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The wryly amusing and revealing story of one man’s journey into the swinger lifestyle that “transcends most of the usual…
boundaries of sexuality…and leaves the vanilla world behind” (The New York Times Book Review).An estimated fifteen million strong worldwide, swingers are everywhere—a huge community hiding in plain sight, whose erotic pastime remains a complete mystery to the rest of us. In Swingland, Daniel Stern outs himself and the secretive society he loves, recounting his ten-year transformation from a lonely guy who couldn’t get a date into a veteran sexual adventurer.With wit and infectious enthusiasm, Stern shares all the hard-earned wisdom he’s acquired in America’s swinging underground. He encounters plenty of bumps and bruises along the way, including countless rejections, missed opportunities, and one particular AARP orgy. But slowly and surely, through an impressive series of threesomes, foursomes, and moresomes, this “Vanilla” newbie becomes a much sought-after partner for couples looking to spice up their relationships. Travel with Stern on his exploits, learn a whole new lexicon (there aren’t many single women swingers, or “Unicorns,” but plenty of MFMs, FMFs, MMFMs, and MMMFMs), and gain free, invaluable advice should you decide to take the plunge (be honest, sensitive, and hygienic!).“Equal parts memoir and guide book” (New York Post), Swingland is much more than a “unique, voyeuristic exposé” (Kirkus Reviews). Lovingly written, with a keen sensibility regarding the sensitive and often misunderstood subject, Stern’s narrative is as improbably safe as it is fun—and impossible to put down.Gimme Shelter
By Mary Elizabeth Williams. 2009
"Of course I want a home," writes Mary Elizabeth Williams, "I'm American." Gimme Shelter is the first book to reveal…
how this primal desire, "encoded into our cultural DNA," drove our nation to extremes, from the heights of an unprecedented housing boom to the depths of an unparalleled crash. As a writer and parent in New York City, Williams is careful to ground her real-estate dreams in the reality of her middle-class bank account. Yet as a person who knows no other way to fall in love than at first sight, her relationship with the nation's most daunting housing market is a passionate one. Williams's house-hunting fantasy quickly morphs into a test of endurance, as her search for a place to live and a mortgage she can afford stretches into a three-year odyssey that takes her to the farthest reaches of the boroughs and the limits of her own patience. "Welcome to the tracks," she declares at the outset of yet another weekend tour of blindingly bad, wildly overpriced properties. "Let's go to the wrong side of them, shall we?" As her own quest unfolds, Williams simultaneously reports on the housing markets nationwide. Friends and family members grapple with real estate agents and lenders, neighborhood and quality-of-life issues, all the while voicing common concerns, as expressed by this Maryland working parent of three: "The market was so hot, there were no houses. We looked for years at places the owners wouldn't even clean, let alone fix up." How frustrating is the process? Williams likens it to hearing "the opening bars of a song you think is 'Super Freak.' And then it turns out to be 'U Can't Touch This.'" Told in an engaging blend of factfinding and memoir, Gimme Shelter charts the course of the real estate bubble as it floated ever upward, not with faceless numbers and documents but with the details of countless personal stories -- about the undeniable urge to put down roots and the lengths to which we'll go to find our way home.Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet
By Michael Wolff. 1999
From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fire and Fury and Siege: Trump Under Fire—Michael Wolff's wickedly…
funny chronicle of his rags-to-riches-to-rags adventure as a fledgling Internet entrepreneur exposes an industry powered by hype, celebrity, and billions of investment dollars, and notably devoid of profit-making enterprises.As he describes his efforts to control his company's burn rate—the amount of money the company consumes in excess of its income—Wolff offers a no-holds-barred portrait of unaccountable successes and major disasters, including the story behind Wired magazine and its fanatical founder, Louis Rossetto; the rise of America Online, perhaps the most dysfunctional successful company in history, and the humiliating inability of people such as Bill Gates to untangle the intricacies of the Web.10 Minutes, 10 Years: Your Definitive Guide to a Beautiful and Youthful Appearance
By Frederic Brandt. 2007
If you find yourself lost and alone in the skin-care aisle; if you're thinking of going under the knife, but…
