Playing Books

Meg-John Barker’s Revolution: The Psychology of Sex and Everything You Wanted to Know.

Welcome to the Playing Books podcast. We thank you for tuning in to the sex episode of the podcast. We're exploring one of the most misunderstood aspects of human experience: sex. This episode focuses on Meg-John Barker’s The Psychology of Sex (The Psychology of Everything). What can psychology teach us about sex? How do different bodies and brains respond sexually? How can we prevent people from being stigmatized for their sexuality? Many such questions are explored in this episode and in Meg-John Barker’s The Psychology of Sex.  On the side, we love to hear your take on this: how is Artificial Intelligence (AI) influencing sex today? What will the future of sex be like? Barker takes us on a remarkable tour of how psychologists have created and sustained certain understandings of sex and sexuality. Since so much of our sexual relationship happens in the mind, understanding where our ideas about sex come from becomes essential. We discuss cultural concerns around sexualization, pornography, and sex addiction while drawing on cutting-edge research from sexual communities and the applied field of sex therapy. In this episode, we reveal how psychology reshapes your understanding of desire, attraction, and intimacy. You should discover the surprising ways your brain influences your sexuality, challenge the narratives you've absorbed, and gain permission to question what you've always been told. This practical episode helps you navigate your own sexual identity, build healthier relationships, or simply be curious about human sexuality. This episode should shift how you think about this subject. Meg-John Barker’s The Psychology of Sex (The Psychology of Everything) deserves close reading and thoughtful engagement with Barker’s expository approach to this subject. We recommend it from Amazon [https://amzn.to/4eCuCEJ], your favorite local bookstore, or request it at your public library. The author would greatly appreciate your support, and the publishers who wager on such matters. How was sex regarded in your childhood? Do you take the Scriptural or liberal view on sex and gender, male and female? What is your stance on sex before marriage? Is protection during sex enough to prevent sexually transmitted diseases? Which gender and race loves sex the most? Please, we love to hear your thoughts. Comment, share this episode, follow, and subscribe to the Playing Books podcast for more racy conversations like this. Please, connect with other art and literature advocates on our social media:  playingbooks.org playingbooks.org [http://playingbooks.org] YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@playingbookspodcast] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/worthscope/] Twitter [https://x.com/worthscope] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@playingbookspodcast] Thank you again so much for your time and for listening to our sex episode of the podcast.

The Unfragile Mind: Rethinking Mental Health and Human Nature.

Welcome to the Playing Books podcast. We thank you for tuning into the mental health episode of the podcast. Today’s conversation centers on a book that feels urgent, humane, and quietly revolutionary. The Unfragile Mind: A Physician’s Call for Restoring Hope and Humanity to Mental Health Care by Gavin Francis is not just another title in the mental‑health space. It’s a reminder, delivered with clarity, compassion, and clinical honesty, that people are not diagnoses, and care should never feel mechanical, rushed, or stripped of dignity. In this episode, we talk about what it means to build a mind that bends without breaking, a mind strengthened by connection, meaning, and the simple act of being seen. Francis writes with the rare combination of medical authority and human warmth, and his message lands with force: mental health care can be better, kinder, and more hopeful, and we all have a role in shaping that future. This is a conversation for anyone who has felt overwhelmed, overlooked, or misunderstood. Anyone who wants a mental health system that treats people as whole beings, anyone who believes that with a positive attitude, and wants to fight many dilutions and isolations that follow mental health misdiagnosis, and the like, should consider listening to this episode as many times as possible. Learn how the quote, ‘the map is not the territory’ applies to mental health and other surprising tips for sound mental health from the book. Consider purchasing The Unfragile Mind on Amazon [https://amzn.to/4dbEjrc], at your favorite local bookstore, or request it at your public library. Mental health is getting discussed more today. What is your call on Gavin Francis’ The Unfragile Mind: A Physician’s Call for Restoring Hope and Humanity to Mental Health Care, and this episode? Please comment, share, follow, subscribe, and recommend the Playing Books podcast to someone who might need a moment of clarity or encouragement today. Please, connect with other art and literature advocates on our social media:  playingbooks.org [http://playingbooks.org] YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@playingbookspodcast] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/worthscope/] Twitter [https://x.com/worthscope] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@playingbookspodcast] Thank you again so much for your time and for listening to our mental health episode. Please, take a preventative approach to your mental health and don’t let anyone shame you for your temporary mental health challenges.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Revolution: Seven Tools for Useful Life And Everything You Wanted to Know.

