The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers


Scott Carney - 2011
    As gripping as CSI and as eye-opening as Mary Roach’s Stiff, Carney’s The Red Market sheds a blazing new light on the disturbing, billion-dollar business of trading in human body parts, bodies, and child trafficking, raising issues and exposing corruptions almost too bizarre and shocking to imagine.

How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler


Ryan North - 2018
    . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat? With this book as your guide, you'll survive--and thrive--in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted--from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever.

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century


Jessica Bruder - 2017
    These invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in RVs and modified vans, forming a growing community of nomads.Nomadland tells a revelatory tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—one which foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, it celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive, but have not given up hope.

We're Not Sixteen Anymore: The Saga of an Old Prune & Her Dates


Becky Andersen - 2016
    But not just any dating! Online dating. And specifically online dating when you're closer to sixty than to sixteen. Follow the tongue-in-cheek adventures of a Baby Boomer as she discovers the pitfalls and highlights of dating in the 21st Century's cyber-world. Feeling naive and outside her comfort zone, the author prepares to step up to the plate of dating after a relative puts her on an electronic dating site. Like many people, she discovers she's been in a time warp, and when she approaches dating like she did when she was in her teens, she discovers it's entirely different. What started out as entries on her Facebook page have expanded into detailed accounts of dating foibles and feats. Anyone who has embraced the concept of online dating will find her adventures humorous and charming.

How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter


Ann Coulter - 2004
    With her monumental bestsellers Treason, Slander, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Coulter has become the most recognized and talked-about conservative intellectual in years—and certainly the most controversial. Now, in How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), which is sure to ignite impassioned debate, she offers her most comprehensive analysis of the American political scene to date. With incisive reasoning, refreshing candor, and razor-sharp wit, she reveals just why liberals have got it so wrong.In this powerful and entertaining book, which draws on her weekly columns, Coulter ranges far and wide. No subject is off-limits, and no comment is left unsaid. After all, she writes, “Nothing too extreme can be said about liberals because it’s all true.” How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) offers Coulter’s unvarnished take on: •The essence of being a liberal: “The absolute conviction that there is one set of rules for you, and another, completely different set of rules for everyone else.”•John Kerry: “A reporter asked Kerry, ‘Are you for or against gay marriage?’ As usual, his answer was, ‘Yes.’ ”•Her 9/11 comments: “I am often asked if I still think we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. The answer is: Now more than ever!”•The state of the Democratic Party: “Teddy Kennedy crawls out of Boston Harbor with a quart of Scotch in one pocket and a pair of pantyhose in the other, and Democrats hail him as their party’s spiritual leader.” •Her philosophy for arguing with liberals: “Tough love, except I don’t love them. My ‘tough love’ approach is much like the Democrats’ ‘middle-class tax cuts’—everything but the last word.”•The “Treason Lobby”: “Want to make liberals angry? Defend the United States.”In this full-on Coulterpalooza, you’ll find the real, uncensored Ann Coulter. A special concluding chapter even includes the pieces that squeamish editors refused to publish—“what you could have read if you lived in a free country,” says Coulter. How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) is a stunning reminder of why Ann Coulter’s commentary has achieved must-read status.Note: All information herein, such as number of pages, publisher, etc., refer to this alternate cover edition and may or may not coincide with the main entry for this ISBN or any other alternate covers.~

The Fuck It List: All The Things You Can Skip Before You Die


Peter Conners - 2015
    The F*ck It List is a hilarious middle-finger salute to all those absurd life goals that will ensure an anxiety-filled middle age will be followed by shame-filled golden years. It pokes a sorely needed pin into a bloated rite of passage that's ripe for deflation. Do you really need to firewalk or didn't Oprah and Tony Robbins take care of that for us? Swimming with sharks is a really dumb idea, so let's leave that with the gullible reality tv desperadoes, shall we? Kevin Pryslak has come up with a "to don't list" that will have you laughing out loud and leave you with lots more time to do the all the things YOU really want to do!

Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag


Henry Rollins - 1994
    Rollins's observations range from the wry to the raucous in this blistering account of a six-year career with the band - a time marked by crazed fans, vicious cops, near-starvation, substance abuse, and mind numbing all-night drives. Rollins decided to revise this edition by adding a wealth of new photographs, a new foreword, and an afterword to include some "where-are-they-now" information on the people featured in the book. This new edition includes 40 previously unpublished black-and-white photographs from Rollins's private collection and show flyers by artist Raymond Pettibon. Called "a soul-frying experience not to be undertaken by lightweights" by Wired magazine, Get in the Van perfectly embodies what one critic called the "secular gospel" of one of punk and post-punk's most respected and controversial figures.

Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door


Lynne Truss - 2005
    Taking on the boorish behavior that for some has become a point of pride, Talk to the Hand is a rallying cry for courtesy. Like Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Talk to the Hand is not a stuffy guidebook, and is sure to inspire spirited conversation. For anyone who’s fed up with the brutality inflicted by modern manners (or lack thereof), Talk to the Hand is a colorful call to arms—from the wittiest defender of the civilized world.

How to Tell a Story and Other Essays


Mark Twain - 1996
    A hilarious and cutting critique of what not to do, this deliciously wicked essay also lays out what writers should and must do if they wanttheir fiction to live and breathe--as Twain's own fiction always does. In How to Tell a Story, the title piece, Twain takes on such mysteries as the perfectly-timed pause and the uses of the dead-pan mask, and candidly describes his own efforts to hone his platform skills. In What Paul BourgetThinks of Us, Twain lays out a job description for the native novelist that is as fresh and accurate today as when Twain first wrote it. Anyone who cares about storytelling or writing will find Twain's sage suggestions in this volume compelling and engaging.

