The War Against the Assholes


Book Description

Contemporary fantasy meets true crime when schools of ancient sorcery go up against the art of the long con in this stunningly entertaining debut fantasy novel. Mike Wood is satisfied just being a guy with broad shoulders at a decidedly unprestigious Catholic school in Manhattan. But on the dirty streets of New York City he’s an everyman with a moral code who is unafraid of violence. And when Mike is unwittingly recruited into a secret cell of magicians by a fellow student, Mike’s role as a steadfast soldier begins. These magicians don’t use ritualized rote to work their magic, they use willpower in their clandestine war with the establishment: The Assholes.




Assholes


Book Description

In the spirit of the mega-selling On Bullshit, philosopher Aaron James presents a theory of the asshole that is both intellectually provocative and existentially necessary. What does it mean for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no better name. Try as we might to avoid them, assholes are found everywhere—at work, at home, on the road, and in the public sphere. Encountering one causes great difficulty and personal strain, especially because we often cannot understand why exactly someone should be acting like that. Asshole management begins with asshole understanding. Much as Machiavelli illuminated political strategy for princes, this book finally gives us the concepts to think or say why assholes disturb us so, and explains why such people seem part of the human social condition, especially in an age of raging narcissism and unbridled capitalism. These concepts are also practically useful, as understanding the asshole we are stuck with helps us think constructively about how to handle problems he (and they are mostly all men) presents. We get a better sense of when the asshole is best resisted, and when he is best ignored—a better sense of what is, and what is not, worth fighting for.




Ascent of the A-Word


Book Description

An attention-grabbing, thought-provoking exploration of the life of the word "asshole," by a renowned linguist and author




The Asshole Survival Guide


Book Description

“This book is a contemporary classic—a shrewd and spirited guide to protecting ourselves from the jerks, bullies, tyrants, and trolls who seek to demean. We desperately need this antidote to the a-holes in our midst.”—Daniel H. Pink, best-selling author of To Sell Is Human and Drive How to avoid, outwit, and disarm assholes, from the author of the classic The No Asshole Rule As entertaining as it is useful, The Asshole Survival Guide delivers a cogent and methodical game plan for anybody who feels plagued by assholes. Sutton starts with diagnosis—what kind of asshole problem, exactly, are you dealing with? From there, he provides field-tested, evidence-based, and often surprising strategies for dealing with assholes—avoiding them, outwitting them, disarming them, sending them packing, and developing protective psychological armor. Sutton even teaches readers how to look inward to stifle their own inner jackass. Ultimately, this survival guide is about developing an outlook and personal plan that will help you preserve the sanity in your work life, and rescue all those perfectly good days from being ruined by some jerk. “Thought-provoking and often hilarious . . . An indispensable resource.”—Gretchen Rubin, best-selling author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before “At last . . . clear steps for rejecting, deflecting, and deflating the jerks who blight our lives . . . Useful, evidence-based, and fun to read.”—Robert Cialdini, best-selling author of Influence and Pre-Suasion




The No Asshole Rule


Book Description

The definitive guide to working with -- and surviving -- bullies, creeps, jerks, tyrants, tormentors, despots, backstabbers, egomaniacs, and all the other assholes who do their best to destroy you at work. "What an asshole!" How many times have you said that about someone at work? You're not alone! In this groundbreaking book, Stanford University professor Robert I. Sutton builds on his acclaimed Harvard Business Review article to show you the best ways to deal with assholes...and why they can be so destructive to your company. Practical, compassionate, and in places downright funny, this guide offers: Strategies on how to pinpoint and eliminate negative influences for good Illuminating case histories from major organizations A self-diagnostic test and a program to identify and keep your own "inner jerk" from coming out The No Asshole Rule is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Business Week bestseller.




Why Can't We Be Good?


Book Description

The widely respected social philosopher embarks on his most gripping and broadly appealing work, asking the ultimate question of human nature: Why do we repeatedly violate our most deeply held values and beliefs? After nearly forty years of weighing humanity's deepest dilemmas-working in settings ranging from university and high school classrooms to corporate offices and hospitals-bestselling author, philosopher, and religious scholar Jacob Needleman presents the most urgent, deeply felt, and widely accessible work of his career. In Why Can't We Be Good? Needleman identifies the core problem that therapists and social philosophers fail to see. He depicts the individual human as a being who knows what is good, yet who remains mysteriously helpless to innerly adopt the ethical, moral, and religious ideas that are bequeathed to him.




The November Criminals


Book Description

Addison Schact and his best friend Digger become obsessed with investigating the murder of a classmate as they travel through Washington DC’s underworld in this “thoughtful coming-of-age story and engaging teenage noir” (The New York Times). High school senior Addison Schacht is taking the prompt for his college entry essay to the University of Chicago to heart: What are your best and worst qualities? He begins to look back on his life so far and considers what getting into college, selling some pot to his classmates, his relationship with his best friend—not girlfriend—Digger, Virgil’s Aeneid, and his growing obsession with the murder of a classmate, Kevin Broadus, all mean. The more he digs into his own past, the farther he stumbles into the middle of the murder investigation. Filled with classic adolescent reflection and an intriguing mystery, The November Criminals is “one of the funniest, most heartfelt novels in recent memory—a book every bit as worthy of Mark Twain and J.D. Salinger” (The Chicago Tribune).




Assholes: A Theory of Donald Trump


Book Description

Make America Great Again? Donald Trump is an asshole is a fact widely agreed upon—even by his supporters, who actually like that about him. But his startling political rise makes the question of just what sort of asshole he is, and how his assholedom may help to explain his success, one not just of philosophical interest but of almost existential urgency. Enter the philosopher Aaron James, author of the foundational text in the burgeoning field of Asshole Studies: the bestselling Assholes: A Theory. In this brisk and trenchant inquiry into the phenomenon that is Donald Trump, James places the man firmly in the typology of the asshole (takes every advantage, entrenched sense of entitlement, immune to criticism); considers whether, in the Hobbesian world we seem to inhabit, he might not somehow be a force for good—i.e., the Stronger Asshole; and offers a suggestion for how the bonds of our social contract, spectacularly broken by Trump’s (and Ted Cruz’s) disdain for democratic civility, might in time be repaired. You will never think about Donald Trump and his Art of the Deal the same way after reading this book. And, like it or not, think about him we must.




The Children Are Acting Like Assholes


Book Description

What do you do when the man of your dreams comes with two angry kids and a crazy ex-wife? Marie Aaron never meant to fall for a guy with two kids. And she certainly never meant to fall for a guy with two kids and a cruel, manipulative ex-wife-who sets out to make Marie's life a living hell, using the kids as pawns. Now Marie is up against a formidable force: two teenage girls who've been programmed to treat her as the enemy. With their mother pulling the strings, the kids launch a full-scale rebellion-and Marie finds herself embroiled in a fierce custody battle, with everything on the line. She loves James, but can she find her place in his family? Or will she be the wedge that drives them apart? Deftly weaving humor with heartache, Aaron tells the true tale of her crusade for stepmotherhood: a man worth fighting for, a villainous ex, and two confused kids who are acting like assholes.




Dispatches


Book Description

"The best book to have been written about the Vietnam War" (The New York Times Book Review); an instant classic straight from the front lines. From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time. Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.