Society & Culture
My Planet: Exploring the World with Family, friends, and Dental Floss
by Mary Roach
published by Reader's Digest
A Hilarious Collection of Essays from one of America's Most Gifted Humorists! In keeping with our mission -- curating the best reads in the land -- Reader's Digest editors neatly packaged these timeless (and hilarious) Roach essays together for the first time. Whether you read this cover-to-cover or during spare moments over morning coffee, flip to a page in this volume and try not to smile.
iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming Its Hold on Us
by Larry D. Rosen, PhD
published by Palgrave Macmillan
iDisorder: Changes to your brain's ability to process information and to relate to the world due to daily use of media and technology; often associated with signs and symptoms of psychological disorders such as stress, sleeplessness, and a compulsive need to check in with all of your technology. Rosen teaches us what to look out for and how to stay human in an increasingly technological world.
Courtney Comes Clean: The High Life and Dark Depths of Rock’s Most Controversial Icon
by Maer Roshan
published by Sterling
The Fix’s editor in chief spent a year getting to know the controversial rock star and poster girl for drug use. In her endless quest for fame and fortune, Courtney Love has lived through addictions to substances, behaviors, and celebrity itself. As addiction redefines itself in the 21st century, Love seems like its prototypical saint-and sinner.
When Parents Text: So Much Said... So Little Understood
by Lauren Kaelin and Sophia Fraioli
published by Workman Publishing Company
A collection of insanely funny texts between parents and kids, When Parents Text is a surprisingly affecting window into the complicated time when parents aren't ready to let go, and kids aren't ready to be let go. Launched as a website just last year, www.whenparentstext.com is a phenomenon.
Solidarity Politics for Millennials: A Guide to Ending the Oppression Olympics (The Politics of Intersectionality)
by Ange-Marie Hancock
published by Palgrave Macmillan
Written in plain language for an educated trade audience, this book takes the political theory of intersectionality -- the most cutting-edge approach to the politics of gender, race, sexual orientation, and class -- and introduces it to the general public for the first time.
Divinity of Doubt: The God Question
by Vincent Bugliosi
published by Vanguard Press
Vincent Bugliosi, whom many view as the nation's foremost prosecutor, has successfully taken on, in court or on the pages of his books, the most notorious murderers of the last half century -- Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, and Lee Harvey Oswald.
Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong
by Alina Tugend
published by Riverhead
New York Times columnist, Alina Tugend, delivers an eye-opening big idea: Embracing mistakes can make us happier and more productive in every facet of our lives.
Glued To Games: How Video Games Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound
by Scott Rigby and Richard M. Ryan
published by Praeger
Filled with examples from popular games and the real experiences of gamers themselves, Glued to Games gets to the heart of gaming's powerful psychological and emotional allure -- the benefits as well as the dangers.
What Will Happen to Me?
by Howard Zehr & Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz
published by Good Books
What is life like for a child who has a parent in prison?
Let's Bring Back: An Encyclopedia of Forgotten-Yet-Delightful, Chic, Useful, Curious, and Otherwise Commendable Things from Times Gone By
by Lesley M.M. Blume
published by Chronicle Books
Whimsical and witty, this beautifully illustrated encyclopedia of nostalgia celebrates the elegant, mysterious, and delightful trappings of bygone ages.
Spinning The Law: Trying Cases in the Court of Public Opinion
by Kendall Coffey
published by Prometheus Books
A behind-the-scenes-analysis of media strategies with entertaining examples and engaging explanations make this book ideal reading for everyone fascinated by celebrity legal problems: all of us in the court of public opinion.
Another Fine Mess: A History of American Film Comedy
by Saul Austerlitz
published by Chicago Review Press
Running the gamut of film history from City Lights to Knocked Up, Another Fine Mess retells the story of American film from the perspective of its unwanted stepbrother -- the comedy.
True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things with You (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series)
by William Irwin with George A. Dunn and Rebecca Housel
published by Wiley
Teeming with complex, mythical characters in the shape of vampires, telepaths, shapeshifters, and the like, True Blood, the popular HBO series adapted from Charlaine Harris's bestselling The Southern Vampire Mysteries, has a rich collection of themes to explore, from sex and romance to bigotry and violence to death and immortality.
Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as It Seems (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series)
by William Irwin with Rod Carveth and James B. South
published by Wiley
From Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to John Kenneth Galbraith, Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand, Mad Men and Philosophybrings the thinking of some of history's most powerful minds to bear on the world of Don Draper, and the Sterling Cooper ad agency.
What Would Rob Do? An Irreverent Guide to Surviving Life's Daily Indignities
by Rob Sachs
published by Wiley
What do you do if you get a bad haircut? Do you have trouble remembering people's names? What happens if you clog the toilet at a friend's house? Rob Sachs has given prudent and entertaining advice for dealing with all sorts of everyday challenges in his successful What Would Rob Do? podcast series, consulting with experts ranging from Fabio to Erik Estrada on dozens of daily dilemmas and common conundrums.
Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy: Curious and Curiouser (Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series)
by William Irwin with Richard Brian Davis
published by Wiley
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has fascinated children and adults alike for generations. Why does Lewis Carroll introduce us to such oddities as blue caterpillars who smoke hookahs, cats whose grins remain after their heads have faded away, and a White Queen who lives backwards and remembers forwards?
Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America
by Richard Benjamin
published by Hyperion
Between 2007 and 2009, Rich Benjamin, a journalist-adventurer, packed his bags and embarked on a 26,909-mile journey throughout the heart of white America, to some of the fastest-growing and whitest locales in our nation.
The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation
by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
published by Vanguard Press
The Michael Jackson Tapes is not about Michael Jackson. This book is the soul and essence of Michael Jackson, an extraordinarily gifted but broken human being. What makes it revelatory, insightful, and remarkable is the source: more than thirty hours of intimate taped conversations that took place from 2000-2001 between Michael Jackson and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.
The Masonic Myth: Unlocking the Truth About the Symbols, the Secret Rites, and the History of Freemasonry
by Jay Kinney
published by HarperOne
Freemasons have been connected to the all-seeing eye on the dollar bill, the French Revolution, the Knights Templar, and the pyramids of Egypt. They have been rumored to be everything from a cabal of elite power brokers ruling the world to a covert network of occultists and pagans intent on creating a new world order, to a millennia-old brotherhood perpetuating ancient wisdom through esoteric teachings.
Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word
by Toni Morrison
published by HarperStudio
Why protect free speech? What is the power of the word? The approaches they all take to these questions are as varied as their works of literature. Here, the personal and the political mingle and collide; philosophical reflection is partnered with the conundrums of experience. Across the pages there is a rush of ideas, emotions and perspectives that disallow assumptions to stand or acquiesce to any force, whether external or internal.
The Muslim Next Door: The Qur'an, the Media, and That Veil Thing
by Sumbul Ali-Karamali
published by White Cloud Press
The Muslim Next Door clears away the misconceptions about Islam and why they flourish -- media distortion, confusion about what is cultural rather than religious, the language barrier, and the old tall tales that still persist after thirteen centuries.
An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers: Shaking Hands with Aliens
by Bruce J. Gevirtzman
published by Praeger Paperback
Voted Teacher of the Year and Coach of the Year, Bruce Gevirtzman shares with us the results of his years spent talking with teenagers about topics from life and lust to depression and death.
Lust in Translation: Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee
by Pamela Druckerman
published by Penguin
An irreverent and hilarious journey around the world to examine how and why people cheat on their spouses. You probably already suspect that Americans are uniquely conflicted about adultery, but did you know...
Peace: 50 Years of Protest
by Barry Miles
published by Reader's Digest
Everyone recognizes it. Wherever it's seen -- from lapel pins to bumper stickers to banners -- this familiar circle with its upside-down V makes an immediate anti-war, pro-harmony statement. Peace: 50 Years of Protest highlights the fascinating and eventful history of this well-known symbol.
20 Something Manifesto: Quarter-Lifers Speak Out About Who They Are, What They Want, and How to Get It
by Christine Hassler
published by New World Library
If you're in your twenties, you're likely feeling the combination of the excitement of this defining decade and the pressure to figure out your entire life.
Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes
by Mark J. Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne
published by Twelve/Hachette
Mark Penn, the man who identified "Soccer Moms" as a crucial constituency in President Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign, is known for his ability to detect relatively small patterns of behavior in our culture -- microtrends that are wielding great influence on business, politics, and our personalities.
