The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America

Bad Feminist

Roxane Gay · 360 pages

A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once l

Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood

Maureen Ryan · 348 pages

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

Jia Tolentino · 303 pages

The Age of American Unreason

Susan Jacoby · 357 pages

Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon--one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, she surveys an anti-rationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought." Disdain for logic and evidence

Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia

Peter Pomerantsev · 272 pages

"Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible is a journey into the glittering, surreal heart of 21st century Russia: into the lives of oligarchs convinced they are messiahs, professional killers with the souls of artists, Bohemian theater directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, supermodel sects, post-modern dictators, and playboy revolutionaries. This is a world erupting with new money and new pow

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

Owen Jones · 298 pages

"In this groundbreaking investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from 'salt of the earth' to 'scum of the earth'. Moving through Westminster 's lobbies and working-class communities from Dagenham to Dewsbury Moor, Jones lays bare the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, and reveals a far more complex reality: the increasing poverty and desperation o

The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear

Seth Mnookin · 429 pages

A searing account of how vaccine opponents have used the media to spread their message of panic, despite no scientific evidence to support them. In this searching exposé, the recent hysteria over childhood vaccinations and their alleged link to autism becomes a cautionary tale of bad science amplified by media sensationalism.

The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things

Barry Glassner · 279 pages

In this eye-opening examination of a pathology that has swept the country, sociologist Barry Glassner reveals why Americans are burdened with overblown fears. He exposes the people and organizations that manipulate our perceptions and profit from our anxieties: politicians who win elections by heightening concerns about crime and drug use even as both are declining; advocacy groups that raise mon

True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society

Farhad Manjoo · 257 pages

Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair & Balanced Look at the Right

Al Franken · 421 pages

The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina

Frank Rich · 346 pages

New York Times columnist Frank Rich examines the trail of fictions manufactured by the Bush administration from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina, exposing the most brilliant spin campaign ever waged.When America was attacked on 9/11, its citizens almost unanimously rallied behind its new, untested president as he went to war. What they didn't know at the time was that the Bush administration's highest pr

Ways of Seeing

John Berger · 166 pages

How do we see the world around us? The Penguin on Design series includes the works of creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision forever."Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.""But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we e

Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda

Noam Chomsky · 103 pages

"Chomsky's backpocket classic on wartime propaganda and opinion control has been updated and expanded into a two-section book, and redesigned following the acclaimed format of his Open Media anti-war bestseller, 9-11. The new edition of Media Control also includes 'The Journalist from Mars, ' Chomsky's 2002 talk on the media coverage of America's 'new war on terrorism.' Chomsky begins by asserting

The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire

Tim Schwab · 496 pages

The No Spin Zone: Confrontations with the Powerful and Famous in America

Bill O'Reilly · 190 pages

Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America

Dana Milbank · 261 pages

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank takes a look at the unsettling rise of silly Fox News host Glenn Beck. The wildly popular broadcaster, with three million daily viewers, perfectly captures the vitriol of our time and the fact-free state of our political culture. The secret to his success is his willingness to traffic in the fringe conspiracies and Internet hearsay that others wouldn't touch

You Are Being Lied To

Russ Kick, Russell Kick · 399 pages

Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now--Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything

David Sirota · 276 pages

In this wide-ranging and wickedly entertaining book, "New York Times" bestselling journalist David Sirota takes readers on a rollicking DeLorean ride back in time to reveal how so many of our present-day conflicts are rooted in the larger-than-life pop culture of the 1980s.

Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations

bell hooks · 320 pages

Bell hooks, one of America's leading black intellectuals, is also one of our most clear-eyed and penetrating analysts of culture. Outlaw culture--the culture of the margin, of women, of the disenfranchised, of racial and other minorities--lies at the heart of bell hooks' America. Raising her powerful voice against racism and other forms of oppression in the United States, hooks unlocks the politic

Everyday Sexism

Laura Bates · 406 pages

In a culture that's driven by social media, women are using this online space to come together, share their stories and encourage a new generation to recognise the problems that women face. This book is a call to arms in a new wave of feminism, and it proves sexism is endemic - socially, politically and economically - but women won't stand for it.

I Am America

Stephen Colbert

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You

Eli Pariser · 300 pages

The hidden rise of personalization on the Internet is controlling--and limiting--the information we consume. In 2009, Google began customizing its search results. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, this change is symptomatic of the most significant shift to tak

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman

Anne Helen Petersen · 285 pages

A popular BuzzFeed columnist examines the phenomenon of popular provocative womanhood to discuss the rise of such counterculture stars as Amy Schumer, Nicki Minaj, and Caitlyn Jenner, exploring why they are popular in spite of nonconforming behaviors. "From celebrity gossip expert and Buzzfeed culture writer Anne Helen Petersen comes an accessible, analytical look at how female celebrities are pu

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

Angela Y. Davis · 176 pages

>In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar **Angela Y. Davis** illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world.