motivation

New Science Of Rapid Personal Change - Dr John Demartini

From the award-winning author of Creep comes a powerful book by a writer at the peak of her powers—at once a love letter to California and a literary tour de force that tells the story of resilience and reclamation through a relationship with plants, memory, myth, and indigenous knowledge.

Myriam Gurba has lived in California her entire life, with its plants and soils, forests and ecology, immersing herself in the language of the landscape as refracted through the languages and memories of her ancestors. In Poppy State, California plants serve as structural anchors in a wildly inventive work of narrative nonfiction that is part botanical criticism, part personal storytelling, and part study of place. The reader is invited to commune with California with Gurba as their guide, ushered through a compendium of anecdotes, reminiscences, utterances, lists, incantations, newspaper articles, and other ephemera.

Through the stories of these plants she comes to a new understanding of what occurs in the cultivation of a soul. Gurba learns if she can care for her body as she does her plants, her soul can thrive—like the California poppy on her kitchen windowsill. And through walks in the Angeles National Forest, she visits oaks, crows, elderberries, and sycamores, while foraging for acorns, flowers, and berries to adorn her altar at home. Poppy State is a riveting tour de force.

“The mother of intersectional Latinx identity.” —Cosmopolitan

“Scorchingly good.”—Cheryl Strayed

“The most fearless writer in America.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Prize finalist 

“A truly distinctive, authentic, and dynamic literary voice. . . Myriam Gurba is one of our great American intellectuals.” —Los Angeles Times

Poppy State by Myriam Gurba read by Myriam Gurba

In this gripping account, IRS special agents-turned-whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler expose the shocking truth behind their investigation into the Biden family—and the powerful forces that tried to stop them.
 
Shapley and Ziegler made headlines when they testified before Congress, revealing political interference, bureaucratic stonewalling, and outright obstruction in the Hunter Biden criminal case. Despite overwhelming evidence, they watched as the system bent to protect the powerful, with the IRS, FBI, and DOJ failing to act as independent institutions.  

Their investigation ultimately led to Hunter Biden’s federal conviction. But in a stunning last-minute move, President Joe Biden pardoned his son—then went even further, issuing blanket pardons to other family members before leaving office.  

But this isn’t just about Hunter Biden. It’s about two public servants who risked everything to expose corruption. Facing retaliation, isolation, and intense public scrutiny, Shapley and Ziegler take readers inside the high-stakes battle between truth and power.  

Packed with never-before-revealed details and explosive insider accounts, The Whistleblowers vs. The Big Guy is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how the system protects its own—and what it takes to fight back.

The Whistleblowers vs. The Big Guy by Joe Ziegler and Gary Shapley read by Charles Constant

From award-winning author, Grace Lin, comes another installment of the irresistible early reader series, Ling & Ting, as the iconic twins celebrate Lunar New Year! 

Ling and Ting are twins. They are Chinese and American. They celebrate the new year two times. Now they are preparing for Lunar New Year. They want a lucky year. What happens when Ting makes a mistake? Can their year still be lucky?

“These twins make learning to read double the fun.” – Kirkus

* Don’t miss Ling and Ting’s other adventures!:
Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same
Ling & Ting: Twice as Silly
Ling & Ting: Together in All Weather
Ling & Ting Share a Birthday

Ling & Ting’s Lunar New Year: Two Times Lucky by Grace Lin read by Mesmi Chu

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman deserves to be the heroine of her own story. 

Charlotte Lucas has never been a romantic. Practical to a fault, she accepted Mr. Collins’s proposal with clear eyes and a steady heart, trading passion for security. Life at Hunsford Parsonage may be quiet and predictable, but it is hers to manage—and she’s determined to make the best of it, whatever her friend Elizabeth Bennet may think. 

That is, until an unexpected guest at nearby Rosings Park turns Charlotte’s careful world on its head. He sees her, challenges her, and a spark is lit. 

