From an award-winning author comes a tale of a notorious double-murder, for readers of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, or Emmanuel Carrère's The Adversary. In 1982 Malcolm Macarthur, the wealthy heir to a small estate, found himself suddenly without money. The solution, he decided, was to rob a bank. To do this, he would need a gun and a car. In the process of procuring them, he killed two people, and the circumstances of his eventual arrest in the apartment of Ireland's Attorney General nearly brought down the government. The case remains one of the most shocking in Ireland's history. Mark O'Connell has long been haunted by the story of this brutal double murder. But in recent years this haunting has become mutual. When O'Connell sets out to unravel the mysteries still surrounding these horrific and inexplicable crimes, he tracks down Macarthur himself, now an elderly man living out his days in Dublin and reluctant to talk. As the two men circle one another, O'Connell is pushed into a confrontation with his own narrative: what does it mean to write about a murderer?

What is transhumanism? Simply put, it is a movement whose aim is to use technology to fundamentally change the human condition, to improve our bodies and minds to the point where we become something other, and better, than the animals we are. It's a philosophy that, depending on how you look at it, can seem hopeful, or terrifying, or absurd. In To Be a Machine, Mark O'Connell presents us with the first full-length exploration of transhumanism: its philosophical and scientific roots, its key players and possible futures. From charismatic techies seeking to enhance the body to immortalists who believe in the possibility of 'solving' death; from computer programmers quietly re-designing the world to vast competitive robotics conventions; To Be a Machine is an Adventure in Wonderland for our time. To Be a Machine paints a vivid portrait of an international movement driven by strange and frequently disturbing ideas and practices, but whose obsession with transcending human limitations can be seen as a kind of cultural microcosm, a radical intensification of our broader faith in the power of technology as an engine of human progress. It is a character study of human eccentricity, and a meditation on the immemorial desire to transcend the basic facts of our animal existence - a desire as primal as the oldest religions, a story as old as the earliest literary texts.A stunning new non-fiction voice tackles an urgent question... what next for mankind?

Many symbols carry an elemental power that transcends boundaries and holds significance for other cultures. This new and updated edition is a comprehensive and beautiful book that discusses and illustrates thousands of these symbols and assesses their position in language, art, literature, mythology, magic, religion and psychology. In the second half of the book, how we dream and how we interpret dreams is analysed as a way of accessing our subconscious fears, desires and preoccupations. The erudite text provides a wealth of cultural background to primal metaphors that are part of mankind's universal language. The book is both a journey of discovery into the importance of symbolism and dreaming and a vast visual resource of signs and symbols.

The Performing Art of Therapy explores the myriad ways in which acting techniques can enhance the craft of psychotherapy. The book shows how, by understanding therapy as a performing art, clinicians can supplement their theoretical approach with techniques that fine-tune the ways their bodies, voices, and imaginations engage with and influence their clients. Broken up into accessible chapters focused on specific attributes of performance, and including an appendix of step-by-step exercises for practitioners, this is an essential guidebook for therapists looking to integrate their theoretical training into who they are as individuals, find joy in their work, expand their empathy, increase self-care, and inspire clients to perform their own lives.

Veteran worrier, author of To Be a Machine and father-of-two, Mark O'Connell, meets the anarchists, environmentalists, far-right nut-jobs and super-rich who are preparing for the end of days.

NOW UPDATED TO INCLUDE THE LATEST APOCALYPSE.

The apocalypse is nothing new, but of late Mark O'Connell has found himself particularly anxious about the end of the world. As things fall apart around him, he sets out to meet the people preparing to survive: environmentalists meditating in remote Scottish forests, billionaires dreaming of life on Mars or a villa in New Zealand, and conspiracy theorists yearning for a lost American idyll. Journeying with him through this landscape of anxiety, we learn just what it takes to make it to the other side.

The Performing Art of Therapy explores the myriad ways in which acting techniques can enhance the craft of psychotherapy. The book shows how, by understanding therapy as a performing art, clinicians can supplement their theoretical approach with techniques that fine-tune the ways their bodies, voices, and imaginations engage with and influence their clients. Broken up into accessible chapters focused on specific attributes of performance, and including an appendix of step-by-step exercises for practitioners, this is an essential guidebook for therapists looking to integrate their theoretical training into who they are as individuals, find joy in their work, expand their empathy, increase self-care, and inspire clients to perform their own lives.

Mark O'Connell didn't want to be Luke Skywalker, He wanted to be one of the mop-haired kids on the Star Wars toy commercials. And he would have done it had his parents had better pine furniture and a condo in California. Star Wars, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Superman didn't just change cinema - they made lasting highways into our childhoods, toy boxes and video stores like never before. In Watching Skies, O'Connell pilots a gilded X-Wing flight through that shared universe of bedroom remakes of Return of the Jedi, close encounters with Christopher Reeve, sticker album swaps, the trauma of losing an entire Stars Wars figure collection and honeymooning on Amity Island. From the author of Catching Bullets - Memoirs of a Bond Fan, Watching Skies is a timely hologram from all our memory systems. It is about how George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, a shark, two motherships, some gremlins, ghostbusters and a man of steel jumper a whole generation to hyperspace.

This fascinating book examines the use of symbols across all the different ranges and aspects of human experience - from the mundane to the sacred, from the temporal to the eternal. Written by leading authorities in psychology and psychotherapy, the book contains chapters on symbols in society, in nature, in myth and sacred tradition, and in the human life cycle, as well as abstract symbols. The structure of the book is thematic, related signs and symbols are complemented and contrasted, giving a unique guide to their cross-cultural aspects. Some of those symbols that have the most complex meanings - such as the cross, the serpent, the rainbow and the wheel - have been singled out and are discussed in individual essays.

The wildly entertaining and eye-opening biography of J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer who invented the concept of "Close Encounters" with alien life, inspired Steven Spielberg's blockbuster classic science fiction epic film, and made a nation want to believe in UFOs. In June 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold looked out his cockpit window and saw a group of nine silvery crescents weaving between the peaks of the Cascade Mountains at an estimated 1,200 miles an hour. The media, the military, and the scientific community-led by J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer hired by the Air Force-debunked this and many other Unidentified Flying Object sightings reported across the country. But after years of denials, Hynek made a shocking pronouncement: UFOs are real. Thirty years after his death, Hynek's agonizing transformation from skepticism to true believer remains one of the great misunderstood stories of science. In this definitive biography, Mark O'Connell reveals for the first time how Hynek's work both as a celebrated astronomer and as the U. S. Air Force's go-to UFO expert for nearly twenty years stretched the boundaries of modern science, laid the groundwork for acceptance of the possibility of UFOs, and was the basis of the hit film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. With unprecedented access to Hynek's personal and professional files, O'Connell smashes conventional wisdom to reveal the intriguing man and scientist beneath the legend. Tracing Hynek's career, O'Connell examines Hynek's often-ignored work as a professional astronomer to create a complete portrait of a groundbreaking enthusiast who became an American cult icon and transformed the way we see our world and our universe.

From an award-winning author comes a tale of a notorious double-murder, for readers of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, or Emmanuel Carrère's The Adversary In 1982 Malcolm Macarthur, the wealthy heir to a small estate, found himself suddenly without money. The solution, he decided, was to rob a bank. To do this, he would need a gun and a car. In the process of procuring them, he killed two people, and the circumstances of his eventual arrest in the apartment of Ireland's Attorney General nearly brought down the government. The case remains one of the most shocking in Ireland's history and the words used to describe the crimes (grotesque, unprecedented, bizarre, and almost unbelievable) have remained in the cultural lexicon as the acronym GUBU. Mark O'Connell has long been haunted by the story of this brutal double murder. But in recent years this haunting has become mutual. When O'Connell sets out to unravel the mysteries still surrounding these horrific and inexplicable crimes, he tracks down Macarthur himself, now an elderly man living out his days in Dublin and reluctant to talk. As the two men circle one another, O'Connell is pushed into a confrontation with his own narrative: what does it mean to write about a murderer?

What they mean and how we use them. It offers a fascinating visual examination of how signs and symbols developed as a means of communication throughout history in art, religion, psychology, literature and everyday life. It shows how signs weave a continuous fabric of communication throughout our cultures, and how modern systems still depend on ancient symbols. It contains a visual directory of more than 1000 icons, graphic motifs, ideograms and symbols, together with 170 stunning photographs and fine art paintings. Throughout history hundreds of icons and symbols have been developed, interpreted and reproduced; from cave paintings to computer iconography and advertising. This book brings together these variant themes and shows the iconographical and symbolic strands that connect them all, whether it is the universal circle, the hammer and sickle, or the cross that goes far beyond being a symbol of Christianity. The book includes a directory of over 1,000 signs and symbols, from alchemical symbols to the Adinkra signs of Ghana, demonstrating the extraordinary breadth of subject matter and concepts that can be expressed with such simplicity.

When Jimmy O'Connell took a job as chauffeur for 007 producers Eon Productions, it would not just be Cubby Broccoli, Roger Moore and Sean Connery he would drive to James Bond - his grandson Mark swiftly hitched a metaphorical ride too. In Catching Bullets: Memoirs of a Bond Fan, Mark O'Connell takes us on a humorous journey of filmic discovery where Bond films fire like bullets at a Thatcher era childhood, closeted adolescence and adult life as a comedy writer still inspired by that Broccoli movie magic. Catching Bullets is a unique and sharply-observed love-letter to James Bond, Duran Duran title songs and bolting down your tea quick enough to watch Roger Moore falling out of a plane without a parachute.

When boomers' marriages come up short on romance and sex, but seems long on disagreements and strife, many boomers choose to leave. But Mark O'Connell believes they should think twice before doing so. THE MARRIAGE BENEFIT is less a book about how to make our relationships better than it is about how our relationships can make us better if we just work on our expectations and improve communications. Harvard professor and psychotherapist O'Connell offers a peek behind the door of a marriage therapist, where readers can see that their problems are not unique, and get good advice on how to solve them. Through wonderfully revealing anecdotes about couples with problems we all face - long-held bitterness, diminished sexuality, the scars of infidelity and the search for authentic meaning - O'Connell shows how by respecting each other's individuality, looking for 'real' sex, and learning how to play with each other again, we can reap the benefits of the long-term emotional investment we've made.