Books For Adults and Teens

SECRETS OF LATERAL THINKING
101 Ideas for Thinking Creatively

Rob Eastaway

978-1-62795-050-3 | Paperback | 144 pages | 4.9″ x 6.7″

List Price: $7.95

DESCRIPTION

Break out of your mental rut and expand your creative thinking with this guide to thinking outside the box. Our minds crave stimulation, excitement, and adventure. Our minds want to wander, dream, and stretch out. But as creatures of habit we tend to gravitate toward familiar patterns and regimented routines. And while this helps us get through the day to day business of living our lives, it also stifles our creativity and gets in the way of letting us achieve our true goals and aspirations. Secrets of Lateral Thinking helps us to rekindle that creative spark so we can break out of the box and live the creative, stimulating lives we really desire.

These 101 techniques will help you discover creative new styles of thinking and novel approaches to problem solving, opening you up to new possibilities in every aspect of your life. Choose from a wide repertoire of mind-expanding creative thinking strategies for home, work, and leisure. Discover the value of following your intuition and thinking laterally, and get yourself out of that creative rut. Featuring fun puzzles, insightful strategies and stimulating problems to help jump-start your creative processes, Secrets of Lateral Thinking is your entertaining pocket guide to expanding your mental horizons.

AUTHOR BIO

Rob Eastaway has authored and co-authored over ten books on puzzles, memory, and mental fitness including The Memory Kit, How to Remember, and Mindbenders and Brain Teasers. He gives lectures and workshops on mathematics and is the director of Maths Inspiration, a national program of interactive lecture shows. He lives in London.

SECRETS OF IQ TRAINING
101 Ways to Sharpen Your Mind

Ron Bracey

978-1-62795-049-7 | Paperback | 144 pages | 4.9″ x 6.7″

List Price: $7.95

DESCRIPTION

Are you smarter than you think? Take your mind to its full capacity with this easy-to-follow guide that can help boost your IQ rating, Just as physical exercise builds muscle tissue, a good mental workout regimen can help stimulate brain cells and actually raise your IQ. In this compact volume, respected clinical psychologist Ron Bracey gives you 101 proven ways to strengthen your reasoning skills, increase mental flexibility and enhance your ability to analyze and retain information. Whether your aim is to improve your score on an IQ test, or simply strengthen your memory, keeping your mind sharp and youthful can impact every aspect of your life from tackling tough problems at work to improving conversation skills to helping kids with their homework.

More than just an IQ strengthening tool, Secrets of IQ Training offers proven techniques on mastering Smart Thinking skills such as intuition and creative problem solving to help your brain live up to its full potential. Featuring helpful diagrams, sample IQ questions, and eye-opening tips on everything from improving memory to enhancing emotional intelligence, this is the ultimate guide to your mental fitness.

AUTHOR BIO

Ron Bracey is an author and consultant clinical psychologist. He writes for a variety of publications on a range of subjects relating to memory, intelligence and maximizing the brain’s potential.

PENDULUM
The Magic Pendulum
(Library of Oracles)

Susanne Peymann
Contribution by Ingrid Kraaz von Rohr

978-1-62795-020-6 | Book & Kit | 160 pages | 5.8″ x 8.8″

List Price: $24.95

DESCRIPTION

The use of the pendulum is an ancient art of accessing information not available to us through the use of our senses. Basic dowsing pendulums consist of a weight suspended on a flexible string or chain. Any such combination will give radiesthetic (dowsing) reaction in the hand of a sensitive person, though in truth, only a very small percentage of people don’t get any reaction, even after basic training. In this practical guide to mastering the use of the pendulum, bestselling author Susanne Peymann provides a unique bridge between the traditional esoteric approach and modern-day psychology. She presents old and contemporary pendulum interpretations that have been customized to provide practical support to those seeking answers in today’s world of constant decision making. Pendulum: The Magic Pendulum also includes an original contribution by Ingrid Kraaz von Rohr on “Using the Pendulum as an Oracle” and an excerpt from Hajo Banzhaf’s The Return of the Oracle.

This unique set includes:

• A 160-page full-color, fully illustrated handbook
• Pendulum boards and a high-quality brass pendulum on a chain
• A fabric bag to hold the pendulum

AUTHOR BIO

Bestselling author Susanne Peymann has sold more than 80,000 books about prophecy and oracles. She manages to provide a unique bridge between the traditional esoteric approach and modern-day psychology. She presents old and contemporary pendulum tables to provide practical support in today’s world of constant decision making.

