Social Research

This first volume of Best Sex Writing of the Year features a number of significant bloggers and some of the most important stories of the past two years. Alexandria Goddard is the blogger who made the important connections in the historic Steubenville Rape Case; Epiphora is the most renowned and saucy sex toy reviewer who has legions of dedicated followers; Lux Alptraum has recently sold the wildly successful Fleshbot and taken an editorial position at Nerve.

Now, for the first time, the nation's most respected reporters share their stories as the eyes and ears of the nation to create a fascinating oral history. Some of the most influential journalists of our time, including Christiane Amanpour, Walter Cronkite, Morley Safer, Peter Arnett, and Andy Rooney convey the facts, the brutality, and the drama of warfare and examine issues such as censorship, propaganda, ethics, the power of the press, and the future of war reporting, especially after September 11th.

In this far-reaching examination of contemporary American culture, John Zogby, one of the nation's foremost pollsters, explores who today's Americans are, identifying patterns in our social makeup that hint at the way we'll be. Companies from multinational corporations down to family-owned small businesses can benefit from this detailed information about where we are and where we're going.

Write It Forward is a one-of-a-kind book focusing on you, the author. In Write It Forward, Bob Mayer applies the time-tested strategies of the Green Berets to the world of being a successful author. He has taught thousands of writers over the years, but this new and innovative program probes deeper than words on the page. It is designed to teach writers how to think, plan and become the future best-sellers of the new age of publishing.

Now an insider at The People vs. O. J. Simpson reveals the untold story of the most widely followed trial in American history and the indelible impact it has had on the judiciary, the media, and the public. As the Los Angeles Superior Court's media liaison, Jerrianne Hayslett had unprecedented access to the trial - and met with Judge Lance Ito daily - as she attempted, sometimes unsuccessfully, to mediate between the court and members of the media and to balance their interests.

Paco Underhill, the author of the hugely successful Why We Buy and Call of the Mall, reports on the growing importance of women in everybody’s marketplace - what makes a package, product, space, or service “female friendly”. Underhill offers a tour of the world’s marketplace - with shrewd observations and practical applications to help everybody adapt to the new realities.

In Morning Miracle, Dave Kindred takes an in-depth look at the 21st-century newspaper by spending time in the inner sanctum of one of the country's most venerable: The Washington Post. With unprecedented access to every nook and cranny of the paper, Kindred provides a comprehensive, entertaining, no-holds-barred look at what it takes to turn out a world-class paper day in and day out.

In this perceptive, compelling essay, Katharine Murphy offers a profile of Anthony Albanese in motion – a piece about character, the balance of forces, and the mood of the nation. Are Albanese and his party up for change? Are Australians up for it? What does the new prime minister embody, if anything? Has the centre of the polity shifted, with the success of the Teals and the Greens? Where could – and should – the new government be ambitious?

The greatest threat to privacy today is not the NSA, but good-old American companies. Internet giants, leading retailers, and other firms are voraciously gathering data with little oversight from anyone. In Las Vegas, no company knows the value of data better than Caesars Entertainment. Many thousands of enthusiastic clients pour through the ever-open doors of their casinos. The secret to the company’s success lies in their one unrivaled asset: they know their clients intimately by tracking the activities of the overwhelming majority of gamblers.

This dramatic story of two men's efforts to save a small Wisconsin daily from obliteration at the hands of the nation's largest newspaper chain brings together startling case histories of the dubious tactics practiced by Gannett and unsparing insights into the newspaper industry.

Instagram is one of, if not THE, best platforms you can use to market your business. It provides any user a variety of ways to create content and to reach an audience. For a business, these are all that you would need to make people aware of your brand, create relationships with them, retain existing customers, manage brand reputation, and lead prospective customers to channels for conversion.

America is in the throes of a demographic overhaul. Huge generation gaps have opened up in our political and social values, our economic well-being, our family structure, our racial and ethnic identity, our gender norms, our religious affiliation, and our technology use. Today's Millennials - well-educated, tech savvy, underemployed twentysomethings - are at risk of becoming the first generation in American history to have a lower standard of living than their parents.

"Daniel Matamala ingresa, con la lucidez que lo caracteriza, al territorio siempre necesario de la deconstrucción inteligente de las tramas en que se articulan las elites políticas y económicas. Unas tramas que permiten leer un tejido social donde el poder del dinero avanza sobre el poder político para contaminarlo. La reunión de columnas que el libro presenta permite leer cómo operan los privilegios múltiples e incesantes que posibilitan que la ley se retire de las zonas más privilegiadas o trabaje débilmente, o sencillamente no opere." (Diamela Eltit)

For too long, sentence instruction has been heavy on correctness and terminology (as in “mind your grammar”) and light on play and experimentation. Or it has been abandoned altogether. In this lively book, Marty Brandt sets out to change all that.

Las señales estaban a la vista, no solo en las calles sino en todos y cada uno de los informes de organismos internacionales. No verlas era un acto voluntarioso de ocultamiento de la realidad. Son más que simples dolores de crecimiento asociados a la modernización de Chile, tan exitosa en algunos aspectos, como el combate a la pobreza o la liberalización de la vida social.

Les fake news no són un fenomen nou: els governs, els partits polítics, els mitjans de comunicació i les grans corporacions --o els monopolis d'informació equivalents en cada època-- sempre n'han fet ús interessat. No és sospitós, doncs, que les polítiques i les reformes normatives que s'estan proposant per combatre-les criminalitzin les noves tecnologies i, en canvi, no facin el mateix amb els que s'han dedicat a produir notícies falses des de sempre?

In Networking for Authors, best-selling fantasy and horror writer Daniel Parsons explains how he has grown a supportive network of prominent authors and publishing professionals from scratch. Breaking his tactics into short, actionable steps, he demonstrates exactly how anyone can achieve similar results.

Making money blogging about things you love, enjoy, or are passionate about is fun, right? There has never been a better time in history to start a blog; we have unbelievable technologies at our finger tips right now, and most are free... like WordPress. The cost of entry has never been lower, the variety of ways to attract an audience has never been greater, and there are multitudes of ways to monetize your blog.

Faulty grammar can slow you down and diminish your credibility as a business writer. Essential Grammar has just one objective: to help you use correct English in the documents you write for work. Correct writing is an excellent way to boost your professional credibility. Here are some of the skills the book helps you master: writing grammatically correct sentences, using the right forms of pronouns and verbs, distinguishing between commonly confused words, and knowing when and where to use punctuation marks.

Grant McCracken, an anthropologist who now trains some of the world's biggest companies and consulting firms, argues that the CCO would keep a finger on the pulse of contemporary cultural trends, from sneakers to slow food to preppies, while developing a systematic understanding of the deep waves of culture in America and the world. The CCOs professionalism would allow the corporation to see coming changes, even when they only exist as the weakest of signals.