🧠Because truth is often stranger—and funnier—than fiction.
Memoirs, essays, and deep dives into everything from psychology to platypuses. Smart reads for curious minds.
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Winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize for Literature: A "massive, provocative, brilliant" study of the nature of humankind and the manifestations of that nature ( Time ). "Critics have compared Crowds and Power to the intellectually revolutionary works of Marx, Freud, and...
From celebrated writer Jill Lepore, a literary and political history of American origin stories In The Story of America , Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore investigates American origin stories—from John Smith's account of the founding of...
In this New York Times Bestseller, the author of Stiff "takes the reader on a wide-ranging tour . . . into human sexual life and practice, ranging from laboratories to brothels" ( Chicago Tribune). "Rich in dexterous innuendo, laugh‑out‑loud humor and illuminating...
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the renowned astronomer and author of Cosmos comes a “powerful [and] stirring defense of informed rationality” ( The Washington Post Book World ) in a world where fake news stories and Internet conspiracy theories play to a disaffected...
In short, gloriously inventive essays, Whiting Award-winning author Amy Leach's The Everybody Ensemble invites us to see and celebrate our oddball, interconnected world Humans, please turn your guns into kazoos. Are you feeling dismay, despair, disillusion? Need a...
The father of psychoanalysis presents his theories about the human conflict between individual desire and community wellbeing. Long before humans banded together in large groups, they followed their own primal instincts for survival. These acts of self-preservation...
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE * AMAZON'S TOP 20 HISTORY BOOKS OF 2023 * B&N BEST OF EDUCATIONAL HISTORY * THE ROOT'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023 * CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023 From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael...
A Barnes & Noble Best History Book of 2025 Four men in a lifeboat. Two weeks without food. One impossible choice that would reshape the boundaries between survival and murder. “A perfect enunciation of the classic philosophical conundrum: can you sacrifice one...
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Burden’s searing, probing memoir explores . . . what she learned about intimacy and her own spirit.”— People ​​ “A beautifully written instant classic. Strangers is gripping and heartbreaking and a must-read for every wife—and...
A New York Times bestseller about overcoming the profound ills of modern society by a legendary social psychologist, the author of Escape from Freedom . One of Fromm's main interests was to analyze social systems and their impact on the mental health of the...