PT assesses the Culture Quotient with reviews of the season's most
psychologically astute, or obtuse, books, television programs, Web sites
and more.
Work
Double Lives: Crafting Our Work And Passion For Untold
Success
Davies-Black Publishing, $24.95
What do former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and funeral
director Thomas Lynch have in common? Both have led double lives.
Churchill, remembered for his political career, was also an enthusiastic
painter, and Lynch is an accomplished poet. Author and double-lifer David
Heenan, himself a business executive and writer, has studied the lives of
several people who "specialized" in more than one field. Here he makes
the case for developing multiple interests and talents and offers hints
on how we can all do just that.
Intimate Creativity: Partners In Love And Art
University of Wisconsin Press, $19.95
Former New York University psychologists Irving and Suzanne Sarnoff
offer a biographical study of careers in this book on artists who work in
pairs. Two of the profiled "partners in love and art" are Christo and
Jeanne-Claude, the couple who wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin and built
the "running fence" in California. How do such duos manage to
simultaneously live and create together? One answer comes from painter
and book illustrator Diane Dillon, who says of her husband, Leo: "We're
really one artist now."
Sex
How Sex Changed: A History Of Transsexuality In The United
States
Harvard University Press, $29.95
Gender is a fundamental part of human identity, yet for some people
the question, "Male or female?" is not easily answered. These individuals
feel they are trapped in the wrong body. Their history, and especially
their efforts to change their bodies through surgical and medical
interventions, is the subject of this new book by Joanne Meyerowitz,
Ph.D., a professor of history at Indiana University. This is a scientific
work, but Meyerowitz keeps the very human side of the issue front and
center throughout.
Cognition
The Puzzle Instinct: The Meaning Of Puzzles And Human Life
Indiana University Press, $25.95
In this "journey through Puzzleland," Marcel Danesi, Ph.D., a
semiotics and anthropology professor at the University of Toronto, gives
us a natural history of puzzles. Danesi argues that people like solving
puzzles because they provide a kind of "comic relief" from more troubling
and unsolvable problems, such as that of the meaning of life. Well,
maybe. In any case, puzzle fanatics will enjoy the many riddles,
illusions, cryptograms and other mind-benders offered for
analysis.
Brain
The Dana Guide To Brain Health
Free Press, $45
If your interest in the brain is more practical than theoretical,
this encyclopedic family guide will tell you everything you need to know
and then some. The resource was compiled from the contributions of more
than 100 experts in the field by editor Floyd Bloom, M.D., president of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among others. In
just over 700 pages, the book covers brain structure, development,
emotions, learning and just about everything that can possibly go wrong
with your brain.
The Memory Bible: An Innovative Strategy For Keeping Your Brain
Young
Hyperion, $25.95
Can't remember what's-his-face's name? Then this book is for you.
Written by Gary Small, M.D., director of the University of California at
Los Angeles Center on Aging, it offers the usual "mental aerobics," plus
excellent research-based advice on exercise, diet and lifestyle.
Evolution In Darwin's Shadow: The Life And Science Of Alfred Russel
Wallace
Oxford University Press, $35
The first publication on the role of natural selection in evolution
was written by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, yet today we
speak only of Darwin. Though Wallace did important field work to support
it, he is all but forgotten, obscured by Darwin's shadow. In this
biography, psychologist Michael Shermer, Ph.D., director of the Skeptics
Society and a Scientific American columnist, brings Wallace into the
light. He reminds us of Wallace's achievements and pins his downfall on
his distracting interest in such fringe fields as mesmerism and
phrenology.
Tags:
art university,
book,
book illustrator,
british prime minister,
christo and jeanne claude,
davies black publishing,
diane dillon,
family,
harvard university press,
heenan,
human identity,
joanne meyerowitz,
medical interventions,
new york university,
poet author,
reichstag in berlin,
review,
running fence,
sex,
thomas lynch,
transsexuality,
university of wisconsin press,
Winston Churchill,
work
