Mark O'Connell – författare

‘Brilliantly researched, lovingly written, a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at some of the magnificent, unsung queer artists who worked on the iconic franchise.’ - Tom Rob SmithAn original, warm-witted and illuminating chronicle about the queer talents that have shaped the James Bond phenomenon in all its forms.Blending historical insight with new observations and interviews, Bond commentator and author Mark O’Connell presents a dynamic and entertaining James Bond compendium full of new perspectives and imagery, as well as an alternative timeline of 007 history few know exists.In Bond, Queer Bond, what might begin as a thoughtful dive into an adjacent world of 007 fast becomes a rich, colourful and compelling manifesto about the queer DNA of a cultural icon– with LGBTQ names and beats, such as Lionel Bart, Richard Chopping, Truman Capote, Peter Hunt, Tom Ford, Doris Fish, Harvey Milk, John Sex, the AIDS crisis, the ballroom scene, pop art icons, and many more, forming the rainbow crosshairs of this book.Joining O’Connell are guest contributions from the likes of Barbara Broccoli, David Arnold, Mark Gatiss, Putter Smith, Peaches Christ, John Glen, Ann Magnuson, Jon Lys Turner, Jany Temime, Maud Adams and more. The other history of a spy has never been so fabulous.

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.

Meet the astronomer who invented the concept of “Close Encounters” with aliens, inspired a classic sci-fi 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 skeptic 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 behind the legend. Tracing Hynek’s career, O’Connell examines his 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.“Scholastic and casual readers will find this fact-packed biography informative and enjoyable; highly recommended for school science departments.” —Library Journal

Meet the visionaries, billionaires, professors, and programmers who are using groundbreaking technology to push the limits of the human body—our senses, intelligence, and our lifespans Once relegated to the fringes of society, transhumanism (the use of technology to enhance human intellectual and physical capability) is now poised to enter our cultural mainstream. It has found adherents in Silicon Valley billionaires Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. Google has entered the picture, establishing a bio-tech subsidiary aimed at solving the problem of aging.     In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O''Connell takes a headlong dive into this burgeoning movement. He travels to the laboratories, conferences, and basements of today''s foremost transhumanists, where he''s presented with the staggering possibilities and moral quandaries of new technologies like mind uploading, artificial superintelligence, cryonics, and device implants.      A contributor to Slate, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine, O''Connell serves as a sharp and lively guide to the outer limits of technology in the twenty first century. In investigating what it means to be a machine, he offers a surprising, singular meditation on what it means to be human.From the Hardcover edition.

By the author of the award-winning To Be a Machine, a deeply felt book about our anxious present tense--and coming to grips with the futureWe''re alive in a time of worst-case scenarios: The weather has gone uncanny. Our old postwar alliances are crumbling. Everywhere you look there''s an omen, a joke whose punchline is the end of the world. How do we live in the shadow of such a grim future? What does the world hold for our children? What might it be like to live through the worst? And what is anybody doing about it? Dublin-based writer Mark O''Connell ("wryly humorous, cogently insightful" --NPR) is possessed by these questions. In Notes from an Apocalypse, he crosses the globe in pursuit of answers. He tours survival bunkers in South Dakota. He ventures to New Zealand, a favored retreat of billionaires banking on civilization''s collapse. And he bears witness to those places the future has already visited--real-life portraits of the end of the world as we know it. In doing so, he offers a unique window into our apocalyptic imagination. Part tour, part pilgrimage, Notes from an Apocalypse is an affecting and hopeful meditation on our alarming present moment. With insight, humanity, and wit, O''Connell leaves you to wonder: What if the end of the world isn''t the end of the world?

Baby boomers'' expectations for their marriages are often unrealistic. When their relationship comes up short on romance and sex, but seems long on disagreements and strife, many boomers choose to leave.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 Medical School clinical instructor and psychotherapist O''Connell offers a peek behind the door of a marriage therapist, where readers can see that their problems are not unique. Through wonderfully revealing anecdotes of couples with problems many of us 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Between 2020 and 2022, theatre had to adapt and, in doing so, challenged ideas of what was possible – and what was even 'theatre'.Due to the global pandemic, an exceptional and wide range of works were made for, or adapted to, brand new conditions and limitations. While these works are defined by interpandemic conditions in the Anthropocene, they serve as portals to thinking about theatre-making in the future.Gathered in this collection are pieces adapted or made for podcast theatre, a livestream illusionist interactive performance, an audience-uploaded hybrid performance, one-on-one online interaction, lip-synch opera-theatre, climate crisis activist manifesto film/theatre, spoken word and gaming installation art and multi-location broadcast plays, providing an accessible introduction to 'Transmedia' theatre.Transmedia theatre has been a boundary-breaking and rich area of performance since the 1990s, but the (by necessity) explosion of works that were created during the early years of the pandemic signalled a new, exciting and accessible method by which theatre-makers could share their work and also challenge their own practices.While these specific works are markers of a specific time in performance history, they also point ways forward, not only in terms of form and function, but in how educators, students and fellow practitioners could conceive of re-staging these works in person and/or on digital platforms.For a generation that has grown up online, whose vocabularies of expression are as much digitally native as they are IRL, transmedia theatre, and the realm too of VR and AR story and audience design which it borders, holds a firm place in busting open the realm of the possible.

