Popular Science

The definition of 'healthy eating' has been chewed up, spat out and re-digested enough times to make Joe Public give up and seek out their nearest branch of McDonald's. Our mindless obsession with eating 'right' is such that we're now more concerned about what our Instagram followers think of a poorly lit picture of our dinner than we are of its effect on our own palate. Or, indeed, our happiness. We seem to be living in a time where we no longer eat with our hearts, emotions or heritage - but with what our waistlines (and followers) in mind.

Almost everything has been invoked to account for Trump's victory and the rise of alt-right, from job loss to racism to demography - everything, that is, except popular culture. In The Sky Is Falling best-selling cultural critic, Peter Biskind, dives headlong into two decades of popular culture - from superhero franchises such as the X-Men and the Avengers and series like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones to thrillers like Homeland and 24 - and emerges to argue that these shows are saturated with the values that are currently animating our extreme politics.

Early on July 16, 1945, Joshua Wheeler's great grandfather awoke to a flash, and then a long rumble: the world's first atomic blast filled the horizon north of his ranch in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Out on the range, the cattle had been bleached white by the fallout. Acid West, Wheeler's stunning debut collection of essays, is full of these mutated cows: vestiges of the Old West that have been transformed, suddenly and irrevocably, by innovation. Traversing the New Mexico landscape, Wheeler excavates and reexamines these oddities.

Long before Superman or Batman made their first appearances, there was Zorro. Born on the pages of the pulps in 1919, Zorro fenced his way through the American popular imagination, carving his signature letter Z into the flesh of evildoers in Old Spanish California. Zorro is the original caped crusader, the first hero to have a band called the Avengers, and the character who laid the blueprint for the modern American superhero. In Zorro's Shadow, historian and Latin American studies expert Stephen J. C. Andes investigates the legends behind the mask of Zorro.

In Songs in the Key of MP3: The New Icons of the Internet Age, Liam Inscoe-Jones explores five contemporary artists who broke the old rules of sound, style and the music industry at large: Devonté Hynes (of Blood Orange), FKA Twigs, Oneohtrix Point Never, Earl Sweatshirt and SOPHIE. Each began their careers as obscure outsiders but, over time, they helped to re-shape pop culture in their image. Through these five extraordinary figures and an eclectic supporting cast of dozens more, Inscoe-Jones paints a picture of the sonic landscape of the last ten years.

The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, first published in 1895, is a classic psychology text that is both thorough and easy to understand. It is considered seminal work in the study of crowd psychology. In it, Le Bon covers many aspects of crowd psychology and writes that crowd psychology exhibits "impulsiveness, irritability, incapacity to reason".

Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran and former host of All Access, DC Comics' web show, Jason Inman, discusses the influence war has had on some of the most memorable superheroes in comics.

UFOs. Aliens. Strange crop circles. Giant figures scratched in the desert surface along the coast of Peru. The amazing alignment of the pyramids. Strange lines of clouds in the sky. The paranormal is alive and well in the American cultural landscape.

If you end an evening by slapping your thighs and saying, “Welp, I’ll go ahead and get outta your hair,” then you don’t need this guide, but you sure as heck might like it. Full of common Midwestern phrases (and what they really mean behind the friendly facade), A Guide to Midwestern Conversation is an affectionate, self-deprecating look at the language of a people long defined by their kindness and reduced to their voting patterns.

Tumbling from one love entanglement to another, 30-something teacher Izzy Comyn has a predilection for inappropriate men. Over the three hilarious series of Up the Garden Path, Izzy, played by Imelda Staunton, deals with the complicated ups and downs of her attempts to find true love.

In using intimate experiences to examine larger cultural topics, this singular work breaks new ground in its consideration of K-pop. I’ll Love You Forever blends the critical with the personal while spanning the history of K-pop from the perspective of a bilingual and bicultural Korean American.

Looking to connect with family and friends over shared memories? This audiobook is your perfect companion. Are you seeking a fun way to keep your mind active? Want to bond with your grandchildren over shared stories? Trivia for Seniors brings back the joy of favorite past moments while creating new ones with loved ones. Filled with over 500 multiple-choice questions from the 1950s to 1990s, this collection covers music, movies, historical events, and cultural milestones.

Experience the Green Rush through the eyes of Jackson D. Tilley - the sober 20-something who climbed the ladder at a small vape company while it grew into the nation’s leading cannabis distributor.

Annice, Pat, and Barby are best friends from Iowa, freshly arrived in booming 1950s Chicago to explore different paths toward independence, self - expression, and sexual freedom. From the hip-hang of a bohemian lifestyle to the sophisticated lure of romance with a handsome, wealthy, married boss to the happier security of a lesbian relationship, these three experience firsthand the dangers and limitations of women’s economic -reliance on men.

Thanks to his expert knowledge of the whole alphabet, Dominic Knight is uniquely qualified to write an A to Z of the things that deeply irritate him, and should irritate everybody. Bullfighting, unicorns, homeopathy, fluffy dice chillout music, vapes and multilevel marketing are among the entries in this delightful and definitive list of atrocities, which proves beyond a doubt that alongside the magnificent march of progress, there has been a much funnier race to the bottom.

Can a story written almost 200 years ago help us understand the modern world? In Searching for Goldilocks, Dr. Matt Kresl explores the search for “just right” within and all around us. Basing his discussion on the Goldilocks Principle, a reference to the children’s fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Dr. Kresl focuses on how science, spirituality, and storytelling form a launching point to explore the concept of “just right” in everyday life.

In Stumbling Toward Utopia, author Tim Goeglein looks at the philosophies and policies that led to the societal earthquake of the1960s and how those philosophies and policies have led to the cataclysm America faces today.

Сергей Хоббит — бывший виджей культового телеканала A-One, а ныне ведущий радио Maximum не понаслышке знает о горячих годах российской альтернативы. Взяв за основу внутрянку андеграундной жизни нулевых, он рассказал о том, как все происходило на самом деле. Ну и, конечно, ответил на вопрос: почему же все-таки Первый Альтернативный прекратил свое существование и почему никто никогда не вернет 2007-й.

Conspiracy theories, and particularly the belief that elements of the world are secretly controlled by individuals or groups, have been around for as long as people have lived in groups. Perhaps that’s inevitable—after all, those who are excluded from power are very likely to be inclined to see their position not as an outcome of their own choices or situation but because of the secret machinations of shadowy groups. One of the most widely discussed conspiracy theories concerns what has become known as the New World Order.

Water Mirror Echo—a title inspired by Bruce Lee’s own way of moving, being and responding to the world—is a captivating and powerful reminder. At the helm is Jeff Chang, the award-winning author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, whose writing on culture, politics, the arts and music have made him one of the most acclaimed and distinctive voices of our time. In his hands, Bruce Lee’s story brims with authenticity.