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble


Dan Lyons - 2016
    His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him. Fifty years old and with a wife and two young kids, Dan was, in a word, screwed. Then an idea hit. Dan had long reported on Silicon Valley and the tech explosion. Why not join it? HubSpot, a Boston start-up, was flush with $100 million in venture capital. They offered Dan a pile of stock options for the vague role of "marketing fellow." What could go wrong? HubSpotters were true believers: They were making the world a better place ... by selling email spam. The office vibe was frat house meets cult compound: The party began at four thirty on Friday and lasted well into the night; "shower pods" became hook-up dens; a push-up club met at noon in the lobby, while nearby, in the "content factory," Nerf gun fights raged. Groups went on "walking meetings," and Dan's absentee boss sent cryptic emails about employees who had "graduated" (read: been fired). In the middle of all this was Dan, exactly twice the age of the average HubSpot employee, and literally old enough to be the father of most of his co-workers, sitting at his desk on his bouncy-ball "chair."Mixed in with Lyons's uproarious tale of his rise and fall at Hubspot is a trenchant analysis of the start-up world, a de facto conspiracy between those who start companies and those who fund them, a world where bad ideas are rewarded with hefty investments, where companies blow money lavishing perks on their post-collegiate workforces, and where everybody is trying to hang on just long enough to reach an IPO and cash out. With a cast of characters that includes devilish angel investors, fad-chasing venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and "wantrapreneurs," bloggers and brogrammers, social climbers and sociopaths, Disrupted is a gripping and definitive account of life in the (second) tech bubble.

The Seventh Function of Language


Laurent Binet - 2015
    The literary critic Roland Barthes dies—struck by a laundry van—after lunch with the presidential candidate François Mitterand. The world of letters mourns a tragic accident. But what if it wasn’t an accident at all? What if Barthes was . . . murdered?

I'm Your Emotional Support Animal: Navigating Our All Woke, No Joke Culture


Adam Carolla - 2020
    We used to have one that created real warriors who fought world wars. Now it spawns social justice warriors who fight Twitter wars. He takes on those who are traumatized by Trump and “emotional support animal” owners who proclaim their victimhood at every airport. He stands up for the collateral damage of the #MeToo movement and for freedom of speech on “safe space” filled college campuses. Examining the calculated commercials churned out by Madison Avenue, like the ones about cars “made with love,” Carolla rants on ads designed to either bum us out or make us think the corporation is run by Mr. Rogers. Turning to social media, Adam takes down the “hashtag heroes” who signal their virtue daily from atop Twitter mountain. And in the era of the Roomba, performances by dead celebrity holograms, and meals-on-demand delivery services, he looks down the road at our not-so-bright future as a species. Frank, funny, and utterly unapologetic, this is not a book for those who need a trigger warning, but is THE book for everyone who wants to hit the snooze bar on the “woke” culture.

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite


Suki Kim - 2014
    Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields - except for the 270 students at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a walled compound where portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il look on impassively from the walls of every room, and where Suki has accepted a job teaching English. Over the next six months, she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them to write, all under the watchful eye of the regime. Life at PUST is lonely and claustrophobic, especially for Suki, whose letters are read by censors and who must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but from her colleagues - evangelical Christian missionaries who don't know or choose to ignore that Suki doesn't share their faith. She is mystified by how easily her students lie, unnerved by their obedience to the regime. To them, everything in North Korea is the best, the tallest, the most delicious, the envy of all nations. Still, she cannot help but love them - their boyish enthusiasm, their eagerness to please, the flashes of curiosity that have not yet been extinguished. As the weeks pass, she begins to hint at the existence of a world beyond their own - at such exotic activities as surfing the Internet or traveling freely and, more dangerously, at electoral democracy and other ideas forbidden in a country where defectors risk torture and execution. The students in turn offer Suki tantalizing glimpses into their lives, from their thoughts on how to impress girls to their disappointment that soccer games are only televised when the North Korean team wins. Then Kim Jong-il dies, leaving the students devastated, and leading Suki to question whether the gulf between her world and theirs can ever be bridged.Without You, There Is No Us offers a moving and incalculably rare glimpse of life in the world's most unknowable country, and at the privileged young men she calls "soldiers and slaves."

Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America


Dan Savage - 2002
    Among them:Greed: Gamblers reveal secrets behind outrageous fortune.Lust: "We're swingers!"-you won't believe who's doing it.Anger: Texans shoot off some rounds and then listen to Dan fire off on his own about guns, gun control, and the Second Amendment.Combine a unique history of the Seven Deadly Sins, a new interpretation of the biblical stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, and enough Bill Bennett, Robert Bork, Pat Buchanan, Dr. Laura, and Bill O'Reilly bashing to more than make up for their incessant carping, and you've got the most provocative book of the fall.

The Kingdom of Speech


Tom Wolfe - 2016
    The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech—not evolution—is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements.From Alfred Russel Wallace, the Englishman who beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection but later renounced it, and through the controversial work of modern-day anthropologist Daniel Everett, who defies the current wisdom that language is hard-wired in humans, Wolfe examines the solemn, long-faced, laugh-out-loud zig-zags of Darwinism, old and Neo, and finds it irrelevant here in the Kingdom of Speech.