Top list: Society and Social Sciences

A New York City therapist examines the paradoxical relationship between domesticity and sexual desire and explains what it takes to bring lust home.

One of the world’s most respected voices on erotic intelligence, Esther Perel offers a bold, provocative new take on intimacy and sex. Mating in Captivity invites us to explore the paradoxical union of domesticity and sexual desire, and explains what it takes to bring lust home.

Drawing on more than twenty years of experience as a couples therapist, Perel examines the complexities of sustaining desire. Through case studies and lively discussion, Perel demonstrates how more exciting, playful, and even poetic sex is possible in long-term relationships. Wise, witty, and as revelatory as it is straightforward, Mating in Captivity is a sensational book that will transform the way you live and love.

INCLUDES A FOREWORD WRITTEN AND READ BY GILMORE GIRLS CREATOR, AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO!

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A Goodreads Choice Awards Winner

“Come for the Gilmore Girls anecdotes, stay for the revealing truths about what it takes to build a lifelong career in and out of Hollywood” (The A.V. Club) in this candid and captivating memoir from award-winning and beloved actress Kelly Bishop, spanning her six decades in show business from A Chorus Line, Dirty Dancing, Gilmore Girls, and much more.

Kelly Bishop’s long, storied career has been defined by landmark achievements, from winning a Tony Award for her turn in the original Broadway cast of A Chorus Line to her memorable performance as Jennifer Grey’s mother in Dirty Dancing. But it is probably her iconic role as matriarch Emily in the modern classic Gilmore Girls that cemented her legacy.

Now, Bishop reflects on her remarkable life and looks towards the future with The Third Gilmore Girl. She shares some of her greatest stories and the life lessons she’s learned on her journey. From her early transition from dance to drama, to marrying young to a compulsive gambler, to the losses and achievements she experienced—among them marching for women’s rights and losing her second husband to cancer—Bishop offers a rich, genuine celebration of her life.

Full of witty insights and featuring a special collection of personal and professional photographs, The Third Gilmore Girl is a warm, unapologetic, and spirited memoir from a woman who has left indelible impressions on her audiences for decades and has no plans on slowing down.

“Winning, cheeky, and illuminating….What appears initially as a folly with a look-at-this cover and title becomes, thanks to Radke’s intelligence and curiosity, something much meatier, entertaining, and wise.” —The Washington Post

“Lively and thorough, Butts is the best kind of nonfiction.” —Esquire, Best Books of 2022

A “carefully researched and reported work of cultural history” (The New York Times) that explores how one body part has influenced the female—and human—experience for centuries, and what that obsession reveals about our lives today.

Whether we love them or hate them, think they’re sexy, think they’re strange, consider them too big, too small, or anywhere in between, humans have a complicated relationship with butts. It is a body part unique to humans, critical to our evolution and survival, and yet it has come to signify so much more: sex, desire, comedy, shame. A woman’s butt, in particular, is forever being assessed, criticized, and objectified, from anxious self-examinations trying on jeans in department store dressing rooms to enduring crass remarks while walking down a street or high school hallways. But why? In Butts: A Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out.

Spanning nearly two centuries, this “whip-smart” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) cultural history takes us from the performance halls of 19th-century London to the aerobics studios of the 1980s, the music video set of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and the mountains of Arizona, where every year humans and horses race in a feat of gluteal endurance. Along the way, she meets evolutionary biologists who study how butts first developed; models whose measurements have defined jean sizing for millions of women; and the fitness gurus who created fads like “Buns of Steel.” She also examines the central importance of race through figures like Sarah Bartmann, once known as the “Venus Hottentot,” Josephine Baker, Jennifer Lopez, and other women of color whose butts have been idolized, envied, and despised.

Part deep dive reportage, part personal journey, part cabinet of curiosities, Butts is an entertaining, illuminating, and thoughtful examination of why certain silhouettes come in and out of fashion—and how larger ideas about race, control, liberation, and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves and others.

KC Davis offers a compassionate approach to cleaning and organizing, helping you transform your home without guilt. A perfect Mother’s Day gift for moms seeking peace and practical solutions.

If you’re struggling to stay on top of your to-do list, you probably have a good reason: anxiety, fatigue, depression, ADHD, or lack of support. For therapist KC Davis, the birth of her second child triggered a stress-mess cycle. The more behind she felt, the less motivated she was to start. She didn’t fold a single piece of laundry for seven months. One life-changing realization restored her sanity—and the functionality of her home: You don’t work for your home; your home works for you.