Welcome to the Playing Books podcast. We thank you for tuning into the memoir episode of the podcast. You made a great choice. This episode is largely about desiring a quality life, dreaming it, and going to work with everything you’ve got to make it a reality. We discuss Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life, one of the most unexpectedly raw, refreshingly honest, and genuinely life-changing books to come out in years. Yes, that Arnold, the BIG MUSCULAR, HEAVY WEIGHT BODYBUILDER, with the last name, Schwarzenegger, that is hard to pronounce. Schwarzenegger went from a small, cold-water farmhouse in rural Austria, where ambition itself felt illegal, to becoming the greatest bodybuilder on the planet, the highest-paid movie star in Hollywood history, and the Governor of California's $2.7 trillion economy. Three completely different worlds. Three mountain peaks. One man: Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's not luck. That's not genetics. That's persistence, determination, focus, and intense desire. In Be Useful, Arnold breaks down the exact mental tools he forged as a young man with nothing but a dream too big for anyone around him to take seriously. And here's the thing that hits hardest: he doesn't sugarcoat a single word. This isn't a celebrity memoir dressed up as a self-help book. It's a no-nonsense, blunt, almost uncomfortable conversation about vision, hard work, resilience, and one lesson his father never let him forget: be useful. Not famous. Not rich. Useful. What makes this book feel different? Arnold doesn't just tell you what to do, he shows you how it cost him, in failures, near-disasters, and defining moments he's never spoken about publicly before. He talks about purpose the way a man talks about something he fought for, not something he stumbled into, accidentally. Too many of us are stuck. Waiting. Spinning in self-pity, scrolling instead of building, hoping someone will arrive with the answers. Arnold's message, delivered in that unmistakable, no-filter voice, is both a cold splash of water and a warm hand on the shoulder: no one is coming to rescue you. But the good news? You're all you need. If you've ever felt like your life has more in it than what's currently showing up on the surface, this episode and this book are for you. Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life is an invaluable addition to your library. You can purchase the book on Amazon [https://amzn.to/4u45w6a], at your favorite local bookstore, or request it at your public library. However you get it, just get it. Please, we love to hear from you. What tool from Arnold's life hit closest to home for you? Feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments; your perspective might be exactly what another listener needs to read today. If this episode added something to your day, share it with someone who's ready to stop waiting and start building. And if you haven't already, follow, subscribe, and recommend the Playing Books Podcast to anyone who believes that the right book at the right moment can genuinely change a life. Because it can, we've seen it happen. Connect with our community of readers, thinkers, and dreamers: playingbooks.org [http://playingbooks.org] YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@playingbookspodcast] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/worthscope/] Twitter [https://x.com/worthscope] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@playingbookspodcast] Thank you for being here. Truly. In a world full of noise, you chose to spend your time with words that matter, and that says everything about who you are and who you're becoming. We'll see you in the next episode. Keep reading. Keep growing. Keep being useful.

Ivan Van Sertima’s Revolution: Black Africans in pre-Columbian America - Their Overwhelming Impact on the Civilizations, and Everything You Wanted to Know.

