It just isn't very cool anymore. Enter Full Frontal Feminism, a book that embodies the forward-looking messages that author Jessica Valenti propagated as founder of the popular website, Feministing.com.This revised edition includes a new foreword by Valenti, reflecting upon what’s happened in the five years since Full Frontal Feminism was originally published. With new openers from Valenti in every chapter, the book covers a range of topics, including pop culture, health, reproductive rights, violence, education, relationships, and more.Chapters include:You’re a Hardcore Feminist. I Swear.Feminists Do It Better (and Other Sex Tips)Pop Culture Gone WildThe Blame (and Shame) GameIf These Uterine Walls Could TalkMy Big Fat Unnecessary Wedding and Other Dating Diseases“Real” Women Have BabiesI Promise I Won’t Say “Herstory”Boys Do CryBeauty CultSex and the City Voters, My AssValenti knows better than anyone that young women need a smart-ass book that deals with real-life issues in a style they can relate to. No rehashing the same old issues or belaboring where today's young women have gone wrong. Feminism should be something young women feel comfortable with. Full Frontal Feminism is sending out the message to readers—yeah, you're feminists, and that's actually pretty frigging cool.

    A mate, on the other hand, is becoming harder and harder to find. The age-old quest for true love requires more effort than ever before. Let’s face it: Dating is work.Which, as it happens, is exactly where it began, in the nineteenth century—as prostitution. In Labor of Love, Moira Weigel dives into the secret history of dating while holding up a mirror to the contemporary dating landscape, revealing why we date the way we do and explaining why it feels so much like work. This isn’t a guide to “getting the guy”; there are no ridiculous “rules” to follow in Labor of Love. This is a brilliant, fresh, and utterly original approach to help us understand how dating was invented and, hopefully, to lead us closer to the happy ending that it promises.

    Employing an accessible, example-rich approach, Wonderbook energizes and motivates while also providing practical, nuts-and-bolts information needed to improve as a writer. Aimed at aspiring and intermediate-level writers, Wonderbook includes helpful sidebars and essays from some of the biggest names in fantasy today, such as George R. R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Catherynne M. Valente, and Karen Joy Fowler, to name a few.Praise for Wonderbook: “Jammed with storytelling wisdom.” —Fast Company’s Co.Create blog“This is the kind of book you leave sitting out for all to see . . . and the kind of book you will find yourself picking up again and again.” —Kirkus Reviews online“If you’re looking for a handy guide to not just crafting imaginative fiction like sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, but to writing in general, be sure to pick up a copy of Steampunk Bible author Jeff Vandermeer’s lovingly compiled Wonderbook."  —Flavorwire“Jeff Vandermeer and Jeremy Zerfoss have created a kaleidoscopically rich and beautiful book about fiction writing.”  —Star Tribune“Because it is so layered and filled with text, tips, and links to online extras, this book can be read again and again by both those who want to learn the craft of writing and those interested in the process of others.” —Library Journal

    We believe that our bodies are the problem, but the truth is that our bodies are not the problem. How we've been taught to see them is the problem... it's time for us all to stop believing the lies, and take our power back.Megan's body image issues began when she was five years old. She spent her childhood chasing thinness, and at fourteen found herself spiralling into anorexia. After recovery she spent years dieting, binging, losing and gaining weight. Then she found body positivity, quit dieting, and finally escaped the cult of thin. Now she's determined to let as many people as possible know the truth: that we are all good enough as we are. If you're tired of being at war with your body, then this book is for you.With her inimitable flair, whip-smart wit and kickass attitude, Megan argues for a new way of seeing ourselves, and a world where every body is celebrated. Where there is no such thing as a ‘bikini body diet’ and 97% of women don’t hate the way they look. A powerful call to arms as much as it is inspirational and practical, this book is the life-changing answer you’ve been looking for.