CHAKRA CRYSTALS
Promote Balance and Self-healing Through Crystal Meditations

Dr. Kate Tomas

978-1-62795-139-5 | Book & Kit | 144 pages | 5.5″ x 7.8″

List Price: $24.95

DESCRIPTION

Discover the ancient knowledge of chakra healing and restore balance to your mind, body, and spirit with this unique kit containing a book and pouch with seven crystals, the most ancient tools of personal and spiritual development. Within all living beings are powerful energy centers called chakras, which hold the potential for immense restoration. Dr. Kate Tomas, a trained psychic and master magical energy strategist, shows you how to have a more fulfilling life through the power of meditation-based crystal healing using your chakras. The 160-page book is a practical guide to working with the vibration of the kit’s crystals and the body’s chakras for self-healing and empowerment.

Great for beginners, this kit contains seven powerful crystals that work with your body’s chakras:

• Clear Quartz is for the Crown chakra
• Sodalite is for the Brow chakra
• Blue Quartz is for the Throat chakra
• Green Quartz is for the Heart chakra
• Yellow Jasper is for the Solar Plexus chakra
• Carnelian is for the Sacral chakra
• Black Obsidian is for the Base chakra

AUTHOR BIO

Dr. Kate Tomas is a renowned psychic, witch, and crystal healer who works to awaken people to their infinite potential and help them tap into their innate gifts. Her compassion, wisdom, and world-class education have all earned her the reputation as one of the most sought-after magical practitioners working today. She holds a doctoral degree in philosophical theology from the University of Oxford and lives between London and New York with her spouse Ames, two rescue cats, George and Gershwin, and a rescue chihuahua, Dominic.

THE CRUSADES
Their History and Myths Revealed
(History and Myths Revealed)

Michael Paine

978-1-62795-091-6 | Paperback with flaps | 192 pages | 7″ x 9.1″

List Price: $16.95

DESCRIPTION

Bloody, violent and often misunderstood, the Crusades still loom large as a chilling example of what is possible when two powerful cultures collide. They were the stage upon which the great medieval knights and their Saracen opponents, acted out their dramas. They were the battleground on which two opposing religions and cultures met, with results that have resonated down the centuries to this day. What were the Crusades? Why were they fought? And what did they teach us? Exploring the history, myths and imagery that comprise our modern understanding of this long and vicious clash between Christianity and Islam, The Crusades is a stimulating examination of one of the most brutal and complex chapters in our shared history.

AUTHOR BIO

Michael Paine is a writer and musician. He has written books on Ancient Greece, Thomas Bernhard, and Blaise Pascal, amongst others. He lives in London.

THE CATHARS
Their History and Myths Revealed
(History and Myths Revealed)

Sean Martin

978-1-62795-008-4 | Paperback with flaps | 192 pages | 7″ x 9.2″

List Price: $16.95

DESCRIPTION

Catharism was the most successful heresy of the Middle Ages. Believing themselves to be the true heirs to the true Christian heritage, the Cathars completely rejected the Catholic Church, and held their services in barns, fields, and people’s homes. As practitioners of vegetarianism, nonviolence and tolerance and through their liberal attitude towards women, the Cathars gained support from the French nobility and were popular with the peasants and artisans. Their presence moved the Church to start the Inquisition and launched the Albigensian Crusade — the first to be directed against fellow Christians . This erased any traces of the Cathars, and it was the first instance of European genocide. This beautifully illustrated volume by the leading author on the subject unveils the mysteries surrounding the Cathars, their links with the Knights Templar, the Troubadours, and the search for the Holy Grail — and draws stunning parallels with the present-day persecution of minorities around the world.

AUTHOR BIO

Sean Martin is an Anglo-Irish writer and film director. He has written popular books on the Knights Templar and the Cathars. He has appeared in History Channel documentaries such as Decoding the Past: The Templar Code and in Channel 5’s Secrets of the Cross: The Trial of the Knights Templar.

FREEMASONRY
Its History and Myths Revealed
(History and Myths Revealed)

Giles Morgan

978-1-62795-038-1 | Paperback with flaps | 192 pages | 7″ x 9″

List Price: $16.95

DESCRIPTION

The world of Freemasonry exerts a powerful influence on the modern imagination. To some they represent a powerful and shadowy elite who have manipulated world history throughout the ages, while to others they are an altogether more mundane and benign fraternal organization. This thorough reference explores the obscure and uncertain origins of Freemasonry and examines the validity of claims surrounding its early association with the Temple of Solomon and the Knights Templar. It also explains the rituals and practices of Freemasonry, which have been viewed as variously obscure, pointless, baffling, and even sinister. The historical significance of Masonry—including its role in colonial America—is also addressed along with its position and role in contemporary society.

