In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed


Carl Honoré - 2004
    We strain to be more efficient, to cram more into each minute, each hour, each day. Since the Industrial Revolution shifted the world into high gear, the cult of speed has pushed us to a breaking point. Consider these facts: Americans on average spend seventy-two minutes of every day behind the wheel of a car, a typical business executive now loses sixty-eight hours a year to being put on hold, and American adults currently devote on average a mere half hour per week to making love.Living on the edge of exhaustion, we are constantly reminded by our bodies and minds that the pace of life is spinning out of control. In Praise of Slowness traces the history of our increasingly breathless relationship with time and tackles the consequences of living in this accelerated culture of our own creation. Why are we always in such a rush? What is the cure for time sickness? Is it possible, or even desirable, to slow down? Realizing the price we pay for unrelenting speed, people all over the world are reclaiming their time and slowing down the pace -- and living happier, healthier, and more productive lives as a result. A Slow revolution is taking place.Here you will find no Luddite calls to overthrow technology and seek a preindustrial utopia. This is a modern revolution, championed by cell-phone using, e-mailing lovers of sanity. The Slow philosophy can be summed up in a single word -- balance. People are discovering energy and efficiency where they may have been least expected -- in slowing down.In this engaging and entertaining exploration, award-winning journalist and rehabilitated speedaholic Carl Honoré details our perennial love affair with efficiency and speed in a perfect blend of anecdotal reportage, history, and intellectual inquiry. In Praise of Slowness is the first comprehensive look at the worldwide Slow movements making their way into the mainstream -- in offices, factories, neighborhoods, kitchens, hospitals, concert halls, bedrooms, gyms, and schools. Defining a movement that is here to stay, this spirited manifesto will make you completely rethink your relationship with time.

Feminist Fight Club: An Office Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace


Jessica Bennett - 2016
    Every month, the women would huddle in a friend’s apartment to share sexist job frustrations and trade tips for how best to tackle them. Once upon a time, you might have called them a consciousness-raising group. But the problems of today’s working world are more subtle, less pronounced, harder to identify—and, if Ellen Pao is any indication, harder to prove—than those of their foremothers. These women weren’t just there to vent. They needed battle tactics. And so the fight club was born.Hard-hitting and entertaining, Feminist Fight Club blends personal stories with research, statistics, infographics, and no-bullsh*t expert advice. Bennett offers a new vocabulary for the sexist workplace archetypes women encounter everyday—such as the Manterrupter who talks over female colleagues in meetings or the Himitator who appropriates their ideas—and provides practical hacks for navigating other gender landmines in today’s working world. With original illustrations, Feminist Mad Libs, a Negotiation Cheat Sheet, as well as fascinating historical research and a kit for “How to Start Your Own Club,” Feminist Fight Club tackles both the external (sexist) and internal (self-sabotaging) behaviors that plague today’s women—as well as the system that perpetuates them.

Freakonomics: Rejuvenating the Self-Destructive Global Economy


Dan Nathaniel Brown - 2006
    

Status Anxiety


Alain de Botton - 2004
    For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents turns his attention to the insatiable quest for status, a quest that has less to do with material comfort than with love. To demonstrate his thesis, de Botton ranges through Western history and thought from St. Augustine to Andrew Carnegie and Machiavelli to Anthony Robbins.Whether it’s assessing the class-consciousness of Christianity or the convulsions of consumer capitalism, dueling or home-furnishing, Status Anxiety is infallibly entertaining. And when it examines the virtues of informed misanthropy, art appreciation, or walking a lobster on a leash, it is not only wise but helpful.

The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy


Colleen Carroll Campbell - 2002
    The New Faithful is a groundbreaking book that examines the growing trend toward religious orthodoxy among today's young adults.  author and Journalist Colleen Carroll Campbell offers strong opinions on how this movement might transform an American society steeped in moral relativism and secularism.Blending investigative journalism with in-depth analysis, Campbell seeks the reasons behind the choice of orthodoxy in a socity that often denigrates traditional morality and rejects organized religion.

The Sum of My Parts


James Sanford - 2011
    At first I tried to deny my condition (trying to treat a tumor with hot baths and ice packs). Eventually, I decided I would learn as much about my illness as possible while trying to keep my emotions on hold.What followed was an experience that finally forced me to deal with issues about my body that I had tried to ignore for decades. Along the way I dealt with a physician who gave me ridiculous advice and acquaintances who asked unbelievable questions. But I was also fortunate to be surrounded by people who supported me and doctors who helped me through the process.

