Popular Science

In the age of Trump, our society is defined by fear. Indeed, three out of four Americans say they feel more fearful today than they did only a couple decades ago. But are we living in exceptionally perilous times? In his best-selling work The Culture of Fear, sociologist Barry Glassner demonstrates it is our perception of danger that has increased, not the actual level of risk.

Learn about the man who wrote The Lord of the Rings in this Middle-earth treasury. Full of answers to common questions about Middle-earth and the fandom, this book about Tolkien celebrates Why We Love Middle-earth.

In this updated version of the classic of popular Egyptology, Barbara Mertz combines her doctorate in Egyptology at the famed Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago with a life-long enthusiasm for ancient Egypt. Her love of the subject is contagious and makes her the perfect guide to ancient Egypt for the student, the layman, and those who plan to visit or have visited the Nile Valley.

For American women today, working out is as accepted as it is expected, fueling a multibillion-dollar fitness industrial complex. But it wasn’t always this way. For much of the 20th century, sweating was considered unladylike and girls grew up believing physical exertion would cause their uterus to literally fall out. It was only in the '60s that, thanks to a few forward-thinking fitness pioneers, women began to move en masse.

The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

In Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan takes us on an exhilarating tour of our popular, unpopular, and at times completely forgotten culture. Simultaneously channeling the gonzo energy of Hunter S. Thompson and the wit and insight of Joan Didion, Sullivan shows us - with a laidback, erudite Southern charm that's all his own - how we really (no, really) live now.

Internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert Clotaire Rapaille reveals for the first time the techniques he has used to improve profitability and practices for dozens of Fortune 100 companies. His groundbreaking revelations shed light not just on business but on the way every human being acts and lives around the world.

Best-selling author of Fire and Fury and chronicler of the Trump White House Michael Wolff dissects more of the major monsters, media whores, and vainglorious figures of our time. His scalpel opens their lives, careers, and always equivocal endgames with the same vividness and wit he brought to his disemboweling of the former president. These brilliant and biting profiles form a mesmerizing portrait of the hubris, overreach, and nearly inevitable self-destruction of some of the most famous faces from the Clinton era through the Trump years.

Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig - the new brand of "empowered woman" who wears the Playboy bunny as a talisman, bares all for Girls Gone Wild, pursues casual sex as if it were a sport, and embraces "raunch culture". If male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better. They think they're being brave, they think they're being funny, but in Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy asks if the joke is on them.

The superhero comic books that Marvel Comics has published since 1961 are, as Douglas Wolk notes, the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created: over half a million pages to date, and still growing. The Marvel story is a gigantic mountain smack in the middle of contemporary culture. Thousands of writers and artists have contributed to it. Everyone recognizes its protagonists: Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men. Eighteen of the hundred highest-grossing movies of all time are based on parts of it. Yet not even the people telling the story have read the whole thing.

Sady Doyle, hailed as "smart, funny, and fearless" by the Boston Globe, takes listeners on a tour of the female dark side, from the biblical Lilith to Dracula's Lucy Westenra, from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. She illuminates the women who have shaped our nightmares: Serial killer Ed Gein's "domineering" mother Augusta; exorcism casualty Anneliese Michel, starving herself to death to quell her demons; author Mary Shelley, dreaming her dead child back to life.

In the critically acclaimed Leisureville, Andrew Blechman delves into life in the senior utopia, offering a hilarious firsthand report on everything from ersatz nostalgia to the residents' surprisingly active sex lives. But this is more than just a romp through a retirement paradise; Blechman traces the history of the age-segregated retirement phenomenon, and travels to Arizona to show what has happened to the pioneering developments after decades of segregation.

Mark Edward is a professional mentalist who specializes in magic of the mind. He has spent more than 25 years in world-class venues from high-end night clubs and theaters to hundreds of private party and corporate events. As one of only five specially chosen and trained mediums in the history of Hollywood's famed Magic Castle, he has performed 15 years of seances that helped him perfect the role of spirit medium and psychic entertainer.

The protagonist of Just Do It is Phil Knight, a reclusive billionaire who started a two-man operation importing Japanese running shoes and built it into a $4 billion company. Irreverent, unpredictable, and leery of the sports establishment, Knight created the most muscular jock culture in business, a place where employees routinely took two hours at lunch to work out and then strategized late into the night in their holy war against competitors Reebok and Adidas.

New York Times best-selling author, comedian, and actor Patton Oswalt shares his entertaining memoir about coming of age as a performer and writer in the late '90s while obsessively watching classic films at the legendary New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakeable addiction. It wasn't drugs, alcohol, or sex. It was film.

An original journalist for The Source, Dan Charnas built a celebrated career in the rap industry. In The Big Payback, he chronicles the rise of the hip-hop culture and shows how it became so powerful in a matter of decades. Charnas also profiles many of the movers and shakers in this burgeoning cultural movement, offering unprecedented access to an industry that continues to shake the globe.

Lisa Bloom fears that women are in danger of spiraling into a nation of dumbed-down, tabloid-media-obsessed, reality TV addicts. Too often, they outsource matters to "experts" and in doing so neglect to truly think for themselves. But she has the solution and it involves one simple word: Think.

One of Michiko Kakutani's (New York Times) top 10 books of 2016. A funny thing happened on the way to the digital utopia. We've begun to fall back in love with the very analog goods and ideas the tech gurus insisted that we no longer needed. Businesses that once looked outdated, from film photography to brick-and-mortar retail, are now springing with new life. Notebooks, records, and stationery have become cool again.

Cathal Kelly grew up in the '70s and '80s, decades when dressing like Michael Jackson seemed like a good idea and The Beachcombers - "an adventure show about logging" - seemed to make sense. But apart from fashion missteps and baffling TV plot lines, Kelly's youth was a time of wonder, obsession, and discovery. Navigating an often fraught family life, Kelly sought refuge in books, music, movies, games, and at least one backyard hole.

Wonder Woman and Philosophy: The Amazonian Mystique explores a wide range of philosophical questions surrounding the most popular female superhero of all time, from her creation as feminist propaganda during World War II up to the first female lead in the blockbuster DC movie franchise.