Popular Culture category: 4839 books
Horsemen of the Esophagus
Competitive Eating and the Big Fat American Dream
Language: English
Release Date: June 6, 2006
“To be up on stage, shoving food in your face, beats everyday existence for most people.” —David “Coondog” O’Karma, competitive eater
“Hungry” Charles Hardy. Ed “Cookie” Jarvis. Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas. Joey “Jaws” Chestnut. Will such names one day be looked...
America the Anxious
How to Calm Down, Stop Worrying, and Find Happiness
Language: English
Release Date: October 4, 2016
NAMED ONE OF THE 40 BEST BOOKS OF 2016 BY THE NEW YORK POST
A New York Times Editor's Choice pick
“Ruth Whippman is my new favorite cultural critic...****a shrewd, hilarious analysis.” —Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B (coauthored...
A Walking Life
Reclaiming Our Health and Our Freedom One Step at a Time
Language: English
Release Date: May 7, 2019
For readers of On Trails: an incisive, utterly engaging exploration of walking: how it is fundamental to our being human, how we've designed it out of our lives, and how it is essential that we reembrace it
"I'm going for a walk." How often has this phrase been uttered by someone...
Golden Dreams
California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963
Language: English
Release Date: September 9, 2011
A narrative tour de force that combines wide-ranging scholarship with captivating prose, Kevin Starr's acclaimed multi-volume Americans and the California Dream is an unparalleled work of cultural history. In this volume, Starr covers the crucial postwar period--1950 to 1963--when the California we...
Sybil Exposed
The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case
Language: English
Release Date: October 18, 2011
Sybil: a name that conjures up enduring fascination for legions of obsessed fans who followed the nonfiction blockbuster from 1973 and the TV movie based on it—starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward—about a woman named Sybil with sixteen different personalities. Sybil became both a pop phenomenon...
"I Give You My Body . . ."
How I Write Sex Scenes
Language: English
Release Date: August 16, 2016
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • For writers looking to make sure their next physical interlude on the page inspires readers to share the moment rather than to laugh at it, bestselling author Diana Gabaldon divulges the writing secrets behind the sex scenes in her wildly popular Outlandernovels.
“Ask...
The Coddling of the American Mind
How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
Language: English
Release Date: September 4, 2018
Something is going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and afraid to speak honestly. How did this happen?
First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff...
Fantasyland
How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
Language: English
Release Date: September 5, 2017
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The single most important explanation, and the fullest explanation, of how Donald Trump became president of the United States . . . nothing less than the most important book that I have read this year.”—Lawrence O’Donnell
How did we get here?
In...
In Praise of Slowness
Challenging the Cult of Speed
Language: English
Release Date: April 14, 2009
We live in the age of speed. We strain to be more efficient, to cram more into each minute, each hour, each day. Since the Industrial Revolution shifted the world into high gear, the cult of speed has pushed us to a breaking point. Consider these facts: Americans on average spend seventy-two minutes...
How Soccer Explains the World
An Unlikely Theory of Globalization
Language: English
Release Date: October 13, 2009
“An eccentric, fascinating exposé of a world most of us know nothing about.”
—The New York Times Book Review
"An insightful, entertaining, brainiac sports road trip."
—The Wall Street Journal
"Foer’s skills as a narrator are enviable. His characterizations…...
Lost at Sea
The Jon Ronson Mysteries
Language: English
Release Date: October 30, 2012
The New York Times–bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, Jon Ronson writes about the dark, uncanny sides of humanity with clarity and humor. Lost at Sea reveals how deep our collective craziness lies, even in the most mundane circumstances.
Ronson investigates the strange things we’re...
Baseball as a Road to God
Seeing Beyond the Game
Language: English
Release Date: March 7, 2013
The president of New York University offers a love letter to America’s most beloved sport and a tribute to its underlying spirituality.
For more than a decade, John Sexton has taught a wildly popular New York University course about two seemingly very different things: religion and baseball....
by Peter Carey
Language: English
Release Date: July 1, 2009
Language: English
Release Date: July 1, 2009
When Peter Carey offered to take his son to Japan, 12-year-old Charley stipulated no temples or museums. He wanted to see manga, anime,and cool, weird stuff. His father said yes. Out of that bargain comes this enchanting tour of the mansion of Japanese culture, as entered through its garish, brightly...
National Performance
Representing Quebec from Expo 67 to Celine Dion
Language: English
Release Date: January 1, 2011
In National Performance, Erin Hurley examines the complex relationship between performance and national identity. How do theatrical performances represent the nation in which they were created? How is Quebecois performance used to define Quebec as a nation and to cultivate a sense of 'Quebec-ness'...