A professional psychologist spent his entire life believing he had no ability or interest in sport. Then, in his forties, he became a champion ultradistance athlete before breaking the world record for the fastest bicycle crossing of Europe. This journey - made entirely alone and without any support crew - went from the northernmost point in the Arctic down to the very southernmost point in Spain. Averaging 377 kilometres each day and with up to 18 hours in the saddle at a time, the total distance of 6367 km was covered in well under 17 days, knocking more than two days off the previous record. It was a journey of ultimate self-reliance. Endless Perfect Circles is not just a tale of sleep deprivation and eating terrible food in supermarket car parks, it is also a celebration of how tough sporting challenges offer ordinary people a path to self-improvement. Weaving his own experiences together with psychological insights, Ian Walker demonstrates the rewards we can all find from setting ourselves difficult personal goals and working out how we will rise to meet these. "When I ride, my mind is both crowded and empty. The practical part of me churns, thinking all the time about navigation, shops, food, weather and lodging, seeking information about those raw essentials of life and planning dozens of contingencies. But when I look back on any given ride, even one lasting many days, I would struggle to tell you a single thought that passed through my head, because the rest of my mind has been liberated. All of life’s needs have been simplified by the pure act of riding." About the author Ian Walker splits his time across two related worlds. By day, he is an environmental psychologist at the University of Bath, specialising in transport choices, traffic safety, energy consumption and water use. As you will see from his textbooks, he also teaches research methods and statistics at a whole range of levels from entry-level introductions up to doctoral level. Ian's professional interest in clean transport and traffic safety also extends into his personal life, where he takes part in ultradistance bicycle racing - an activity explored in his new book Endless Perfect Circles. This introduces readers to the extraordinary world of nonstop bicycle races that last for weeks at a time. It goes on to describe how Ian won a tough 4300-kilometre cycle race before breaking the Guinness World Record for the fastest ever bicycle crossing of Europe.

Did you know there is an area of your brain known as the “Lizard Brain” that thinks only about the immediate moment and your means of survival? Yes, in certain circumstances, your “Rational Brain” can effectively “shut down” and you are at the mercy of a reptile ... dry-mouthed, sweating, queasy, unable to think clearly—even though you know better. When does the Lizard Brain run the show? It can happen in any number of unfamiliar, uncomfortable, challenging, or “stressful” riding situations. But here’s the thing: with the right kind of training, you can learn to manage the reptile within, which leads to greater confidence with horses, better riding performance, and ultimately, happiness at the barn, at shows, and everywhere in between. Andrea Monsarrat Waldo teaches you how to: handle uncomfortable emotions, such as fear, anger, anxiety, and embarrassment; hone your mental game and focus your riding time to get the most out of your hours in the saddle; care for your emotional injuries the same way you would care for an injured horse; and produce a state of “Focused Calm” and tap into the skills you have (whether you know it or not!) to ensure an outstanding ride.

Roy Underhill brings to woodworking the intimate relationship with wood that craftsmen enjoyed in the days before power tools. Combining historical background, folklore, alternative technololgy, and humor, he provides both a source of general information and a detailed introduction to traditional woodworking. Beginning with a guide to trees and tools, The Woodwright's Shop includes chapters on gluts and mauls, shaving horses, rakes, chairs, weaving wood, hay forks, dough bowls, lathes, blacksmithing, dovetails, panel-frame construction, log houses, and timber-frame construction. More than 330 photographs illustrate the text.

"In 1893, young journalist Arthur Shaw is at work ... when the Great Storm hits London, wreaking unprecedented damage. In its aftermath, Arthur's newspaper closes, owing him money, and all his debts come due at once ... At one of [his fiancee Josephine's occult society] meetings, Arthur is given a job lead for what seems to be accounting work, but at a salary many times what any clerk could expect. The work is long and peculiar, as the workers spend all day performing unnerving calculations that make them hallucinate or even go mad, but the money is compelling. Things are beginning to look up when the perils of dabbling in the esoteric suddenly come to a head: a war breaks out between competing magical societies"--Dust jacket flap.

The fantasy short stories from Spell Circles, the science fiction short stories from Eccentric Orbits and the literary stories from Life Cycles, collected together in one box set. Desperate magic worked in the face of terrible danger. An old house with a hidden secret. An interview with a zombie. A woman allergic to the twenty-first century. A necromancer with evil written all over his face. Literally. An astronaut alone in the void of deep space. An alien starship capable of destroying all creation. A DNA Detective in search of the genetic code of The Beatles. A terrorist explosion trapped inside a bubble of space/time. A new life-form found in the quantum echoes of the void. Tilting at windmills in the twenty-first century. A dying woman's surprising final wish. The unlikely connections between a Manchester woman and a 17th century Renaissance man. A chance encounter on a motorway. A woman allergic to the modern world. Perfect Circles contains seventy-three stories originally published between 1999 and 2011. Stories range from the very short up to novella length.

Drawing from an interdisciplinary career based upon sociology, Jim Hanson employs poetry to provide perspectives upon the humanities and sciences established in curricula of high education. He starts with ancient empires of history, then works through theology, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, philosophy, language, the sciences, and poets such as T. S. Eliot and Walt Whitman. His poems sparkle with humanistic insight about the issues of these disciplines and their applications to modern society, such as theological and religious speculation, callings of Buddhism and Taoism, contending philosophies of Sartre and Heidegger, and the environmental crisis. His style varies, from long poems of blank verse narrative to short poems of standard rhyme and meter, in order to use poetry's power to enlighten through figurative language and minimal wordage. Heeding Shelley's proclamation that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, he revives the interdisciplinary practices of the ancient poets who speculated about the world through the exclusive use of poetry.

Collected here are the best of 10 years' worth of essays from ideonexus.com covering science culture, Enlightenment ethics, skeptical inquiry, and celebration of natural wonders.