English Culture

We live in a new age of beauty. With advancements in cosmetic surgery, walk-in treatments, augmented reality face filters, photo editing apps, and exposure to more images than ever, we have the ability to craft the image we want everyone to see. We pinch, pull, squeeze, tweeze, smooth and slice ourselves beyond recognition. But is our beauty culture truly empowering? Are we really in control? In Pixel Flesh, Ellen Atlanta holds a mirror up to our modern beauty ideal, as well as the pressure to present a perfect image, to live in an age of constant comparison and curated feeds.

Self-made billionaire Sam Zell consistently sees what others don't. From finding a market for overpriced Playboy magazines among his junior high classmates, to buying real estate on the cheap after a market crash, to investing in often unglamorous industries with long-term value, Zell acts boldly on supply and demand trends to grab the first-mover advantage. And he can find opportunity virtually anywhere - from an arcane piece of legislation to a desert meeting in Abu Dhabi.

It's just a small story really, about, among other things, a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak's groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist: books.

Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world. In this timely and enlightening book, the best-selling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives.

We know the impacts of poor leadership: lackluster performance, missed opportunities, deleterious cultures, and, in some cases, disaster. While these issues are all too common, leaders also possess an immense opportunity. They can create a speak-up culture, one in which people feel it is both safe and worth it to share their ideas, concerns, disagreements, and even mistakes—all for the betterment of the organization. Speak-Up Culture is for leaders at all levels who desire to know a better way to behave as a leader.

More than 2,000 years ago, Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang Di was laid to rest in a tomb guarded by thousands of life-size clay statues of warriors and horse-drawn chariots. Some 1,000 years earlier, the tombs of Chinese emperors were not guarded by clay figures, but by the dead bodies of humans and animals sacrificed for the cause. All over the world, different cultures have conducted an amazing array of intriguing burial practices.

The narrative of American history is incomplete without the inclusion of the Native Americans that lived on the continent before European settlers arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Among these groups, one of the most famous is the Mohawk, who refer to themselves as Kanien'kehá:ka ("People of the Place of Flint"), but pop culture has a very different image in mind when it comes to the Mohawk. Those unfamiliar with the group associate them with the conspicuous Mohawk haircut, and images of a warlike people who scalp their enemies are still evoked.

Ben Shapiro uncovers the simple strategy used by liberals and their friends in the media: bully the living hell out of conservatives. Play the race card, the class card, the sexism card. Use any and every means at your disposal to demonize your opposition - to shut them up. Then pretend that such bullying is justified because, after all, conservatives are the true bullies and need to be taught a lesson for their intolerance.

Inspired by the most popular subjects on Isaac Weishaupt’s podcast, Conspiracy Theories & Unpopular Culture, this book explores familiar topics that have an insidious truth hidden from the masses. Using occult doctrine cited from Freemasonry, Kabbalah, and Gnosticism; Isaac guides the listener through the symbolism of the concepts most frequently discussed by the conspiracy theory community.

Journalist Simone Stolzoff traces how work has come to dominate Americans’ lives—and why we find it so difficult to let go. Based on groundbreaking reporting and interviews with Michelin star chefs, Wall Street bankers, overwhelmed teachers and other workers across the American economy, Stolzoff exposes what we lose when we expect work to be more than a job. Rather than treat work as a calling or a dream, he asks what it would take to reframe work as a part of life rather than the entirety of our lives. What does it mean for a job to be good enough?

Emily Ratajkowski is an acclaimed model and actress, an engaged political progressive, a formidable entrepreneur, a global social media phenomenon, and now, a writer. Rocketing to world fame at age 21, Ratajkowski sparked both praise and furor with the provocative display of her body as an unapologetic statement of feminist empowerment. The subsequent evolution in her thinking about our culture’s commodification of women is the subject of this book.

Around 950,000 years ago, a family of five walked along the beach and left behind the oldest family footprints ever discovered. For award-winning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, these poignant, familiar fossils serve as an inspiration for a new kind of world history, one that is genuinely global, spans all eras and all continents, and focuses on the family ties that connect every one of us. In this epic, ever-surprising book, Montefiore chronicles the world’s great dynasties across human history to the people at the heart of the human drama.

The acclaimed author of seven ALA Best Books for Young Adults, Will Hobbs pens a spellbinding true-to-life adventure. With nothing but dogged determination, 15year-old Victor leaves his Mexican village to illegally enter the U.S. and help his starving family. Soon he must outwit gangs, drug-runners, and border agents as he endures shivering nights, blistering days, and gnawing hunger. But can his longing for the beckoning opportunity of El Norte carry him through such impossible obstacles?

In The Pathway to Powerful, Danny Silk - author of Culture of Honor and Keep Your Love On - teams up with Carla Chud to offer a practical road map for becoming a more powerful, healthy leader. Drawing from the journey Carla and her leadership team have taken to transform themselves and their organization, she and Danny lay out the steps to overcome fear-driven, dysfunctional leadership and establish the core values and practices of honor in their lives, team dynamics, and organizational culture.

As coaches and sport leaders what can we do to ensure that we maximize the potential of our athletes and teams so they are successful and continue to enjoy sport? How do we ensure that we coach in a way that benefits the team and remains respectful of the individual? In their first book together, André Lachance and Jean François Ménard offer tangible and practical strategies to help sport leaders create efficient group dynamics, build team culture, and help a group of athletes to gel.

A yule log burns brightly in a fireplace. Children pop open Christmas crackers to get a surprise. Families enjoy treats such as mince pie and plum pudding. These are the sights and sounds of Christmas in England. Come explore the many English traditions that bring people of this country together at Christmas.

From flamboyant relatives on Bewitched to closely-guarded secrets on All in the Family, from network-censor fights over Soap to behind-the-scenes activism on the set of The Golden Girls, from Ellen’s culture clash to Modern Family’s primetime power-couple, Hi Honey, I’m Homo! is the story not only of how subversive queer comedy transformed the American sitcom, from its inception through today, but how our favorite sitcoms transformed, and continue to transform, America.

Something evil has taken over. Lewis Barnavelt and his uncle are in England, visiting a cousin at Barnavelt Manor. Lewis quickly becomes friends with the housekeeper's son, and as the two boys explore a garden maze, Lewis accidentally unleashes demonic forces that summon the ghost of an evil wizard bent on destroying his entire family. Can Lewis fight the maniacal wizard, or will all the Barnavelts perish?

As the armed conflicts between the English colonies in North America and the French settlements raged in the 1700s, a young Puritan girl, Eunice Williams, is kidnapped by Mohawk people and taken to Canada. She is adopted into a new family, a new culture, and a new set of traditions that will define her life. As Eunice spends her days learning the Mohawk language and the roles of women and girls in the community, she gains a deeper understanding of her Mohawk family.

To create a world free from oppression, we each have to face the ways that we maintain toxic social systems within ourselves. In Indigenous cultures throughout the world, it's understood that true transformation starts in the body with a change of heart. Shamanic healer Langston Kahn offers the Deep Liberation Process, a body-based approach that allows us to radically transform the range of fear-based stories we each hold in ourselves.