    Writing with marvelous brio, Winchester first serves up a lightning history of the English language--"so vast, so sprawling, so wonderfully unwieldy"--and pays homage to the great dictionary makers, from "the irredeemably famous" Samuel Johnson to the "short, pale, smug and boastful" schoolmaster from New Hartford, Noah Webster. He then turns his unmatched talent for story-telling to the making of this most venerable of dictionaries. In this fast-paced narrative, the reader will discover lively portraits of such key figures as the brilliant but tubercular first editor Herbert Coleridge (grandson of the poet), the colorful, boisterous Frederick Furnivall (who left the project in a shambles), and James Augustus Henry Murray, who spent a half-century bringing the project to fruition. Winchester lovingly describes the nuts-and-bolts of dictionary making--how unexpectedly tricky the dictionary entry for marzipan was, or how fraternity turned out so much longer and monkey so much more ancient than anticipated--and how bondmaid was left out completely, its slips found lurking under a pile of books long after the B-volume had gone to press. We visit the ugly corrugated iron structure that Murray grandly dubbed the Scriptorium--the Scrippy or the Shed, as locals called it--and meet some of the legion of volunteers, from Fitzedward Hall, a bitter hermit obsessively devoted to the OED, to W.C. Minor, whose story is one of dangerous madness, ineluctable sadness, and ultimate redemption. The Meaning of Everything is a scintillating account of the creation of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language. Simon Winchester's supple, vigorous prose illuminates this dauntingly ambitious project--a seventy-year odyssey to create the grandfather of all word-books, the world's unrivalled uber-dictionary.

    Incorporating the latest advances in brain scanning and neuroscience, Dutton demonstrates that the brilliant neurosurgeon who lacks empathy has more in common with a Ted Bundy who kills for pleasure than we may wish to admit, and that a mugger in a dimly lit parking lot may well, in fact, have the same nerveless poise as a titan of industry.Dutton argues that there are indeed “functional psychopaths” among us—different from their murderous counterparts—who use their detached, unflinching, and charismatic personalities to succeed in mainstream society, and that shockingly, in some fields, the more “psychopathic” people are, the more likely they are to succeed. Dutton deconstructs this often misunderstood diagnosis through bold on-the-ground reporting and original scientific research as he mingles with the criminally insane in a high-security ward, shares a drink with one of the world’s most successful con artists, and undergoes transcranial magnetic stimulation to discover firsthand exactly how it feels to see through the eyes of a psychopath.As Dutton develops his theory that we all possess psychopathic tendencies, he puts forward the argument that society as a whole is more psychopathic than ever: after all, psychopaths tend to be fearless, confident, charming, ruthless, and focused—qualities that are tailor-made for success in the twenty-first century. Provocative at every turn, The Wisdom of Psychopaths is a riveting adventure that reveals that it’s our much-maligned dark side that often conceals the trump cards of success.

    On the way, he goes down the halls of the Elysée Palace with Nicolas Sarkozy, up in a helicopter above Barbra Streisand's house on the California coast, and into the world of the original Mad Men.Through fascinating characters and brilliantly told stories, Wallman introduces the innovators whose lifestyles provide clues to how we will all be living tomorrow, and he makes some of the world's most counterintuitive, radical, and worldchanging ideas feel inspiring – and possible for us all.

    Taking us into a landscape most of us have never before seen, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today—an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, in which radio and television dials are welded to the one government station, and where displays of affection are punished; a police state where informants are rewarded and where an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life. Demick takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors. Through meticulous and sensitive reporting, we see her six subjects—average North Korean citizens—fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we experience the moments when they realize that their government has betrayed them.  Nothing to Envy is a groundbreaking addition to the literature of totalitarianism and an eye-opening look at a closed world that is of increasing global importance.

    Increasingly fascinated by this most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving fluidly between works and lives -- from Edward Hopper's Nighthawks to Andy Warhol's Time Capsules, from Henry Darger's hoarding to the depredations of the AIDS crisis -- Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone, illuminating not only the causes of loneliness but also how it might be resisted and redeemed.

    Tyrant shows that Shakespeare’s work remains vitally relevant today, not least in its probing of the unquenchable, narcissistic appetites of demagogues and the self-destructive willingness of collaborators who indulge their appetites.

