The Joy of Hate


Book Description

From the irreverent star of Fox News’s Red Eye and The Five, hilarious observations on the manufactured outrage of an oversensitive, wussified culture. Greg Gutfeld hates artificial tolerance. At the root of every single major political conflict is the annoying coddling Americans must endure of these harebrained liberal hypocrisies. In fact, most of the time liberals uses the mantle of tolerance as a guise for their pathetic intolerance. And what we really need is smart intolerance, or as Gutfeld reminds us, what we used to call common sense. The Joy of Hate tackles this conundrum head on--replacing the idiocy of open-mindness with a shrewd judgmentalism that rejects stupid ideas, notions, and people. With countless examples grabbed from the headlines, Gutfeld provides readers with the enormous tally of what pisses us all off. For example: - The double standard: You can make fun of Christians, but God forbid Muslims. It's okay to call a woman any name imaginable, as long as she's a Republican. And no problem if you're a bigot, as long as you're politically correct about it. - The demonizing of the Tea Party and romanticizing of the Occupy Wall Streeters. - The media who are always offended (see MSNBC lineup) - How critics of Obamacare or illegal immigration are somehow immediately labeled racists. - The endless debate over the Ground Zero Mosque (which Gutfeld planned to open a Muslim gay bar next to). - As well as pretentious music criticism, slow-moving ceiling fans, and snotty restaurant hostesses. Funny and sarcastic to the point of being mean (but in a nice way), The Joy of Hate points out the true jerks in this society and tells them all off.




The Opposite of Hate


Book Description

“A stunning debut by a truly gifted writer—an eye-opening read for both liberals and conservatives—and it could not come at a better time.”—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Option B, with Sheryl Sandberg What is the opposite of hate? As a progressive commentator on Fox News and now CNN, Sally Kohn has made a career out of bridging intractable political differences and learning how to talk respectfully with people whose views she disagrees with passionately. Her viral TED Talk on the need to practice emotional—rather than political—correctness sparked a new way of considering how often we amplify our differences and diminish our connections. But these days even famously “nice” Kohn finds herself wanting to breathe fire at her enemies. It was time, she decided, to look into the epidemic of hate all around us and learn how we can stop it. In The Opposite of Hate, Kohn talks to leading scientists and researchers and investigates the evolutionary and cultural roots of hate and how incivility can be a gateway to much worse. She travels to Rwanda, the Middle East, and across the United States, introducing us to former terrorists and white supremacists, and even some of her own Twitter trolls, drawing surprising lessons from dramatic and inspiring stories of those who left hate behind. As Kohn confronts her own shameful moments, whether it was back when she bullied a classmate or today when she harbors deep partisan resentment, she discovers, “The opposite of hate is the beautiful and powerful reality of how we are all fundamentally linked and equal as human beings. The opposite of hate is connection.” Sally Kohn’s engaging, fascinating, and often funny book will open your eyes and your heart.




In Love with Life


Book Description

Offers clear and instructive wisdom on how love of life enriches and drives human existence, even in the face of inevitable sadness, loss, and death. Ancient philosophers used to write "how-to" manuals for living. The classical American philosophers Dewey, Santayana, James, and Royce all published works that dealt with everyday concerns and issues that affected all people. Yet today, many academic philosophers talk mostly among themselves about technical points in logic or semantics or other abstruse subjects less applicable to everyday life. Not John Lachs. In this engaging book, Lachs reminds us of the centrality of philosophy to life. He provides us with a philosophy of living and a framework to apply to the most basic and critical issues we face. He enables us to see things in new and expansive ways. Fundamental ethical choices such as suicide and euthanasia, the trying and often meaningless circumstances of modern life, confusions of ends and means, and just being tired of it all-- these concerns all come under Lachs's discerning eye. He advocates confronting the complexities of life head on, with courage and persistence. Only through our own efforts and activities can we place our experiences in new and broader contexts, enabling us to find release from despair and frustration and to derive the most out of even the worst situations. Lachs shows that the good life involves joyous energy to the end. In Love with Life will help readers tap life's resources to face inescapable sadness, loss, and death. This is a book for everyone who has ever wondered how to reconcile the pervasive joys and frequent doubts that life presents to all of us. Thoughtful readers will find both inspiration and tough-minded virtue in this book.




The Plus


Book Description

"From New York Times bestselling author Greg Gutfeld comes a self-help book for those who don't believe in self-help, advising readers with his trademark humor and skepticism how to command ourselves to make positive decisions"--




To Obama


Book Description

One of the most important politics books of the year, To Obama is a record of a time when politics intersected with empathy. 'The real story of Obama's America' Sunday Times Every day, President Obama received ten thousand letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read ten of them before going to bed. In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews President Obama, the letter-writers themselves and the White House staff in the Office of Presidential Correspondence who were witness to the millions of pleas, rants, thank-yous and apologies that landed in the mailroom during the Obama years. At once desperate, joyful, hateful and despairing, they form an intimate portrait of one man's relationship with the American people, and of a time when empathy intersected with politics in the White House.




