How To Human

Being human is hard. Being a good human is even harder. Practicing kindness, honesty, and self-awareness in the face of doubt, failure, ambiguity, and vulnerability can feel insurmountable. How to Human is here to help. Alice Connor draws on nearly a decade of experience as a college chaplain to provide a tender and irreverent take on one of life's most fundamental questions: how to be a better human in a world dead set against it. Connor offers sage wisdom and no-nonsense realism through real-life examples that strike right at the rashes and rubs of the human experience. She'll take you by the hand, tell you what you need to hear, and encourage you to embrace the chaos. How to Human will help you see life as an experiment--not a quest for the right answers.

From Guardian writer Paula Cocozza, a debut novel of the breakdown of a marriage, suburbian claustrophobia, and a woman's unseemly passion for a fox You've seen a fox. Come face to face in an unexpected place, or at an unexpected moment. And he has looked at you, as you have looked at him. As if he has something to tell you, or you have something to tell him. But what if it didn't stop there? When Mary arrives home from work one day to find a magnificent fox on her lawn—his ears spiked in attention and every hair bristling with his power to surprise—it is only the beginning. He brings gifts (at least, Mary imagines they are gifts), and gradually makes himself at home. And as he listens to Mary, Mary listens back. She begins to hear herself for the first time in years. Her bullish ex-boyfriend, still lurking on the fringes of her life, would be appalled. So would the neighbours with a new baby. They only like wildlife that fits with the decor, and they are determined to defend the boundary between the domestic and the wild. But inside Mary a wildness is growing that will not be tamed. In this extraordinary debut, the lines between sanity and safety, obsession and delusion blur, in a thrilling exploration of what makes us human.

From pet keeping to sky burials, a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of and challenge to human particularity in medieval texts Mainstream medieval thought, like much of mainstream modern thought, habitually argued that because humans alone had language, reason, and immortal souls, all other life was simply theirs for the taking. But outside this scholarly consensus teemed a host of other ways to imagine the shared worlds of humans and nonhumans. How Not to Make a Human engages with these nonsystematic practices and thought to challenge both human particularity and the notion that agency, free will, and rationality are the defining characteristics of being human. Recuperating the Middle Ages as a lost opportunity for decentering humanity, Karl Steel provides a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of a wide range of medieval texts. Exploring such diverse topics as medieval pet keeping, stories of feral and isolated children, the ecological implications of funeral practices, and the “bare life” of oysters from a variety of disanthropic perspectives, Steel furnishes contemporary posthumanists with overlooked cultural models to challenge human and other supremacies at their roots. By collecting beliefs and practices outside the mainstream of medieval thought, How Not to Make a Human connects contemporary concerns with ecology, animal life, and rethinkings of what it means to be human to uncanny materials that emphasize matters of death, violence, edibility, and vulnerability.

Who said friends have to match to matter? When the Star Boy's space-pod crashes in the grounds of Fairfield Academy he knows he must seek shelter. Taking refuge in the school's boiler room to await rescue he discovers that the room's small window is the perfect place to watch humans go by. The Star Boy knows about humans from his Earth lessons but no one from his planet has ever studied them up close. Now he has the perfect opportunity. There are two humans in particular that catch his attention - a boy called Wes and a girl named Kiki. But as his curiosity grows so does his courage and, making a momentous decision, the Star Boy follows Wes and Kiki into class ... and into their lives. A warm and otherworldly story about finding friendship in the most unlikely of places, for fans of Tamsin Winter, Cath Howe and Ross Welford.

How to Pass as Human is an attempt on the part of the world's first android to understand the irrational, unpredictable, eclectic creatures known as human beings. Written in the form of a field guide, complete with sketches, graphs, flowcharts, and other reference materials, Android Zero (aka "Zach") has compiled a variety of useful information for future androids on how to pass undetected as human beings. Along the way, he also attempts to solve the mystery of his own creation with the help of Andrea, a human female who has taken an interest in him that may be more than friendly, and eventually leading him to "meet his maker" and discover the surprising purpose of his existence.

The award-winning science writer shares “a winding romp through advances in cell biology [that] pushes readers to ponder the boundaries of life” (Science). In the summer of 2017, scientists removed a tiny piece of flesh from Philip Ball’s arm and turned it into a rudimentary “mini-brain.” The skin cells, removed from his body, did not die but were instead transformed into nerve cells that independently arranged themselves into a dense network and communicated with each other, exchanging the raw signals of thought. This was life—but whose? That disconcerting question is the focus of Philip Ball’s How to Grow a Human. In this mind-bending tour of cutting-edge cell biology, Ball shows how recent innovations could lead to tailor-made replacement organs; new medical advances for repairing damage and assisting conception; and new ways of “growing a human.” Such methods would also create new options for gene editing, with all the attendant moral dilemmas. Ball argues that these advances can never be “just about the science,” because they are already laden with a host of social narratives, preconceptions, and prejudices. But beyond even that, these developments raise provocative questions about identity and self, birth and death, and force us to ask how mutable the human body really is—and what forms it might take in years to come.

'Byrne's book is about scientific parenting, and it is very welcome indeed ... breezy and digestible ... this is such a good book' Tom Whipple, The Times Kids aren't all the same. You can't follow instructions and expect success every time. So what if parents approached their children as questions to be answered and not problems to be solved? Scientist Emma Byrne takes evidence-based information on everything from physical and emotional development to what is really happening during sleep and separation anxiety, then shows how to apply it to the unique child in front of you. She challenges perceived wisdom by focusing on the variance as well as the mean - because your child is an individual, not an average. Like all good scientists, you're going to have a few missteps along the way. You'll reach dead ends; you'll need to wrack your brain for new approaches. But by staying curious, creative and paying attention to what's really happening with your family, Emma Byrne will help you figure it out. Just in time for everything to change once again.

With powerful words and pictures Florida Frenz chronicles her journey figuring out how to read facial expressions, how to make friends, how to juggle all the social cues that make school feel like a complicated maze. Diagnosed with autism as a two-year-old, Florida is now an articulate 15-year-old whose explorations into how kids make friends, what popularity means, how to handle peer pressure will resonate with any preteen. For those wondering what it's like inside an autistic child's head, Florida's book provides amazing insight and understanding. Reading how she learns how to be human makes us all feel a little less alien.