For 50 years, the world’s most brilliant neuroscientists have struggled to understand how human brains really work. Today, says Dale Purves, the dominant research agenda may have taken us as far as it can—and neuroscientists may be approaching a paradigm shift.

In this highly personal book, Purves reveals how we got to this point and offers his notion of where neuroscience may be headed next. Purves guides you through a half-century of the most influential ideas in neuroscience and introduces the extraordinary scientists and physicians who created and tested them.

Purves offers a critical assessment of the paths that neuroscience research has taken, their successes and their limitations, and then introduces an alternative approach for thinking about brains. Building on new research on visual perception, he shows why common ideas about brain networks can’t be right and uncovers the factors that determine our subjective experience. The resulting insights offer a deeper understanding of what it means to be human.

Part guide to better spelling, part paean to an endangered art, Eyes Before Ease is filled with fascinating trivia, historical asides, astute personal observations, and good-natured humor about why spelling is still important--even with the advent of spellcheckers. Professor Larry Beason argues that spelling is more than just the correct arrangement of letters--it sheds light on the human experience itself. It lets us communicate with other people, it indicates (right or wrong) our intelligence, and also brings us together as a community.

Beason also explains why our particular spelling system is so difficult, how to become a better speller, and why you should never trust a cyborg for the correct spelling of a homophone.

'Even before its publication is has become the must-read text for politicians in this country who are searching for a new prism through which to examine the apparently intractable challenges of social immobility, school drop-out rates, welfare dependency and crime....David Cameron and Ed Miliband are both meeting the author when comes to London later this month. Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister's strategy guru, has invited Brooks to hold a seminar at No.10. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, who picked up a copy on a recent trip to New York, is convinced that the book contains vital clues for turning around failing schools and social mobility.

Teaching is one of the most cognitively engaging, emotionally draining, and physically demanding occupations there is. In fact, it is such a complex job that one life-time is not enough to master it, which is what makes it such a wonderful career. No matter whether you are a beginning teacher or a 20-year veteran, one can always get better at it, and this book is a great resource for helping in that journey. Beginning teachers will find lots of useful advice about this incredibly hard job; practical, sure, but also realistic about what is achievable in typical classrooms. And even the grizzled classroom veteran will find something new, or at least a new way of looking at old things, here. And this book is funny. It is laugh-out-loud, embarass-yourself-in-public funny. Every teacher should read it (in private). --Professor Dylan Wiliam, Deputy Director, Institute of Education, University of London

Shocking stories, fruity language, stand-up humour, gruesome anecdotes, and politically-incorrect hints -- Phil Beadle takes the 'horrible histories' approach to the how-to-teach manual. The result is a funny, informative, practical and realistic book overflowing with memorable, cut-out-and-keep, easy-to-follow tips. Reading this book will be a whole lot more fun than your first teaching practice - and more valuable too. Beadle is the wise, but mischievous, old lag in the corner of the staffroom - pull up a chair and wonder at his stories of survival. They could save your teaching career. --Mike Baker, BBC News/The Guardian