They expect objects to obey principles of physics, and they're startled when things disappear or defy gravity. Yet they can also read emotions and respond with anger, sympathy, and joy. In Descartes' Baby, Bloom draws on a wealth of scientific discoveries to show how these two ways of knowing give rise to such uniquely human traits as humor, disgust, religion, art, and morality. How our dualist perspective, developed throughout our lives, profoundly influences our thoughts, feelings, and actions is the subject of this richly rewarding book.

    Howard Murad, M.D., FAAD is one today's foremost authorities on health and skincare, and his philosophies have helped men and women around the world look and feel as young and healthy as possible. With The Water Secret, Dr. Murad shares a new, scientifically proven strategy, cultivated over years of practice and treating over 50,000 patients, to help you look and feel better from the inside out.The Water Secret will:• Reveal groundbreaking secrets to help you take years off your looks, feel better and healthier• Debunk health myths through cutting-edge research and tell the truth about how inflammation, hydration, and other factors really affect your health• Explain how damaged cells that leak water can sabotage your looks• Introduces an integrated, multidisciplinary "Inclusive Health" approach to help optimize cellular strength• Give you a complete 10-step action plan with recipes and meal plans to start you on the path to clear skin, fewer wrinkles, more energy, and better overall healthDiscover The Water Secret and learn to take control of the process of aging by improving the health of every cell in the body. Begin the program and you will see and feel the difference your healthy new lifestyle will make in as soon as one week!

    To Taylor, self-fulfillment, although often expressed in self-centered ways, isn't necessarily a rejection of traditional values and social commitment; it also reflects something authentic and valuable in modern culture. Only by distinguishing what is good in this modern striving from what is socially and politically dangerous, Taylor says, can our age be made to deliver its promise.

    We’ve been told nothing bad happens in small towns. You can leave your doors unlocked, and your windows wide open. We picture peaceful hamlets with a strong sense of community, and everyone knows each other. But what if this wholesome idyllic image doesn’t always square with reality? Small towns might look and feel safe, but statistics show this isn’t really true.Tiny town, big crime. Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story―they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe. Discover how unsolved murders, kidnapping, shooting sprees, violent robbery, and other bad things can and do happen in small towns all over the world.If you enjoyed Mitzi's last book in the series, The Best New True Crime Stories: Serial Killers, and true crime books like In Cold Blood, Murder in the Bayou, and The Innocent Man, then you’ll love The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns.

    The Seven Deadly Virtues sits down next to readers at the bar, buys them a drink, and an hour or three later, ushers them into the revival tent without them even realizing it.   The book’s contributors include Sonny Bunch, Christopher Buckley, David “Iowahawk” Burge, Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, Jonah Goldberg, Michael Graham, Mollie Hemingway, Rita Koganzon, Matt Labash, James Lileks, Rob Long, Larry Miller, P. J. O’Rourke, Joe Queenan, Christine Rosen, and Andrew Stiles. Jonathan V. Last, senior writer at the Weekly Standard, editor of the collection, is also a contributor. All eighteen essays in this book are appearing for the first time anywhere.   In the book’s opening essay, P. J. O’Rourke observes: “Virtue has by no means disappeared. It’s as much in public view as ever. But it’s been strung up by the heels. Virtue is upside down. Virtue is uncomfortable. Virtue looks ridiculous. All the change and the house keys are falling out of Virtue’s pants pockets.”   Here are the virtues everyone (including the book’s contributors) was taught in Sunday school but have totally forgotten about until this very moment.  In this sanctimony-free zone:   • Joe Queenan observes: “In essence, thrift is a virtue that resembles being very good at Mahjong. You’ve heard about people who can do it, but you’ve never actually met any of them.” • P. J. O’Rourke notes: “Fortitude is quaint. We praise the greatest generation for having it, but they had aluminum siding, church on Sunday, and jobs that required them to wear neckties or nylons (but never at the same time). We don’t want those either.” • Christine Rosen writes: “A fellowship grounded in sociality means enjoying the company of those with whom you actually share physical space rather than those with whom you regularly and enthusiastically exchange cat videos.” • Rob Long offers his version of modern day justice: if you sleep late on the weekend, you are forced to wait thirty minutes in line at Costco. • Jonah Goldberg offers: “There was a time when this desire-to-do-good-in-all-things was considered the only kind of integrity: ‘Angels are better than mortals. They’re always certain about what is right because, by definition, they’re doing God’s will.’ Gabriel knew when it was okay to remove a mattress tag and Sandalphon always tipped the correct amount.” • Sonny Bunch dissects forbearance, observing that the fictional Two Minutes Hate of George Orwell’s 1984 is now actually a reality directed at living, breathing people. Thanks, in part, to the Internet, “Its targets are designated by a spontaneously created mob—one that, due to its hive-mind nature—is virtually impossible to call off.”   By the time readers have completed The Seven Deadly Virtues, they won’t even realize that they’ve just been catechized into an entirely different—and better—moral universe.