In other words, messiness is not a moral failing. A new sense of calm washed over her as she let go of the shame-based messaging that interpreted a pile of dirty laundry as “I can never keep up” and a chaotic kitchen as “I’m a bad mother.” Instead, she looked at unwashed clothes and thought, “I am alive,” and at stacks of dishes and thought, “I cooked my family dinner three nights in a row.”

Building on this foundation of self-compassion, KC devised the powerful practical approach that has exploded in popularity through her TikTok account, @domesticblisters. The secret is to simplify your to-do list and to find creative workarounds that accommodate your limited time and energy. In this book, you’ll learn exactly how to customize your cleaning strategy and rebuild your relationship with your home, including:

-How to see chores as kindnesses to your future self, not as a reflection of your worth

-How to start by setting priorities

-How to stagger tasks so you won’t procrastinate

-How to clean in quick bursts within your existing daily routine

-How to use creative shortcuts to transform a room from messy to functional

With KC’s help, your home will feel like a sanctuary again. It will become a place to rest, even when things aren’t finished. You will move with ease, and peace and calm will edge out guilt, self-criticism, and endless checklists. They have no place here.

Winner of the 2023 Grammy for Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording!

Audie Award Winner for Audiobook of the Year!

Narrated by Viola Davis

In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.

This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

Make anxiety work for you.

Work is stressful: We race to meet deadlines. We extend ourselves to return favors for colleagues. We set ambitious goals for ourselves and our teams. We measure ourselves against metrics, our competitors, and sometimes, our colleagues. Some of us even go beyond tangible metrics to internalize stress and fear of missing the mark—ruminating over presentations that didn't go according to plan, imagining worst-case scenarios, or standing frozen, paralyzed by perfectionism. But hypervigilance, worry, and catastrophizing don't have to hold you back at work. When channeled thoughtfully, anxiety can motivate us to be more resourceful, productive, and creative. It can break down barriers and create new bonds with our colleagues.

Managing Your Anxiety will help you distinguish stress from anxiety, learn what anxiety looks like for you, understand it, and respond to it with self-compassion at work. With the latest psychological research and practical advice from leading experts, you'll learn how to recognize how your anxiety manifests itself; manage it in small, day-to-day moments and in more challenging times; experiment and find a mindfulness practice that works for you; and build a support infrastructure to help you manage your anxiety over the long term.

**A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**

We’ve all been on promising dates that left us feeling worse in the long run, suffered from breakups we might have mishandled, or stayed in relationships which should have worked but didn’t. So what are we missing?

Don’t panic! Toni Tone is here to give the big sister advice we all need: discovering what we want from a connection, flourishing through heartbreak, and learning the vital importance of difficult conversations for growth and self-respect. Speaking from a place of experience and empathy, she talks through the value of intuition, asking questions, and taking responsibility for the choices we make, offering practical, simple advice to improve any relationship, and insight into our own behaviours.

From comfort zones and goal setting to healthy boundaries and keeping yourself centred, Toni offers the loving, healing and authentic common sense lessons that aren’t so common.

It may just change your life.

Feminist philosophy meets family memoir in this “profound” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) new essay collection from Siri Hustvedt, an exploration of the shifting borders that define human experience, including boundaries we usually take for granted—between ourselves and others, nature and nurture, viewer and artwork—which turn out to be far less stable than we imagine.

Described as “a 21st-century Virginia Woolf” in the Literary Review (UK), Man Booker longlisted Hustvedt displays her expansive intellect and interdisciplinary knowledge in this collection that moves effortlessly between stories of her mother, grandmother, and daughter to artistic mothers, Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, and Lousie Bourgeois, to the broader meanings of maternal in a culture shaped by misogyny and fantasies of paternal authority. Mothers, Fathers, and Others is a polymath’s journey into urgent questions about familial love and hate, human prejudice and cruelty, and the transformative power of art.

This moving, fierce, and often funny book is finally about the fact that being alive means being in states of constant, dynamic exchange with what is around us, and that the impulse to draw hard and fast conceptual borders where none exist carries serious theoretical and political dangers.

Captivatingly read by the author, Natalie Haynes.

In Divine Might Natalie Haynes, author of the bestselling Pandora’s Jar, returns to the world of Greek myth and this time she examines the role of the goddesses.

