The behavioral scientist author of Just the Way You Are presents a provocative argument that the quality of one's life is directly related to the focus of one's attention, drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology to cover such topics as the human capacity for training concentration, the ways in which the creative mind thinks, and why people deliberate on the wrong factors when making big decisions.

“Rapt in Secret Studies”: Emerging Shakespeares is a collection of new essays in Shakespeare Studies from a generation of scholars presently emerging out of Australia and New Zealand. These 18 essays respond in a myriad of ways to the challenge of Prospero’s phrase from The Tempest, in which he tells his daughter Miranda that in his life before the island he had been “rapt in secret studies”-to an early modern audience, these words were likely to mean much more than a predilection for the black arts, as modern audiences tend to hear in them. Each of the key words used by Prospero evoked a range of meanings in early modern times, to which the emerging scholars represented in this collection responded by imagining new pathways in Shakespeare Studies, a field of study that has in recent times risked being marginalised even within the traditional liberal arts. The “secret studies” of which Prospero speaks are, in fact, more liberal than dark, and so the response by new scholars to a challenge issued by one of Shakespeare’s characters more than four centuries ago has a renewed sense of relevance in the academy today. The essays are divided into three sections, each of which is oriented toward meanings that are specifically associated with one of the key terms in Prospero’s phrase. The “rapt” section has essays concerned with excess in its various forms-jealousy, obsession, sex, violence, and even death-as well as with travel and its impact on ways of knowing about the world. In the “secret” section, the nature of things about which the early modern could scarcely speak are taken into consideration, with essays on prevailing early modern myths, infidelities, stillborn children, contagion, and the instruments of secrecy such as gossip and spies. Finally, in the “study” section, essays cover issues related both to early modern textual practice-the use of historical source materials in Shakespeare’s writing, questions of multiple authorship, and the issue of early modern style and kinds of drama-and to more modern scholarly practice, such as the role of Shakespeare in the New Bibliography and the New Historicism.

Illustrate a long-lasting connection between Scottish and Canadian literary traditions and illuminates the way Scottish ideas and values still wield surprising power in Canadian politics, education, theology, economics and social mores.

The Winged Way presents Ian Robertson Duncan's first book of poems. In these ballads, incantations, sonnets and haiku, Duncan explores a metaphysics of body and world in a form called the wordsong.

In Rapt in the Name, Ramdas Lamb provides an intriguing account of the Ram bhakti tradition in India. Less well-known in the West than the tradition of devotion to Krishna, the Ram tradition is an important component of Hinduism. Ram is the most-worshipped form of the divine in North India today and has long been particularly important to those of the lower castes throughout India. Lamb explores both the evolution of the tradition and the rise of lower caste religious movements devoted to Ram, specifically the Ramnami Samaj, an Untouchable religious movement in Central India. Lamb's study of the Ramnamis has spanned nearly three decades, first on a personal level as a Hindu monk and later as both a friend and a researcher. He discusses the historical origins, as well as present-day forms and structure of the Samaj, including a description of its distinctive ritual dress and practices. Among the more innovative aspects of the sect is its adaptation of the story of Lord Ram that is uniquely woven into its devotional repetition of his name (Ramnam). In addition, Lamb shares biographical sketches of six Ramnamis, each of which reveals the freedom of individual exploration and expression that is integral to the sect. This is a fascinating account of religious life and adaptation on the periphery of society.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Focusing attention is a skill that can be learned and improved upon. It is the key to designing your daily experience, because it allows you to decide what to focus on and what to suppress. #2 Your attention is constantly being focused on different targets, and you must choose what to attend to in constructing your daily experience. Near Central Park’s Strawberry Fields, some bird lovers have scattered lots of seed in a clearing, creating an avian mosh pit that’s a natural laboratory for experimenting with biased competition. #3 When you first enter the feeding area, your attention is stimulus-driven, and you glance randomly at the busy tableau. When you decide to focus on a particular target, such as a little woodpecker called the yellow-bellied sapsucker, your attention is active and goal-oriented. #4 Your attentional system, like the magician, focuses you on some things at the expense of others. As you continue your stroll, you realize that although you vividly recall that top-hatted trickster, with the exception of a woman in a bright violet jacket who stood right beside him, you only fuzzily recall the rest of the scene.