    In the first episode of her “Bad With Money” podcast, Gaby Dunn asked random people at a coffee shop two questions: First, what’s your favorite sex position? Everyone was game to answer, even the barista. No holds barred. Then, she asked them how much money was in their bank accounts. Deathly silence. People were aghast. “That’s a very personal question!” they cried. And therein lies the problem.Gaby argues that our inability to speak honestly about money is our #1 barrier to understanding it, nurturing a stigma that leads to our shame, embarrassment, and anxiety, which in turn prevents us from taking ownership over this important part of our lives. She wants you to know that there are real reasons to feel helpless when it comes to managing your money, and that the patronizing know-it-alls on TV who blow air horns in your face and charge you up the wazoo for their self-help seminars do not have the answers.But despair not, there is a light at the end of this dark, moneyless tunnel. Through her own journey toward “financial literacy,” Gaby uncovers the real reasons that we feel so disempowered when it comes to finance—deeply rooted habits we inherited from our families, systemic imbalances, and intentionally-complicated terminology that makes it impossible for regular people to feel competent. Bad With Money isn’t going to tell you how to get rich or erase your debt, nor will it offer up a litany of humiliating confessions about horrible financial decisions that Gaby has made (okay, maybe some): it is an invitation from a friend who is just as clueless as you are. Equal parts memoir and journalistic investigation, Gaby covers topics like the financial dynamics of dating, the costs of mental health, and how to maintain your self-respect as a freelancer. In addition to debunking the “entitled millennial” stereotype, Gaby reveals essential truths like how “401K” is not the name of a sci-fi movie, why it feels like your bank teller is speaking a foreign language, and how to decide whether to take an unpaid internship.Weaving her own stories with the perspectives of various researchers, artists, students, her parents, a financial psychologist, her exes, and more, she reveals the ways that money makes us feel confused, hopeless, and terrified, and what it might look like to start taking control of our financial futures.

    With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet. She walks readers through exactly how a poem is built, from meter and rhyme, to form and diction, to sound and sense, drawing on poems by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. This handbook is an invaluable glimpse into Oliver’s prolific mind??—??a must-have for all poetry-lovers.

    Here, Jenny Odell sends up a flare from the heart of Silicon Valley, delivering an action plan to resist capitalist narratives of productivity and techno-determinism, and to become more meaningfully connected in the process.

    Building on legacies of feminist of color scholarship in particular, Ahmed offers a poetic and personal meditation on how feminists become estranged from worlds they critique—often by naming and calling attention to problems—and how feminists learn about worlds from their efforts to transform them. Ahmed also provides her most sustained commentary on the figure of the feminist killjoy introduced in her earlier work while showing how feminists create inventive solutions—such as forming support systems—to survive the shattering experiences of facing the walls of racism and sexism. The killjoy survival kit and killjoy manifesto, with which the book concludes, supply practical tools for how to live a feminist life, thereby strengthening the ties between the inventive creation of feminist theory and living a life that sustains it.

    This pervasive yet little examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our time-the engine of globalization, outsourcing, planned obsolescence, and economic instability in an increasingly unsettled world. Low price is so alluring that we may have forgotten how thoroughly we once distrusted it. Ellen Ruppel Shell traces the birth of the bargain as we know it from the Industrial Revolution to the assembly line and beyond, homing in on a number of colorful characters, such as Gene Verkauf (his name is Yiddish for "to sell"), founder of E. J. Korvette, the discount chain that helped wean customers off traditional notions of value. The rise of the chain store in post-Depression America led to the extolling of convenience over quality, and big-box retailers completed the reeducation of the American consumer by making them prize low price in the way they once prized durability and craftsmanship. The effects of this insidious perceptual shift are vast: a blighted landscape, escalating debt (both personal and national), stagnating incomes, fraying communities, and a host of other socioeconomic ills. That's a long list of charges, and it runs counter to orthodox economics which argues that low price powers productivity by stimulating a brisk free market. But Shell marshals evidence from a wide range of fields-history, sociology, marketing, psychology, even economics itself-to upend the conventional wisdom. Cheap also unveils the fascinating and unsettling illogic that underpins our bargain-hunting reflex and explains how our deep-rooted need for bargains colors every aspect of our psyches and social lives. In this myth-shattering, closely reasoned, and exhaustively reported investigation, Shell exposes the astronomically high cost of cheap.