"By the law of averages, I should not be around for the writing of this book, nor the subsequent ones, but it has to be said that in this life, against all the odds, there are the survivors, which is obviously the category into which I fall." On Looking Back is the first in a series of books that reveal the compelling life story of Elizabeth Dumpleton. Each chapter takes the reader on a journey, beginning with Elizabeth’s younger years, where she fondly recounts her friendships and adventures, living with her five older brothers and their single mother in the East-End. She then experiences the early death of her mother and is forced to endure a life fraught with unhappiness and danger, as she is ripped from her brothers with a sudden evacuation to the country during the war. Elizabeth lays bare her emotions, recalling each memory honestly and unashamedly. One moment the reader could be chuckling along with an amusing anecdote, before sinking into sadness as she battles the twists and turns of a war-torn life. Full of compassion, On Looking Back is an emotional read from start to finish. Fans of biographies and memoirs will find this book difficult to put down once they pick it up.

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog, this “elegant and entertaining” (The Boston Globe) explanation of how humans perceive their environments “does more than open our eyes...opens our hearts and minds, too, gently awakening us to a world—in fact, many worlds—we’ve been missing” (USA TODAY). Alexandra Horowitz shows us how to see the spectacle of the ordinary—to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, “the observation of trifles.” Structured around a series of eleven walks the author takes, mostly in her Manhattan neighborhood, On Looking features experts on a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, the well-known artist Maira Kalman, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. Horowitz also walks with a child and a dog to see the world as they perceive it. What they see, how they see it, and why most of us do not see the same things reveal the startling power of human attention and the cognitive aspects of what it means to be an expert observer. Page by page, Horowitz shows how much more there is to see—if only we would really look. Trained as a cognitive scientist, she discovers a feast of fascinating detail, all explained with her generous humor and self-deprecating tone. So turn off the phone and other electronic devices and be in the real world—where strangers communicate by geometry as they walk toward one another, where sounds reveal shadows, where posture can display humility, and the underside of a leaf unveils a Lilliputian universe—where, indeed, there are worlds within worlds within worlds.

Why are some people more mentally able than others ? In an authoritative, critical and intergrated series of review essays Professor Ian Deary inquires after the cognitive and biological foundations of human mental ability differences. Many accounts of intelligence have examined the structureand number of human mental ability differences and whether they can predict sucess in education,work and social life. Few books have taken psychometric intelligence differences as a starting point and brought together the reductionistic attempts to explain them.New to the highly acclaimed OxfordPsychology Series, Looking Down on Human Intelligence appraises the search for the origins of psychometric intelligence differences in terms of brain function parameters. The book provides an original and thought provoking guide to ancient and modern research on one of the most compelling questionsin human psychology.

For Dray Emerald, it all started back in Grade 11 when he was sixteen years old, when life was simple and he know who he was and how to be happy. That's when he had a crush on the perfect girl, Anna Markus. But when she moved away from their hometown of Smithers, British Columbia, everything began to change. Dray, a once-perfect Mormon boy turns his back on his faith and family and gets caught up in a world of drugs and alcohol. He gets kicked out of the rich and privileged life his parents have handed him. Planning on hitting the road without ever looking back, fate keeps him in town for one last summer. At the age of seventeen, he finds himself living in his own apartment. For the first time in his life, the possibilities are endless. He has the chance to win over Anna, who's back in town for summer break, but he's torn between her and the lovely Rose Miller, his hometown sweetheart and longtime friend. Things slowly tilt into place as the seasons change. By coming to terms with the world around him his friends, family, and his hometown of Smithers he nears closer to solving the mystery in his heart.

Life can be pretty tricky when you're a teenage girl. New things matter: Clothes. Parties. Boys. Suddenly being liked and being popular don't mean the same thing. Your parents get completely bizarre when the subject of dating comes up. A friend you've had forever stabs you in the back for no good reason. Everybody you know seems to feel free to comment on your constantly changing body. Drugs and alcohol go from being what you see "bad" kids doing on television shows to what you see your friends doing when no adults are around. How are you supposed to deal? Since life doesn't come with a set of instructions, it helps to turn to people who have been through the stuff that you're facing. Even parents can help. (Really!) In Boys Will Put You on a Pedestal (so they can look up your skirt), former teenage boy -- and current dad of two daughters -- Philip Van Munching helps guide you through some of life's most confusing topics. From Beauty to Grief, from Sex to Fate, Van Munching covers the things you most want to know about and, in his wise, warm, and funny way, offers advice on how you can become the young woman you most want to be.