hoping you won't have to; if you need specific, detailed information about how to get rid of the bags under your eyes or those ever-deepening furrows in your brow; if you've gone to your girlfriends, women's magazines, cosmetics counters, facialists, and plastic surgeons and gotten lots of conflicting answers; then Dr. Fredric Brandt's simple, streamlined system is for you. With 10 Minutes/10 Years, one of the world's most famous cosmetic dermatologists offers a breakthrough skin-care program that will take you only ten minutes a day -- and will reverse your skin's aging process by ten years. There is a skin-care revolution taking place; the days of washing your face with soap and water and slapping on some cream are long gone. But this means that skin care isn't simple anymore. As new products appear, seemingly overnight, it becomes harder to know what's right for your skin. With warmth and humor, Dr. Brandt cuts through the information overload to provide concrete information and advice for women of all ages and of every skin type. He helps you determine who to go to and who not to go to as well as what to ask. 10 Minutes/10 Years is a uniquely formatted, problem/solution-driven guidebook that reveals many unknown threats to the skin which age it before its time, such as sugar and diet (Chapter 3). Need to know about the brown spots on your cheeks? Turn to Chapter 6. Sick of your drooping chin? Read Chapter 14. Driven to despair by your thinning hair? Look at Chapter 19. But before you decide what system you need, consult Chapter 4 for a comprehensive list of the best products, treatments, and procedures available. Dr. Brandt explains what they are and how they work -- from the least invasive, over-the-counter creams to the most cutting-edge injectibles. Once you understand the basics, you can move on to your specific area of concern in the book's final section, which offers precise information for every skin type. There is no one-shot solution -- we are constantly aging, and we have to keep maintaining ourselves. 10 Minutes/10 Years is Dr. Brandt's targeted approach to this maintenance. His system has already helped thousands of people look younger, and now readers will have their own one-way ticket back to a youthful appearance.Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip
By Richard Ratay. 2018
&“A lighthearted, entertaining trip down Memory Lane&” (Kirkus Reviews), Don&’t Make Me Pull Over! offers a nostalgic look at the…
golden age of family road trips—before portable DVD players, smartphones, and Google Maps.The birth of America&’s first interstate highways in the 1950s hit the gas pedal on the road trip phenomenon and families were soon streaming—sans seatbelts!—to a range of sometimes stirring, sometimes wacky locations. In the days before cheap air travel, families didn&’t so much take vacations as survive them. Between home and destination lay thousands of miles and dozens of annoyances, and with his family Richard Ratay experienced all of them—from being crowded into the backseat with noogie-happy older brothers, to picking out a souvenir only to find that a better one might have been had at the next attraction, to dealing with a dad who didn&’t believe in bathroom breaks.Now, decades later, Ratay offers &“an amiable guide…fun and informative&” (New York Newsday) that &“goes down like a cold lemonade on a hot summer&’s day&” (TheWall Street Journal). In hundreds of amusing ways, he reminds us of what once made the Great American Family Road Trip so great, including twenty-foot &“land yachts,&” oasis-like Holiday Inn &“Holidomes,&” &“Smokey&”-spotting Fuzzbusters, twenty-eight glorious flavors of Howard Johnson&’s ice cream, and the thrill of finding a &“good buddy&” on the CB radio.An &“informative, often hilarious family narrative [that] perfectly captures the love-hate relationship many have with road trips&” (Publishers Weekly), Don&’t Make Me Pull Over! reveals how the family road trip came to be, how its evolution mirrored the country&’s, and why those magical journeys that once brought families together—for better and worse—have largely disappeared.Abroad in Japan: The No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller
By Chris Broad. 2023
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER'Chris Broad explores Japan in all its quirky glory..Endlessly fascinating!'Will Ferguson, author of Hokkaido Highway Blues'Carves a…
unique path across Japan bringing him into contact with far too many cats, heartening renewal in Tohoku, and even pizza with Ken Watanabe.'Iain Maloney, author of The Only Gaijin in the Village'Fascinating, fact-packed and very funny..An excellent and enjoyable read for the Japan-curious. I loved it and learned a lot.'Sam Baldwin, author of For Fukui's Sake: Two years in rural JapanWhen Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. With no knowledge of the language and zero teaching experience, was he about to be the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan's history?Abroad in Japan charts a decade of living in a foreign land and the chaos and culture clash that came with it. Packed with hilarious and fascinating stories, this book seeks out to unravel one the world's most complex cultures.Spanning ten years and all forty-seven prefectures, Chris takes us from the lush rice fields of the countryside to the frenetic neon-lit streets of Tokyo. With blockbuster moments such as a terrifying North Korean missile incident, a mortifying experience at a love hotel and a week spent with Japan's biggest movie star, Abroad in Japan is an extraordinary and informative journey through the Land of the Rising Sun.Number one Sunday Times bestseller, August 2023The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns
