Culture House

Dana Brown was a 21-year-old college dropout playing in punk bands and partying his way through downtown New York’s early-'90s milieu when he first encountered Graydon Carter, the legendary editor of Vanity Fair. After the two had a handful of brief interactions (mostly with Brown in the role of cater waiter at Carter’s famous cultural salons he hosted at his home), Carter saw what he believed to be Brown’s untapped potential, and on a whim, hired him as his assistant

We are in the midst of one of the greatest status revolutions ever, and it's a brave new world indeed. Who better to guide us through it than Michael Lewis, whose subversive, trenchant humor is the perfect match to his subject matter. Here is an audiobook as fresh as tomorrow's headlines, and as entertaining as its best selling predecessors.

Are you ready for a detailed yet thoroughly enjoyable study of the most profound book ever written? Using sound scientific facts, historical analysis, and biblical narrative, acclaimed teacher Dr. Chuck Missler weaves together a rich tapestry of information - providing an accurate understanding of scripture's relation to itself, to us, and to the world at large.

Greetings, initiate! Carter Kane, here. Congratulations on reaching Brooklyn House in one piece. This accomplishment signals that you're descended from Ancient Egyptian royalty, and you have magic powers. But what good is power without knowing how to use it? That's where this training manual comes in. Packed with quizzes, stories, and insights about Ancient Egyptian deities, creatures (the friendly and the deadly), the mysterious Duat, and more, this primer will prime those with the blood of the pharaohs to take their first steps down the path of the gods.

The first-ever inside look at DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the maverick and controversial group whose futuristic work has had amazing civilian and military applications, from the Internet to GPS to driverless cars

In her refreshing and forthright voice, Anne-Marie Slaughter returns with her vision for what true equality between men and women really means and how we can get there. She uncovers the missing piece of the puzzle, presenting a new focus that can reunite the women's movement and provide a common banner under which both men and women can advance and thrive.

From politics to the personal, from fashion to food, from the campus to the locker room, the desire to be cool has infected all aspects of our lives. At its most harmless, it is annoying. At its worst, it is deadly, on a massive scale. The Cool are the termites of life, infiltrating every nook and cranny and destroying it from within. The Cool report the news, write the scripts, teach our children, run our government - and each day they pass judgment on those who don’t worship their coolness.

The bicycle is a vestige of the Victorian era, seemingly at odds with our age of smartphones and ride-sharing apps and driverless cars. Yet we live on a bicycle planet. Across the world, more people travel by bicycle than any other form of transportation. Almost anyone can learn to ride a bike—and nearly everyone does.

Stan Lee was one of the most famous and beloved entertainers to emerge from the twentieth century. He served as head editor of Marvel Comics for three decades and, in that time, became known as the creator of more pieces of internationally recognizable intellectual property than nearly anyone: Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, Black Panther, the Incredible Hulk . . . the list goes on. His carnival-barker marketing prowess helped save the comic-book industry and superhero fiction.

It was once a utopian dream. But today’s internet, despite its conveniences and connectivity, is the primary cause of a pervasive unease that has taken hold in the U.S. and other democratic societies. The roots of this crisis, argue Frank McCourt and Michael Casey, lie in the prevailing order of the internet. In plain but forceful language, the authors—a civic entrepreneur and an acclaimed journalist—show how a centralized system controlled by a small group of for-profit entities has set this catastrophe in motion and eroded our personhood.

In folktales, the trickster can be the wise one or the fool, the one who fools or the one who is fooled. That is why children of all ages enjoy hearing these tales. The psychology of childhood is pretty much the same everywhere, giving these enjoyable stories universal appeal.

After standing at Donald Trump’s side on Election Night, Cliff Sims joined him in the West Wing as special assistant to the president and director of White House message strategy. He soon found himself pulled into the president’s inner circle as a confidante, an errand boy, an advisor, a punching bag, and a friend. This is the story of what it was really like in the West Wing as a member of the president’s team. It's a story of power and palace intrigue, backstabbing and bold victories, as well as painful moral compromises, occasionally with yourself.

Chris Anderson takes you to the front lines of a new industrial revolution as today’s entrepreneurs, using open source design and 3-D printing, bring manufacturing to the desktop. In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to be unleashed, driving a resurgence of American manufacturing. A generation of "Makers" using the Web’s innovation model will help drive the next big wave in the global economy, as the new technologies of digital design and rapid prototyping gives everyone the power to invent.

Growing up in the Midwest, raised by a Puerto Rican mother who was abandoned by her family, Jamie Figueroa and her sisters were estranged from their culture, consumed by the whiteness that surrounded them. In Mother Island, Figueroa traces her search for identity as shaped by and against a mother who settled into the safety of assimilation, and presents a cultural coming-of-age story.

For centuries, electricity was seen as little more than a curious property of certain substances that sparked when rubbed. Then, in the 1790s, Alessandro Volta began the scientific investigation that ignited an explosion of knowledge and invention. The force that once seemed inconsequential was revealed to be responsible for everything from the structure of the atom to the functioning of our brains. In harnessing its power, we have created a world of wonders—complete with roller coasters and radar, computer networks and psychopharmaceuticals.

Make It Ours is at once a remarkable biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race, taste and exclusivity, genius and luxury. With access to Abloh's family, friends, collaborators, and contemporaries, and featuring a cast of fascinating characters ranging from visionary Black designers like Ozwald Boateng to Abloh's mercurial but critical employer and mentor Kanye West, Givhan weaves a spellbinding tale of a young man's rise amid a cultural moment that would upend a century's worth of ideas about luxury and taste.

Attention would-be paesans: Can’t distinguish “gabagool” from “pasta fazool”? Not sure how to properly accessorize your track suit with gold chains? Does the phrase “go to the mattresses” make you sleepy? Now Steven R. Schirripa, The Sopranos’ own Bobby Bacala, exposes the inner mysteries of this unique Italian-American hybrid in A Goomba’s Guide to Life so that anyone can walk, talk, and live like a guy “from the neighborhood.”

At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even born, a group of visionary engineers and designers - some of them only high school students - in the late 1960s and 1970s created a computer system called PLATO, which was not only years but light-years ahead in experimenting with how people would learn, engage, communicate, and play through connected computers.

In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from being convenient legal fictions to being the dominant fact of contemporary life. Indeed, as Rushkoff shows, most Americans have so willingly adopted the values of corporations that they’re no longer even aware of it.

Out of Office is a book for every office worker–from employees to managers–currently facing the decision about whether, and how, to return to the office. The past two years have shown us that there may be a new path forward, one that doesn’t involve hellish daily commutes and the demands of jam-packed work schedules that no longer make sense. But how can we realize that future in a way that benefits workers and companies alike?