In The Intellectual Devotional: Modern Culture, authors David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim explore the fascinating world of contemporary culture to offer 365 daily readings that provide the essential references needed to navigate the world today.Quench your intellectual thirst with an overview of the literature, music, film, personalities, trends, sports, and pop references that have defined the way we live. From the Slinky to Star Wars; Beatlemania to Babe Ruth; flappers to fascism—refreshing your memory and dazzling your friends has never been easier, or more fun. Whether you're a trivia genius, pop-culture buff, or avid reader, you'll be riveted by this comprehensive journey through contemporary culture.

    He drank whiskey before you did. He had a mustache before you did. Admit it: your dad was a hipster before you were! Based on the blog phenomenon of the same name, this book celebrates dads as the original hipsters. Vintage photos of real dads back in the day—in their short shorts and tight tees playing arcade games—accompany snarky captions that at once tip a cap to Dad's glory days and poke fun at modern hipsters. Featuring tons of never-before-seen content, this is the perfect gift for dads, hipsters, and those who love to tease them!

    At the end of each visit, photographer and family collaborated on a remarkable portrait of the family members outside their home, surrounded by all of their possessions—a few jars and jugs for some, an explosion of electronic gadgetry for others. Vividly portraying the look and feel of the human condition everywhere on Earth, this internationally acclaimed bestseller puts a human face on the issues of population, environment, social justice, and consumption as it illuminates the crucial question facing our species today: Can all six billion of us have all the things we want?

    It is an inexhaustible mine of anecdotes, quotations, images, curious facts and useless information, oddities, serious science, jokes and memories, all concerned with the interplay between the verbal and the visual, and the limitless resources of the human mind. Loosely arranged in 72 chapters, all this material is presented in a wonderfully inventive series of pages that are themselves masterly demonstrations of the expressive use of type, space, color and imagery.This book does not set out to teach lessons, but it is full of wisdom and insight collected from all over the world. Describing himself as a visual jackdaw, master designer Alan Fletcher has distilled a lifetime of experience and reflection into a brilliantly witty and inimitable exploration of such subjects as perception, color, pattern, proportion, paradox, illusion, language, alphabets, words, letters, ideas, creativity, culture, style, aesthetics and value.The Art of Looking Sideways is the ultimate guide to visual awareness, a magical compilation that will entertain and inspire all those who enjoy the interplay between word and image, and who relish the odd and the unexpected.

    In Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic, the writer whom Steven Millhauser called "the most original essayist since George Orwell" examines with devastating wit and in a style distinctly his own the contagious appeal of that which is not art, the uses of the useless, the politics of product design and advertising. Here is a psychic voyage into the aesthetic unconscious of the consumer, as well as "the perfect companion for any foray through Restoration Hardware or the freezer compartment at Dean & DeLuca" (Village Voice Literary Supplement). From teddy bears to Mars Bars to Leonardo DiCaprio, this is the refuse of consumerism unflinchingly—and very entertainingly—observed.

     What James Lileks did for dinner with the critically acclaimed classic "The Gallery of Regrettable Food," he now does to the wonderful world of 1970s home interiors. Blazing plaid wallpaper. Vertigo-inducing matching patterns on walls, rugs, chairs, pillows, and blinds. Bathrooms straight out of "2001: A Space Odyssey." The whole '70s shebang. If you think the '80s were dumber than the '70s, either you weren't there or you weren't paying attention. James Lileks came of age in the 1970s, and for him there was no crueler thing you could inflict upon a person. The music: either sluggish metal, cracker-boogie, or wimpy ballads. Television: camp without the pleasure of knowing it's camp. Politics: the sweaty perfidy of Nixon, the damp uselessness of Ford, the sanctimonious impotence of Carter. The world: nasty. Hair: unspeakable. Architecture: metal-shingled mansard roofs on franchise chicken shops. No oil. No fun. Syphilis and Fonzie. "Interior Desecrations "is the author's revenge on the decade. Using an ungodly collection of the worst of 1970s interior design magazines, books, and pamphlets, he proves without a shadow of a doubt that the '70s were a breathtakingly ugly period. And nowhere was that ugliness and lack of style felt more than in our very homes, virtual breeding grounds for bad taste, manifested in brown, orange, andplaid wallpaper patterns. This is what happens when Dad drinks, Mom floats in a Valium haze, the kids slump down in the den with the bong, and the decorator is left to run amok. It seemed so normal at the time. But this book should cure whatever lingering nostalgia we have. Exploring all the rooms in the house, Lileks marries the worst of design with the funniest of commentary. His sharp-witted humor, keen eye for detail, and ability to pull the most obscure 1970s references out of his hat make "Interior Desecrations" the perfect gift for those of us who languished away the decade watching Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie, and Chico and the Man down in our rec rooms, sprawled out on the shag carpeting, waiting for it all to mercifully end. For those people born later and who may think it was all made up--it wasn't. Would that it was! The photos in this book are not the product of some cruel designer gone crazy with Photoshop. They're all too real. So adjust your sense of style, color, and taste. . . and beware! You've been warned.

    In Elephants on Acid, Boese details the results of this scientific trial, as well as answers to the questions: Why can't people tickle themselves? Would the average dog summon help in an emergency? Will babies instinctually pick a well-balanced diet? Is it possible to restore life to the dead? Read on to find out...