By Alan C. Greenberg, Mark Singer. 2010
Former CEO of Bear Stearns, Alan Greenberg, sheds light on his life as one of Wall Street&’s most respected figures…
in this candid and fascinating account of a storied career and its stunning conclusion. On March 16, 2008, Alan Greenberg, former CEO and current chairman of the executive committee of Bear Stearns, found himself in the company&’s offices on a Sunday. More remarkable by far than the fact that he was in the office on a Sunday is what he was doing: participating in a meeting of the board of directors to discuss selling the company he had worked decades to build for a fraction of what it had been worth as little as ten days earlier. In less than a week the value of Bear Stearns had diminished by tens of billions of dollars.As Greenberg recalls, "our most unassailable assumption—that Bear Stearns, an independent investment firm with a proud eighty-five-year history, would be in business tomorrow—had been extinguished. . . . What was it, exactly, that had happened, and how, and why?" This book provides answers to those questions from one of Wall Street&’s most respected figures, the man most closely identified with Bear Stearns&’ decades of success.The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns is Alan Greenberg&’s remarkable story of ascending to the top of one of Wall Street&’s venerable powerhouse financial institutions. After joining Bear Stearns in 1949, Greenberg rose to become formally head of the firm in 1978.No one knows the history of Bear Stearns as he does; no one participated in more key decisions, right into the company&’s final days. Greenberg offers an honest, clear-eyed assessment of how the collapse of the company surprised him and other top executives, and he explains who he thinks was responsible.Return to Beauty: Old-World Recipes for Great Radiant Skin
By Narine Nikogosian. 2009
Return to Beauty offers regimens made from fresh ingredients that can be found right in your kitchen. With recipes for…
winter, spring, summer, and fall, you can look beautiful throughout the year. Narine Nikogosian's natural and inexpensive products can be whipped up in less than ten minutes. Have a jar of honey in your pantry? Mix it with a few crushed walnuts to create a sensual, aromatic scrub for oily skin. Use dabs of cottage cheese to lighten undereye circles, or almond oil to rehydrate cracked lips. Narine also provides recipes based on astrological signs, such as for Scorpio, a Gracious Grapefruit Mask made of grapefruit, egg yolk, and soothing honey to rejuvenate your skin even after a late night. Narine is from a long line of Armenian women who have been harnessing the powers of nature to create everlasting beauty. For the first time, she reveals her secrets so that you can have star-worthy skin.Travels with Barley: A Journey Through Beer Culture in America
By Ken Wells. 2004
Do beer yeast rustlers really exist? Who patented the Beer Goddess? How can you tell a Beer Geek from a…
Beer Nazi? Where exactly is Beervana? Does Big Beer hate Little Beer? Ken Wells, a novelist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and longtime Wall Street Journal writer, answers these questions and more by bringing a keen eye and prodigious reportage to the people and passions that have propelled beer into America's favorite alcoholic beverage and the beer industry into a $75 billion commercial juggernaut, not to mention a potent force in American culture. Travels with Barley is a lively, literate tour through the precincts of the beer makers, sellers, drinkers, and thinkers who collectively drive the mighty River of Beer onward. The heart of the book is a journey along the Mississippi River, from Minnesota to Louisiana, in a quixotic search for the Perfect Beer Joint -- a journey that turns out to be the perfect pretext for viewing America through the prism of a beer glass. Along the river, you'll visit the beer bar once owned by the brewer Al Capone, glide by The World's Largest Six Pack, and check into Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel to plumb the surprisingly controversial question of whether Elvis actually drank beer. But the trip also includes numerous detours up quirky tributaries, among them: a visit to an Extreme Beer maker in Delaware with ambitions to make 50-proof brew, a look at the murky world of beer yeast rustlers in California, and a journey to the portals of ultimate beer power at the Anheuser-Busch plant in St. Louis, where making the grade as a Clydesdale draft horse is harder than you might imagine. Entertaining, enlightening, and written with Wells's trademark verve, Travels with Barley is a perfect gift -- not just for America's 84 million beer enthusiasts, but for all discerning readers of flavorful nonfiction.Effortless Style
By June Ambrose, Richard Buskin. 2006
So you probably won't be attending your own movie premiere or collecting a Grammy Award this year. That doesn't mean…