We meet Athene, who sprang fully formed from her father’s head: goddess of war and wisdom, guardian of Athens. We run with Artemis, goddess of hunting and protector of young girls (apart from those she decides she wants as a sacrifice). Here is Aphrodite, goddess of sex and desire – there is no deity more determined and able to make you miserable if you annoy her. And then there’s the queen of all the Olympian gods: Hera, Zeus’s long-suffering wife, whose jealousy of his dalliances with mortals, nymphs and goddesses lead her to wreak elaborate, vicious revenge on those who have wronged her.

We also meet Demeter, goddess of agriculture and mother of the kidnapped Persephone, we sing the immortal song of the Muses and we warm ourselves with Hestia, goddess of the hearth and sacrificial fire. The Furies carry flames of another kind – black fires of vengeance for those who incur their wrath.

These goddesses are as mighty, revered and destructive as their male counterparts. Isn’t it time we looked beyond the columns of a ruined temple to the awesome power within?

The first book of the smash-hit Wayward Pines trilogy, from the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter, Recursion, and Upgrade. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a mission: locate two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase.

As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation turns up more questions than answers: Why can’t he get any phone calls through to his wife and son in the outside world? Why doesn’t anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what is the purpose of the electrified fences surrounding the town? Are they meant to keep the residents in? Or something else out?

Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan farther from the world he knew, from the man he was, until he must face a horrifying fact – he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.

The nail-bitingly suspenseful opening installment in Blake Crouch’s blockbuster Wayward Pines trilogy, Pines is at once a brilliant mystery tale and the first step into a genre-bending saga of suspense, science fiction, and horror. The series continues with Wayward.

This book summary and analysis was created for individuals who want to extract the essential contents and are too busy to go through the full version. This book is not intended to replace the original book. Instead, we highly encourage you to buy the full version.

There a lot of global trends that, when even the most highly educated people around the world are asked about, are conceived more negatively than it actually is and even chimpanzees will guess more correctly than them.

Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon, wrote Factfulness along with his son, Ola Rosling, and daughter-in-law, Anna Rosling Rönnlund—together, they share the reasons to why we distort our worldviews as more negatively than in reality. With ten misconceptions or instincts, they show how our divided ideas (separating us from them), our influence from the media (telling us what to fear), and our perception of progress (seeing how things are getting worse than better) can hinder us from actually making a positive impact.

In truth, we are simply not informed right which is exactly why we believe what we believe now. When we think about it, the world is much better now that it had been before; worrying about things and fearing what might happen only hinders us from focusing on the more important things.

Through the refreshing stories and insightful research in Factfulness, your eyes will be opened to the real happenings around you and you will be empowered to see and respond to the opportunities about for you.

Wait no more, take action and get this book now!

“A game changing resource for those seeking to reevaluate their relationships.” —Publishers Weekly

Let go of your toxic partner, heal your emotional wounds, and set healthy boundaries for future relationships with this step-by-step guide to overcoming toxic relationships.

From red flags to crossed boundaries, to lies and gaslighting, you’ve recognized that you were or currently are in a toxic relationship. But now what?

It’s time to fully let the relationship go and begin to heal. With Toxic Relationship Recovery, you’ll address the ways that you were wronged during your relationship. You’ll learn strategies for how to trust other people and yourself again after being gaslit, find the warning signs of toxicity and narcissism in others, and reframe negative, harmful thoughts to a positive outlook on life.

As you work to let go of the toxic relationship that ate away at your happiness, you’ll learn how to carve out space for you to be happy on your own and to love yourself for who you are. When you’re ready to enter another relationship, you’ll implement healthy boundaries and clear communication. Put yourself first with Toxic Relationship Recovery.

Unlock the power of your mind with "Feeling is the Secret", the 1944 classic bestseller by Neville Goddard. Dive into the secrets of manifestation and discover how your conscious and subconscious minds can work together to turn your dreams into reality. Goddard reveals the key to success is not just in thinking, but in feeling as if your desires are already fulfilled. Learn how to harness the incredible force of your imagination to create a life filled with abundance, love, and success. This transformative book is your guide to mastering the art of manifestation, empowering you to manifest your deepest desires and live the life you've always dreamed of. Drawing from biblical allegories and psychological principles, he illustrates the potency of imagination as the bridge between the conscious and subconscious mind, enabling individuals to manifest their deepest desires. Discover in this brief but powerful book how to unlock your full potential and start manifesting your dreams today!

