With its myriad services and applications, Google seems to offer everything short of a cure for the common cold. According to Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia, however, that might not... Read More

Many imaginative people, especially those who make a living in the arts, experience anxiety associated with competing in a profession that demands near perfection. Horrific scenes from the recent movie Black Swan serve as a powerful... Read More

The word “squid” conjures calamari, slimy tentacles, or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Wendy Williams makes us consider all of this and a lot more in "Kraken". The book’s name refers to gigantic sea creatures and begins by... Read More

“Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy,” said Siegbert Tarrasch, one of the many past masters we meet in "Counterplay", by Robert Desjarlais. A tournament chess player and professor of anthropology at Sarah... Read More

The “Heart of Dixie” is what Alabamians like to call their home state, but the realities behind this image, as the author demonstrates, reveal a place flawed by minimal support of public services, an abusive penal system, disregard... Read More

“I’m here to recall what I never knew,” writes Baron Wormser in “Abandoned Asylum, Northampton, Massachusetts,” the final poem in this fine collection. While he may never have been there himself, Wormser’s poetry successfully... Read More

A title like "Otherwise Known as the Human Condition" sets expectations of broad strokes: one imagines an encyclopedic knowledge of humanity. To his immense credit, Dyer delivers such breadth in a series of analyses of cultural... Read More

The rise of social media is unavoidable, yet business people can’t help but wonder what’s in it for them. While many in business view the leading social networking site Facebook as only marginally useful, some eighty million business... Read More