Esoterika: Formulas Against the False Self

Mitch Horowitz

A “Philosophy of Results” for our Broken Age In Esoterika, scholar of esotericism Mitch Horowitz draws upon inner teachings to take a hammer to conformity, whether from peers or our therapeutic and spiritual cultures. Beneath this lies the truer self you have lost. The ideas and formulas in Esoterika are an astringent solution to familiar wisdom and authorized paths. The book’s principles, Mitch writes, “if practiced seriously, will change you in positive ways. You will be more agentic, expressive, and, hence, happier. For the determined, this change occurs quickly.” Esoterika reconstitutes neglected fragments from Hermetic (Greek-Egyptian), Abrahamic (Judaic-Christian-Sufi), and modern esoteric, occult, and magickal traditions, and weds them to your lived experience. Everything in its chapters is meant to be tried. The hour is late. Esoterika is the accelerant for which many have waited.

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Togetherness: Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life’s Greatest Collaborations

Rowan Hooper

From evolution to capitalism, ‘survival of the fittest’ has shaped our view of the world. But we got it wrong – and our mistake has brought us to the brink.For the history of life on Earth is much more than a story of competition. The natural world has been forged and sustained by small miracles of co-operation between animals and plants, insects and fungi, fish and bacteria – these partnerships are ubiquitous, lifelong and are an essential guide for a better future.In Togetherness, Rowan Hooper reveals the intimate connectedness of nature through these remarkable stories of symbiosis. From the female wasp venturing deep inside a fig and the intricate relationship between corals and the algae that sustain them to the symbiotic gut microbes that influence our moods, he explores how co-operation is fundamental to life itself and to protecting our shared future.Togetherness will change the way you see the world, our place in it – and our obligation to its hidden wonders.

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Attention Seeker: A Neurodivergent Comedian's Guide to Surviving Thriving with ADHD

Darcy Michael

From neurodivergent comedian Darcy Michael, a hilarious memoir with a message about living with adult ADHDWhat if ADHD isn't a disorder to overcome, but a superpower that makes you funnier, more creative, and more resilient? In Attention Seeker, comedian and card-carrying adult with ADHD Darcy Michael offers a fresh perspective on getting through the daily struggles that confront those on the neurofabulous end of the spectrum. Darcy takes readers on a humorous-yet-heartfelt journey as he relates stories of growing up gay, getting married, and finding a career in comedy, all while navigating life with an attention-addled brain. From his early acting days on Spun Out to finding fame (and love) on the internet, Darcy shares all the dirty details (it’s NSFW, folks!) of how ADHD has shaped his identity, his relationships, and his work. Peppered with asides from Darcy’s long-suffering husband Jer, advice for ADHDers both silly and serious, and words of wisdom from Yuma Dog herself, this laugh-out-loud guide is essential reading for anyone unpacking what ADHD means for them—or anyone who just wants to giggle.

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Artificial Intimacy

Sherry Turkle

From the author of prescient best seller and classic Reclaiming Conversation, Sherry Turkle, comes an urgent warning about how our ever-increasing reliance on human-like AI chatbots is eroding our capacity for empathy, caring, and the very qualities that make us human. If social media came for our attention, artificial intelligence is now coming for our capacity for attachment. Chatbots that speak to us in a human voice offer themselves as best friends, lovers, and psychotherapists. As of 2025, over 70% of teens and nearly one-third of US adults rely on AI for companionship and emotional support, with many preferring these chatbot relationships over human ones. When we talk to chatbots in these roles, as intimate machines, we accept as sufficient what machines can offer: the mere performance of intimacy, empathy, and love. We begin to think that pretend empathy is empathy enough. We redefine human capacities for care, solitude, and intimacy in terms of what machines can do. Sherry Turkle, the psychologist who pioneered our understanding of human-computer relationships, calls the new culture of chatbots artificial intimacy, our new AI. Through compelling storytelling, framed by Turkle’s decades of experience as a chronicler and analyst of digital culture, Artificial Intimacy evokes the seductive and beguiling nature of chatbots. They can organize our calendars, plan our travel, or analyze our stock picks, all with an efficiency that outstrips what a person might do. And then, they promise to be more—to be our “perfect” companion. They will always be there for us, listen to us, and support us—and ask for nothing in return. But these intimate machines, warns Turkle, are producing a generation more alienated, depressed, and lonely than ever before. More than that, we become less equipped to reverse course—machine relationships do not offer practice for getting along with people. Artificial Intimacy is unique in how it traces our new habit of talking to machines through the lifecycle—from children’s earliest attachments to how we face death. But technology, by offering to do everything, teaches us that we neither need nor have the capacity to take risks, have hard conversations, struggle through uncertainty or insecurity, or rely on our own faculties and judgment. Turkle has spent decades studying how digital technologies isolate us from one another. Now, in her long-awaited follow-up to Reclaiming Conversation, she offers both a cautionary tale and a roadmap for reclaiming our humanity in the age of AI.