And if that wasn't enough already, this special edition of FEELING IS THE SECRET includes an exclusive extra bonus chapter not found in the original text. Renowned personal trainer and meditation expert Richard Hargreaves leads listeners on a transformative journey with a guided prayer self-hypnosis meditation visualization. Through breathwork, visualization, and manifestation techniques, Hargreaves helps listeners unlock the full power of Neville's teachings and realize their deepest desires. FEELING IS THE SECRET - SPECIAL EDITION reveals wisdom and provides teachings that, if applied, will allow you to fulfill your desires. Order your copy of "Feeling Is The Secret" today, and unlock the power to manifest your dreams and create the life you've always desired. Let Neville Goddard's timeless wisdom and Richard Hargreaves' transformative guidance inspire you to embrace abundance, success, and freedom. With "Feeling Is The Secret," the power to transform your life is within your reach.

“As funny as it is informative, this book will have you laughing out loud while you contemplate the revolutionary power of words.” —Camille Perri, author of The Assistants and When Katie Met Cassidy

A brash, enlightening, and wildly entertaining feminist look at gendered language and the way it shapes us.

The word bitch conjures many images for many people, but it is most often meant to describe an unpleasant woman. Even before its usage to mean a female canine, bitch didn’t refer to gender at all—it originated as a gender-neutral word meaning genitalia. A perfectly innocuous word devolving into a female insult is the case for tons more terms, including hussy—which simply meant housewife—or slut, which meant an untidy person and was also used to describe men. These words are just a few among history’s many English slurs hurled at women.

Amanda Montell, reporter and feminist linguist, deconstructs language—from insults and cursing, gossip, and catcalling to grammar and pronunciation patterns—to reveal the ways it has been used for centuries to keep women and other marginalized genders from power. Ever wonder why so many people are annoyed when women talk with vocal fry or use the word like as a filler? Or why certain gender-neutral terms stick and others don’t? Or where stereotypes of how women and men speak come from in the first place?

Montell effortlessly moves between history, science, and popular culture to explore these questions and more—and how we can use the answers to effect real social change. Her irresistible humor shines through, making linguistics not only approachable but both downright hilarious and profound, demonstrated in chapters such as:

Slutty Skanks and Nasty Dykes: A Comprehensive List of Gendered Insults How to Embarrass the Shit Out of People Who Try to Correct Your Grammar Fuck it: An Ode to Cursing While Female Cyclops, Panty Puppet, Bald Headed Bastard and 100+ Other Things to Call Your Genitalia Wordslut gets to the heart of our language, marvels at its elasticity, and sheds much-needed light into the biases that shadow women in our culture and our consciousness.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

A top performance expert reveals the secret behind many top athletes and executives: creating a heroic alter ego to activate when the chips are down.

There’s only one person in the way of you untapping your potential: You. There’s also one person who can move you out of the way so you can perform at your peak.

That person is already inside you. You just need to unlock them. This other part of you is your Alter Ego. After twenty-one years of working with elite athletes, performers and leaders, Todd Herman has discovered how you can use your alter ego to achieve the seemingly impossible. It all clicked for Todd when he met Bo Jackson.

When Herman met Bo Jackson, the professional athlete told him, “Bo Jackson never played a down of football in his entire life.” Bo explained that when he was young, he’d get into trouble because chaos caused by his anger issues. Then, he saw Friday the 13th and became fascinated by the cold, calculating nature of Jason Vorhees. In that moment, he resolved to stop being Bo Jackson, and start being Jason the moment he stepped on the field.

In this transformative guide, Herman teaches you how to create and control an Alter Ego like Bo—and the thousands of other athletes, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and entertainers who have used this simple tool to change their lives. Herman also shares his own story: he knew that inside was a confident, self-assured, intelligent person who could help others get better results in their lives. When he started using superman’s classic trick—putting on a pair of glasses—he learned to trigger the specific traits he needed to achieve his goals.

The Alter Ego Effect is not about creating a false mask—it’s about finding the hero already inside you. It’s a proven way of overcoming the self-doubt, negativity, and insecurity that hold you back, and empowering you to ultimately become your best self.

Former Secret Service agent and star of Bravo’s Spy Games Evy Poumpouras shares lessons learned from protecting presidents, as well insights and skills from the oldest and most elite security force in the world to help you prepare for stressful situations, instantly read people, influence how you are perceived, and live a more fearless life.

