Stories at the intersection of ethics and the brain (books)
Explore captivating books at the crossroads of ethics and neuroscience. Discover thought-provoking stories that delve into moral dilemmas, brain science, and human behavior.
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Death of a Salesman
by Arthur Miller
The Pulitzer Prize-winning tragedy of a salesman’s deferred American dream, presented here with enlightening commentary and criticism Willy Loman, the protagonist of Death of a Salesman, has spent his life following the American way, living out his belief in salesmanship as a way to reinvent himself. But somehow the riches and respect he covets have eluded him. At age 63, he searches for the moment his life took a wrong turn, the moment of betrayal that undermined his relationship with his wife and destroyed his relationship with Biff, the son in whom he invested his faith. Willy lives in a fragile world of elaborate excuses and daydreams, conflating past and present in a desperate attempt to make sense of himself and of a world that once promised so much. Since it was first performed in 1949, Arthur Miller's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about the tragic shortcomings of an American dreamer has been recognized as a milestone of the theater. This Viking Critical Library edition of Death of a Salesman contains the complete text of the play, typescript facsimiles, and extensive critical and contextual material including: Conflicting reviews about its opening night by Robert Garland, Harold Clurman, Eleanor Clark, and others Five articles by Miller on his play, including "Tragedy and the Common Man" and his "Introduction to Collected Plays" Critical essays by John Gassner, Ivor Brown, Joseph A. Hynes, and others General essays on Miller by William Weigand, Allan Seager, and others Analogous works by Eudora Welty, Walter D. Moody, Tennessee Williams, and Irwin Shaw The stage designer's account, presented in selections from Designing for the Theatre by Jo Mielziner An in-depth introduction by the editor, a chronology, a list of topics for discussion and papers, and a bibliography
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ID: B001T06DFQ
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ID: 0375704426
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Sum
by David Eagleman
At once funny, wistful and unsettling, Sum is a dazzling exploration of unexpected afterlives—each presented as a vignette that offers a stunning lens through which to see ourselves in the here and now. In one afterlife, you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your existence. In another version, you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that God is a married couple, or that the universe is running backward, or that you are forced to live out your afterlife with annoying versions of who you could have been. With a probing imagination and deep understanding of the human condition, acclaimed neuroscientist David Eagleman offers wonderfully imagined tales that shine a brilliant light on the here and now.
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The Speed Of Dark
by Elizabeth Moon
Journeys inside the mind of Lou Arrendale, an autistic man, who is asked to undergo a new, experimental treatment designed to cure autism, as he struggles with the question of whether or not he should risk a medical procedure that could make him "normal." Reprint.
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ID: 0812570065
(Type: books)
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I, Robot
by Isaac Asimov
This classic science fiction masterwork by Isaac Asimov weaves stories about robots, humanity, and the deep questions of existence into a novel of shocking intelligence and heart. “A must-read for science-fiction buffs and literature enjoyers alike.”—The Guardian I, Robot, the first and most widely read book in Asimov’s Robot series, forever changed the world’s perception of artificial intelligence. Here are stories of robots gone mad, of mind-reading robots, and robots with a sense of humor. Of robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the world—all told with the dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction that has become Asimov’s trademark. The Three Laws of Robotics: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. With these three, simple directives, Isaac Asimov formulated the laws governing robots’ behavior. In I, Robot, Asimov chronicles the development of the robot from its primitive origins in the present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant future—a future in which humanity itself may be rendered obsolete. “Tremendously exciting and entertaining . . . Asimov dramatizes an interesting question: How can we live with machines that, generation by generation, grow more intelligent than their creators and not eventually clash with our own invention?”—The Chicago Tribune
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The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
J.D. Salinger's classic of adolescent angst is now available for the first time in trade paperback. Holden Caulfield, knowing he is to be expelled from school, decides to leave early. He spends three days in New York City and tells the story of what he did and suffered there.
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ID: 0375701214
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An Unquiet Mind
by Kay Redfield Jamison
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A deeply powerful memoir about bipolar illness that has both transformed and saved lives—with a new preface by the author. Dr. Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness; she has also experienced it firsthand. For even while she was pursuing her career in academic medicine, Jamison found herself succumbing to the same exhilarating highs and catastrophic depressions that afflicted many of her patients, as her disorder launched her into ruinous spending sprees, episodes of violence, and an attempted suicide. Here Jamison examines bipolar illness from the dual perspectives of the healer and the healed, revealing both its terrors and the cruel allure that at times prompted her to resist taking medication.