    World History

    More than a mere (if heady) catalog of intoxicants, however, Stuart Walton’s book is a smart, wry look at why intoxication has always been a part of the human experience—from our earliest Stone Age rituals to the practices of the ancient Greeks and Romans, right on up through the Victorian era and ending with a flourish in modern times—and more significantly, why the use of intoxicants is, and will continue to be, an essential part of being human. “An insightful overview of humanity’s historical and cultural attachment to various intoxicants. . . . It deserves a prominent place in the emerging discussion reshaping understanding and policies regarding intoxication and the use of drugs and alcohol.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred)“Walton is particularly, and convincingly, engrossing, an elegant and forceful stylist.”—The Guardian

    This book teaches people to utilize the enormous power of the brain's creative right side, and learn to strengthen their natural insight, banish negative thoughts, improve relationships, get rid of fatigue and stress, and much more.

    Collected here to keep your wits sharp, The Best Brain Teasers of All Time features the cleverest brain teasers from around the world and throughout history.The Best Brain Teasers of All Time gives you hours of fun-filled entertainment with brain teasers that develop your problem-solving skills in math, logic, and wordplay. Organized as an integrated challenge, these brain teasers build in momentum as they increase in difficulty from classic nursery rhymes to the riddle of the sphinx.The Best Brain Teasers of All Time puts your mind to the test with: 125 Brain Teasers that require no special skills to solve. Plus, each question comes with an optional clue in case you get stumped and a handy answer key in the back to test yourself or play with friends Brain Teasers for Every Level that cater to beginners and advanced masterminds alike, with brain teasers organized by level of difficulty to improve your skills as you move forward Hints of History that provide fun facts and background information for every brain teaser Get ready to sharpen your wit with every “aha” moment. The Best Brain Teasers of All Time is a go-to source for timeless fun and mind-blowing challenges.

    Unlike other PR texts that steer clear of the cases, the ethical challenges, the how to counsel, and the public relations conundrums that force students to think, this book prepares students to deal with a full range of situations and arrive at effective, ethical solutions that distinguish the practice.

    Embracing work, home, time off, women, sport, food and travel, this is the ultimate, aspirational guide to contemporary and stylish 21st-century living. A miscellany of information, from the fundamental to the arcane and quirky, equips today s man to confront myriad challenges and opportunities with savior faire and panache.

    In this hilarious essay, originally published in the collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, he ventures to the Illinois State Fair, where he examines butter sculptures, munches on corndogs, and swaps stories with local exhibitors. As he wanders through this endlessly fascinating world, Wallace's one-of-a-kind blend of humor and insight is on full display. "Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All" is an uproarious and ultimately unforgettable foray into a classic part of American life and culture.