Becoming Bulletproof means transforming yourself into a stronger, more confident, and more powerful person. Evy Poumpouras—former Secret Service agent to three presidents and one of only five women to receive the Medal of Valor—demonstrates how we can overcome our everyday fears, have difficult conversations, know who to trust and who might not have our best interests at heart, influence situations, and prepare for the unexpected. When you have become bulletproof, you are your best, most courageous, and most powerful version of you. Poumpouras shows us that ultimately true strength is found in the mind, not the body.

Courage involves facing our fears, but it is also about resilience, grit, and having a built-in BS detector and knowing how to use it. In Becoming Bulletproof, Poumpouras demonstrates how to heighten our natural instincts to employ all these qualities and move from fear to fearlessness.

Never Get No as an Answer With This Audiobook That Will Show You How to Sway Every Situation in Your Favor! Are you struggling to achieve your desired outcomes in personal and professional interactions?

Do you find it challenging to understand people's thoughts and motivations?

Are you tired of always falling victim to people’s hidden intentions?

The power to understand what’s truly going on behind a person’s mind may seem so out of reach, leaving you feeling powerless and unsure of how to navigate social dynamics successfully.

Not anymore.

Envision yourself harnessing the power of dark psychology, understanding the strategies employed by master manipulators throughout history, and using this knowledge to positively shape outcomes in your favor.

Discover:

No more missed opportunities: Leave behind the frustration of not knowing how to read people accurately, struggling to establish rapport, and feeling helpless in important interactions. How to decode body language: Unlock the secrets behind nonverbal cues, deciphering gestures, facial expressions, and posture to gain unparalleled insights into people's thoughts and emotions. Become a master of emotional influence: Learn how to wield emotional influence to understand people better, build trust, and create deep fulfilling connections with others. And more Become equipped with the tools and knowledge to analyze people with precision.

Embrace the opportunities that await you as you unlock the secrets of mind control and navigate the complexities of human behavior with confidence!

If You’re Ready Finally Take Charge of Your Destiny, Start Listening Today!

Through the lens of her years spent as a sex worker, Charlotte Shane offers a “rigorous and compulsively readable memoir” (New York magazine) exploring what it means to be a heterosexual woman and a feminist in a misogynistic society.

“A memoir of sex work that is also a poignant love story” —The Washington Post

In her early twenties, Charlotte Shane quit her women’s studies graduate program to devote herself to sex work because it was a way to devote herself to men. Her lifelong curiosity about male lust, love, selfishness, and social capital dovetailed with her own insatiable desire for intimacy to sustain a long career in escorting, with unexpectedly poignant results.

Shane uses her “unsparing honestly” (The New York Times Book Review) and her personal and professional history to examine how men and women struggle in their attempts at a romantic and sexual bonding, no matter how true their intentions. As she takes stock of her relationships—with clients, with her father, with friends, with married men, and later, with her own husband—she tells a candid and haunting tale of love, marriage, and (in)fidelity, as seen through the eyes of the perpetual “other woman.”

Braiding the personal and the universal, An Honest Woman is a merciless and moving love letter to men and an indictment of habitual dishonesty, a condemnation of every social constraint acting on heterosexual unions, and a hopeful affirmation of the possibility for true connection between men and women.

“Packed with valuable insights, unique lessons, and practical steps, this book will help you break through your procrastination and take immediate action toward your goals.”

— Jay Shetty, New York Times bestselling author of Think Like a Monk and 8 Rules of Love

The audiobook is narrated by the author and includes bonus interviews between Rob Dial and Dean DeVries.

Level Up will revolutionize the way you approach your life and your goals. This book from world-renowned high-performance coach and host of The Mindset Mentor podcast, Rob Dial, presents a groundbreaking roadmap to unlock your full potential and transform your life. In it, you will find:

A transformative system designed to revolutionize the way you approach your goals, success, and personal motivation. Powerful secrets of highly successful individuals who have mastered the art of focus, defeated their procrastination, and achieved extraordinary results. Cutting-edge research in neuroscience and psychology, unveiling the science behind mental focus and motivation. Tools that empower you to understand and control your mind like never before.

This book has cracked the code to peak performance and you will learn how to apply these secrets to your own life. Level Up is not just another self-help book. It is a step-by-step guide that helps you get from where you are now to the life you truly want to be as fast as possible.

Whether you're struggling with distractions, overwhelmed by a chaotic schedule, or simply seeking a path to personal excellence, Level Up is the game-changer you've been waiting for.

In this brilliant introduction to trans politics, journalist Shon Faye gives an incisive overview of systemic transphobia and argues that the struggle for trans rights is necessary to any struggle for social justice.