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Nothing This Fun Could Be Good for You
- A History of Evil Entertainment
- Narrated by: Bryant Cantrell
- Length: 17 mins
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Nothing This Fun Could Be Good for You
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Publisher's summary
Popular entertainment has frequently been hailed as the harbingers of social downfall, but is it really that simple? From public executions to theater, from ballet to video games, this brief essay examines the turmoil that surrounds history's most cherished forms of entertainment.
Nancy Fulda is an essayist and science fiction writer living in Germany. She is a Phobos Award winner, a Jim Baen Memorial award winner, and a recent Hugo and Nebula nominee. Originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine, this article is approximately 2500 words or 15 printed pages long.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,479
The Element shows the vital need to enhance creativity and innovation by thinking differently about human resources and imagination. It is an essential strategy for transforming education, business, and communities to meet the challenges of living and succeeding in the 21st century.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not Great
- By Samantha on 04-02-12
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The Age of American Unreason
- By: Susan Jacoby
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 265
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 152
Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon - one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, Jacoby surveys an antirationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought".
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting, but explanation by redescription
- By T. Andrew Poehlman on 07-15-08
By: Susan Jacoby
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The Belief Instinct
- The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life
- By: Jesse Bering
- Narrated by: Jesse Bering
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
Why is belief so hard to shake? Despite our best attempts to embrace rational thought and reject superstition, we often find ourselves appealing to unseen forces that guide our destiny, wondering who might be watching us as we go about our lives, and imagining what might come after death. In this lively and masterfully argued new book, Jesse Bering unveils the psychological underpinnings of why we believe.
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5 out of 5 stars
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engaging and insightful
- By juliagee on 01-02-15
By: Jesse Bering
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Future Shock
- By: Alvin Toffler
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
Future Shock is about the present. Future Shock is about what is happening today to people and groups who are overwhelmed by change. Change affects our products, communities, organizations - even our patterns of friendship and love. Future Shock vividly describes the emerging global civilization: tomorrow's family life, the rise of new businesses, subcultures, lifestyles, and human relationships - all of them temporary. It illuminates the world of tomorrow by exploding countless cliches about today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So Accurate
- By Peter Gracia on 03-31-19
By: Alvin Toffler
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The Nineties
- A Book
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,869
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,623
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,613
It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. Landlines fell to cell phones, the internet exploded, and pop culture accelerated without the aid of technology that remembered everything. It was the last era with a real mainstream to either identify with or oppose. The ’90s brought about a revolution in the human condition, and a shift in consciousness, that we’re still struggling to understand.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Very White Middle-class Take On The Nineties
- By Umar Lee on 02-10-22
By: Chuck Klosterman
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What Love Is
- And What It Could Be
- By: Carrie Jenkins
- Narrated by: Carrie Jenkins
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
What is love? Aside from being the title of many a popular love song, this is one of life's perennial questions. In What Love Is, philosopher Carrie Jenkins offers a bold new theory on the nature of romantic love that reconciles its humanistic and scientific components.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What Philosophy Is and What It Could Be
- By Amazon Customer on 03-09-17
By: Carrie Jenkins
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Ha!
- The Science of When We Laugh and Why
- By: Scott Weems
- Narrated by: Kalen Allmandinger
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Story4 out of 5 stars 130
Humor, like pornography, is famously difficult to define. We know it when we see it, but is there a way to figure out what we really find funnyand why? In this fascinating investigation into the science of humor and laughter, cognitive neuroscientist Scott Weems uncovers what’s happening in our heads when we giggle, guffaw, or double over with laughter. While we typically think of humor in terms of jokes or comic timing, in Ha! Weems proposes a provocative new model.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good place to start in the study of humor
- By Amazon Customer on 05-26-17
By: Scott Weems
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The Immortal Game
- A History of Chess
- By: David Shenk
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 313
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 238
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 237
Why has one game, alone among the thousands of games invented and played throughout human history, not only survived but thrived within every culture it has touched? What is it about its 32 figurative pieces, moving about its 64 black and white squares according to very simple rules, that has captivated people for nearly 1,500 years? Why has it driven some of its greatest players into paranoia and madness, and yet is hailed as a remarkably powerful intellectual tool?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Buy in print
- By Ivy Reisner on 08-30-11
By: David Shenk
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The War Against Boys
- How Misguided Policies Are Harming Our Young Men
- By: Christina Hoff Sommers
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 276
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 240
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 239
An updated and revised edition of the controversial classic - now more relevant than ever - argues that boys are the ones languishing socially and academically, resulting in staggering social and economic costs. After two major waves of feminism and decades of policy reform, women have made massive strides in education. Today they outperform men in nearly every measure of social, academic, and vocational well-being. Christina Hoff Sommers contends that it's time to take a hard look at present-day realities and recognize that boys need help.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Important Book
- By VeritasPlz on 11-05-18
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Before We Were Trans
- A New History of Gender
- By: Dr. Kit Heyam Ph.D
- Narrated by: Dr. Kit Heyam Ph.D
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story5 out of 5 stars 48
Before We Were Trans illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present, whose experiences of gender have defied binary categories. Blending historical analysis with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Kit Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Heyam looks to the past to uncover new horizons for possible trans futures.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The history we need right now
- By Daniel Hebert on 04-11-23
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An African American and Latinx History of the United States
- By: Paul Ortiz
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 443
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 388
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Story5 out of 5 stars 383
Spanning more than 200 years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress, and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms American history into the story of the working class organizing against imperialism.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I had to return
- By Andrew Alvarez on 05-19-20
By: Paul Ortiz
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Talking About Detective Fiction
- By: P. D. James
- Narrated by: Diana Bishop
- Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
To judge by the worldwide success of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's Poirot, it is not only the Anglo-Saxons who have an appetite for mystery and mayhem. Talking about the craft of detective writing and sharing her personal thoughts and observations on one of the most popular and enduring forms of literature, P. D. James examines the challenges, achievements and potential of a genre which has fascinated her as a novelist for nearly 50 years.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating and Informative
- By Nancy J on 03-17-13
By: P. D. James
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The War on the West
- By: Douglas Murray
- Narrated by: Douglas Murray
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 4,747
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 4,237
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Story5 out of 5 stars 4,207
In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows how many well-meaning people have been fooled by hypocritical and inconsistent anti-West rhetoric. After all, if we must discard the ideas of Kant, Hume, and Mill for their opinions on race, shouldn’t we discard Marx, whose work is peppered with racial slurs and anti-Semitism? Embers of racism remain to be stamped out in America, but what about the raging racist inferno in the Middle East and Asia?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Every Human (seriously, everyone) Read This!
- By aaron on 04-27-22
By: Douglas Murray
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The Rise of the New Puritans
- Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun
- By: Noah Rothman
- Narrated by: Noah Rothman
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 147
The Left used to be the party of the hippies and the free spirits. Now it’s home to woke scolds and humorless idealogues. The New Puritans can judge a person’s moral character by their clothes, Netflix queue, fast food favorites, the sports they watch, and the company they keep. No choice is neutral, no sphere is private. Not since the Puritans has a political movement wanted so much power over your thoughts, hobbies, and preferences every minute of your day. In the process, they are sucking the joy out of life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great, fast summer read
- By Joseph Spiegel on 07-18-22
By: Noah Rothman