Welcome to the Playing Books podcast. We thank you for tuning into the history episode of the podcast. What if the "New World" wasn't new to everyone? Our conversation is about Ivan Van Sertima’s They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (Journal of African Civilizations). [https://amzn.to/4839RxU] We step outside the lines of traditional history to explore a masterpiece that didn’t just stir the pot; it shattered it. Forget the standard 1492 narrative. Van Sertima presents a meticulously researched, revolutionary case for a pre-Columbian African presence in the Americas. From the colossal Olmec stone heads with distinct African features to the botanical mysteries of the African bottle gourd and the chemical signatures of West African gold alloys found in the Caribbean, this isn’t just speculation; it’s a forensic investigation into our global past. This episode is not about portraying any race as the most ancient and intelligent; it is about uncovering history as it is. Ivan Van Sertima’s They Came Before Columbus is more than a history lesson; it’s a paradigm shift. It challenges us to rethink the capabilities of ancient civilizations and the vast, interconnected nature of our world long before the age of steam and steel. If you’ve ever felt like the story of human achievement was missing a few vital chapters, this episode is your invitation to find them. We recommend you read about the research and archaeological evidence that answers questions about the pre-Columbus era, settling controversies that are accepted without books like Sertima’s They Came Before Columbus. You can purchase the book on Amazon [https://amzn.to/4839RxU], at your regular bookstore, or get it through your local library. Get ready to change how you view the map, prevailing historical perspectives, and the Columbus Day holiday in the U.S., celebrated every October since 1937.  How have you always doubted the narratives about Columbus as the first to discover and settle in the New World? Or are you a proponent of that history? Please leave us your feedback, follow, and subscribe to the Playing Books podcast to continue to learn the realities of our world as objectively as possible. Please, connect with other art and literature advocates on our social media:  playingbooks.org [http://playingbooks.org] YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@playingbookspodcast] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/worthscope/] Twitter [https://x.com/worthscope] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@playingbookspodcast] Happy Columbus Day in advance :). Thank you for tuning in and for giving us some of your precious time.

Barbara Oakley, PhD, Teaches How to Excel at Highly Cognitive Subjects and Fields: The Human Brain Needs Regular Exercise, Too.

Welcome to the Playing Books podcast. We thank you for tuning into the cognitive episode of the podcast. We discuss Barbara Oakley, PhD’s A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra). Being a human being itself makes everyone highly intelligent and cognitive, far more than imagined. Many students, parents, teachers, bosses, and supposed geniuses have assumed that being smart isn’t for everyone. Only a handful of people are geniuses. But as cognitive researchers and experts like Dr. Oakley would find, intelligence is innate and requires learning how to release it. That is what this episode explores: Learn the importance of mindset Learn the difference between long and short-term memory Regular exercise is so useful to the brain Utilize mental techniques like chunking to learn abstract subjects like Physics, Maths, Chemistry, and others. Understand the power of persistent, focused practice Dr. Oakley is known to always say, ‘Practice makes permanent.” Which, in reality, is what makes anyone a genius. Just as biological growth takes time, cognitive growth is no different. The nervous system expects human beings to practice and be patient for that wow spark to strike naturally. It is available on Amazon [https://amzn.to/4ekTGQs], in other bookstores, or through your local library. You are not an unintelligent, dense person. As you allow this episode and Dr. Oakley’s A Mind for Numbers to change your mindset while you make a consistent, diligent, persistent effort to learn how to code, communicate better, and exercise as a lifestyle, you will find out your intelligence is rare, waiting this long to be tapped out and utilized to accomplish significant feats. Please leave your feedback, share this cognitive episode with inquisitive folks, follow the podcast, subscribe for more insights, and recommend the Playing Books podcast. Please, connect with other art and literature advocates on our social media:  playingbooks.org [http://playingbooks.org] YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@playingbookspodcast] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/worthscope/] Twitter [https://x.com/worthscope] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@playingbookspodcast] We challenge you to disabuse yourself of the belief that math and other abstract subjects and fields are way out of your league and not for your type. Please, when you start tackling some of the world’s most cognitive problems, remember Barbara Oakley, PhD’s A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra), and this episode. Thank you again for listening.