Torn between what she must do and what she truly desires, Charlotte finds herself at the center of a story she never expected to be hers. A tale of love, loss, and second chances, Introducing Mrs. Collins is for anyone who wondered if there was more to the sensible character we met in Pride and Prejudice. It is the story of a woman who had written herself out of her own life and is only now daring to want more.

Introducing Mrs. Collins by Rachel Parris read by George Blagden and Rachel Parris

The life and thought of Diogenes the Cynic, an iconoclastic philosopher who pioneered a brash and free-thinking vision of life that inspired the philosophy of Stoicism—“a rich, engaging portrait of intellectual fearlessness” (Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Cleopatra)

In his own day, the ancient philosopher Diogenes the Cynic had a reputation for eccentricity, heckling his fellow philosophers in the marketplace, living in a clay pot, and relieving himself in public. Since his death in 323 BCE, devoted followers made him and his ideas famous the world over. But what we think we know about Diogenes remains distorted and sanitized.

In Diogenes, classicist Inger N.I. Kuin scours all existing evidence of Diogenes and his followers to offer an in-depth account of Diogenes’ life and thought, revealing a man whose innovative ideas about power, death, nature, and the body have much to teach the contemporary world. He pioneered a vision of simplicity and autonomy in his day-to-day life, stressing the importance of living in the here and now, and of always thinking for oneself. Diogenes stands apart as history’s first recorded critic of slavery and a proud exile from polite society whose challenging thought proved foundational for the Stoics and their successors.

Diogenes rehabilitates Diogenes as a compelling thinker for the twenty-first century, one who demands that we look at our society with fresh eyes and be unafraid of change—starting with ourselves.

Diogenes by Inger N.I. Kuin read by Cassandra Campbell

No one is quite who they seem to be in the twisty, soapy, gasp-inducing world of the Debutantes by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, #1 bestselling author of The Inheritance Games.  
 
Think of the White Gloves like the Junior League— by way of Skull and Bones.
 
Reluctant debutante Sawyer Taft joined Southern high society for one reason and one reason alone: to identify and locate her biological father. But the answers Sawyer found during her debutante year only left her with more questions and one potentially life-ruining secret.
 
When her cousin Lily ropes her into pledging a mysterious, elite, and all-female secret society called the White Gloves, Sawyer soon discovers that someone in the group’s ranks may have the answers she’s looking for. Things are looking up . . . until Sawyer and the White Gloves make a disturbing discovery near the family’s summer home—and uncover a twisted secret, decades in the making.

**Looking for more unputdownable reads from Jennifer Lynn Barnes? Check out The Naturals series (The Naturals, Killer Instinct, All In, Bad Blood, and the enovella, Twelve), The Debutantes duet (Little White Lies, Deadly Little Scandals), and The Inheritance Games Saga (The Inheritance Games, The Hawthorne Legacy, The Final Gambit, and The Brothers Hawthorne), including the Grandest Game (The Grandest Game and Glorious Rivals), the thrilling new series set in the world of the Inheritance Games, the stunningly romantic collection Games Untold, and the tragic love story The Same Backward as Forward.

Deadly Little Scandals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes read by Katherine Littrell

Scandal, scheming, and secrets abound in #1 bestselling author Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s Little White Lies, packed with “page-turning tension, witty humor” (Jennifer L. Armentrout), and “characters as devious as they are southern-belle glamorous” (E. Lockhart).

“I’m not saying this is Sawyer’s fault,” the prim and proper one said delicately. “But.”