Between 2020 and 2022, theatre had to adapt and, in doing so, challenged ideas of what was possible – and what was even 'theatre'.Due to the global pandemic, an exceptional and wide range of works were made for, or adapted to, brand new conditions and limitations. While these works are defined by interpandemic conditions in the Anthropocene, they serve as portals to thinking about theatre-making in the future.Gathered in this collection are pieces adapted or made for podcast theatre, a livestream illusionist interactive performance, an audience-uploaded hybrid performance, one-on-one online interaction, lip-synch opera-theatre, climate crisis activist manifesto film/theatre, spoken word and gaming installation art and multi-location broadcast plays, providing an accessible introduction to 'Transmedia' theatre.Transmedia theatre has been a boundary-breaking and rich area of performance since the 1990s, but the (by necessity) explosion of works that were created during the early years of the pandemic signalled a new, exciting and accessible method by which theatre-makers could share their work and also challenge their own practices.While these specific works are markers of a specific time in performance history, they also point ways forward, not only in terms of form and function, but in how educators, students and fellow practitioners could conceive of re-staging these works in person and/or on digital platforms.For a generation that has grown up online, whose vocabularies of expression are as much digitally native as they are IRL, transmedia theatre, and the realm too of VR and AR story and audience design which it borders, holds a firm place in busting open the realm of the possible.

Between 2020 and 2022, theatre had to adapt and, in doing so, challenged ideas of what was possible – and what was even ''theatre''. Due to the global pandemic, an exceptional and wide range of works were made for, or adapted to, brand new conditions and limitations. While these works are defined by interpandemic conditions in the Anthropocene, they serve as portals to thinking about theatre-making in the future. Gathered in this collection are pieces adapted or made for podcast theatre, a livestream illusionist interactive performance, an audience-uploaded hybrid performance, one-on-one online interaction, lip-synch opera-theatre, climate crisis activist manifesto film/theatre, spoken word and gaming installation art and multi-location broadcast plays, providing an accessible introduction to ''Transmedia'' theatre. Transmedia theatre has been a boundary-breaking and rich area of performance since the 1990s, but the (by necessity) explosion of works that were created during the early years of the pandemic signalled a new, exciting and accessible method by which theatre-makers could share their work and also challenge their own practices. While these specific works are markers of a specific time in performance history, they also point ways forward, not only in terms of form and function, but in how educators, students and fellow practitioners could conceive of re-staging these works in person and/or on digital platforms. For a generation that has grown up online, whose vocabularies of expression are as much digitally native as they are IRL, transmedia theatre, and the realm too of VR and AR story and audience design which it borders, holds a firm place in busting open the realm of the possible.

Between 2020 and 2022, theatre had to adapt and, in doing so, challenged ideas of what was possible – and what was even ''theatre''. Due to the global pandemic, an exceptional and wide range of works were made for, or adapted to, brand new conditions and limitations. While these works are defined by interpandemic conditions in the Anthropocene, they serve as portals to thinking about theatre-making in the future. Gathered in this collection are pieces adapted or made for podcast theatre, a livestream illusionist interactive performance, an audience-uploaded hybrid performance, one-on-one online interaction, lip-synch opera-theatre, climate crisis activist manifesto film/theatre, spoken word and gaming installation art and multi-location broadcast plays, providing an accessible introduction to ''Transmedia'' theatre. Transmedia theatre has been a boundary-breaking and rich area of performance since the 1990s, but the (by necessity) explosion of works that were created during the early years of the pandemic signalled a new, exciting and accessible method by which theatre-makers could share their work and also challenge their own practices. While these specific works are markers of a specific time in performance history, they also point ways forward, not only in terms of form and function, but in how educators, students and fellow practitioners could conceive of re-staging these works in person and/or on digital platforms. For a generation that has grown up online, whose vocabularies of expression are as much digitally native as they are IRL, transmedia theatre, and the realm too of VR and AR story and audience design which it borders, holds a firm place in busting open the realm of the possible.

