Neil deGrasse Tyson

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Washington

There's no better guide through mind-expanding questions such as what the nature of space and time is, how we fit within the universe, and how the universe fits within us than Neil deGrasse Tyson. But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in digestive chapters consumable any time and anywhere in the busy day

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

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Emily Ratajkowski

A deeply honest investigation of what it means to be a woman and a commodity from Emily Ratajkowski, the archetypal, multi-hyphenate celebrity of our time Emily Ratajkowski is an acclaimed model and actress, an engaged political progressive, a formidable entrepreneur, a global social media phenomenon, and now, a writer. Rocketing to world fame at age twenty-one, Ratajkowski sparked both praise and furor with the provocative display of her body as an unapologetic statement of feminist empowerment. The subsequent evolution in her thinking about our culture’s commodification of women is the subject of this book. My Body is a profoundly personal exploration of feminism, sexuality, and power, of men's treatment of women and women's rationalizations for accepting that treatment. These essays chronicle moments from Ratajkowski’s life while investigating the culture’s fetishization of girls and female beauty, its obsession with and contempt for women’s sexuality, the perverse dynamics of the fashion and film industries, and the grey area between consent and abuse. Nuanced, unflinching, and incisive, My Body marks the debut of a fierce writer brimming with courage and intelligence.

My Body

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Amanda Montell

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

The word bitch conjures many images for many people, but it is most often meant to describe an unpleasant woman. Even before its usage to mean a female canine, bitch didn't refer to gender at all--it originated as a gender-neutral word meaning genitalia. A perfectly innocuous word devolving into a female insult is the case for tons more terms, including hussy--which simply meant housewife--or slut, which meant an untidy person and was also used to describe men. These words are just a few among history's many English slurs hurled at women. Amanda Montell, reporter and feminist linguist, deconstructs language--from insults and cursing, gossip, and catcalling to grammar and pronunciation patterns--to reveal the ways it has been used for centuries to keep women and other marginalized genders from power. Ever wonder why so many people are annoyed when women talk with vocal fry or use the word like as a filler? Or why certain gender-neutral terms stick and others don't? Or where stereotypes of how women and men speak come from in the first place? Montell effortlessly moves between history, science, and popular culture to explore these questions and more--and how we can use the answers to effect real social change.

Wordslut

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John Bloom

Jim Atkinson

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs

The "fascinating" true story behind the HBO Max and Hulu series about Texas housewife Candy Montgomery and the bizarre murder that shocked a community (Los Angeles Times Book Review).



Candy Montgomery and Betty Gore had a lot in common: They sang together in the Methodist church choir, their daughters were best friends, and their husbands had good jobs working for technology companies in the north Dallas suburbs known as Silicon Prairie. But beneath the placid surface of their seemingly perfect lives, both women simmered with unspoken frustrations and unanswered desires.



On a hot summer day in 1980, the secret passions and jealousies that linked Candy and Betty exploded into murderous rage. What happened next is usually the stuff of fiction. But the bizarre and terrible act of violence that occurred in Betty's utility room that morning was all too real.



Based on exclusive interviews with the Gore and Montgomery families, Edgar Award finalist Evidence of Love is the "superbly written" account of a gruesome tragedy and the trial that made national headlines when the defendant entered the most unexpected of pleas: not guilty by reason of self-defense (Fort Worth Star-Telegram).



Adapted into the Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning television movie A Killing in a Small Town--as well as the new limited series Candy on Hulu and Love and Death on HBO Max--this chilling tale of sin and savagery will "fascinate true crime aficionados" (Kirkus Reviews).

Evidence of Love

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Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

The Language of Fanaticism

The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power. What makes "cults" so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we're looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join--and more importantly, stay in--extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell's argument is that, on some level, it already has . . . Our culture tends to provide pretty lame answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of "brainwashing." But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear--and are influenced by--every single day. Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities "cultish," revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven's Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of "cultish" everywhere.

Cultish

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Daphne Merkin

Emily Brontë

Tatiana M. Holway

Wuthering Heights

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Tracy Chevalier

Celebrate Tracy Chevalier's modern classic Girl With A Pearl Earring, featuring a gorgeous new edition illustrated with eight pages of Vermeer's masterworks. History and fiction merge seamlessly in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening.  The story of Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with a genius as she herself is immortalized in canvas and oil, is new again.

A Deluxe Edition of the National Bestseller with Over 2 Million Copies Sold:

 * Eight Pages of Full-Color Plates Include Every Vermeer Painting Discussed in the Book
 * French Flaps
 * Rough Front
 * a New Foreword

Girl with a Pearl Earring

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Taylor Jenkins Reid

A Novel

"Set against the backdrop of the Malibu surf culture of the 1980s [this book] follows the daughter of a famous singer who, once she finds fame, must grapple with the fact that her father abandoned her and her siblings when they were young"--

Malibu Rising

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Kiran Millwood Hargrave

After the men in an Arctic Norwegian town are wiped out, the women must survive a sinister threat in this "perfectly told" 1600s parable of "a world gone mad" (Adriana Trigiani). Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Three years later, a stranger arrives on their shore. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband's authority and terrified by it. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa sees something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God, and flooded with a mighty evil. As Maren and Ursa are drawn to one another in ways that surprise them both, the island begins to close in on them, with Absalom's iron rule threatening Vardø's very existence. Inspired by the real events of the Vardø storm and the 1621 witch trials, The Mercies is a story of love, evil, and obsession, set at the edge of civilization.

