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Brian Grazer knows the one thing that can instantly connect you with anyone: Curiosity. A Curious mind offers a brilliantly entertaining and inspiring account of how his courage and enthusiasm for talking with complete strangers have been the secret of his success as a leading Hollywood producer.
An exhilarating, genre-bending exploration of curiosity’s powerful capacity to connect ideas and people. Curious about something? Google it. Look at it. Ask a question. But is curiosity simply information seeking? According to this exhilarating, genre-bending book, what’s left out of the conventional understanding of curiosity are the wandering tracks, the weaving concepts, the knitting of ideas, and the thatching of knowledge systems—the networks, the relations between ideas and between people. Curiosity, say Perry Zurn and Dani Bassett, is a practice of connection: it connects ideas into networks of knowledge, and it connects knowers themselves, both to the knowledge they seek and to each other. Zurn and Bassett—identical twins who write that their book “represents the thought of one mind and two bodies”—harness their respective expertise in the humanities and the sciences to get irrepressibly curious about curiosity. Traipsing across literatures of antiquity and medieval science, Victorian poetry and nature essays, as well as work by writers from a variety of marginalized communities, they trace a multitudinous curiosity. They identify three styles of curiosity—the busybody, who collects stories, creating loose knowledge networks; the hunter, who hunts down secrets or discoveries, creating tight networks; and the dancer, who takes leaps of creative imagination, creating loopy ones. Investigating what happens in a curious brain, they offer an accessible account of the network neuroscience of curiosity. And they sketch out a new kind of curiosity-centric and inclusive education that embraces everyone’s curiosity. The book performs the very curiosity that it describes, inviting readers to participate—to be curious with the book and not simply about it.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Janet Evanovich, bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum series, teams up with Emmy-winning writer Phoef Sutton for a brand-new series of mysteries featuring Emerson Knight and Riley Moon, a dynamic duo with instant and undeniable chemistry. Emerson Knight is introverted, eccentric, and has little to no sense of social etiquette. Good thing he’s also brilliant, rich, and (some people might say) handsome, or he’d probably be homeless. Riley Moon has just graduated from Harvard Business and Harvard Law. Her aggressive Texas spitfire attitude has helped her land her dream job as a junior analyst with mega-bank Blane-Grunwald. At least Riley Moon thought it was her dream job, until she is given her first assignment: babysitting Emerson Knight. What starts off as an inquiry about missing bank funds in the Knight account leads to inquiries about a missing man, missing gold, and a life-and-death race across the country. Through the streets of Washington, D.C., and down into the underground vault of the Federal Reserve in New York City, an evil plan is exposed. A plan so sinister that only a megalomaniac could think it up, and only the unlikely duo of the irrepressibly charming Emerson Knight and the tenacious Riley Moon can stop it. Praise for Curious Minds “The one-liners fly at a ferocious pace. . . . Evanovich fans will find this closer in style to the Stephanie Plum novels.”—Booklist “Evanovich’s comedic timing and pacing are evident on every page.”—Daily Republic
Introduces twenty-five of history's leading figures in philosophy, including Buddha, Aristotle, René Descartes, and Friedrich Nietzsche, and how their philosophical ideas continue to matter in today's world.
"Brian Grazer knows the one thing that can instantly connect you with anyone: Curiosity. A Curious mind offers a brilliantly entertaining and inspiring account of how his courage and enthusiasm for talking with complete strangers have been the secret of his success as a leading Hollywood producer."--Publisher's description.
After the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, many people questioned why no one had anticipated the terrorists' acts, even when events and intelligence seemed to point toward them. John Barell wonders if the attacks speak to a greater societal problem of complacency. He believes many students have become too passive in their learning, accepting information and "facts" as presented in textbooks, classes, and the media. Drawing on anecdotes from educators and his own life, Barell describes practical strategies to spur students' ability and willingness to pose and answer their own questions. Antarctica expeditions, outer space discoveries, dinosaur fossils, literature, and more help define the importance of developing an inquisitive mind, using such practices as * Maintaining journals on field trips, * Using questioning frames and models when reading texts, * Engaging in critical thinking and problem-based learning, and * Integrating inquiry into curriculum development and the classroom culture. To become habits of mind, students' daily curiosities must be nurtured and supported. Barell draws a vivid map to guide readers to "an intelligent revolution" in which schools can become places where educators and students imagine and work together to become active citizens in their society.
Is the universe around us a figment of our imagination? Or are our minds figments of reality? In this refreshing new look at the evolution of mind and culture, bestselling authors Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen eloquently argue that our minds necessarily evolved inextricably within the context of culture and language. They go beyond conventional reductionist ideas to look at how the mind is the response of an evolving brain trying to grapple with a complex environment. Along the way they develop new and intriguing insights into the nature of evolution, science and humanity.
The Maps for Curious Minds series is back—with 100 vivid infographic maps that transform the way we understand the cultural and geographical wonders of North America No matter how well you think you know North America, the 100 infographic maps in this singular atlas uncover a trove of fresh wonders that make the continent seem like the center of the universe. Did you know that North America is where the first T. rex was found? Or that it’s where you can visit the world’s biggest geode as well as its oldest, tallest, and largest trees—not to mention the world’s tallest and steepest roller coasters?! Brimming with fascinating insight (Who is the highest-paid public employee in each state?) and whimsical discovery (Where can you visit the world’s largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island?), this book highlights the unexpected contours of geography, history, nature, politics, and culture, revealing new ways to see North America—and the hundreds of millions who call it home.
What makes a child decide to become a scientist? •For Robert Sapolsky–Stanford professor of biology–it was an argument with a rabbi over a passage in the Bible. •Physicist Lee Smolin traces his inspiration to a volume of Einstein’s work, picked up as a diversion from heartbreak. •Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist and the author of Flow, found his calling through Descartes. Murray Gell-Mann, Nicholas Humphrey, Freeman Dyson . . . 27 scientists in all write about what it was that sent them on the path to their life's work. Illuminating memoir meets superb science writing in stories that invite us to consider what it is–and what it isn’t–that sets the scientific mind apart.
A handy, smaller, and more focused version of our popular New York Times knowledge books—organized by weekends and topic Fell asleep during history class in high school when World War II was covered? Learned the table of elements at one time but have forgotten it since? Always wondered who really invented the World Wide Web? Here is the book for you, with all the answers you've been looking for: The New York Times Presents Smarter by Sunday is based on the premise that there is a recognizable group of topics in history, literature, science, art, religion, philosophy, politics, and music that educated people should be familiar with today. Over 100 of these have been identified and arranged in a way that they can be studied over a year's time by spending two hours on a topic every weekend.