you can't look like you're ready for the red carpet and fawning paparazzi. In Effortless Style, June Ambrose, the celebrity fashion stylist and designer who's shaped the looks of some of the biggest names in entertainment -- including Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, Kelly Ripa, and Mariah Carey -- reveals the industry secrets that can help anyone exude genuine star power, regardless of body type or budget. The key to looking and feeling like a celebrity lies in defining your own unique style and adapting it to each situation. The result is a look as natural as a second skin. In clear step-by-step instructions, Ambrose shows how people can improve the way they present themselves to the world, whether it's for a first date or an important meeting, and in turn boost their overall mood and self-confidence. Using examples from her work molding celebrities' images, she teaches women (and their men) how to define and enhance their look, with chapters devoted to topics such as knowing what clothes work for each body type, how to accessorize like a star, the importance of tailoring clothes so that an off-the-rack suit fits like a custom-made Armani, and much more. She offers tricks of the trade -- from choosing the perfect lingerie to handling bad hair days -- and provides a welcome list of wardrobe essentials and perennial fashion don'ts. With this must-have style guide every woman, whether girl next door or top executive, will be able to unleash her inner VIP -- effortlessly.Bigger, Fancier, and more cutthorat than ever!When Freeman Hall left The Big Fancy to pursue his screenwriting dreams, he thought…
the horrors of working in a handbag department were finally over. But instead of fame and fortune, he found himself stuck behind a wall of script-killing rewrites, unable to make a living.In Return to the Big Fancy, Freeman shares his wildly entertaining journey back through the fiery gates of Retail Hell. He thought he had seen it all in his day, but with the bar set higher than ever before, employees are now graciously bowing before Corporate as they climb over fellow salespeople, and even friends, to earn enough transactions and commissions to actually survive. As he learns more of the wretchedness that has befallen the sales floor, he realizes that The Big Fancy has its customers and its employees on a short leash. But leave it to Freeman and the threat of disappearing commissions to rally the retail slaves and show Corporate who's really in charge!Bachelor Party Confidential: A Real-Life Peek Behind the Closed-Door Tradition
By David Boyer. 2007
First comes love; then comes marriage. . . . But in between there's the bachelor party.Lesbian strippers, dwarf tossing, boozy…
confessions, missing grooms -- modern bachelor party lore is enough to terrify any jittery bride. But what's real and what's testosterone-fueled legend? For the first time, Bachelor Party Confidential offers an uncensored and comprehensive look at what men do when women aren't invited. You may think you've heard the stories . . . but you have no idea. Filled with unforgettable firsthand accounts culled from totally anonymous interviews with more than a hundred men from around the globe, Bachelor Party Confidential journeys to the heart of one of man's last and most closely guarded secrets. To get the whole story, David Boyer talks to everyone from Vegas revelers mid-party, religious grooms, horny best men, and unconventional bachelors to reluctant wives, pricey strippers, bachelor party planners, and other behind-the-scenes players. The result is alternately hilarious, sexy, poignant, and truly eye-opening.Advertising Shits in Your Head: Strategies for Resistance
By Vyvian Raoul. 2018
Advertising Shits in Your Head calls ads what they are—a powerful means of control through manipulation—and highlights how people across…
the world are fighting back. It diagnoses the problem and offers practical tips for a DIY remedy. Faced with an ad-saturated world, activists are fighting back, equipped with stencils, printers, high-visibility vests, and utility tools. Their aim is to subvert the advertisements that control us. With case studies from both sides of the Atlantic, this book showcases the ways in which small groups of activists are taking on corporations and states at their own game: propaganda. This is a call-to-arts for a generation raised on ads. Beginning with a rich and detailed analysis of the pernicious hold advertising has on our lives, the book then moves on to offer practical solutions and guidance on how to subvert the ads. Using a combination of ethnographic research and theoretical analysis, Advertising Shits in Your Head investigates the claims made by subvertising practitioners and shows how they affect their practice.Soccer vs. the State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics, Second Edition
By Gabriel Kuhn. 2018
Soccer has turned into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Professionalism and commercialization dominate its global image. Yet the game retains a rebellious…
