Alcohol Culture

Between 1994 and 1997, James Brown's loaded magazine became the the must-buy and must-be-in publication of the decade. It won every award going, year after year, and came to define not only its audience but also a generation. Bright, loud, funny, provocative, ambitious and careless, loaded was read from the barracks of Afghanistan to the England dressing room at Euro '96. It captured a hedonistic lifestyle of alcohol, cocaine and more. The last great hurrah before the end of the century.

Holly Whitaker's first book is a seamless blend of personal narrative, science, spirituality, and self-help aimed at creating a new dialogue around alcohol in America, getting rid of the term "alcoholic" for good, and helping anyone who wants to, create a better, sober, more fulfilled life for themselves. Quit Like a Woman is more than just a self-help book on sobriety. It is a call to action for all of America - and the world - to realize how poisonous alcohol is, and just how much it is truly affecting our lives.

Drinking alcohol can be fun; its chemical effects on our brain are fundamentally pleasurable, and it can have social benefits. Alcohol may also help us forget the worries in our lives and temporarily overcome psychological barriers to human interaction. But there are downsides. We now know that alcohol, even in quite modest amounts, is not good for our long-term health. So why do we, as humans, consume alcohol at all, and why does our tendency to drink “too much” vary from person to person?

Everything the connoisseur could ever want to know about gin, the spirit that sparked a worldwide distilling boom. Nothing communicates elegance and refinement like a Martini. Nothing refreshes on a warm summer day like a Gin & Tonic. It is no accident that gin stands at the center of these...

When Ruben and Jed find a dead body on the Rhode Island shore, they are certain it has something to do with smuggling liquor. It's the 1920s, Prohibition and bootlegging is in full swing, and almost everyone in the shore community is involved. Suddenly, the boys find themselves involved as well: didn't the dead man have something on him, and didn't they take it? It isn't long before Ruben is actually on the legendary Black Duck itself, caught in a war between two ferocious prohibition gangs.