The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

Whispers in the Margins: A Chronicle of Memory and Mischief In the quiet corners of our lives, where the mundane meets the magical, lies a forgotten art—an art of ink and intuition. Write It Down Before You Forget It (Or Blame It on the Squirrels) invites you into this clandestine realm—a place where memory dances with mischief, and words become constellations. Imagine standing before an ancient door, its lintel adorned with cryptic symbols. As you cross that threshold, you encounter an epigraph—a whispered promise. It hints at the emotional landscape ahead, setting the tone for what lies within. Is it sad, whimsical, or mysterious? The epigraph knows. Dear reader, may you too venture forth—quill in hand—and chronicle your odyssey. For in Forget-Me-Not Hollow, every scribble is a star chart, and every memory is a treasure waiting to be found. Dear Friend, In the hustle and bustle of life, amidst the digital noise and endless to-do lists, a quiet sanctuary exists—an empty page waiting for your thoughts, dreams, and reflections. That sanctuary is your journal. Why Journal? Clarity: Pouring your thoughts onto paper untangles the knots in your mind. Suddenly, chaos becomes a roadmap. Memory Keeper: Your journal is a time capsule. Capture fleeting moments—the taste of morning coffee, the scent of rain, the laughter shared with loved ones. Emotional Release: Write about joy, frustration, heartache, or wonder. Let your emotions dance across the page. They’ll thank you for the space. Creativity Booster: Scribble, doodle, sketch. Your journal is a canvas. Your squiggles have stories even if you can’t draw a straight line. Self-Discovery: As you write, you unearth hidden gems—your quirks, fears, and secret desires. You’re both an archaeologist and poet. Tips for Starting: No Rules: Your journal is a judgment-free zone. Spelling mistakes? Scribbles? Perfect. Just write. Consistency, Not Perfection: Don’t wait for the “right” moment. Write when you’re messy, tired, or joyful. The magic lies in showing up. Morning Pages: Try Julia Cameron’s technique—three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing each morning. It’s like yoga for your mind. Gratitude Journal: List three things you’re grateful for each day. It’s a heartwarming habit. Remember: Your journal isn’t just paper; it’s a confidante, a time-travel device, and a friend who never interrupts. So grab a pen, open that blank page, and let your soul spill forth. P.S. If you ever meet a squirrel with a silver tail reading an epigraph, ask it for its favorite riddle. Squirrels are surprisingly well-read! 🌟📚🐿️

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

“Fascinating and useful . . . The distinguished memory researcher Scott A. Small explains why forgetfulness is not only normal but also beneficial.”—Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of The Code Breaker and Leonardo da Vinci Who wouldn’t want a better memory? Dr. Scott Small has dedicated his career to understanding why memory forsakes us. As director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Columbia University, he focuses largely on patients who experience pathological forgetting, and it is in contrast to their suffering that normal forgetting, which we experience every day, appears in sharp relief. Until recently, most everyone—memory scientists included—believed that forgetting served no purpose. But new research in psychology, neurobiology, medicine, and computer science tells a different story. Forgetting is not a failure of our minds. It’s not even a benign glitch. It is, in fact, good for us—and, alongside memory, it is a required function for our minds to work best. Forgetting benefits our cognitive and creative abilities, emotional well-being, and even our personal and societal health. As frustrating as a typical lapse can be, it’s precisely what opens up our minds to making better decisions, experiencing joy and relationships, and flourishing artistically. From studies of bonobos in the wild to visits with the iconic painter Jasper Johns and the renowned decision-making expert Daniel Kahneman, Small looks across disciplines to put new scientific findings into illuminating context while also revealing groundbreaking developments about Alzheimer’s disease. The next time you forget where you left your keys, remember that a little forgetting does a lot of good.

Elegantly repackaged, The Morning Pages Journal is one of The Artist's Way's most effective tools for cultivating creativity, personal growth, and change. Now more compact and featuring spiral binding to make for easier use, these Morning Pages invite you to do three pages daily of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness, which provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize, and synchronize the day at hand. This daily writing, coupled with the twelve-week program outlined in The Artist's Way, will help you discover and recover your personal creativity, artistic confidence, and productivity. The Artist's Way Morning Pages Journal includes an introduction by Julia Cameron, complete instructions on how to use the Morning Pages and benefit fully from their daily use, and inspiring quotations that will guide you through the process.

A surprisingly simple way for students to master any subject--based on one of the world's most popular online courses and the bestselling book A Mind for Numbers A Mind for Numbers and its wildly popular online companion course "Learning How to Learn" have empowered more than two million learners of all ages from around the world to master subjects that they once struggled with. Fans often wish they'd discovered these learning strategies earlier and ask how they can help their kids master these skills as well. Now in this new book for kids and teens, the authors reveal how to make the most of time spent studying. We all have the tools to learn what might not seem to come naturally to us at first--the secret is to understand how the brain works so we can unlock its power. This book explains: Why sometimes letting your mind wander is an important part of the learning process How to avoid "rut think" in order to think outside the box Why having a poor memory can be a good thing The value of metaphors in developing understanding A simple, yet powerful, way to stop procrastinating Filled with illustrations, application questions, and exercises, this book makes learning easy and fun.