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Your OCD Will Hate This Book: A Proven System to Overcome Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Take Back Your Life

Nathan Peterson

OCD is one of the most common and debilitating mental disorders and left unchecked, this disease wreaks havoc on lives. But there is an effective treatment. Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) involves exposure to OCD triggers in a safe environment for increasingly long durations. And no one knows ERP better than Nathan Peterson. The internet’s #1 OCD guide, Nathan has already helped hundreds of thousands of followers regain control over their lives. In this book, he guides readers through effective treatment, then gives them a framework to maintain and build upon the gains they have made.Suitable for use both as a companion text that accompanies work with a therapist, or as a stand-in for readers who need inspiration and support, Your OCD Will Hate This Book will be an essential resource for those in their OCD journey.

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Stargirl (Stargirl, #1)

Jerry Spinelli

A celebration of nonconformity; a tense, emotional tale about the fleeting, cruel nature of popularity--and the thrill and inspiration of first love. Ages 12+ Leo Borlock follows the unspoken rule at Mica Area High School: don't stand out--under any circumstances! Then Stargirl arrives at Mica High and everything changes--for Leo and for the entire school. After 15 years of home schooling, Stargirl bursts into tenth grade in an explosion of color and a clatter of ukulele music, enchanting the Mica student body. But the delicate scales of popularity suddenly shift, and Stargirl is shunned for everything that makes her different. Somewhere in the midst of Stargirl's arrival and rise and fall, normal Leo Borlock has tumbled into love with her. In a celebration of nonconformity, Jerry Spinelli weaves a tense, emotional tale about the fleeting, cruel nature of popularity--and the thrill and inspiration of first love.

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Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction

Judith Grisel

From a renowned behavioral neuroscientist and recovered drug addict, an authoritative and accessible guide to understanding drug addiction: clearly explained brain science and vivid personal stories reveal how addiction happens, show why specific drugs--from opioids to alcohol to coke and more--are so hard to kick, and illuminate the path to recovery for addicts, loved ones, caregivers, and crafters of public policy. Addiction is epidemic and catastrophic. With more than one in every five people over the age of fourteen addicted, drug abuse has been called the most formidable health problem worldwide. If we are not victims ourselves, we all know someone struggling with the merciless compulsion to alter their experience by changing how their brain functions. Drawing on years of research--as well as personal experience as a recovered addict--researcher and professor Judy Grisel has reached a fundamental conclusion: for the addict, there will never be enough drugs. The brain's capacity to learn and adapt is seemingly infinite, allowing it to counteract any regular disruption, including that caused by drugs. What begins as a normal state punctuated by periods of being high transforms over time into a state of desperate craving that is only temporarily subdued by a fix, explaining why addicts are unable to live either with or without their drug. One by one, Grisel shows how different drugs act on the brain, the kind of experiential effects they generate, and the specific reasons why each is so hard to kick. Grisel's insights lead to a better understanding of the brain's critical contributions to addictive behavior, and will help inform a more rational, coherent, and compassionate response to the epidemic in our homes and communities.

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Tufti the Priestess. Live Stroll Through A Movie

Vadim Zeland

Meet the new world sensation. It’s Tufti. Why is it that nothing seems to work out the way you want it to, despite the fact that you act according to your own free will? You might think that the reason why nothing is working out the way you want, is because that’s just how life is. But the real reason things don‘t work out the way you want them to, is because you aren‘t acting according to your own free will —you are being directed by a script. Another reason things don‘t work out the way people want them to, is because they don‘t know how to take the right action to shape events the way they want. Rather than composing the reality of the upcoming film roll, they tend to battle with the reality they face in the current frame. Reality exists only in the here and now, and what is real is real only to the extent that it has taken place in the material world. You cannot change what has already happened. Yet when you fight with your current reality, that is exactly what you are doing, because everything that surrounds you consists of something that has already happened. If you want to change the script, you have to wake up and come alive inside the movie. Translation from the Russian language by Joanne Dobson

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