Social science / Sociology

True Secrets of Lesbian Desire: Keeping Sex Alive in Long-Term Relationships

by Renate Stendhal & Jewelle Gomez

Stendhal examines the "shadow" in lesbian relationships that descends when women bond so completely that the intimacy becomes a merging, obliterating the space between individuals where desire lies. Lesbian...

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

by Steven Pinker

A provocative history of violence—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Stuff of Thought and The Blank Slate

Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species'...

Why I Am a Five Percenter

by Michael Muhammad Knight

A thoughtful, insider view of The Five Percenters-a deeply complex and misunderstood community whose ideas and symbols influenced the rise of hip-hop.

Misrepresented in the media as a black parallel to the...

Dr. Susan Taylor's Rx for Brown Skin

by Susan C. Taylor

Brown skin has a naturally warm, glowing complexion that ranges in shade from yellow to olive to dark brown and black (Asian, Latin, African-American, and Native American skin). The extra melanin that imparts...

Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq

by Scott A. Snook

On April 14, 1994, two U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters accidentally shot down two U.S. Army Black Hawk Helicopters over Northern Iraq, killing all twenty-six peacekeepers onboard. In response to this disaster the...

Unspeakable Love

by Brian Whitaker

Homosexuality is a taboo subject in the Arab world. While clerics denounce it as a heinous sin, newspapers write cryptically of ‘shameful acts’ and ‘deviant behaviour’. Amid the calls for reform in the...

Is Marriage for White People?: How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone

by Ralph Richard Banks

A distinguished Stanford law professor examines the steep decline in marriage rates among the African American middle class, and offers a paradoxical-nearly incendiary-solution.

Black women are three times...

A History of Women in America

by Carol Hymowitz & Michaele Weissman

From colonial to modern-day times this narrative history, incorporating first-person accounts, traces the development of women's roles in America. Against the backdrop of major historical events and movements,...

The Future of the Race

by Henry Louis Jr Gates & Cornel West

Almost one-hundred years ago, W.E.B. Du Bois proposed the notion of the "talented tenth," an African American elite that would serve as leaders and models for the larger black community. In this unprecedented...

Letters to Penthouse IV: They Stop at Nothing - and They Tell It All!

by Penthouse International

Fiction may be fun, but nowhere is fact more stimulating, satisfying, and real than in the letters to Penthouse magazine. Here, as told in their own uninhibited words, is the state of the union between men and...

Eating the Dinosaur

by Chuck Klosterman

Q: What is this book about?

A: Well, that’s difficult to say. I haven’t read it yet—I’ve just picked it up and casually glanced at the back cover. There clearly isn’t a plot. I’ve heard there’s...

Black Pearls

by Eric V. Copage

Eric V. Copage's Black Pearls is an extraordinary book of inspirational thoughts and practical advice for African-Americans. The 365 quotes that begin each day's entry range from African proverbs to wisdom from...

Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World

by Doug Saunders

Look around: the largest migration in human history is under way. For the first time ever, more people are living in cities than in rural areas. Between 2007 and 2050, the world’s cities will have absorbed...

Brave Journeys: Profiles in Gay and Lesbian Courage

by David Mixner & Dennis Bailey

In Stranger Among Friends, renowned activist, political adviser, and White House insider David Mixner offered a compelling account of his decades-long fight for human rights and the challenges he faced as a...

From The Heart

by Lee Miller

Life on the Line: One Woman's Tale of Work, Sweat, and Survival

by Solange De Santis

"Engaging--. Terrific--. Takes us over the collar line with grace and authority."--The New York Times

As a veteran reporter throughout the "downsizing" years of the auto industry in the United States and Canada,...

Zami A New Spelling of My Name: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography

by Geraldine Audre Lorde

“ZAMI is a fast-moving chronicle. From the author’s vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde’s work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage...

Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality

by Neal Gabler

"A thoughtful, in places chilling, account of the way entertainment values have hollowed out American life." --The New York Times Book Review

From one of America's most original cultural critics and the author...

Come to the Edge

by Christina Haag

My Parents Were Awesome: Before Fanny Packs and Minivans, They Were People Too

by Eliot Glazer

NEWSFLASH: Your mom and dad weren’t always parents.  They used to be people—and they were awesome

They bathed you. They fed you. They raised you to become the person you are today. Your parents are an...