Forced to take an anger management class, Iris, sent because of a meltdown on a crowded flight, and Ken, who was caught defacing library books with rude messages about his former boyfriend, soon become fast friends, as they send each other to insinuate themselves into the other's lives. Original. 20,000 first printing.

As can only happen in New York, two strangers find themselves railroaded into an anger-management class, where they soon become fast friends. Iris is there because of an eminently justifiable meltdown on a crowded flight, whereas Ken got caught defacing library books with rude (but true!) messages about his former boyfriend. The boyfriend that he caught in bed with another man. Needless to say, Iris and Ken were cosmically destined to be friends. What follows is a strikingly original comedy as Ken enlists Iris to infiltrate his ex-boyfriend’s life in the hope of discovering that he’s miserable. And Iris reciprocates, dispatching Ken to work himself into the confidence of her own boyfriend, whom she suspects of cheating. But what if Ken’s ex isn’t crying himself to sleep? What if he’s not the amoral fiend Ken wants to believe he is? And what should Iris do when her worst suspicions start to come true? Exactly how perfect do we have the right to expect our fellow human beings to be? Anger, betrayal, loyalty, and friendship—Design Flaws of the Human Condition explores these universal themes with wisdom, compassion, and a wickedly irreverent sense of humor.

Powerful strategies to combat the design flaws of the human brain that make life in the twenty-first century unreasonably difficult. If other animals could study us the way we study them, they would be puzzled by our unique ability to inflict misery on ourselves. We expend a lot of energy replaying past anguish, anticipating future distress, and stewing in self-righteous anger. Other animals would call us out for being oddly paradoxical creatures who long to be happy but who are the source of their own suffering, We worry about things we have no control over. We complain about not being understood while casting a critical eye on others. We stubbornly defend our beliefs despite contradictory evidence. Complicating all of this is our struggle to adapt to a complex world that we created. who struggle to adapt to a confusing world that we ourselves created. In our defence, we haven’t yet mastered our neuron-packed brains, whose incredible complexity evolved over millennia in a very different world than today’s. The result of this evolutionary journey? Five design features that often morph into design flaws in need of fixing. Hard to Be Human corrals the best insights from psychology, neuroscience, physics, and philosophy to reveal powerful strategies for the five big battles we each face in the war with our misguided, misbehaving selves. Tapping into deeply personal stories to ground the concepts in real life, Cadsby reveals how we can overcome our design flaws to be smarter, happier, and better adapted to the complexities of life in the twenty-first century.

What is the purpose of life? For what reason do we exist? These are the questions Hans-Juergen Strichow addresses in his search for the answer to Why Do We Live? With his thorough analysis of conceptual ideas of physics, metaphysics, survival of the fittest, and the fulfilment of needs and wants, we are not only witnessing a new body of knowledge (or science) relating to why we exist on this planet, but also the existence of a God (or Grand Designer of everything there is), the key to which lies in the irrefutable connection between ""The Human Condition"" and ""The Grand Order of Design."" Further proof is provided by 'Why' the businesses of industry and government operate the way they do, and what purposes they provide for humanity. Strichow touches on global crises of poverty, climate control, and economic woes; postulates on the strategy of government, religion, and education; and theorises on the different role players in business. From well-researched fact sharing, and from retelling memories of his own youth, adolescence, and adulthood, we see examples of how symptom bearers and problem solvers will always fluctuate in the way they seek the answer to their ""Ultimate Purpose in Life.""

“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” Blaise Pascal wrote in 1654. But then there’s Walt Whitman, in 1856: “Whoever you are, come forth! Or man or woman come forth! / You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house.” It is truly an ancient debate: Is it better to be active or contemplative? To do or to think? To make an impact, or to understand the world more deeply? Aristotle argued for contemplation as the highest state of human flourishing. But it was through action that his student Alexander the Great conquered the known world. Which should we aim at? Centuries later, this argument underlies a surprising number of the questions we face in contemporary life. Should students study the humanities, or train for a job? Should adults work for money or for meaning? And in tumultuous times, should any of us sit on the sidelines, pondering great books, or throw ourselves into protests and petition drives? With Action versus Contemplation, Jennifer Summit and Blakey Vermeule address the question in a refreshingly unexpected way: by refusing to take sides. Rather, they argue for a rethinking of the very opposition. The active and the contemplative can—and should—be vibrantly alive in each of us, fused rather than sundered. Writing in a personable, accessible style, Summit and Vermeule guide readers through the long history of this debate from Plato to Pixar, drawing compelling connections to the questions and problems of today. Rather than playing one against the other, they argue, we can discover how the two can nourish, invigorate, and give meaning to each other, as they have for the many writers, artists, and thinkers, past and present, whose examples give the book its rich, lively texture of interplay and reference. This is not a self-help book. It won’t give you instructions on how to live your life. Instead, it will do something better: it will remind you of the richness of a life that embraces action and contemplation, company and solitude, living in the moment and planning for the future. Which is better? Readers of this book will discover the answer: both.

What if life is a game? Are you winning? Have you even decided what 'winning' is? Game design could be defined in many ways, but here the term is used to denote the practice of creating choices. Designing a game, in this sense, involves crafting limits, rewards, incentives, and risks in such a way that the person who interacts with the game – the player – makes choices that have consequences. Edward Castronova urges readers to think about the fundamentals of the human condition and compare them to different games that we all know. In some ways, life is like an idle game: providing unchallenging distractions that fit easily into a person's daily routine. In other ways, life is like the game Minesweeper: You poke in different places to learn about what you don't know, taking care to avoid big explosions. Or, life is like a role-playing game: You adopt a persona and speak your part, always seeking adventure. Bringing together questions relating to diverse fields – such as politics, economics, sociology and philosophy - Castronova persuades readers to broaden the scope of game design to answer questions about life's everyday obstacles. The object of this book is to take seriously the idea that life is a game. The goal is not to make readers wealthier or healthier. Its goal is to go on a journey into the human condition, with game design as a guide.