Popular Science

There'll Be Peace When You Are Done: Actors and Fans Celebrate the Legacy of Supernatural is an emotional look back at the beloved television show Supernatural as it wraps up its final season after 15 unprecedented years on air. With heartfelt chapters written by both the series' actors and its fans, There'll Be Peace When You Are Done traces Supernatural's evolution, the memorable characters created by its writers and brought to life by its talented actors, and the many ways in which the show has inspired and changed the lives of both its viewers and cast.

As with many self-destructive kids, Noah Levine's search for meaning led him first to punk rock, drugs, drinking, and dissatisfaction. But the search didn't end there. Having clearly seen the uselessness of drugs and violence, Noah looked for positive ways to channel his rebellion against what he saw as the lies of society. Fueled by his anger at so much injustice and suffering, Levine now uses that energy and the practice of Buddhism to awaken his natural wisdom and compassion.

Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best - covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN - 24 hours of mainline news.

Science is how we understand the world. Yet failures in peer review and mistakes in statistics have rendered a shocking number of scientific studies useless—or, worse, badly misleading. Such errors have distorted our knowledge in fields as wide-ranging as medicine, physics, nutrition, education, genetics, economics, and the search for extraterrestrial life. As Science Fictions makes clear, the current system of research funding and publication not only fails to safeguard us from blunders but actively encourages bad science—with sometimes deadly consequences.

To his colleagues, Richard Feynman was not so much a genius as he was a full-blown magician: someone who “does things that nobody else could do and that seem completely unexpected.” The path he cleared for twentieth-century physics led from the making of the atomic bomb to a Nobel...

Dr. Peter McGraw, founder of the Humor Research Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, teamed up with journalist Joel Warner on a far-reaching search for the secret behind humor. Their journey spanned the globe, from New York to Japan, from Palestine to the Amazon. Meanwhile, the duo conducted their own humor experiments along the way-to wince-worthy, hilarious, and illuminating results.

One hundred and ten years ago, Maria Montessori, the first female physician in Italy, devised a very different method of educating children, based on her observations of how they naturally learn. In Montessori, Angeline Stoll Lillard shows that science has finally caught up with Maria Montessori. Lillard presents the research behind nine insights that are foundations of Montessori education, describing how each of these insights is applied in the Montessori classroom.

Comic Book Women offers a feminist history of the golden age of comics, revising our understanding of how numerous genres emerged and upending narratives of how male auteurs built their careers. Considering issues of race, gender, and sexuality, the authors examine crime, horror, jungle, romance, science fiction, superhero, and Western comics to unpack the cultural and industrial consequences of how women were represented across a wide range of titles by publishers like DC, Timely, Fiction House, and others.

Vietnam - Culture Smart! outlines the history, culture, and traditions of the Vietnamese. It explains certain deep-seated attitudes, describes some of the social and cultural changes now underway, and gives practical advice on what to expect and how to behave in unfamiliar situations. It aims to help you discover for yourself the warmth and vast potential of this fascinating country and its delightful people. They are open and friendly, with senses of humor and irony, and are frankly curious about the outside world.

Apart from the headline-making politics, not much is known in the West about the Korean people and their ancient culture. Yet those who visit Korea, whether North or South, find a land of great interest. The Koreans, when not constrained by politics or other considerations, are friendly and sociable, and the peninsula has areas of outstanding natural beauty. The South’s cities, if not always beautiful, are vibrant and alive. The North, while very different, is complex and fascinating.

The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

Furry fandom is a recent phenomenon, but anthropomorphism is an instinct hard-wired into the human mind: the desire to see animals on a more equal footing with people. It’s existed since the beginning of time in prehistoric cave paintings, ancient gods, and tribal rituals. It lives on today - not just in the sports mascots and cartoon characters we see everywhere, but in stage plays, art galleries, serious literature, performance art, and among furry fans who bring their make-believe characters to life.

This program includes an introduction and epilogue read by the author. Blending evidence across science and design, Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less offers a revolution in problem-solving: proving why we overlook subtraction, and how we can access its true potential We pile on “to-dos”...

Smart, humorous, and strikingly original essays by one of “America’s most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time.” (Rebecca Traister) In these eight piercing explorations on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom - award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed - embraces her venerated role as a purveyor of wit, wisdom, and Black Twitter snark about all that is right and much that is wrong with this thing we call society.

John Ortved's oral history is the first-ever look behind the scenes at the creation and day-to-day running of the television phenomenon known as The Simpsons, as told by many of the people who produce it.

Though born to a poor but pious family of ribbon weavers in Saxony in 1762, Johann Gottlieb's exceptional intelligence was apparent from an early age. Remarkably, from this humble background, he earned himself a respected place in the pantheon of late 18th and early 19th century German philosophers. In the 20th and 21st century, his importance and contribution to Western philosophy has been increasingly acknowledged. There are two substantial lecture series and one essay stemming from his time in Berlin in Popular Works Volume 2: much of Fichte's important work appeared initially in lectures.

Hearts on Fire is about the creative explosion in Canadian music of the early 2000s, which captured the world's attention in entirely new ways. The Canadian wave didn't just sweep over one genre or one city, it stretched from coast to coast, affecting large bands and solo performers, rock bands and DJs, and it connected to international scenes by capitalizing on new technology and old-school DIY methods.

When 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump and 94 percent of black women voted for Hillary Clinton, how can women unite in Trump's America? Nasty Women includes inspiring essays from a diverse group of talented women writers who seek to provide a broad look at how we got here and what we need to do to move forward. Nasty Women features essays by Rebecca Solnit, Cheryl Strayed, Sarah Hepola, Nicole Chung, Katha Pollitt, Jill Filipovic, Samantha Irby, Randa Jarrar, Sarah Hollenbeck, Meredith Talusan, and Sarah Jaffe, among others.

Thomas Sowell is one of America’s leading voices on matters of race and ethnicity. In his book, Inside American Education, he surveyed the ills of American education from the primary grades to graduate school with “an impressive range of knowledge and acuity of observation”, according to the Wall Street Journal. Now, in his book Race and Culture, he asks the question: “What is it that allows certain groups to get ahead?” and the answer will undoubtedly create debates for years to come.

In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out stars' sexual affairs, drug use, and sexuality, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the best-selling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Confidential's spectacular rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall.