Psychological Science

A provocative collection of literary horror stories by one of America’s most acclaimed and inventive writers whose unique prose “can be soul-shaking” (New Yorker).

What if marriage was the law? Dare you disobey? Black Mirror meets thriller with a dash of Naomi Alderman’s The Power in this dark, high-concept novel by the bestselling author of The One. Britain. The near-future. A right-wing government believes it has the answer to society’s ills—the...

Why might some sex education programs result in more teen pregnancies? Why did reading that self-help book make you feel less happy? What's the best way to recover from trauma? Can we actually improve our lives by redirecting our thinking?

Annalee Newitz traces the way disinformation, propaganda, and violent threats have evolved from military weapons deployed against foreign adversaries into tools in domestic culture wars. Newitz delves into America's deep-rooted history with psychological operations, beginning with Benjamin Franklin's Revolutionary War-era fake newspaper and nineteenth-century wars on Indigenous nations, and reaching its apotheosis with the Cold War and twenty-first-century influence campaigns online.

For fans of high-concept thrillers such as Annihilation and The Girl with All the Gifts, this breathtaking dystopian psychological thriller follows an American academic stranded at a Swiss hotel as the world descends into nuclear war - along with 20 other survivors - who becomes obsessed with identifying a murderer in their midst after the body of a young girl is discovered in one of the hotel’s water tanks.

He was Ramses the Damned in ancient Egypt, but awoke in opulent Edwardian London as Dr. Ramsey, expert in Egyptology. He mixes with the aristocrats and samples their voluptuous lifestyle, but it is for his beloved, Cleopatra, that he longs, and will do anything to be with....

A secret government unit is formed under the oversight of Adam Harrison, famed paranormal investigator. The case: In a historic mansion in New Orleans’ French Quarter, a senator’s wife falls to her death from a balcony. Most think she jumped, distraught over the loss of her young son. Some say she was pushed. And yet others believe she was beckoned by the ghostly spirits that inhabit the house - once the site of a serial killer’s grisly work.

An underground classic, Crash explores the disturbing potentialities of contemporary society's increasing dependence on technology as intermediary in human relations. In this hallucinatory novel, the car provides the hellish tableau in which Vaughan, a "TV scientist" turned "nightmare angel of the highways", experiments with erotic atrocities among auto crash victims, each more sinister then the last.

There is a small town in Oregon called Middle Falls. When people die there, one of three things happens to them: They pass on to what is next. They are recycled to an earlier point in their life. They become spirits who are tethered to the spot where they died. This is the story of a tethered spirit.

India Morgan Phelps - Imp to her friends - is schizophrenic. Struggling with her perceptions of reality, Imp must uncover the truth about her encounters with creatures out of myth - or from something far, far stranger....

This is the little book that started a revolution, making women's voices heard, in their own right and with their own integrity, for virtually the first time in social scientific theorizing about women. Its impact was immediate and continues to this day, in the academic world and beyond. Translated into 16 languages, with more than 700,000 copies sold around the world, In a Different Voice has inspired new research, new educational initiatives, and political debate.

Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. She tells police that she is a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil; her division is called the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons - "Bad Monkeys" for short. This confession earns Jane a trip to the jail’s psychiatric wing, where a doctor attempts to determine whether she is lying, crazy, or playing a different game altogether.

After global collapse, the island of Newfoundland in the warming waters of the North Atlantic has survived under female rule. Children are raised by a network of caregivers, guided by the principles of “It Takes a Village.” But the civilization is threatened when its birth rate suddenly stagnates. Eighteen-year-old Kat knows she needs to stay on the good side of her elders until her coveted job on the island's livestock ranch becomes a reality. One morning, she stumbles upon a man in the woods— an injured mainlander named Marcus who has wrecked his boat on the shore.

On a hotter and more volatile Earth in the 23rd century, humans like Clare and Jon live in utopia, hunting and gathering in small tribal bands, engaged in daily art and ritual, reunited with old friends like the shaggy mammoth and giant ground sloth. Even better, they still have solar-powered laptops and can communicate with each other around the world. The understanding of physics has also advanced.

Synth is a drug able to induce hallucinations indistinguishable from reality. But it's brand new, highly addictive, and more than likely dangerous. Even the dealers peddling the pills don't know what long term effects the drug will have on its users.

First published in an 1839 edition of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, "The Fall of the House of Usher" is the story of the declining physical and psychological health of the residents of the House of Usher - and the way in which the house itself reflects that. Gothic in theme and style, the story is an exemplar of Poe's philosophy of composition, which dictates that literary works should be short and methodological and have a unity of effect wherein all the elements of the story are related and relevant.

Novelist Patrick Hamlin has come to Los Angeles to oversee the film adaptation of one of his books and try to impress his wife and daughter back home with this last-ditch attempt at professional success. But California is not as he imagined. Drought, wildfire, and corporate corruption are everywhere, and the company behind a mysterious new brand of synthetic water seems to be at the root of it all. Patrick finds an unlikely partner in Cassidy Carter—the cynical starlet of his film—and the two investigate the sun-scorched city.

In a Mexican temple, archaeologists uncover the remains of a half-human hybrid. They believe it is related to the creature in Antarctica, a dark thing of legend that is still alive-and still evolving. They believe it needs a new host to feed, to mutate, to multiply. They're right. And they're next. And the human race might just be headed for extinction.

When Jamie and Kirsty move into their first home together, they are full of optimism. The future, in which they plan to get married and start a family, is bright. The other residents of their building seem friendly too, including the Newtons, a married couple who welcome them to the building with open arms. But then strange things start to happen. Dead rats are left on their doorstep. They hear disturbing noises, and much worse, in the night.

Mount St. Helens erupts without warning unleashing a VEI 6 explosion of ash, fire, and fury. It cripples the Pacific Northwest, choking cities, burying highways, and raining destruction upon the land. For the Mercer family, the eruption strikes terrifyingly close to home. Their sanctuary becomes a battleground as seismic chaos tears through the Columbia River Gorge.