Partner Events
Brain-Related Events at Powell's Books
January 17
7:30pm, Powell's City of Books
Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people–at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel Pink explains in his new and paradigm-shattering book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.
Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does–and how that affects every aspect of our lives. He demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it's precisely the "wrong" way to motivate people for today's challenges. In Drive, he reveals the three elements of true motivation:
- Autonomy - the desire to direct our own lives
- Mastery - the urge to get better and better at something that matters
- Purpose - the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves
Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward. Drive is bursting with big ideas— the rare book that will change how we think and transform how we live.
Daniel H. Pink is a former White House speechwriter and the author of the bestseller Free Agent Nation, a contributing editor at Wired magazine, he has written on work, business, and politics for The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Slate, Salon, Fast Company, and other publications. He has also lectured to corporations, universities, and associations around the world on economic transformation and business strategy, and has analyzed commercial and social trends for dozens of television and radio programs.
March 17
7:30pm, Powell's City of Books
Stephen Hall "Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience"
We all recognize wisdom, but defining it is more elusive. In a fascinating journey from philosophy to science, Stephen Hall offers us a dramatic history of wisdom, from its sudden emergence in four different locations (Greece, China, Israel, and India) in the fifth century B.C. to its modern manifestations in education, politics, and the workplace.
Hall explores the neural mechanisms for wise decision making; the conflict between the emotional and cognitive parts of the brain; the development of compassion, humility, and empathy; the effect of adversity and the impact of early-life stress on the development of wisdom; and how we can learn to optimize our future choices and future selves.
Hall's exploration of the science of wisdom allows us to see this ancient virtue with fresh eyes, yet also makes clear that despite modern science's most powerful efforts, wisdom continues to elude easy understanding.
Stephen S. Hall is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, and has written for Science, Health, Discover and other magazines.
Books: Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience; A Commotion in the Blood: Life, Death, and the Immune System; Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension; Invisible Frontiers; and Mapping the Next Millennium.
April 23
7:30pm, Powell's City of Books
Terry McDermott "101 THEORY DRIVE: A Neuroscientist's Quest for Memory"
An obsessive scientist and his eclectic team of researchers race to discover one of the hidden treasures of neuroscience–the physical makeup of memory–and in the process pursue a pharmaceutical wonder drug.
It's not fiction: Gary Lynch is the real thing, the epitome of the rebel scientist–malnourished, contentious, inspiring, explosive, remarkably ambitious, and consistently brilliant. He is one of the foremost figures of contemporary neuroscience, and his decades-long quest to understand the inner workings of the brain's memory machine has begun to pay off.
Award-winning journalist Terry McDermott spent nearly two years observing Lynch at work and now gives us a fascinating and dramatic account of daily life in his lab–the highs and lows, the drudgery and eureka moments, the agonizing failures. He provides detailed, lucid explanations of the cutting-edge science that enabled Lynch to reveal the inner workings of the molecular machine that manufactures memory. And he explains where Lynch's sights are now set: on drugs that could fix that machine when it breaks, drugs that would enhance brain function during the memory process and that hold out the possibility of cures for a wide range of neurological conditions, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Here is an essential story of science, scientists, and scientific achievement–galvanizing in the telling and thrilling in its far-reaching implications.
