Timothy Ferris, bestselling author of Coming of Age in the Milky Way, brilliantly synthesizes inner and outer space with a penetrating examination into the nature of the universe and the human brain that perceives it. Through the lenses of two innovative fields of scientific research - neuroscience and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI - Ferris brings into focus a startling new vision of the relationship between mind and universe. Whether he is contemplating the possibility of otherwordly life-forms or pondering the consequences of virtual reality computer technology, Timothy Ferris captures our sense of wonder with a lucid and imaginative look at one of modern science's greatest challenges; how we can understand, interpret and, ultimately, reconcile the equally mysterious realms of mind and universe. From ancient Stone Age burial mounds to today's state-of-the-art laboratories, solving this eternal riddle has been the goal of philosophers and mystics, occultists and poets, alchemists and scientists. In The Mind's Sky, Ferris examines the 'dance' between mind and cosmos, showing how the universe is partly a construct of the mind itself and asking whether intelligence - far from being a product of our world alone - may have universal currency. Ferris considers the intriguing complexity of the human brain and what constitutes real intelligence. Laughter, near-death experiences, athletic performance ('Joe Montana's Premotor Cortex'), the neurobiology of mystical experience, and a subtle mental program called 'the interpreter' are all part of his freewheeling quest into the nature of consciousness. Ferris advances the provocative thesis that SETI, our current search for life on other planets, could reward the human race with the fruit of cosmic knowledge - or prove as cataclysmic as Eve's desire for the apple. And he gives us an inside look at IT - information theory - a new philosophy of knowledge and communication. Filled with the combination of scientific fact, human anecdote, and provocative insight that has become his trademark, Timothy Ferris's The Mind's Sky offers a rare, life-enhancing perception of our world and our cosmos and underscores the unique choices we face as a species capable of deciding our own fate on the planet - and among the stars.

The bestselling author of Coming of Age in the Milky Way delivers fascinating essays on the human mind, the search for extraterrestrial (and thus nonhuman) intelligence, comet strikes as a source of species extinction, near-death experiences, apocalyptic prophecies, information theory, and the origin of laughter. Praise for The Mind’s Sky “It is a joy to read The Mind’s Sky. What a sense of humility in the face of mystery—the spirit of Ulysses, as Tennyson put it, determined ‘to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield’—and sense of poetry too!”—John Archibald Wheeler, physicist, Princeton University “A few chapters into this wonderful book I suddenly realized that I was taking wider views of my own mind’s sky than I have enjoyed in a long time. Ferris illuminates (among other matters) the mysteries of laughter, nirvana, common sense, and Joe Montana. He makes us think big thoughts.”—Jonathan Weiner, author of The Next 100 Years and Planet Earth “One of our best and most imaginative writers, Timothy Ferris has never been afraid to tackle big themes. The Mind’s Sky is a dazzling and provocative synthesis of inner and outer space. This book is sure to be as controversial as it is elegant.”—Dennis Overbye, author of Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos

Your mind is like the sky. Sometimes it's clear and blue - but sometimes a raincloud thought comes along and makes everything seem dark. So what can we do about rainclouds? This beautiful picture book, written by psychologist Bronwen Ballard and illustrated by award-winning artist Laura Carlin, shows children that worries and negative thoughts are normal and helps them develop healthy thinking habits. Tips on mindfulness and extra resources for parents are included at the back of the book.

Why were Prometheus and Loki envisioned as chained to rocks? What was the Golden Calf? Why are mirrors believed to carry bad luck? This groundbreaking book points the way to restoring some of that lost history and teaching about storytelling.

"A collection of short talks by Jakusho Kwong-roshi, a successor in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, exploring the profound beauty of Zen history and practice, nature, and the philosophy of the ancient Zen master Eihei Dogen. Includes photos of Kwong-roshi with his various teachers, as well as selections of his calligraphy. In Zen meditation, anything that comes in your mind will eventually leave, because nothing is permanent. A thought is like a cloud moving across the blue sky. Nothing can disturb that all-encompassing vastness. This is the Dharma. In a collection of short talks and anecdotes, Jakusho Kwong-roshi, a Dharma successor of Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, presents his approach to Buddhist teaching. With an elegant simplicity, Kwong-roshi shows how Zen is experiential rather than intellectual. And with persistent practice, realization is already ours. With photos of Kwong-roshi and his various teachers, along with a selection of his vibrant calligraphy"--

Tracing unexplored connections between nineteenth-century astronomy and literature, The Starry Sky Within offers a new understanding of literary point of view as essentially multiple, mobile, and comparative. Nineteenth-century astronomy revealed a cosmos of celestial systems in constant motion. Stars, comets, planets, and moons coursed through space in complex and changing relation. As the skies were in motion, so too was the human subject. Astronomers showed that human beings never perceive the world from a stable position. The mobility of our bodies in space and the very structure of stereoscopic vision mean that point of view is neither singular nor stable. We always see the world as an amalgam of fractured perspectives. In this innovative study, Henchman shows that the reconceptualization of the skies gave poets and novelists new spaces in which to indulge their longing to escape the limitations of individual perspective. She links astronomy and optics to the form of the multiplot novel, with its many centers of consciousness, complex systems of relation, and criss-crossing points of view. Accounts of a world and a subject both in relative motion shaped the form of grand-scale narratives such as Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Bleak House, and Daniel Deronda. De Quincey, Tennyson, and Eliot befriended leading astronomers and visited observatories, while Hardy learned about astronomy from the vast popular literature of the day. These writers use cosmic distances to dislodge their readers from the earth, setting human perception against views from high above and then telescoping back to earth again. What results is a new perception of the mobility of point of view in both literature and science.

Kay Kenyon, noted for her science fiction world-building, has in this new series created her most vivid and compelling society, the Universe Entire. In a land-locked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire is a bizarre and seductive mix of long-lived quasi-human and alien beings gathered under a sky of fire, called the bright. A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and an exotic, never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme. Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone on earth except Quinn. Believing them trapped in a parallel universe—one where he himself may have been imprisoned—he returns to the Entire without resources, language, or his memories of that former life. He is assisted by Anzi, a woman of the Chalin people, a Chinese culture copied from our own universe and transformed by the kingdom of the bright. Learning of his daughter’s dreadful slavery, Quinn swears to free her. To do so, he must cross the unimaginable distances of the Entire in disguise, for the Tarig are lying in wait for him. As Quinn’s memories return, he discovers why. Quinn’s goal is to penetrate the exotic culture of the Entire—to the heart of Tarig power, the fabulous city of the Ascendancy, to steal the key to his family’s redemption. But will his daughter and wife welcome rescue? Ten years of brutality have forced compromises on everyone. What Quinn will learn to his dismay is what his own choices were, long ago, in the Universe Entire. He will also discover why a fearful multiverse destiny is converging on him and what he must sacrifice to oppose the coming storm. This is high-concept SF written on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles, and Dan Simmons’s Hyperion.