Fathering is one of the most basic and profound human activities. Yet in addition to its many joys, fatherhood is often freighted with longing, sadness, anger, and misunderstanding. Most of us, men and women alike, are acutely aware of how difficult it is to father well, year after year, until, and even after, children are grown.At the same time, the essential relationships between men and women and their children are under stress these days as never before, subject to the pressures of work, money, divorce, remarriage, and adoption. As a result, many fathers struggle with deep uncertainties about their parenting abilities. Meanwhile, society''s definitions of masculinity appear ever more fluid, negotiable, and unreachable in today''s media-saturated culture, which endlessly exposes men (and women) to a stream of images celebrating violence, war, hypermasculinity, athletic ability, corporate competition, alternative life-styles, "metrosexuality," and triumphant materialism.Who, men might rightfully ask, are we expected to be? Do various pop-cultural definitions of masculinity really reflect what it is to be a man? What in men''s true natures helps them be good fathers? Can aggression be useful? What masculine traits do fathers need to guard -- and guard against? How do men love their children, and how is being a father very different from and no less essential than being a mother? And how can women understand how men experience fatherhood?This is the rich social reality that Dr. Mark O''Connell, a psychotherapist and father of three, addresses in his provocative, brilliant, and wise book. Drawing on both his professional case histories and personal experience, O''Connell describes the internal conflicts that many men feel about the difficulties of being a father but which they are often unable to discuss easily. Such issues include questions about authority, discipline, intimacy, physical contact, and sexuality.In ways that are distinctly masculine, O''Connell says, fathers communicate standards, insist on respect for others, instigate necessary confrontations, and even engage in the kind of rough-and-tumble play that enlivens the developing neural structures in a child''s brain. O''Connell contends that fathers play a crucial role in conveying the rules, expectations, and inevitabilities of life, and he describes how men can help their families by understanding and embracing their own masculinity. Men are different from women and must be allowed to parent differently as well.The Good Father, however, is not just a very readable book for fathers struggling to find their best selves in relation to their spouses and children. Women will want to read The Good Father as well. All men and women have complex and important relationships with their fathers, whether or not those men were good fathers. Dr. O''Connell reveals how men and women alike bring these relationships to their parenting, and how we so often need to untangle these generational knots.Filled with reassuring common sense, The Good Father opens a path toward happier, more satisfying relationships for the entire family while helping men become the good fathers they deeply want to be.

In 1957, 60,000 scientists from sixty-six countries around the world temporarily erased Earth’s artificial borders and joined forces for eighteen months to unlock the mysteries of our home planet. Their shared mission: to explore, measure, map, and study the Earth’s geology, oceans, volcanos, and atmosphere, to study the impact of the sun on the Earth's climate, to explore the many ways that human activity affects the health of our planet, and to apply every branch of geophysical science for the first time ever as "a potent force in international affairs." It was The International Geophysical Year (IGY), and the discoveries made during that year established a new foundation for science that affects our lives nearly every day.In The Year Science Changed Everything, author Mark O’Connell charts the struggles and successes of 1957’s International Geophysical Year alongside interviews with today’s leading environmental scientists to show that the time is right for another global environmental initiative. The IGY lit the fuse to the space race, produced a historic international treaty to protect Antarctica, led to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts circling our planet, produced the first map of the underwater Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and spearheaded scientific breakthroughs that have proven foundational to our understanding of the planet. More than a half century later, top climate experts and activists illustrate the political, financial, and media-centered obstacles they face working as individual researchers and fighting against rampant disinformation spread by sectors of the public and even of the scientific community, from Christiana FigueresandTom Rivett-Carnac, who led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015, former vice-president and climate activist Al Gore, marine biologist and climate researcher Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, and Sameh Shoukry, President of the 27th session of the Conference of Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).The idea of global collaboration is as valid now as it was in 1957, and perhaps more necessary than ever to stave off the harmful effects of a deteriorating climate. The Year Science Changed Everything reframes the climate change discussion in a positive way through IGY’s example of how to unite scientists, and what we can achieve when we come together for the pursuit of scientific knowledge. ,

WINNER OF THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2018Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2017A stunning new non-fiction voice tackles an urgent question... what next for mankind?'Troubling and humorous, this is one of my current give-it-to-everyone books - I buy six copies at a time'Jeanette Winterson

'The Book of Revelation with a Bill Bryson touch... At least you'll die laughing' Sunday Telegraph**NOW UPDATED TO INCLUDE THE LATEST APOCALYPSE** 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.

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?

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?

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 AdversaryIn 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?