will force her to at least act happy, healthy, and well-adjusted, in the hope she might actually become those things. With a skeptic's eye, Olga brings readers on her personal journey through the science of personality, presenting evidence-backed techniques to change our minds for the better. Deeply reflective and sharply witty, ME, But Better is a probing inquiry into what it means to live a fulfilling life, and how we can keep diving into change, even against our better judgment"--
Subjects: Personality change.; Self-actualization (Psychology);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Tracy Flick can't win : a novel / by Perrotta, Tom,1961-author.;
"Tracy Flick is back and, once again, the iconic protagonist of Tom Perrotta's Election-and Reese Witherspoon's character from the classic movie adaptation-is determined to take high school politics by storm. Tracy Flick is a hardworking assistant principal at a public high school in suburban New Jersey. Still ambitious but feeling a little stuck and underappreciated in midlife, Tracy gets a jolt of good news when the longtime principal, Jack Weede, abruptly announces his retirement, creating a rare opportunity for Tracy to ascend to the top job. Energized by the prospect of her long-overdue promotion, Tracy throws herself into her work with renewed zeal, determined to prove her worth to the students, faculty, and School Board, while also managing her personal life-a ten-year-old daughter, a needy doctor boyfriend, and a burgeoning meditation practice. But nothing ever comes easily to Tracy Flick, no matter how diligent or qualified she happens to be. Among her many other responsibilities, Tracy is enlisted to serve on the Selection Committee for the brand-new Green Meadow High School Hall of Fame. Her male colleagues' determination to honor Vito Falcone-a star quarterback of dubious character who had a brief, undistinguished career in the NFL-triggers bad memories for Tracy, and leads her to troubling reflections about the trajectory of her own life and the forces that have left her feeling thwarted and disappointed, unable to fulfill her true potential. As she broods on the past, Tracy becomes aware of storm clouds brewing in the present. Is she really a shoo-in for the Principal job? Is the Superintendent plotting against her? Why is the School Board President's wife trying so hard to be her friend? And why can't she ever get what she deserves? In classic Perrotta style, Tracy Flick Can't Win is a sharp, darkly comic page-turner, and a pitch-perfect reflection on our current moment. Flick fans and newcomers alike will love this compulsively readable novel chronicling the second act of one of the most memorable characters of our time"--
Subjects: Humorous fiction.; Novels.; Assistant school principals; High schools; Promotions;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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Why we drive : toward a philosophy of the open road / by Crawford, Matthew B.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.From the author of the landmark Shop Class as Soulcraft, a brilliant, first-of-its-kind celebration of driving as a unique pathway of human freedom, one now critically threatened by automation. Once we were drivers, the open road alive with autonomy, adventure, danger, trust, and speed. Today we are as likely to be in the back seat of an Uber as behind the wheel ourselves. Tech giants are hurling us toward a shiny, happy "self-driving" future, selling utopia but equally keen to advertise to a captive audience strapped into another expensive device. Are we destined, then, to become passengers, not drivers? Why We Drive reveals that much more may be at stake than we might think. Ten years ago, in the New York Times-bestselling Shop Class as Soulcraft, philosopher-mechanic Matthew B. Crawford--a University of Chicago PhD who owned his own motorcycle shop--made a revolutionary case for manual labor, one that ran headlong against the pretentions of white-collar office work. Now, using driving as a window through which to view the broader changes wrought by technology on all aspects of contemporary life, Crawford investigates the driver's seat as one of the few remaining domains of skill, exploration, play--and freedom. Blending philosophy and hands-on storytelling, Crawford grounds the narrative in his own experience in the garage and behind the wheel, recounting his decade-long restoration of a vintage Volkswagen as well as his journeys to thriving automotive subcultures across the country. Crawford leads us on an irreverent but deeply considered inquiry into the power of faceless bureaucracies, the importance of questioning mindless rules, and the battle for democratic self-determination against the surveillance capitalists. A meditation on the competence of ordinary people, Why We Drive explores the genius of our everyday practices on the road, the rewards of "folk engineering," and the existential value of occasionally being scared shitless. Witty and ingenious throughout, Why We Drive is a rebellious and daring celebration of the irrepressible human spirit.