    Jackson, Sly Stallone, Richard Zanuck, and relatives of an Indonesian dictator and Saudi Arabia’s king). He then flashes back to the creation of this fabled district, built on dusty lima bean fields and carved out of the rugged impassible mountains between the city and the sea. Using the century-long evolution from adobe huts to $100 million mansions as the baseline of the story, he reveals how a few powerful and often ruthless oil and railroad magnates imposed their idyllic vision of the good life on the Los Angeles landscape to create the legendary communities known as the Platinum Triangle.            Gross goes on to give vivid, riveting accounts of the most lavish of the many lavish houses that started springing up almost immediately (with only a brief slowdown during the Depression). But the stories of these homes are just a window onto the lives of their owners and occupants over the course of the twentieth century, and onto the bigger story of a people and a storied region that have become, in Gross’s words, “the Mecca of self-invention.”            As one might imagine, there is a truly glittering cast of characters. Apart from the many Hollywood stars who have passed through these houses—Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Harold Lloyd, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, George Hamilton, Tony Curtis, Cher, to name just a few—you will meet decadent Spanish land-grant families, desperado oilmen and railroad titans, the country’s first all-powerful corporate legends, con men and pyramid schemers, porn magnates, and Arab potentates, not to mention contemporary tabloid luminaries from the worlds of business and entertainment. Taken altogether, their stories read like a cross between Valley of the Dolls, Hollywood Babylon, and Gross’s own 740 Park—with a little of the film Chinatown thrown in too.             Los Angeles provides Michael Gross with his broadest canvas yet; Unreal Estate will surprise, fascinate, and most of all entertain you with a story you don’t know about a place you think you do.

    For instance, the average mall shopper will spend about $100, then leave when she hits that limit. She'll probably buy shoes rather than clothing, because she doesn't want to think about her dress size. And the store most likely to get her money isn't the one with the nicest display or the deepest discounts-it's the one closest to her parking spot.In his consulting with dozens of leading companies, Michael J. Silverstein has interviewed thousands of customers, extracting fascinating patterns about what really drives their purchase decisions. His first book, the acclaimed bestseller Trading Up, has taught a generation of marketers about the "new luxury" phenomenon, and why consumers will happily pay a steep premium for goods and services that are emotionally satisfying, from golf clubs to bathroom fixtures to beauty products.But Trading Up revealed only part of the story of the new consumer. The same middle-class people who are happily trading up at Victoria's Secret and Panera are going on treasure hunts at Costco and Home Depot. And they are often getting as much emotional satisfaction in the discount stores as in the luxury stores. TREASURE HUNT shows how even the most mundane shopping-for things like paper towels and pet food-has become an adventure rather than a tedious chore.In just about every category, both the high end and the low end are growing and innovation- rich. Many middle-class consumers gladly spend $5 a day for a Starbucks venti latte; others spend forty cents a day on home-brewed coffee, feel good about their frugality, and save up the difference to buy Apple's newest Nano. TREASURE HUNT explains the success of companies as diverse as Dollar General, H. E. Butt, eBay, Commerce Bank, and Tchibo.But beware: in our bifurcated global market, businesses need a clear strategy for aiming high or low, while avoiding the treacherous middle, where so many have recently stumbled. If your offering isn't exciting enough to inspire trading up, but not enough of a bargain to satisfy the treasure hunters, you'll have no emotional connection with your target audience. And then, as many fallen companies have discovered, your tried-and-true marketing strategies will go into a severe stall.TREASURE HUNT takes us into the homes of real people making real decisions, and into the CEO's offices of innovative companies finding new ways to accommodate them. Written with the same flair, empathy, and intelligence that made Trading Up an instant classic, this is an essential guide to the moods and habits of the constantly changing consumer.

    Shirer's new book - written in his ninth decade - explores the passionate, highly charged, and extraordinary lives of Leo and Sonya Tolstoy. It is a compelling illumination both of the nature of genius and of the universal problems of love, sex, and marriage - themes that Tolstoy played out in his great fiction and that haunted him in his tangled domestic life. Rich in anecdotes, wise, full of sweeping history, and imbued with Shirer's profound knowledge of literature and life, Love and Hatred ranks beside such works as Robert Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra and Nigel Nicolson's Portrait of a Marriage as a masterly, intuitive, and sympathetic exploration of the love/hate relationship between two famous, bigger-than-life people. Beginning in 1862, when Tolstoy committed the blunder of asking his young bride to read his diaries of his bachelor life so there should be no secrets between them, and ending with his tragic flight from home (and marriage) in 1910 while the whole world waited for news of him, Love and Hatred tells the story of a great romance between two people who could live neither together nor apart - a romance that exhausted and obsessed them both, and that forms the basis for much of Tolstoy's work. The final book of William L. Shirer's long and brilliant career, it is - appropriately - a masterly re-creation of a time, of two extraordinary people, and of the very nature of love, marriage, and old age.