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ID: 0571198775
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic—both poignant and funny—about a boy with autism who sets out to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog and discovers unexpected truths about himself and the world. “Disorienting and reorienting the reader to devastating effect.... Suspenseful and harrowing.” —The New York Times Book Review Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.
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Lying Awake
by Mark Salzman
Mark Salzman's Lying Awake is a finely wrought gem that plumbs the depths of one woman's soul, and in so doing raises salient questions about the power-and price-of faith. Sister John's cloistered life of peace and prayer has been electrified by ever more frequent visions of God's radiance, leading her toward a deep religious ecstasy. Her life and writings have become examples of devotion. Yet her visions are accompanied by shattering headaches that compel Sister John to seek medical help. When her doctor tells her an illness may be responsible for her gift, Sister John faces a wrenching choice: to risk her intimate glimpses of the divine in favor of a cure, or to continue her visions with the knowledge that they might be false-and might even cost her her life.
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ID: 006178267X
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Gridlinked
by Neal Asher
This state-of-the-art cyberpunk science fiction tale stars Ian Cormac, a legendary Earth Central Security agent in a wealthy future where "runcibles" (matter transmitters controlled by AIs) allow interstellar travel in the blink of a eye.
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Rules for Old Men Waiting
by Peter Pouncey
A brief, lyrical novel with a powerful emotional charge, Rules for Old Men Waiting is about three wars of the twentieth century and an ever-deepening marriage. In a house on the Cape “older than the Republic,” Robert MacIver, a historian who long ago played rugby for Scotland, creates a list of rules by which to live out his last days. The most important rule, to “tell a story to its end,” spurs the old Scot on to invent a strange and gripping tale of men in the trenches of the First World War. Drawn from a depth of knowledge and imagination, MacIver conjures the implacable, clear-sighted artist Private Callum; the private’s nemesis Sergeant Braddis, with his pincerlike nails; Lieutenant Simon Dodds, who takes on Braddis; and Private Charlie Alston, who is ensnared in this story of inhumanity and betrayal but brings it to a close. This invented tale of the Great War prompts MacIver’s own memories of his role in World War II and of Vietnam, where his son, David served. Both the stories and the memories alike are lit by the vivid presence of Margaret, his wife. As Hearts and Minds director Peter Davis writes, “Pouncey has wrought an almost inconceivable amount of beauty from pain, loss, and war, and I think he has been able to do this because every page is imbued with the love story at the heart of his astonishing novel.”
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Blade Runner
by Philip K. Dick
Captures the strange world of twenty-first-century Earth, a devastated planet in which sophisticated androids, banned from the planet, fight back against their potential destroyers, while bounty hunter Rick Deckard sets out to track down the replicants. Reissue. (Tie-in to the Fall 2007 release of the deluxe twenty-fifth anniversary DVD of the Warner Bros. film, directed by Ridley Scott, starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and others) (Science Fiction)
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The Manchurian Candidate
by Richard Condon
Everyone knows the controversial 1962 film of The Manchurian Candidate starring Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury, even though it was taken out of circulation for 25 years after JFK's assassination. Equally controversial on publication, and just as timely today, is Richard Condon's original novel. First published in 1959, The Manchurian Candidate is Condon's riveting take on a little-known corner of the cold war, the almost sci-fi concept of American soldiers captured, brainwashed, and programmed by their Chinese captors to return to the states as unsuspected political assassins. Condon's expert manipulation of the book's multiple themes - from anticommunist hysteria to megalomaniacal motherhood - makes this one of the most dazzling, and enduring, products of an unforgettable time. This classic of cold war paranoia includes a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize winning author Louis Menand.
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Altered Carbon
by Richard K. Morgan
In a twenty-fifth-century world in which death is nearly obsolete, thanks to a technology that allows a person's consciousness to be downloaded into a new body, former U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs, re-sleeved into a new body after a brutal death, finds himself caught in the middle of a deadly far-reaching conspiracy that could have horrifying repercussions. Reprint.
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ID: 0140620516
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The Futurological Congress (from the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy)
by Stanisław Lem
Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a future cure. Translated by Michael Kandel.
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The Thanatos Syndrome
by Walker Percy
Returning home to the small Louisiana parish where he had praticed psychiatry, Dr. Tom More quickly notices something strange occuring with the townfolk, a loss of inhibitions. Behind this mystery is a dangerous plot drug the local water supply, and a discovery that takes More into the underside of the American search for happiness.
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Neuromancer
by William Gibson
Case, a burned-out computer whiz, is asked to steal a security code that is locked in the most heavily guarded databank in the solar system, in a special twentieth anniversary edition of the influential Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel.
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