Subjects: Crawford, Matthew B.; Automated vehicles; Technological innovations; Automobile driving;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Madness : race and insanity in a Jim Crow asylum / by Hylton, Antonia,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."On a cold day in March of 1911, officials marched twelve Black men into the heart of a forest in Maryland. Under the supervision of a doctor, the men were forced to clear the land, pour cement, lay bricks, and harvest tobacco. When construction finished, they became the first twelve patients of the state's Hospital for the Negro Insane. For centuries, Black patients have been absent from our history books. Madness transports readers behind the brick walls of a Jim Crow asylum. In Madness, Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist Antonia Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the last segregated asylums with surviving records and a campus that still stands to this day in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. She blends the intimate tales of patients and employees whose lives were shaped by Crownsville with a decade-worth of investigative research and archival documents. Madness chronicles the stories of Black families whose mental health suffered as they tried, and sometimes failed, to find safety and dignity. Hylton also grapples with her own family's experiences with mental illness, and the secrecy and shame that it reproduced for generations. As Crownsville Hospital grew from an antebellum-style work camp to a tiny city sitting on 1,500 acres, the institution became a microcosm of America's evolving battles over slavery, racial integration, and civil rights. During its peak years, the hospital's wards were overflowing with almost 2,700 patients. By the end of the 20th-century, the asylum faded from view as prisons and jails became America's new focus. In Madness, Hylton traces the legacy of slavery to the treatment of Black people's bodies and minds in our current mental healthcare system. It is a captivating and heartbreaking meditation on how America decides who is sick or criminal, and who is worthy of our care or irredeemable"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Crownsville State Hospital; African Americans; African Americans; Mentally ill; Psychiatric hospitals; Racism in medicine.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Lands of lost borders : out of bounds on the Silk Road / by Harris, Kate,1982-author.;
"In the spirit of The Places in Between and Into the Silence, this is a transcendent memoir about travelling wildly out of bounds on the fabled Silk Road. "Carried me up into a state of excitement I haven't felt for years. It's a modern classic."--Pico Iyer. As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she most craved--that of a generalist explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician, with a flair for basic science and endless slogging--had gone extinct. From what she could tell of the world from small-town Ontario, the likes of Marco Polo and Magellan had mapped the whole earth. So she looked beyond this planet, vowing to become a scientist and go to Mars. Well along this path, Harris set off by bicycle down a short section of the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel Yule. This trip was just a simulacrum of exploration, she thought, not the thing itself--a little adventure to pass the time until she could launch for outer space. But somewhere in between sneaking illegally across Tibet, studying the history of science and exploration at Oxford, and staring down a microscope for a doctorate at MIT, she realized that an explorer, in any day and age, is by definition the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. Forget charting maps, naming peaks, leaving footprints on another planet: what she yearned for was the feeling of soaring completely out of bounds. And where she'd felt that most intensely was on a bicycle, on a bygone trading route. So Harris quit the laboratory and hit the Silk Road again with Yule, this time determined to bike it from beginning to end. Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer, Kate Harris offers a travel account at once exuberant and meditative, wry and rapturous, and above all full of hope. Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of the self that, like our planet, can never be fully mapped. Weaving adventure and deep reflection with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders celebrates our connection as humans to the natural world, and ultimately to each other--a belonging that transcends any fences or stories that may divide us."--
Subjects: Harris, Kate, 1982-; Cycling;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Lytton Climate Change, Colonialism and Life Before the Fire [electronic resource] : by Edwards, Peter.aut; Loring, Kevin.aut; cloudLibrary;