The Joy of Basketball


Book Description

A vibrant, unconventional, highly opinionated guide to the triumphs, joys, struggles, and heartbreaks of the modern era of the game, for every obsessive basketball fan who loves to hate hot takes The Joy of Basketball celebrates the meteoric rise of basketball over the last quarter century by ignoring the bland, traditionalist binary of wins or losses. Instead, the book's focus is on everything else. Using text, charts, and illustrations that upend conventional jock wisdom, the book details the most incredible players in history, draft flops, long-limbed oddballs, superteams, the international talent wave, brawls, scandals, the rapid evolution of contemporary gameplay, coaching, fashion, crime, positional erosion, tragic tales, memes, and the sacred Kardashian Blessing. Bouncing between witty graphics and keen sociopolitical observations, The Joy of Basketball is a subversive sports manifesto camouflaged as a colorful reference book for your coffee table.




The Joy of Small Things


Book Description

'This book is a not-so-small joy in itself.' NIGELLA LAWSON 'Parkinson has the gift of making you look with new eyes at everyday things. The perfect daily diversion.' JOJO MOYES 'Always funny and frank and full of insight, I absolutely love Parkinson's writing.' DAVID NICHOLLS 'I loved this book . . . Parkinson's writing transports you to unexpected places of joy and comfort . . . these pages contain happiness.' MARINA HYDE 'The twenty-first century feels a lot more bearable in Parkinson's company.' CHARLOTTE MENDELSON Drawn from the successful Guardian column, these everyday exultations and inspirations will get you through dismal days. Hannah Jane Parkinson is a specialist in savouring the small pleasures of life. She revels in her fluffy dressing gown ('like bathing in marshmallow'), finds calm in solo cinema trips, is charmed by the personalities of fonts ('you'll never see Comic Sans on a funeral notice'), celebrates pockets and gleefully abandons a book she isn't enjoying. Parkinson's everyday exaltations - selected from her immensely successful Guardian column - will utterly delight. FEATURES BRAND NEW MATERIAL 'A compendium of delights.' OBSERVER 'Delightful . . . a love letter to those little moments of bliss that get us through the daily grind.' RED




The Joy Diet


Book Description

Discover a menu of ten behaviors you can add to your way of living and thinking to enhance every day’s journey through the unpredictable terrain of your existence. Add these behaviors gradually and watch your life become steadily more vivid and satisfying. Or you can go on a “crash Joy Diet” to help you navigate life’s emergencies. The ten menu items are: • Nothing: Do nothing for fifteen minutes a day. Stop mindlessly chasing goals and figure out which goals are worth going after. • Truth: Create a moment of truth to help you unmask what you’re hiding—from others and from yourself. • Desire: Identify, articulate, and explore at least one of your heart’s desires—and learn how to let yourself want what you want. • Creativity: Learn six new ways to develop at least one new idea to help you obtain your heart’s desire. • Risk: Take one baby step toward reaching your goal. The only rule is it has to scare the pants off you. • Treats: Give yourself a treat for every risk you take and two treats just because you’re you. No exceptions. No excuses. • Play: Take a moment to remember your real life’s work and differentiate it from the games you play to achieve it. Then play wholeheartedly. • Laughter: Laugh at least thirty times a day. Props encouraged. • Connection: Use your Joy Diet skills to interact with someone who matters to you. • Feasting: Enjoy at least three square feasts a day, with or without food. No matter what your long-term goals are, The Joy Diet, written with Martha Beck’s inimitable blend of wisdom, practical guidance, and humor, will help you achieve the immediate gift of joyful living in the here and now. Begin your journey today.




Summer of Hate


Book Description

Baudrillard meets Breaking Bad in this stark and bleakly hilarious novel about a descent into an underclass world of born-again Christianity, self-help, and crack. “In his journal, Paul liked to make lists: What he ordered from Commissary (shaving cream, toothpaste, deodorant, the transistor radio he had for a week before the guards took it away). The books he picked off the cart (The Bible, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Codependent No More.) What phone calls he made and received; also, Bible Study certificates, letters and cards, his workout routines and his moods (Anxious, Nervous, Trusting in God, but mostly Depressed). Paul has a record of every push-up he did while he was in prison but he cannot remember shit about what happened before his arrest.” —from Summer of Hate Waking up from the chilling high of a near-death sex game, Catt Dunlop travels to Albuquerque in 2005 to reinvest some windfall real-estate gains and reengage with something approximating “real life.” Aware that the critical discourse she has used to build her career as a visiting professor and art critic is really a cipher for something else, she hopes that buying and fixing slum buildings will bring her more closely in touch with American life than the essays she writes. In Albuquerque, she becomes romantically involved with Paul Garcia, a recently sober ex-con who has just served sixteen months in state prison for defrauding Halliburton Industries, his former employer, of $873. Almost forty years old, Paul is highly intelligent but has only been out of New Mexico twice. He has no information. With Catt's help, he makes plans to attend UCLA, only to be arrested on a ten-year-old bench warrant en route. Caught in the nightmarish Byzantine world of the legal system, Catt and Paul's empathic attempts to save each other's lives seems doomed to dissolve. Summer of Hate is a novel about flawed reciprocity and American justice, recording recent events through the prism of a beleaguered romance. As lucid and trenchant as ever, Kraus in her newest novel reminds us that the writer can be a first responder of sorts when power becomes invisible, or merely banal.




The Property of Hate


Book Description

"'Would you like to be a Hero?' It's what many dream of, and what one young girl is offered when she is woken by a mysterious stranger with a television for a head. In the middle of the night, she is whisked away into a world of fantastical metaphor, where emotions take physical form and the inanimate comes alive. Surrounded by a cast of whimsical characters and unnamed dangers, and guided by the stranger RGB, who has terrifying secrets of his own, she must find it within herself to choose her own path amid the destiny that has been chosen for her." --