Jo Frost's Toddler Rules: Your 5-Step Guide to Shaping Proper Behavior


Jo Frost - 2014
     Jo Frost has always had a natural gift for connecting with kids, and for helping parents navigate milestones with practical know-how and ease. With the success of her hit TV shows Supernanny, Extreme Parental Guidance, and Family S.O.S. with Jo Frost, she’s proven her ability to expertly rein in unacceptable conduct and bring peace and stability to millions of homes worldwide. Now, in this invaluable book, she shows you how to identify and eliminate toddler tantrums, and curb behaviors in other child rearing areas. Frost’s effective five-step program for disciplined parenting addresses such challenges as  • Sleep: winning those nightly battles—going to bed and staying there• Food: what to cook, trying new things, and enjoying meal times• Play: sharing toys, defusing squabbles, developing social skills• Learning: listening, language, and development• Manners: teaching respect, showing examples, and positive praise   The key to achieving success with these Toddler Rules is Frost’s proven S.O.S. method: Step Back, Observe, Step In. Complete with troubleshooting tips for living tantrum-free, this welcome, honest, straightforward guide has all you need to help your children grow, thrive, and make family time even more precious.Praise for Jo Frost’s Toddler Rules   “The indomitable Frost shares both her wisdom and experience for parents of toddlers. The five rules . . . are presented in her charming and conversational tone and provide not only a foundation for sanity but sure scaffolding to greater learning and happier parenting. . . . Frost is a favorite with many, and her engaging manner carries into her written work.”—Library Journal (starred review)“Common-sense and practical advice on raising young children by an expert in the field . . . A full chapter devoted to handling temper tantrums is an added bonus for parents in crisis mode.”—Kirkus Reviews

Exit Ramp: A Short Case Study of the Profitability of Panhandling


David P. Spears II - 2013
    During the summer of his senior year at college, while earning a B.A. in Economics and Political Science, David P. Spears spent eighty hours undercover as a panhandler. Systematically recording every transaction at the exit ramp, Spears captured a rarely seen picture of how modern urban charity works.This book is the record of his adventures, part economic research, part investigative journalism. Both the numbers and the stories behind the numbers provide answers to the questions we’ve all been wondering: Who gives more to panhandlers—men or women? What percentage of drivers roll down their windows to donate? And most important of all, how much can a panhandler earn per hour?Get out your bi-weekly pay stub—by the end of this book you’ll know if you make more or less than the guy with the cardboard sign.

Men Who Hate Women - From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All


Laura Bates - 2020
    In this ground-breaking investigation, Laura Bates traces the roots of misogyny across a complex spider's web of groups extending from Men's Rights Activists and Pick up Artists to "Men Going their Own Way" trolls and the Incel movement, in the name of which some men have committed terrorist acts. Drawing parallels with other extremist movements around the world, Bates seeks to understand what attracts men to the movement, how it grooms and radicalizes boys, how it operates, and what can be done to stop it. Most urgently of all, she traces the pathways this extreme ideology has taken from the darkest corners of the internet to emerge covertly in our mainstream media, our playgrounds, and our parliament. Going undercover online and off, Bates provides the first, comprehensive look at this hitherto under-the-radar phenomenon, including fascinating interviews with trolls, former incels, the academics studying this movement, and the men fighting back.

Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy


Lewis H. Lapham - 2004
    Never before, Lapham argues, have voices of protest been so locked out of the mainstream conversation, so marginalized and muted by a government that recklessly disregards civil liberties. In the midst of the “war on terror,” we face a crisis of democracy as serious as any in our history. Gag Rule is a rousing and necessary call to action in defense of the right to raise our voices and have those voices heard.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell | Summary & Study Guide


BookRags - 2011
    This study guide includes a detailed Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Character Descritions, Objects/Places, Themes, Styles, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion on Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Retail Hell


Freeman Hall - 2009
    Speaking for every wage slave who has ever handled a bogus return, Freeman throws open the gates of Retail Hell, revealing stories from his twenty years of working "on the floor."

Where The Rainbow Ends


Anurag Anand - 2013
    In the words of Ken Ghosh, acclaimed Bollywood Director, “A refreshingly poignant plot that keeps its readers engrossed till the very end.”Back cover blurb:Even the most artistic of imaginings can sometimes seem callow in the face of truth. That which appears may not be and that which lies hidden might just be the stark, naked face of reality.Rahul had everything going his way – a soaring career, a happy family and all else a man his age could yearn for. And then suddenly his life began to crumble all around him, disintegrating element after precious element, leaving him to watch in helpless horror.Where had he gone wrong? Was there still hope for redemption, even a solitary ray that he could cling on to?Avantika, a pretty, vivacious girl who had come into Rahul’s life by pure accident, literally, has suddenly gone missing. Just like that, without as much as a trace.Where is Avantika? Will Rahul be able to find her? Is it her own past that has come back to consume her or is it something even more vicious and sinister?Shalini, Rahul’s first love and a girl accustomed to leading life on her own terms. Hailing from a family that exerts considerable influence in the galleries of politics and power, she certainly has the wherewithal to impact a lot of things. Even lives.Is Shalini fostering a grudge that could displace not one but many lives? Could she be the one behind Avantika’s mysterious disappearance?

Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science


Charles Wheelan - 2002
    In fact, you won’t be able to put this bestseller down. In our challenging economic climate, this perennial favorite of students and general readers is more than a good read, it’s a necessary investment—with a blessedly sure rate of return. This revised and updated edition includes commentary on hot topics such as automation, trade, income inequality, and America’s rising debt. Ten years after the financial crisis, Naked Economics examines how policymakers managed the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.Demystifying buzzwords, laying bare the truths behind oft-quoted numbers, and answering the questions you were always too embarrassed to ask, the breezy Naked Economics gives you the tools to engage with pleasure and confidence in the deeply relevant, not so dismal science.

The Criminal Child


Jean Genet - 1949
    "The Criminal Child" is a critical engagement with the French youth prisons, a reflection on Genet's formative years within them, a document of hostility towards society and its benevolent reformers, and (as argued by the anonymous afterword) an initiatory magical system. A handsome pocketbook with letterpressed cover. This pamphlet is available from Little Black Cart. The publishers can be reached at ardor@riseup.net