Birth Culture

In The Poisoner's Handbook, Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime.

Here is the epic human drama behind the making of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967 - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Doctor Dolittle, and Bonnie and Clyde - and through them, the larger story of the cultural revolution that transformed Hollywood and America forever.

Unleash your inner Einstein with the most exhiliarating, laugh-out-loud trivia book ever written! Be catapulted on a whirlwind adventure through the zany, weird, and utterly fascinating realms of knowledge, as we take trivia to a whole new level of fun! Packed with 1,522 mind-blowing facts spanning science, history, pop culture, and more, this rip-roaring, side-splitting tome is perfect for trivia buffs and inquisitive minds of all stripes, comprising everything from the astonishing to the absurd, the hilarious to the hair-raising, and everything in between. "Brain-Boosting Facts for ...

WARNING: Reading this book while on the throne will make your bathroom breaks exceptionally entertaining, potentially causing delays in resuming your regular schedule! Ever pondered why reading in the bathroom makes you feel extra enlightened? Or the surprising truth about why some birds can sleep while standing up? (Hint: It's not due to their impeccable balance!) Hold onto your plungers, curious minds! Get ready to embark on an unforgettable adventure through history, science, pop culture and the bizarre... in the pages of "At Home On The Throne", a hilariously addictive Bathroom Reader! ...

A riveting saga in the history of rock ‘n’ roll: the decades-long rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar’s amplified sound - Leo Fender and Les Paul - and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built.

Reddit hails itself as "the front page of the Internet". It's the third-most visited website in the US—and yet, millions of Americans have no idea what it is. We Are the Nerds is an engrossing look deep inside this captivating, maddening enterprise, whose army of obsessed users have been credited with everything from solving cold-case crimes and spurring tens of millions of dollars in charitable donations to seeding alt-right fury and landing Donald Trump in the White House.

In the tradition of Phil Knight's Shoe Dog comes the incredible untold story of how Netflix went from concept to company—all revealed by cofounder and first CEO Marc Randolph. From idea generation to team building to knowing when it's time to let go, That Will Never Work is not only the ultimate follow-your-dreams parable, but also one of the most dramatic and insightful entrepreneurial stories of our time.

Amid rising gang violence, the crack epidemic, and police brutality, a group of unlikely voices cut through the chaos of late 1980s Los Angeles: N.W.A. Led by a drug dealer, a glammed-up producer, and a high school kid, N.W.A. gave voice to disenfranchised African Americans across the country. And they quickly redefined pop culture across the world. Their names remain as popular as ever: Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, and Ice Cube. Dre soon joined forces with Suge Knight to create the combustible Death Row Records.

Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story behind the story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.

On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright's Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. The Age of Flight had begun. How did they do it? And why?

Long before the era of the news anchor, the pundit, and the mini-cam, one man blazed a trail that thousands would follow. Reporting live from the streets and rooftops of London as Nazi war planes rained terror from the skies during the Battle of Britain, Edward R. Murrow brought the stark horror of war and the shock of breaking news events directly into American living rooms for the first time, and that was just the beginning.

In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the movie industry. The blowback was profound: the major studios pledged to never again employ a known Communist or unrepentant fellow traveler. The declaration marked the onset of the blacklist era, a time when political allegiances, real or suspected, determined employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hundreds of artists were shown the dooror had it shut in their faces.

In the 1970s, while their contemporaries were protesting the computer as a tool of dehumanization and oppression, a motley collection of college dropouts, hippies, and electronics fanatics were engaged in something much more subversive. Obsessed with the idea of getting computer power into their own hands, they launched from their garages a hobbyist movement that grew into an industry, and ultimately a social and technological revolution.

WARNING: This book will transform you into the ultimate cool-cat in ANY crowd! Ever wondered about why cats seem irresistibly drawn to laser pointers? Or the mystery behind cats' uncanny ability to sense their owner's emotions? (HINT: It's NOT because they're psychic) Look up, cat lovers! Get ready to pounce on a whisker-twitching adventure with "Interesting Facts for Curious Cats"! Prepare To Uncover: The scientific curiosity behind a cat's love for chasing laser dots The historical tale of cats' sacred status in Ancient Egypt The intriguing fact that cats have a unique 'language' they use...

Don't miss out on a single moment of the Glover family saga in this bridge story linking Ward and Judge's love stories! The Glovers love God, country, dogs, horses, and family. Not necessarily in that order. ;) Many of them are married now, with babies on the way, and there are lessons to be learned, forgiveness to be had and given, and new names coming to the family tree in southern Three Rivers! Willa, Holly Ann, Montana, and Zona all have babies coming, one right after the other in the first four months of the year. What will their names be? How will the deliveries go? Will Zona really ...

Pedro Martin has grown up hearing stories about his abuelito—his legendary crime-fighting, grandfather who was once a part of the Mexican Revolution! But that doesn't mean Pedro is excited at the news that Abuelito is coming to live with their family. After all, Pedro has 8 brothers and sisters and the house is crowded enough! Still, Pedro piles into the Winnebago with his family for a road trip to Mexico to bring Abuelito home, and what follows is the trip of a lifetime, one filled with laughs and heartache.

In Azusa Street Mission and Revival, Cecil M. Robeck Jr. brings to bear expertise from decades of focused study in church history to reveal the captivating story of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Los Angeles, which became known as the Azusa Street Mission. From humble beginnings with few resources, this small, uniquely diverse, and inclusive congregation led by William J. Seymour ignited a fire that quickly grew into a blaze and spread across the world, giving rise to the global Pentecostal movement.

Built at the end of the last ice age around 9600 BCE, Göbekli Tepe in southeast Turkey was designed to align with the constellation of the celestial swan, Cygnus - a fact confirmed by the discovery at the site of a tiny bone plaque carved with the three key stars of Cygnus. Remarkably, the three main pyramids at Giza in Egypt, including the Great Pyramid, align with the same three stars. But where did this ancient veneration of Cygnus come from?

As a boy, Jesus was a refugee, an outsider, an immigrant in Galilee in which he grew up, and affected by horrific atrocities by the occupying Roman overlords. All this and more is explored in this scholarly but highly accessible investigation into the world of Jesus, ranging from his birth to his coming of age and beyond. Joan Taylor, a world authority on the history and literature of the first century CE, draws both on the latest archaeological findings and on the historical clues to be found within ancient texts of the period.

This is the origin story of the airwaves - the foundational technology of the communications age - as told through the 40-year friendship of an entrepreneurial industrialist and a brilliant inventor. David Sarnoff, the head of RCA and equal parts Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, and William Randolph Hearst, was the greatest supporter of his friend, Edwin Armstrong, developer of the first amplifier, the modern radio transmitter, and FM radio.

When Clark Kent stepped into the glass phone booth, we knew he was about to emerge as Superman. That transformation happened every time. Then, he used his superpowers to rescue people in distress, leaping over tall buildings in a single bound and flying faster than a speeding bullet. That spinning around in the phone booth was mesmerizing. And, in a way, that blur of change that we recognized as transformation from one kind of person to a stronger kind of person is the kind of change I am writing about in this series of books about popular culture creators of the 20th century. As popular ...