Social science / Customs & Traditions

Sketchy Santas: A Lighter Look at the Darker Side of St. Nick

by Will Zweigart

Ho, ho, huh?

Who’s that excessively jolly fellow with the fake beard, shifty eyes, sweaty hands, and boozy breath? Why, it’s not just Santa but sketchy Santa! Yes, ’tis the season for awkward photos of...

Go to Hell

by Chuck Crisafulli & Kyra Thompson

Close your eyes and picture -- just for a moment -- hell. Fire? Demons? Eternal torment?

Well, yes -- that's the place, in one very hot nutshell. But that's not all there is to the forbidding world beneath...

The Angry Island

by A.A. Gill

Think of England, and anger hardly springs to mind as its primary national characteristic. Yet in The Angry Island, A. A. Gill argues that, in fact, it is plain old fury that is the wellspring for England's...

The Thoughtful Dresser: The Art of Adornment, the Pleasures of Shopping, and Why Clothes Matter

by Linda Grant

“You can’t have depths without surfaces,” says Linda Grant in her lively and provocative new book, The thoughtful Dresser, a thinking woman’s guide to what we wear. For centuries, an interest in clothes...

Gods and Goddesses in Love: Making the Myth a Reality for You

by Agapi Stassinopoulos

In ancient times, the Greeks created the gods and goddesses to represent the various personalities of human nature. In Gods and Goddesses in Love, Agapi Stassinopoulos tells the stories of the primary goddesses...

Watermark: The Disaster That Changed the World and Humanity 1

by Joseph Christy-Vitale

THE ECHOES OF OUR PAST

Twelve thousand years ago, the human race barely escaped annihilation when a piece of exploded star passed through our solar system, unleashing an apocalypse. Great fires raged, mountains...

Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload

by Lucy Jo Palladino

Where did my day go? How did it get so late?

I feel like I'm being pulled in too many directions at once.

If only there were two of me, I could get it all done.

If this is you at the end of the day, you are...

The Food of a Younger Land: The Southwest Eats New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Southern California

by Mark Kurlansky

Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America, before the national highway system brought the country closer together, before...

The Food of a Younger Land: The Middle West Eats Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, North

by Mark Kurlansky

Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America, before the national highway system brought the country closer together, before...

The Food of a Younger Land: The South Eats Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, The Carolinas,Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mis

by Mark Kurlansky

Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America, before the national highway system brought the country closer together, before...

The Food of a Younger Land: The Northeast Eats Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York City, New York State,

by Mark Kurlansky

Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America, before the national highway system brought the country closer together, before...

The Food of a Younger Land: The Far West Eats Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Northern California, Oregon, Washington

by Mark Kurlansky

Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America, before the national highway system brought the country closer together, before...

Fried Chicken

by John T. Edge

What could be a more fun and delicious way to celebrate American culture than through the lore of our favorite foods? That's what John T. Edge does in his smart, witty, and compulsively readable new series on...

Apple Pie

by John T. Edge

What could be a more fun and delicious way to celebrate American culture than through the lore of our favorite foods? That's what John T. Edge does in his smart, witty, and compulsively readable new series on...

The Dead Beat

by Marilyn Johnson

Marilyn Johnson was enthralled by the remarkable lives that were marching out of this world—so she sought out the best obits in the English language and the people who spent their lives writing about the dead....

The Gospel of Food

by Barry Glassner

For many Americans, eating is a religion. We worship at the temples of celebrity chefs. We raise our children to believe that certain foods are good and others are bad. We believe that if we eat the right foods,...

The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdhui

by Affleck Gray

In an acclaimed account of the terrifying figure said to haunt the desolate passes and summit of Britain's second highest mountain, this book takes on one of Scotland's most chilling unsolved mysteries. Throughout...

Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth, Legend, and Superstition

by Peter Tate

The perfect bedside companion for every bird-watcher and nature lover, inside Flights of Fancy you’ll find:

Cranes

“Don’t promise the crane in the sky, but give the titmouse in your hand.”

Russian proverb...

Blue Ridge Folklife

by Ted Olson

In the years immediately preceding the founding of the American nation the Blue Ridge region, which stretches through large sections of Virginia and North Carolina and parts of surrounding states along the Appalachian...

Norfolk Folk Tales

by Hugh Lupton

These lively and entertaining folk tales from one of Britain's most ancient counties are vividly retold by local storyteller Hugh Lupton. Their origins lost in the oral tradition, these thirty stories from Norfolk...