side, maybe more so than any other sport co-opted by money makers and corrupt politicians. From its roots in working-class England to political protests by players and fans, and a current radical soccer underground, the notion of football as the “people’s game” has been kept alive by numerous individuals, teams, and communities. This book not only traces this history, but also reflects on common criticisms: soccer ferments nationalism, serves right-wing powers, and fosters competitiveness. Acknowledging these concerns, alternative perspectives on the game are explored, down to practical examples of egalitarian DIY soccer! Soccer vs. the State serves both as an orientation for the politically conscious football supporter and as an inspiration for those who try to pursue the love of the game away from televisions and big stadiums, bringing it to back alleys and muddy pastures. This second edition has been expanded to cover events of recent years, including the involvement of soccer fans in the Middle Eastern uprisings of 2011–2013, the FIFA scandal of 2015, and the 2017 strike by the Danish women’s team.Symbols of Canada
By Michael Dawson, Catherine Gidney, Donald Wright. 2018
From Timbits to totem poles, Canada is boiled down to its syrupy core in symbolic forms that are reproduced not…
only on t-shirts, television ads, and tattoos but in classrooms, museums, and courtrooms too. They can be found in every home and in every public space. They come in many forms, from objects—like the red-uniformed Mountie, the maple leaf, and the beaver—to concepts—like free healthcare, peacekeeping, and saying “eh?”. But where did these symbols come from, what do they mean, and how have their meanings changed over time? Symbols of Canada gives us the real and surprising truth behind the most iconic Canadian symbols revealing their contentious and often contested histories. With over 100 images, this book thoroughly explores Canada’s true self while highlighting the unexpected twists and turns that have marked each symbol’s history.No-Nonsense Guide to World Music (No-Nonsense Guides #31)
By Louise Gray. 2009
“World music” is an awkward phrase. Used to describe the hugely multifaceted nature of a range of, typically, non-English language…
popular musics from the world over, it’s a tag that throws up as many problems as it does solutions. Louise Gray’s No-Nonsense Guide to World Music attempts to go behind the phrase to explore the reasons for the contemporary interest in world music: who listens to it and why? Through chapters that focus on specific areas of music, such as rembetika, fado, trance music and new folk, it explores the genres that have emerged from marginalized communities, music from conflict zones, and music as a form of escapism.Fun & Games & Higher Educatione’: The Lonely Crowd Revisited
By Randle W. Nelsen. 2007
Fun & Games & Higher Education ranges from Wayne’s World to hot-rodding, from automobility to the popular phenomenon know as…
the tailgate party, from German sociologist George Simmel to Canadian Media Guru Marshall McLuhan–all in the interests in exploring North American obsession with play-and particularly the intersection between education, work, and leisure.Serial Girls: From Barbie to Pussy Riot
By Martine Delvaux. 2016
Everywhere you look patriarchal society reduces women to a series of repeating symbols: serial girls. On TV and in film,…
on the internet and in magazines, pop culture and ancient architecture, serial girls are all around us, moving in perfect sync—as dolls, as dancers, as statues. From Tiller Girls to Barbie dolls, Playboy bunnies to Pussy Riot, Martine Delvaux produces a provocative analysis of the many gendered assumptions that underlie modern culture. Delvaux draws on the works of Barthes, Foucault, de Beauvoir, Woolf, and more to argue that serial girls are not just the ubiquitous symbols of patriarchal domination but also offer the possibility of liberation.Chipped: Writing from a Skateboarder's Lens
By José Vadi. 2024
A memoir-in-essays about how skateboarding re-defines space, curates culture, confronts mortality, and affords new perspectives on and off the boardChipping…
a board—where small pieces of deck and tape break off around the nose and tail—is a natural part of skateboarding. Novice or pro, you&’ll see folks riding chipped boards as symbols of their stubborn dedication toward a deck, a toy, and aging bodies that will also reach their inevitable end. In Chipped, José Vadi personalizes and expands upon this symbol. Written after finishing his debut collection Inter State: Essays From California, Vadi used these essays to explore his own empathy in aging, and to elaborate on the impact skateboarding has had on culture, power, and art. From tracing a critical mass skater takeover of San Francisco&’s streets, to an analysis of visceral &‘90s skate videos and soundtracks, to the solace found skating a parking lot during a global pandemic, Vadi expands our understanding of the ways skateboarding can alter one&’s life. Vadi acts as a &“ethnographer on a skateboard,&” writing, living, and animating an object, likening the board and skate ephemera to the fear of being discarded, wanting to be seen as useful, functional, living. These essays analyze the legacy of seminal texts like Thrasher Magazine, influential programming giants like MTV, and skateboard artists like Ed Templeton. They imagine jazz composer Sun Ra as a skateboarder to explore sonic connections between skateboarding and jazz, obsessively follow bands, chronicle tours, and discover the creative bermuda triangle Southern California suburbs have to offer. Chipped is an intimate, genre-pushing meditation on skateboarding and the reasons we continue to get up after every fall life throws our way.When Sunlight Tiptoes
By Gillian Sze. 2023