From bestselling true-crime author Peter Edwards and Governor General's Award-winning playwright Kevin Loring, two sons of Lytton, BC, the town that burned to the ground in 2021, comes a meditation on hometown―when hometown is gone. “It’s dire,” Greta Thunberg retweeted Mayor JanPolderman. “The whole town is on fire. It took a whole 15 minutes from the first sign of smoke to, all of a sudden, there being fire everywhere.” Before it made global headlines as the small town that burned down during a record-breaking heatwave in June 2021, while briefly the hottest placeon Earth, Lytton, British Columbia, had a curious past. Named for the author of the infamous line, “It was a dark and stormy night,” Lytton was also where Peter Edwards, organized-crime journalist and author of seventeen non-fiction books, spent his childhood. Although only about 500 people lived in Lytton, Peter liked to joke that he was only the second-best writer to come from his tiny hometown. His grade-school classmate’s nephew Kevin Loring, Nlaka’pamux from Lytton First Nation, had grown up to be a Governor General’s Award–winning playwright.         The Nlaka’pamux called Lytton “The Centre of the World,” a view Buddhists would share in the late twentieth century, as they set up a temple just outside town. A gold rush in 1858 saw conflict with a wave of Californians come to a head with the Canyon War at the junction of the mighty Fraser and Thompson rivers. The Nlaka’pamux lost over thirty lives in that conflict, as did the American gold seekers. In modern times, many outsiders would seek shelter there, often people who just didn’t fit anywhere else and were hoping for a little anonymity in the mountains.         Told from the shared perspective of an Indigenous playwright and the journalist son of a settler doctor who pushed back against the divisions that existed between populations, Lytton portrays all the warmth, humour and sincerity of small-town life. A colourful little town that burned to the ground could be every town’s warning if we don’t take seriously what this unique place has to teach us.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Canada; Rural; Native Americans;
© 2024., Random House of Canada,
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Tracy Flick can't win [sound recording] : a novel / by Perrotta, Tom,1961-author.; Simon & Schuster Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by various performers."Tracy Flick is back and, once again, the iconic protagonist of Tom Perrotta's Election-and Reese Witherspoon's character from the classic movie adaptation-is determined to take high school politics by storm. Tracy Flick is a hardworking assistant principal at a public high school in suburban New Jersey. Still ambitious but feeling a little stuck and underappreciated in midlife, Tracy gets a jolt of good news when the longtime principal, Jack Weede, abruptly announces his retirement, creating a rare opportunity for Tracy to ascend to the top job. Energized by the prospect of her long-overdue promotion, Tracy throws herself into her work with renewed zeal, determined to prove her worth to the students, faculty, and School Board, while also managing her personal life-a ten-year-old daughter, a needy doctor boyfriend, and a burgeoning meditation practice. But nothing ever comes easily to Tracy Flick, no matter how diligent or qualified she happens to be. Among her many other responsibilities, Tracy is enlisted to serve on the Selection Committee for the brand-new Green Meadow High School Hall of Fame. Her male colleagues' determination to honor Vito Falcone-a star quarterback of dubious character who had a brief, undistinguished career in the NFL-triggers bad memories for Tracy, and leads her to troubling reflections about the trajectory of her own life and the forces that have left her feeling thwarted and disappointed, unable to fulfill her true potential. As she broods on the past, Tracy becomes aware of storm clouds brewing in the present. Is she really a shoo-in for the Principal job? Is the Superintendent plotting against her? Why is the School Board President's wife trying so hard to be her friend? And why can't she ever get what she deserves? In classic Perrotta style, Tracy Flick Can't Win is a sharp, darkly comic page-turner, and a pitch-perfect reflection on our current moment. Flick fans and newcomers alike will love this compulsively readable novel chronicling the second act of one of the most memorable characters of our time"--
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Humorous fiction.; Novels.; Assistant school principals; High schools; Promotions;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Hillbilly Elegy A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis [electronic resource] : by Vance, J. D..aut; cloudLibrary;
Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance’s powerful origin story…. From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class.  THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  "You will not read a more important book about America this year."—The Economist "A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal "Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York Times Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Poverty & Homelessness; State & Local; Rural; 21st Century; Personal Memoirs;
© 2018., HarperCollins,
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Real self-care : a transformative program for redefining wellness (crystals, cleanses, and bubble baths not included) / by Lakshmin, Pooja,author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-253)."From women's mental health specialist and New York Times contributor Pooja Lakshmin, MD, comes a long-overdue reckoning with the contradictions of the wellness industry and a paradigm-shifting program for practicing real self-care that will empower, uplift, and maybe even start a revolution. You may have noticed that it's nearly impossible to go even a couple days without coming across the term self-care. A word that encompasses any number of lifestyle choices and products -- from juice cleanses to yoga workshops to luxury bamboo sheets-self-care has exploded in our collective consciousness as a panacea for practically all of women's problems. Board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Pooja Lakshmin finds this cultural embrace of self-care incomplete at best and manipulative at worst. Fixing your troubles isn't as simple as buying a new day planner or signing up for a meditation class. These faux self-care practices keep us looking outward -- comparing ourselves with others or striving for a certain type of perfection. Even worse, they exonerate an oppressive social system that has betrayed women and minorities. Real self-care, in contrast, is an internal, self-reflective process that involves making difficult decisions in line with our values, and when we practice it, we shift our relationships, our workplaces, and even our broken systems. In real self-care, Lakshmin helps readers understand what a real practice of caring for yourself could -- and does -- look like. Using case studies from her practice, clinical research, and the down-to-earth style that she's become known for, Lakshmin provides a step-by-step program for real and sustainable change and solace. Packed with actionable strategies to deal with common problems, Real self-care is a complete roadmap for women to set boundaries and move past guilt, treat themselves with compassion, get closer to themselves, and assert their power. The result -- having ownership over one's own life -- is nothing less than a personal and social revolution"--
Subjects: Self-care, Health.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Death in the Air A Novel [electronic resource] : by Murali, Ram.aut; cloudLibrary;
“Glamorous, gripping, absolutely heaps of fun. I loved this.”—Lucy Foley, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List and The Paris Apartment "Unexpected delights await on every page of Ram Murali’s impressive and captivating debut. Crisp as a gin and tonic and delightfully wicked, this smart, smart novel delivers a sophisticated, subversive murder mystery set in the highest stratosphere of the international idle rich. I had to force myself not to binge it in one night so I could savor it like the rare and exquisite meal that it is." —Kevin Kwan, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians The White Lotus meets Knives Out meets Crazy Rich Asians in this devilishly entertaining debut novel: both a sophisticated locked-room mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie, and a provocative literary whodunit for the twenty-first century. Ro Krishna is the American son of Indian parents, educated at the finest institutions, equally at home in London’s poshest clubs and on the squash court, but unmoored after he is dramatically forced to leave a high-profile job under mysterious circumstances. He decides it’s time to check in for some much-needed R&R at Samsara, a world-class spa for the global cosmopolitan elite nestled in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. A person could be spiritually reborn in a place like this. Even a very rich person. But a person—or several—could also die there. Samsara is the Sanskrit word for the karmic cycle of death and rebirth, after all. And as it turns out, the colorful cast of characters Ro meets—including a misanthropic politician; an American movie star preparing for his Bollywood crossover debut; a beautiful heiress to a family jewel fortune that barely survived Partition; and a bumbling white yogi inexplicably there to teach meditation—harbors a murderer among them. Maybe more than one. As the death toll rises, Ro, a lawyer by training and a sleuth by circumstance, becomes embroiled in a vicious world under a gilded surface, where nothing is quite what it seems . . . including Ro himself. Death in the Air is a brilliant, teasing mystery from a remarkable new talent.  
Subjects: Electronic books.; International Mystery & Crime; Crime; Psychological;
© 2024., HarperCollins,
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