Nonfiction
The Haunting in Hillwood Manor
Once upon a time, in the little town Hilwood, there stood an old and eerie house known as Hilwood Manor. its dilapidated appearance and gloomy aura made it the talk of the town, and rumors circulated about it being haunted. As a curious journalist, I couldn't resist the temptation to investigate this enigmatic place.
By Banele Magwaza3 years ago in BookClub
The psychology of emotion
The psychology of emotion explores how emotions influence our thoughts, behavior, and overall well-being. Emotions are complex responses to various stimuli, often involving physiological changes, thoughts, and subjective feelings. Our senses, such as sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, play a crucial role in shaping our emotional experiences and our perception of reality. For example, visual stimuli can trigger emotions through colors, patterns, and facial expressions. Auditory cues like music or voices can evoke strong emotional responses. Touch can convey comfort, affection, or discomfort. Smells and tastes can trigger memories and emotional associations. These sensory inputs can influence how we interpret situations, form judgments, and make decisions. Our emotions also interact with our cognitive processes, affecting attention, memory, and decision-making. Emotions can bias our perception of events, leading to selective attention and memory recall. This, in turn, influences how we construct our understanding of the world around us. In essence, our senses provide the raw data that our brain processes into emotional experiences, which in turn shape our perception of reality. This dynamic interplay between our senses, emotions, and cognition plays a crucial role in determining how we respond to situations, relate to others, and navigate our lives.
By Uchenna Emmanuel 3 years ago in BookClub
Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience — Eighteen Years Later
Authors preface: I first published this review on Vocal two years ago, and before that I had published a version on Medium. With each republication I have updated or revised various sections. Thought it made sense to resurrect it one more time for a Vocal Book Club Challenge to "write about a book that changed you." This particular book, PFoN, I happen to believe, is one of the most important ever written and, it has impacted my own thinking on a huge range of topics very deeply. At the time this was written I was reading tons and tons about neuroscience. Specifically at this time I had recently completed reading a number of works by Patricia Churchland Smith, a neuroscientist/philosopher of great renown. I found her views disturbing and her positions misguided. She is the queen of the mereological fallacy (see below for what this is) often using the brain and the person interchangeably as she views them as one and the same. She also believes that if we fully understood everything about how the brain works, we could recreate particular states of consciousness. She is the ultimate hard core reductionist and views consciousness as nothing more than a particular series of electro-chemical reactions in the brain which, like particular states of consciousness, we could replicate artificially if we fully understood. No body would be required for this miraculous achievement. My guess is the AI crowd is a big fan of her work, myself, not so much. In any event, Dr. Churchland-Smith is a frequent target of Bennet and Hacker's logical breakdowns of various neuroscientific studies and claims about the brain and consciousness, which they dissect and show to be in error point by point.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in BookClub
Cinderella: The Native American Story
IN THE SHORES of a wide straight on the Atlantic shoreline of what is presently called Canada there stayed in bygone eras an extraordinary Local American fighter known for his wondrous deeds. He had an extremely magnificent and unusual power - he could make himself undetectable. In this manner he could blend concealed with his foes and pay attention to their plots. He was referred to among individuals as Solid Breeze, the Imperceptible.
By L.Soufiane3 years ago in BookClub
The Survivalists: A Novel by Kashana Cauley (January)
Community gardeners meet doomsday preppers stockpiling weapons above a trendy coffee shop in The Survivalists (Soft Skull Press), a darkly funny look at how people form communities to care for one another amid institutional failures and scarcity. Set in a mostly Black Central Brooklyn, this debut novel from Kashana Cauley, a former lawyer, Daily Show with Trevor Noah writer, and New York Times contributor, finds humour in our hostile, uncertain present while outlining starkly different visions of the future—and how we might prepare for them. — Lisa Wong Macabasco.
By Sarah Habarneh3 years ago in BookClub
The Wager Book Review
David Grann's The Wager is a masterful work of nonfiction that tells the story of the Wager Mutiny, a real-life event that took place in 1741. The book is a gripping tale of shipwreck, survival, and murder, but it is also much more than that. It is a meditation on the nature of power, the limits of human endurance, and the power of storytelling.
By Timothy A Rowland3 years ago in BookClub
ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES WRITTEN BY JENNIFER NIVEN
ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES WRITTEN BY JENNIFER NIVEN "All the Bright Places" is a young adult novel written by Jennifer Niven. The story revolves around two teenagers, Theodore Finch and Violet Markey, who meet under unusual circumstances and embark on a transformative journey together.
By visionary vibes3 years ago in BookClub
