"In this madcap journey, a bestselling journalist investigates psychopaths and the industry of doctors, scientists, and everyone else who studies them. The Psychopath Test is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs...

""Vampires. Why do we care? In these pages you will find what is very simply, the most literate, imaginative, and just plain fascinating answer to that question ever written." Whitley StrieberIn a culture that does not do death particularly well, we are obsessed with mortality. Margot Adler writes, "Vampires let us play with death and the issue of mortality. They let us ponder what it would mean to be truly long lived. Would the long view allow us...

"Television shows have now eclipsed films as the premier form of visual narrative art of our time. This new book by one of our finest critics explains--historically, in depth, and with interviews with the celebrated creators themselves--how the art of must-see/binge-watch television evolved. Darwin had his theory of evolution, and David Bianculli has his. Bianculli's theory has to do with the concept of quality television: what it is and, crucially,...

"Folk art is as varied as it is indicative of person and place, informed by innovation and grounded in cultural context. The variety and versatility of 300 American folk artists is captured in this collection of informative and thoroughly engaging essays"--

"This fun encyclopedia, organized alphabetically, describes and offers cultural context for foodstuffs people eat today that might be described as 'weird'--at least to the American palate. Coverage also includes American regional standards, such as scrapple and chitterlings, that other regions might find distatesful, as well as a few mainstream American foods, like honey, that are equally odd when one considers their derivation"--Provided by publisher....

"Peggy Orenstein's Girls & Sex broke ground, shattered taboos, and galvanized conversations about young women's right to pleasure and agency in sexual encounters. It also had an unintended effect on its author: Orenstein realized that talking about girls is only half the conversation. To understand girls and sex, we also need to talk about boys and sex. Today's young men are subject to the same cultural forces as their female peers. They are steeped...

"It seems like people are always talking about the end of the world, doesn't it? Y2K, the Mayan Apocalypse, Blood Moon Prophecies, nuclear war, killer robots, you name it. In Apocalypse Any Day Now, journalist Tea Krulos travels the country to try to puzzle out America's obsession with the end of days. Along the way he meets doomsday preppers--people who stockpile supplies and learn survival skills--as well as religious prognosticators and climate...

"Simon Singh, author of the bestsellers Fermat's Enigma, The Code Book, and The Big Bang, offers fascinating new insights into the celebrated television series The Simpsons: That the show drip-feeds morsels of number theory into the minds of its viewers--indeed, that there are so many mathematical references in the show, and in its sister program, Futurama, that they could form the basis of an entire university course. Recounting memorable episodes...

"Text me when you get home." After joyful nights out together, female friends say this to one another as a way of cementing their love. It's about safety; but more than that, it's about solidarity. A personal and sociological examination--and ultimately a celebration--of the evolution of female friendship in pop culture and modern society.

"An exploration of The Graduate's influence on filmmaking and how the movie both reflected and changed a generation's views of sex, work, and marriage"--