Chuck Klosterman
For Gen-Xers like myself, the 90s were just a few years ago. We lived them, so how could we possibly not know all about them? And yet, Chuck Klosterman, the pop-culture philosopher for our generation, once again does a phenomenal job pointing out all the obvious things we …
Caroline Cox
“Street” fashion, the organic creation of style influenced by location, culture, politics, religion, social unrest and availability of materials, has always influenced “high” fashion. And vice versa. Author Cox makes an excellent attempt to cataloging and describing some of these various “strains” of fashion that have developed over …
Amanda Montell
Cults, like porn and art, are something we feel we’ll know when we see. There is no agreed upon definition and the line of cult-land is nebulous. Montell, a linguist, suggests the core of a cult is driven by language. A vocabulary of inclusion (the way WE talk) …
The story of The Nobel Sperm bank is as bizarre as its title. Wealthy inventor Robert Graham was semi-retired, but looking for a passion project (for lack of a better term). He believed that intelligent people would produce intelligent, nay, genius children. There were too many idiots dragging …
Ron Johnson
Author Johnson, is best known for his book The Men Who Stare at Goats, later a Hollywood movie. His other books are no less far afield and equally fascinating, including The Psychopath Test. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, published 2015, is the book of the …
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 …
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 …
Chuck Klosterman
Klosterman, Gen-X’s pop-culture philosopher-in-chief, turns his gaze to the concept of villainy. In his own slightly hyperactive way, Klosterman skips from Machiavelli to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, O.J. Simpson to Snidley Whiplash and …
Lauren Greenfield
“I told my kids that they might have to go to college now. They might actually have to earn their own money…I really don’t understand the financial community, especially when they get all that money from the government. I thought that rescue money…was supposed to be passed on …
The Origins of the School Lunch in the United States
A.R. Ruis
Ruis’s book, adapted from his PhD thesis, gives a detailed overview of the history of U.S. School lunches. Attention to health and malnutrition in children started coming to the fore in the late 1880s. Schools found that their …
Van Dyke, Kristina
The art of Africa is often an area of extreme ignorance, even to those of us with art degrees. Africa is vast continent with dozens of countries and kingdoms, further divided into thousands of smaller tribal groups, each with their own languages and beliefs. And yet the …
Claire Hoffman
As far as cults go, the Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation (TM) community was, and still is, pretty benign. In fact, author Hoffman goes to great pains to avoid calling the group a true cult. There are plenty of the hallmarks though – separating members from the larger community, a …
Graeme Simsion
This sweet, funny story follows professor of genetics Don Tillman as he tries to find the perfect wife. It soon becomes clear that Don has Asperger’s Syndrome. That is, it is clear to everyone but Don. Deciding a large questionnaire is needed to weed out unacceptable applicants, Don …
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
The third in their wildly popular Freakonimics series, Dubner and Levitt once again turn conventional wisdom on its ear. If you listen regularly to their free and awesome Podcasts, much of the content will be familiar. Unlike their previous books, which seek to disprove …
Chris Anderson
This witty and amusing account of how free has become the new baseline for business is fascinating. It looks at our assumptions of how we make profit and how to go about doing it. Both a history, and a look at the current at the use of free …
Candacy A. Taylor
Taylor became fascinated with waitresses and diner culture when waiting tables to pay for her graduate school education. Her thesis, this book, focused on the “lifer” waitress – women who have waited tables for decades. With a combination of research and interviews, Taylor soon dispels the notion …
