Other books that might interest you

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  Psychological Manipulation -...

  Cito Harder

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  Psychological manipulation refers to the use of deceptive tactics to influence or control another person's thoughts, emotions, or behavior to achieve personal goals. Unlike straightforward persuasion, manipulation typically involves hidden motives and is often unethical in nature. It can be subtle and difficult to detect, as it operates through psychological pressure rather than overt force or coercion. Manipulators seek to gain an advantage by exploiting others' vulnerabilities, creating confusion, and leading them to make decisions that may not be in their best interest. 
  At the core of psychological manipulation lies the manipulator’s ability to control or influence another’s perception of reality. This is achieved by distorting facts, using emotional triggers, or intentionally withholding critical information. The manipulator may use charm, guilt, fear, or flattery to establish control, making it hard for the victim to recognize the manipulation until significant damage is done. This is particularly dangerous because it often leads to a breakdown of trust and can leave the victim feeling confused, powerless, and emotionally drained. 
  Manipulation can occur in any context—personal relationships, workplaces, politics, or media—and often involves a series of calculated tactics. In relationships, a manipulator might use emotional blackmail or gaslighting to make the victim doubt their own perceptions or question their reality. In business or politics, manipulation might involve misleading promises, biased narratives, or using people as pawns to achieve a specific agenda. Regardless of the setting, the manipulator’s objective is the same: to gain an advantage or achieve a goal without the other party’s full awareness or consent.

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  Temporalities of Modernism

  Carmen Borbély, Erika Mihálycsa,...

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  Temporalities of Modernism gathers fourteen scholars whose contributions readdress the very tenets of modernism by approaching its multifaceted relationship with time in a series of fresh and original essays. The contemporary energies behind the collection are rooted in the turbulence of the modernist age: relativity, irreversibility, duration, fragmentation, contingency, and the looming threat of the apocalyptic future. The collection includes geographical areas often neglected by the habitual reduction of modernist studies to English-speaking literary high modernism, or to the concentration of famous figures in the traditional capital of modernism—Paris. Thus it offers detailed presentations of Italian pre-WWI modernism, Czech Dadaism, or of Polish, Romanian, and Hungarian writers and artists. The borders also open in terms of genres and mediums, as the contributions are not limited to fiction, but examine the multi-faceted productions of modernist artists: poetry, theatre, painting, music, cinema, photography, etc. In addition, the limits are temporally stretched out as some contributions focus on more recent writers (such as Sylvia Plath) and their reactivation of modernist discoveries.

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  The Empathy Fix - Why Poverty...

  Keetie Roelen

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  Poverty is bad for everyone. Being at the sharp end of disadvantage is shameful, reduces brainpower, and hampers positive action. It increases crime, burdens healthcare systems and raises taxpayers' bills. With millions around the world struggling to make ends meet and increased socioeconomic uncertainty making poverty a more probable prospect for many more, tackling poverty has never been more urgent. 
   
  Yet, while the ultra-rich bask in the glory of superstar status, people in poverty are cast as second-rate citizens. Deeply engrained prejudice and punitive policies lead to vicious cycles of deprivation. Positive psychology that emphasises personal strengths can be empowering for some, but also feeds toxic narratives of failure and defeat. The flipside of taking credit for individual success is that the inability to achieve it is attributed to personal shortcomings. 
  The Empathy Fix exposes the realities of poverty and reveals why policies don't work. It is a radical rethink of current efforts to tackle poverty, what it means and how we break the cycle. Here, writer and researcher Keetie Roelen provides readers with the tools to relate to poverty, realise why current interventions often don't work, and to respond to the situation in a way that gives everyone a sense of dignity and agency. 
   
  Through empathy, we can all contribute to a more equal society.

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  On Gaslighting

  Kate Abramson

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  "Gaslighting" is suddenly in everyone's vocabulary. It's written about, talked about, tweeted about, even sung about. It's become shorthand for being manipulated by someone who insists that up is down, hot is cold, dark is light—someone who isn't just lying about such things, but trying to drive you crazy. The term has its origins in a 1944 film in which a husband does exactly that to his wife, his crazy-making efforts symbolized by the rise and fall of the gaslights in their home. In this timely and provocative book, Kate Abramson examines gaslighting from a philosophical perspective, investigating it as a distinctive moral phenomenon. 
   
   
   
  Gaslighting, Abramson writes, is best understood as a form of interpersonal interaction, a particular way of fundamentally undermining someone. The gaslighter, Abramson argues, aims to make his target experience herself as incapable of reasoning, perceiving, or reacting in ways that would allow her to form appropriate beliefs, perceptions, or emotions in the first place. He seeks not only to induce in her this unmoored sense of herself but also to make it a reality. Using examples and analysis, Abramson gives an account of gaslighting and its immorality, and argues that such a discussion can help us understand other aspects of social life—from racism and sexism to the structure of interpersonal trust.

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  Being Here Now With Maharaji -...

  Radha Krsna Das

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  * "Whoever works for God, his work will be done by itself." 
  * "Keep God in your heart like you keep money in the bank." 
   
  Neem Karoli Baba known to his followers as Maharaj-ji - was a great Hindu guru, mystic, and devotee of Lord Hanuman. He is very well known outside India for being the spiritual master of a number of prominent Americans who traveled to India in the 1960s and 70s, including spiritual teachers Ram Dass, Bhagavan Das, and musicians Krishna Das and Jai Uttal. His ashrams are in India, and in Taos, New Mexico. Maharaji was a lifelong adept of bhakti-yoga and encouraged service to others (seva) as the highest form of unconditional devotion to God. 
   
  There can be no biography of him. Facts are few, stories many. He seems to have been known by different names in many parts of India, appearing and disappearing through the years. His non-Indian devotees of recent years knew him as Neem Karoli Baba, but mostly as “Maharajji” – a nickname so commonplace in India that one can often hear a tea vendor addressed thus. Just as he said, he was "nobody". He gave no discourses; the briefest, simplest stories were his teachings. Usually, he sat or lay on a wooden bench wrapped in a plaid blanket while a few devotees sat around him. Visitors came and went; they were given food, a few words, a nod, a pat on the head or back, and they were sent away. There was gossip and laughter for he loved to joke. Orders for running the ashram were given, usually in a piercing yell across the compound. Sometimes he sat in silence, absorbed in another world to which we could not follow, but bliss and peace poured down on us. Who he was was no more than the experience of him. Here are his sublime life and teachings.

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  True Crime: Missouri - The...

  David J Krajicek

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  Eleven stories of deadly doings in Missouri by “a standout writer of terse, staccato prose and vivid details” (The Omaha Reader).   Missouri has a bloody history dating back to frontier days—not just in St. Louis or Kansas City but in small towns and rural hamlets where one local summed up how Missourians prefer to handle conflicts: You shoot, you shovel, and you shut up. In this book, David J. Krajicek recounts eleven true tales of shocking and infamous crimes in the state, among them:     The St. Louis barroom murder that inspired the popular song “Stagger Lee”   The vigilante killing of Ken McElroy, the “town bully” of tiny Skidmore, MO   The heartless kidnapping and murder of millionaire Robert Greenlease’s son in Kansas City by a couple of St. Joseph barflies  The Kirkwood City Council massacre  The “throwaway” serial killings of over a dozen young prostitutes in Kansas City by a garbage collector  The forgotten story of “Cockeyed” Cook, a lost soul from Joplin who massacred an entire family and dumped them down a mineshaft  The “American Gothic” killers, farmer Ray Copeland and his wife, Faye, who murdered their farmhands near Chillicothe in a bizarre plot to make money—but made the mistake of planting their human crop too shallow  And more

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