Eighteen-year-old auto mechanic Sawyer Taft did not expect her estranged grandmother to show up at her apartment door and offer her a six-figure contract to participate in debutante season. And she definitely never imagined she would accept. But when she realizes that immersing herself in her grandmother’s “society” might mean discovering the answer to the biggest mystery of her life—her father’s identity—she signs on the dotted line and braces herself for a year of makeovers, big dresses, bigger egos, and a whole lot of bless your heart. The one thing she doesn’t expect to find is friendship, but as she’s drawn into a group of debutantes with scandalous, dangerous secrets of their own, Sawyer quickly discovers that her family is not the only mainstay of high society with skeletons in their closet. There are people in her grandmother’s glittering world who are not what they appear, and no one wants Sawyer poking her nose into the past. As she navigates the twisted relationships between her new friends and their powerful parents, Sawyer’s search for the truth about her own origins is just the beginning.

**Looking for more unputdownable reads from Jennifer Lynn Barnes? Check out The Naturals series (The Naturals, Killer Instinct, All In, Bad Blood, and the enovella, Twelve), The Debutantes duet (Little White Lies, Deadly Little Scandals), and The Inheritance Games Saga (The Inheritance Games, The Hawthorne Legacy, The Final Gambit, and The Brothers Hawthorne), including the Grandest Game (The Grandest Game and Glorious Rivals), the thrilling new series set in the world of the Inheritance Games, the stunningly romantic collection, Games Untold, and the tragic love story The Same Backward as Forward.

Little White Lies by Jennifer Lynn Barnes read by Katherine Littrell

To talk about social media and politics, and how AI can help spread – or tackle – disinformation, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Dr Josephine Lukito, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism and Media. Her research specializes in malicious political language in the public sphere, focusing on cross-platform flows of messages and frames about global economic and political issues. 

The discussion covers how social media and AI are influencing political communication, disinformation, and election strategies in the US and globally and about the evolving role of platforms, algorithms, and AI tools in shaping elections and democratic governance.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.  

Further reading and resources
•	Lukito, J., & Pevehouse, J. C. (2022). Competing for attention on Twitter during the 2012 and 2016 U.S. presidential debates. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 20(2), 125–138. 
•	Rodarte, A. K., & Lukito, J. (2024). Does Social Media Level the Political Field or Reinforce Existing Inequalities? Cartographies of the 2022 Brazilian Election. Political Communication, 42(3), 382–404. 
•	Lukito, J., Lee, T., Martin, Z., Glover, K., Hu, A., & Cui, Z. (2023). Connective action in Myanmar: a mixed-method analysis of Spring Revolution. Information, Communication & Society, 27(7), 1422–1440. 
•	Candidata - https://www.candidata24.org/ 

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 1 November 2025. 

•	Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1 
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LSE Ballpark | AI, social media, and political disinformation with Dr Josephine Lukito

In this episode, we discuss the experience and the representation of the self in time. We consider philosophical approaches to the question of personal change, focusing on a paper by Marya Schechtman entitled ‘Glad it Happened: Personal Identity and Ethical Depth’. Is the self diachronic, extending over time? Or is it episodic, identical with itself only for short periods? 

For Schechtman, self-experience is multiperspectival, comprising both temporally extended and temporally local perspectives; we contain many selves and this fact is central to the complexity of our moral life. We look closely at pages 137-182 of Annie Ernaux’s The Years to see whether the author’s rendering of her own self in time reflects such multiperspectivalism.
 
Hosts: 
Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor of English at University College London.
Alice Harberd, PhD student in the Philosophy Department at University College London.

Season 2, Episode 4 – The Self in Time: Marya Schechtman

Caswell Barry and Lucy Unwin talk about the neuroscience behind their new children’s book – Inside Your Brain. Inside Your Brain takes readers on an irreverent gallop through history to uncover ten ground breaking discoveries that led to our current understanding of how the brain works.

 Date of episode recording: 2025-10-02
 Duration: 00:47:48
 Language of episode: English
 Presenter: Steve Fleming, Selina Wray
 Guests: Caswell Barry, Lucy Unwin
 Producer: Patrick Robinson

Transcript link: 	
https://share.transistor.fm/s/e7042743/transcript.txt

New Science Of Rapid Personal Change - Dr John Demartini

Stay Gold Productions

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