The Mercies

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Gillian Flynn

Reluctantly returning to her hometown after an eight-year absence to investigate the murders of two preteen girls, reporter Camille Preaker is reunited with her neurotic mother and enigmatic, thirteen-year-old half-sister as she works to uncover the truth about the killings, a probe that leads her all too close to the secrets of her own past. A first novel. Reprint. 75,000 first printing.

Sharp Objects

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Andrew Lohse

A Memoir

A Dartmouth fraternity member who blew the whistle on inhumane hazing practices in a Rolling Stone profile presents a true account of sordidness and redemption.

Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy

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Connie Burk

Laura van Dernoot Lipsky

An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others

A longtime trauma worker offers a deep and empathetic survey of the often-unrecognized toll on those working to make the world a better place.

Trauma Stewardship

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Michael Pollan

An Eater's Manifesto

#1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Food Rules Food. There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it? Because in the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion--most of what we’re consuming today is longer the product of nature but of food science. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American Paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we see to become. With In Defense of Food, Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Pollan’s bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.

In Defense of Food

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Jean-Dominique Bauby

A Memoir of Life in Death

The author, former editor of French Elle magazine, describes the rare stroke to the brain stem that left his mind intact in a nearly totally paralyzed body

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

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Rachel DeLoache Williams

The True Story of a Fake Heiress

Sex and the City meets Catch Me if You Can in the astonishing true story of Anna Delvey, a young con artist posing as a German heiress in New York City—as told by the former Vanity Fair photo editor who got seduced by her friendship and then scammed out of more than $62,000. Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams’s new friend Anna Delvey, a self-proclaimed German heiress, was worldly and ambitious. She was also generous—picking up the tab for lavish dinners at Le Coucou, infrared sauna sessions at HigherDOSE, drinks at the 11 Howard Library bar, and regular workout sessions with a celebrity personal trainer. When Anna proposed an all-expenses-paid trip to Marrakech at the five-star La Mamounia hotel, Rachel jumped at the chance. But when Anna’s credit cards mysteriously stopped working, the dream vacation quickly took a dark turn. Anna asked Rachel to begin fronting costs—first for flights, then meals and shopping, and, finally, for their $7,500-per-night private villa. Before Rachel knew it, more than $62,000 had been charged to her credit cards. Anna swore she would reimburse Rachel the moment they returned to New York. Back in Manhattan, the repayment never materialized, and a shocking pattern of deception emerged. Rachel learned that Anna had left a trail of deceit—and unpaid bills—wherever she’d been. Mortified, Rachel contacted the district attorney, and in a stunning turn of events, found herself helping to bring down one of the city’s most notorious con artists. With breathless pacing and in-depth reporting from the person who experienced it firsthand, My Friend Anna is an unforgettable true story of money, power, greed, and female friendship.

My Friend Anna

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Mary Roach

Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

The humorous science writer offers a tour of the human digestive system, explaining why the stomach doesn't digest itself and whether constipation can kill you.

Gulp

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Claire Slote

Claire Slote

@claire231239

Books Listed

Following

Followers

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

Emily Ratajkowski

My Body

Amanda Montell

Wordslut

John Bloom; Jim Atkinson

Evidence of Love

Amanda Montell

Cultish

Daphne Merkin; Emily Brontë; Tatiana M. Holway

Wuthering Heights

Tracy Chevalier

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu Rising

Kiran Millwood Hargrave

The Mercies

Gillian Flynn

Sharp Objects

Andrew Lohse

Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy

Connie Burk; Laura van Dernoot Lipsky

Trauma Stewardship

Michael Pollan

In Defense of Food

Jean-Dominique Bauby

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Rachel DeLoache Williams

My Friend Anna

Mary Roach

Gulp

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Browse by categories

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

Emily Ratajkowski

My Body

Amanda Montell

Wordslut

John Bloom; Jim Atkinson

Evidence of Love

Amanda Montell

Cultish

Daphne Merkin; Emily Brontë; Tatiana M. Holway

Wuthering Heights

Tracy Chevalier

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu Rising

Kiran Millwood Hargrave

The Mercies

Gillian Flynn

Sharp Objects

Andrew Lohse

Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy

Connie Burk; Laura van Dernoot Lipsky

Trauma Stewardship

Michael Pollan

In Defense of Food

Jean-Dominique Bauby

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Rachel DeLoache Williams

My Friend Anna

Mary Roach

Gulp

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