"Introduction by Mark Damazer"--Page 1 of cover.

The issues surrounding mental health in Australia have for the past year created a great deal of exposure in the media. Andrew Denton's programme Enough Rope recently devoted an entire programme to the problems of Hearing Voices. This book contains a wealth of information of great practical value to people who hear voices as well as to those who simply wish to learn more about this fascinating aspect of human psychology. It also addresses many complex questions regarding personal identity, the nature of consciousness, the relationship between mind and brain and the place of spirituality in human life - issues which will be of interest to all thoughtful readers. John Watkins is an internationally-known and respected counsellor and educator whose main professional interest is in exploring and promoting holistic approaches to the development and maintenance of mental Health. In this latest book, he provides: a detailed description of a wide variety of voice hearing experiences, an overview of the theories accounting for how and why this happens, a range of practical techniques for coping with or stopping voices, guidelines for applying spiritual discernment to hearing voices, and strategies for optimising the personal value of voice hearing experiences.

In such groundbreaking novels as Crache and Idolon, Mark Budz established his reputation as one of science fiction’s most exciting and innovative writers. Now he surprises us again with an ambitious new thriller set in three realities at once, where three different lives hang in the balance. . . . What if your world were rapidly running out of tomorrows? And what if the only way to save the future was to relive the past? But which past holds the key to survival? That’s the life-and-death question faced by three desperate people separated by the past, present, and future but who share a single terrifying reality. A tortured soul, brain-damaged in a motorcycle accident, issues a pirate broadcast out of a van in near-future California. In Depression-era San Francisco an architect with an inoperable brain tumor seeks a mystical cure. A post-human space traveler caught in a cosmic accident searches for a way to reconstruct himself and the future. In Mark Budz’s spellbinding narrative, their lives–and deaths–are drawn together by a force even more powerful than destiny.

Interviewed by the authors, Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali and 71 other UN professionals speak about international cooperation and the ideas that have shaped the accomplishments of the UN.

Since 1968, Bernie Krause has traveled the world recording the sounds of remote landscapes, endangered habitats, and rare animal species. Through his organization, Wild Sanctuary, he has collected the soundscapes of more than 2,000 different habitat types, marine and terrestrial. With powerful illustrations and compelling stories, Krause provides a manifesto for the appreciation and protection of natural soundscapes. In his previous book, The Great Animal Orchestra, Krause drew readers’ attention to what Jane Goodall described as “the harmonies of nature . . . [that are being] one by one by one, snuffed out by human actions.” He now explains that the secrets hidden in the natural world’s shrinking sonic environment must be preserved, not only for our scientific understanding, but for our cultural heritage and humanity’s physical and spiritual welfare. Krause’s narrative—supplemented by exclusive access to field recordings from the wild—draws on a compelling range of personal anecdotes, histories, and examples to document his early exploration of this field and to lay the groundwork for future generations.

Here in their own words are Frederick Douglass, George Jackson, Chief Joseph, Martin Luther King Jr., Plough Jogger, Sacco and Vanzetti, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Mark Twain, and Malcolm X, to name just a few of the hundreds of voices that appear in Voices of a People's History of the United States, edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. Paralleling the twenty-four chapters of Zinn's A People's History of the United States, Voices of a People’s History is the long-awaited companion volume to the national bestseller. For Voices, Zinn and Arnove have selected testimonies to living history—speeches, letters, poems, songs—left by the people who make history happen but who usually are left out of history books—women, workers, nonwhites. Zinn has written short introductions to the texts, which range in length from letters or poems of less than a page to entire speeches and essays that run several pages. Voices of a People’s History is a symphony of our nation’s original voices, rich in ideas and actions, the embodiment of the power of civil disobedience and dissent wherein lies our nation’s true spirit of defiance and resilience.

A new collection by the author of The World We Want, with essays on civility, public space, Obama, procrastination, suicide.