Economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner explore the hidden meanings behind how economics make the world operate.

The undead are everywhere. They're not just in movies and books, but in commercials, fetish clubs, and even in your breakfast cereal. Bloodsuckers have become some of the most recognizable bad guys in the modern world, and Eric Nuzum wanted to find out why. He was willing to do whatever it took -even drinking his own blood-in his quest to understand the vampire phenomenon. And, he found the answer in Goth clubs, darkened parks, haunted houses, and...chain...

The $10 billion video gaming industry is now the second-largest segment of the entertainment industry in the United States, outstripping film and far surpassing books. Reality television shows featuring silicone-stuffed CEO wannabes and bug-eating adrenaline junkies dominate the ratings. But social and cultural critic Steven Johnson argues that our popular culture has never been smarter. Drawing from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and...

Known primarily as a novelist, Gibson has, over thirty years, been approached by different publication to share his insights into contemporary culture. The resulting essays are collected here for the first time.

The bestselling editor of This Explains Everything brings together 175 of the world's most brilliant minds to tackle Edge.org's 2014 question: What scientific idea has become a relic blocking human progress? Each year, John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org--"The world's smartest website" (The Guardian)--challenges some of the world's greatest scientists, artists, and philosophers to answer a provocative question crucial to our time. In 2014 he asked...

Popular culture is a central part of everyday life to many Americans. Personalities such as Elvis Presley, Oprah Winfrey, and Michael Jordan are more recognizable to many people than are most elected officials. With Amusement for All is the first comprehensive history of two centuries of mass entertainment in the United States, covering everything from the penny press to Playboy, the NBA to NASCAR, big band to hip hop, and other topics including

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The new encyclopedia of abnormality, 240 pages of cornea-melting illustrations and newly-released SubGenius writings that will shock those who thought surely everything must be contained within the previous books.

Painstakingly assembled from 40,000 fragments of text snipped from womens magazines, this strange and wonderful novel moves at the breakneck pace of a pulp thriller. A stunning visual tour de force, "Womans World" is also a powerful reflection on societys definition of what it means to be a woman.