AUTHOR BIO

Giles Morgan is the author of The Holy Grail, Saint George, and Saints.

PROBABILITY & STATISTICS
How Mathematics Can Predict the Future
(Inside Mathematics)

Mike Goldsmith
Series Editor: Tom Jackson

978-1-62795-144-9 | Paperback with flaps | 184 pages | 7.5″ x 8.8″

List Price: $19.95

DESCRIPTION

One of the hardest questions that mathematics teachers have to answer is “Why?” Schoolroom sums are crucial in learning the awesome power of mathematics, but they are often a world away from how the knowledge is applied and where it came from. Inside Mathematics: Probability & Statistics is there to fill that gap. What are the chances of that? Mathematics can solve that mystery for you using a set of ideas that grew out of an aristocratic gambler’s bafflement at betting on complex dice games. In stepped the mathematical giants of Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal, who worked together to create what is now called probability theory. Gamblers need not rejoice in this powerful theory; it shows that the casino always wins in the end. The ideas of probability have since found many better uses elsewhere. For example, they are at work in the mathematics that describes the quantum world and drives the push for artificial intelligence. The mathematics of chance is involved in understanding systems where myriad data points combine.

Statistics is the branch of mathematics that wrangles that data and tames it into meaningful knowledge. It then allows us to get ever better at modeling complex phenomena, from the formation of stars and the path of a hurricane to the rise and fall of the markets. Inside Mathematics: Probability & Statistics introduces the reader to these awesome mathematical powers by telling the stories of who figured them out. They include a cavalry officer hoping to reduce injuries from horse kicks, Charles Darwin’s cousin who discovered that we make the best guesses when we work together, and computers that are built to program themselves. Written to engage and enthuse young people, Inside Mathematics shows readers how the ideas of long-dead geniuses have ended up in their homework assignments.

• Probability & Statistics: How Mathematics Can Predict the Future changes the question from “Why?” to “What’s next?”
• Arranged chronologically to show how ideas in mathematics evolved.

AUTHOR BIO

Dr. Mike Goldsmith is a science writer and former head of the UK’s National Physical Laboratory, where he specialized in astronomy and the science of sound. In his many nonfiction books for children, Mike engages with a wide range of topics, including mathematics, space exploration, time travel, and the history of science. Mike received a PhD in astrophysics from Keele University in the UK. He lives in Twickenham, southwest London. Tom Jackson, series editor, is a science and technology writer based in the UK. Tom specializes in recasting these subjects into lively historical narratives by uncovering vivid stories that help to create new ways to enjoy the sciences. He studied at the University of Bristol and still lives in that city with his wife and three children.

NUMBERS
How Counting Changed the World
(Inside Mathematics)

Tom Jackson

978-1-62795-074-9 | Paperback with flaps | 184 pages | 7.5″ x 8.9″

List Price: $19.95

DESCRIPTION

Think math is boring? Think again! Numbers: How Counting Changed the World cracks open the history of numbers to explore the surprising, fascinating, and sometimes mind-boggling evolution of mathematics through the ages. Did you know that the division symbol is actually a dagger? Or that something as simple as 1, 2, 3, nearly ended up breaking math for good? What is an imaginary number exactly? Numbers may seem simple on the surface but they will defy your imagination. Written to engage, entertain and enthuse readers young and old, Numbers: How Counting Changed the World takes an entirely new approach to the wonderful world of mathematics.

Along the way, readers will meet the early geniuses who figured out what numbers are and what we could do with them. They’ll learn how numbers influence almost everything around us from the invention of the first computer, to the way we count and experience time itself. And they’ll encounter strange and quirky stories about some of math’s biggest names. From John Napier, the inventor of algorithms, who never went anywhere without his pet rooster, to Pythagoras, who just might have been a murderer, Numbers: How Counting Changed the World shows that there is much more to numbers than 1, 2, 3.

AUTHOR BIO

Tom Jackson is a science writer based in the United Kingdom. Tom specializes in recasting science and technology into lively historical narratives. After almost 20 years of writing, Tom has uncovered a wealth of stories that help create new ways to enjoy learning about science. He studied at the University of Bristol and still lives in the city with his wife and three children.