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How can confusing directions actually help us? Why can large bonuses make CEOs less productive? Why is there such a big difference between what we think will make us happy and what really makes us happy? In his groundbreaking book Predictably Irrational, social scientist Dan Ariely revealed the multiple biases that lead us into making unwise decisions. Now, in The Upside of Irrationality, he exposes the surprising negative and positive effects irrationality...
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America's preeminent columnist presents his penetrating and surprising reflections on everything from embryo research to entitlement reform, from Halley's Comet to border collies, from Christopher Columbus to Martin Luther King, from drone warfare to American decline. Features a special, highly autobiographical introduction.
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The author explores her own conflicting feelings as a mother as she protects her offspring and probes the roots and tendrils of the girlie-girl movement and concludes that parents who think through their values early on and set reasonable limits, encourage dialogue and skepticism, and are canny about the consumer culture can combat the 24/7 "media machine" aimed at girls and hold off the focus on beauty, materialism, and the color pink somewhat.
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Planning is Zoe Rosenthal's superpower. She has faith in a properly organized to-do list and avoids unnecessary risks. Her mental checklist goes something like this: 1) Meet soulmate: DONE! 2) Make commitment: DONE! 3) Marriage: TO COME! (after college). She isn't sure which college yet, but it will have a strong political science department, since her perfect boyfriend, Simon, plans to "save the country," as his sister puts it, "and the planet and...
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"Learn more about your favorite Norse gods, goddesses, and heroes with this collection of profiles that share the real stories behind the characters. With characters from Norse myths coming to life on the big and small screens, and in the pages of new and exciting fiction, this guide can give you all the details you need to understand your favorite heroes, villains, and powerful deities. With comprehensive entries that outline each character's names,...
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Energy sources are massively depleted. The government is wasteful and incompetent. The economy is imploding, the environment is toxic, and international terrorism threatens our day-to-day lives. And gum sucks. It just sucks. Who is responsible? Who made our world so dangerous, so unlivable, so stupid?
Matthew Vincent is unafraid to name names. Who’s to blame for the three-ounce rule on airplanes? Who came up with the bright idea of...
Matthew Vincent is unafraid to name names. Who’s to blame for the three-ounce rule on airplanes? Who came up with the bright idea of...
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"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,...
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,...
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From the acclaimed Ojibwe author and professor Anton Treuer comes an essential book of questions and answers for Native and non-Native young readers alike. Ranging from "Why is there such a fuss about nonnative people wearing Indian costumes for Halloween?" to "Why is it called a 'traditional Indian fry bread taco'?" to "What's it like for natives who don't look native?" to "Why are Indians so often imagined rather than understood?", and beyond, Everything...
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"From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe comes a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play."--
Every day Willis Wu leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy--...
39) My body
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In this personal exploration of feminism, sexuality and power, of men's treatment of women and women's rationalizations for accepting that treatment, the acclaimed model and actress presents essays that chronicle moments of her life while investigating culture's fetishization of girls and female beauty.
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"A history of the thinkers, writers, and artists who shaped intellectual culture in Cold War Europe and America"--
Menand analyzes the economic, demographic, and technological forces that drove social and cultural change in US during the twenty years following the end of the Second World War. Introducing us to the personalities at the center of this transformation-- artists and thinkers both in the US and abroad-- he shows how they exerted a powerful...