Boom!: Voices of the Sixties
by Tom Brokaw
published by Random House
With The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw defined for America what it meant to come of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War. Now, in Boom!, the veteran newsman brings us into the tumultuous decade of the 1960's.
The Tokyo Look Book: Stylish to Spectacular, Goth to Gyaru, Sidewalk to Catwalk
by Philomena Keet and Yuri Manabe
published by Kodansha International
Come with us on a stroll through Tokyo's fashion neighborhoods and meet the city's trendy teens and twenty-somethings captured as they work and play.
Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy
by Barbara Ehrenreich
published by Henry Holt
In the highly acclaimed Blood Rites, Barbara Ehrenreich delved into the origins of our species' attraction to war. Here, she explores the opposite human inclination, one that is equally universal and deep-rooted, yet has been so effectively suppressed that we lack even a convenient phrase for it: the desire for collective joy, expressed throughout the ages in ecstatic celebrations of feasting, costuming, and dancing.
Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream
by Edward Humes
published by Harcourt
The G.I. Bill made homeowners, college graduates, professionals, rocket scientists, and a booming middle class out of a Depression-era generation that never expected such opportunity. Today's America was built on the bill's greatness. The Greatest Generation would not exist without it.
Not In Kansas Anymore: Dark Arts, Sex Spells, Money Magic, and Other Things Your Neighbors Aren't Telling You
by Christine Wicker
published by HarperSanFrancisco
Magic has stepped out of the movies, morphed from the pages of fairy tales, and is more present in America today than you might expect. Soccer moms get voodoo head washings in their backyards, young American soldiers send chants toward pagan gods of war, and a seemingly normal family determines that they are in fact elves.
The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation
by David Kamp
published by Broadway
The United States of Arugula is the wickedly entertaining, hunger-inducing, behind-the-scenes story of the American food revolution that has made celebrity chefs, baby greens, fancy fridges, and destination restaurants familiar aspects of our everyday lives.
The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do
by Clotaire Rapaille
published by Broadway
In The Culture Code, internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert Clotaire Rapaille reveals for the first time the techniques he has used to improve profitability and practices for dozens of Fortune 100 companies.
The Right Words at the Right Time: Volume 2: Your Turn!
by Marlo Thomas and New Friends
published by Atria
From big cities to farm communities, from office cubicles to hospital wards, from Normandy Beach to Boston's Fenway Park, the contributors to this remarkable volume -- selected from among thousands in a nationwide search -- tell riveting stories about the words that changed their lives forever.
Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S.
by Alex Boese
published by Harvest Books
Don't be a victim of today's Misinformation Age! Read Hippo Eats Dwarf, the essential guide to navigating reality -- from birth to death to eBay and beyond.
Imagining Ourselves: Global Voices from a New Generation of Women
by Paula Goldman
published by New World Library
The works in these pages are inspiring, challenging, enlightening, funny, and sometimes shocking. The contributors emphasize that the world they inhabit is different from the world of their mothers and grandmothers.
Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights
by Kenji Yoshino
published by Random House
Everyone covers. To cover is to downplay a disfavored trait so as to blend into the mainstream. Because all of us possess stigmatized attributes, we all encounter pressure to cover in our daily lives. Given its pervasiveness, we may experience this pressure to be a simple fact of social life.
Bat Boy Lives! The Weekly World News Guide to Politics, Culture, Celebrities, Alien Abductions, and the Mutant Freaks That Shape Our World
by David Perel and the Editors of the Weekly World News
published by Sterling
All serious newshounds know that there are many important stories that are simply too scandalous, too risque, or too dangerous for so-called reputable news sources to print. Devoted truth-seekers have always been able to turn to the Weekly World News.
God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law
by Marci A. Hamilton
published by Cambridge
God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law challenges the pervasive assumption that all religious conduct deserves constitutional protection. While religious conduct provides many benefits to society, it is not always benign.
The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence
by Elliott Currie
published by Metropolitan Books
In the past few years, it has become painfully clear that all is not well with the children of middle-class America. Hardly a day goes by without stories of drug use, binge drinking, destructive violence, and senseless suicides among middle-class adolescents. But the "why" of these tragedies has eluded us, until now.