A.J. Jacobs
The Puzzler is the best new book from Jacobs since The Year of Living Biblically. Less of a personal experiment than his past titles, Jacobs delves into the world of puzzles – be it crosswords, jigsaw, sudoku, puzzle boxes or scavenger hunts. Fortunately for the Jabobs family, …
Dean Jobb
While the name Jack the Ripper still resonates over a century later, Dr. Cream has fallen into obscurity. Yet, in his day, he was as infamous a murderer as Jack. Like his predecessor, Dr. Cream primary targeted prostitutes. However, his crimes were more subtle, as they were done …
A Food Adventurer’s Guide
Cecily Wong and Dylan Thuras
Fans of the website Atlas Obscura, a guide to the world’s many bizarre and hidden wonders, will love this huge collection of food novelties. While in theory, you can eat or drink everything in this collection, many are definitely unappealing. …
Michael Farquhar
Five Centuries of Sex, Adventure, Vice, Treachery, and Folly from Royal Britain
Imagine of People Magazine were to write a textbook of British royalty. This is pretty much it. Each short chapter is a speedy, breezy read about an English monarch. Starting with Henry VIII (yes, him) up …
How I Helped The Rich Become Famous and Ruin the World
Ben Widdicombe
Gossip columnist Widdicombe fell into his job by accident. As a newly immigrated Australian journalist in New York, he had no social connections to get him started. Writing about successful Australians in America, for Australian publications back …
Greg Sestero & Tom Bissell
If you haven’t heard of it, The Room holds the dubious honor as one of, if not the worst, movie ever made. It’s bad on every level – acting, set, plot, script… And yet, over the years, it has taken on a cult following equal …
Witold Szablowski
A cook is often one of the most intimate relationships a rich or powerful person may have. Both from living in close proximity. But also, the rich and powerful must trust their cook to not murder them. In turn, these cooks find themselves very well-compensated, but also …
Michael Palin
If Michael Palin, of both Monty Python fame and former president of the Royal Geographic society, turns his eye to a topic, you know it will be good. The Erebus and Terror are two ships that have gripped the imagination for over a century. The two old warships …
Caitlin Doughty
The magnificent, hilarous and always fascinating mortician Caitlin Doughty (Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes) is back with another intriguing look at death.
Death is inevitable. But the way Americans and many in the west act, it is something shameful …
Jon Ronson
There is something utterly gripping and fascinating about psychopaths. The idea that someone is without morals or compassion, no internal brakes, repels and intrigues us. What if we didn’t have that little voice in our head telling us not to do something? What if we could do whatever …
Lisa Birnbach with Chip Kidd
Julia Chaplin
Finding our “tribe” in a melting-pot country like the US can be difficult. With every option available, finding “your” people is often a relief. These tribes, peopled with members drawn to each other by some basic fundamental values, soon spawn off an entire …
My Life as a Rajneeshee, and the long journey back to freedom
Jane Stork
Netflix made a huge splash with their multi-part documentary, Wild Wild Country, about the Bhagwan cult. While a lot of the focus was on Bhagwan and his loyal secretary Sheela, another member Jane Stork (formerly known …
What Saints, Spies and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success
Kevin Dutton
Dutton’s book on his research into psychopaths is a fast, easy read with little academic jargon to bog the reader down. Clearly aimed for the armchair lookie-loo (hello!), Dutton amused and horrifies readers with stories of his …
Victoria Finlay
I first heard of Finlay’s brilliant book on an equally brilliant BBC 4 Radio Show called ‘The Museum of Curiosity,’ described as a “Panel show in which three distinguished guests donate fascinating exhibits to a vast imaginary museum.” This dry description totally fails to encompass the …
Jake Hobson
Do you have some scraggly, overgrown trees or looming bushes you’ve been meaning to trim back? Niwaki, the Japanese equivalent of topiary, is a fun alternative to the simple (often ruthless) trimming most Americans give their bushes. Cloud pruning, the simplest form, follows the contours of a bush’s …
Jeff Guin
There are some tragedies that are so mind-boggling and so bizarre that we can’t help going back to take yet another look. “Why would anyone choose to follow such an obvious, slimy charlatan like Jim Jones?” we wonder. But the story of Jones …
