Showing results by publisher "Simon & Schuster Audio" in Popular Culture

Andy Griffith and Don Knotts met on Broadway in the 1950s. When Andy went to Hollywood to film a TV pilot about a small-town sheriff, Don called to ask if the sheriff could use a deputy. The comedic synergy between Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife ignited The Andy Griffith Show, elevating a folksy sitcom into a timeless study of human friendship, as potent off the screen as on.

Welcome to The Book of Japanese Folklore: a fascinating journey through Japan’s folklore through profiles of the legendary creatures and beings who continue to live on in pop culture today. From the sly kitsune to the orgrish oni and mischievous shape-shifting tanuki, learn all about the origins of these fantastical and mythical creatures. With information on their cultural significance, and how it’s been spun into today’s popular culture, this tome teaches you about the stories and histories of the beings that inspired characters in your favorite movies, animes, manga, and games.

New York Times best-selling author, comedian, and actor Patton Oswalt shares his entertaining memoir about coming of age as a performer and writer in the late '90s while obsessively watching classic films at the legendary New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakeable addiction. It wasn't drugs, alcohol, or sex. It was film.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that terrible apologies are the worst. We’ve all been on the receiving end, and oh, how they make us seethe. Horrible public apologies—excuse-laden, victim blame-y, weaselly statements—often go viral instantaneously, whether they’re from a celebrity, a politician, or a blogger. We all recognize bad apologies when we hear them. So why is it so hard to apologize well? How can we do better? How could they do better?

Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German Filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration. The result is an engrossing audiobook, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.

Why is mystery so compelling? What draws us to the unknown? Jonah Lehrer sets out to answer these questions in a vividly entertaining and surprisingly profound journey through the science of suspense. He finds that nothing can capture a person’s attention as strongly as mystery, and that mystery is the key principle in how humans view and understand the world. Whenever patterns are broken, we are hard-wired to find out why.

Into the Taylor-Verse is a must-have primer on Taylor for any new Swiftie, telling the stories behind her songs and guiding them to listen more deeply to her extensive back catalogue, while also being a lush examination of the meaning behind the songs that are so important to listeners who are already dedicated fans.

In recent years, cosplay—the practice of dressing up in costume as a character—has exploded, becoming a mainstream cultural phenomenon. But what are the circumstances that made its rise possible? Andrew Liptak—a member of the legendary 501st Legion, an international fan-based organization dedicated to the dark side of Star Wars—delves into the origins and culture of cosplay to answer this question. Cosplay: A History looks at the practice’s ever-growing fandom and conventions.

Best-selling, award-winning writer Simon Garfield returns with an enthralling investigation of humans’ peculiar fascination with small things - and what small things tell us about our larger world. 

Drawing on history and popular culture, biblical research and everyday beliefs, Lisa Miller offers a new understanding of one of the most cherished—and shared—ideals of spiritual life. She raises debates and discussions not just about our visions of the afterlife, but about how our beliefs have influenced the societies we have built and the lifestyles to which we have subscribed.

This hilarious part memoir, part manifesto reveals what sets apart the latest generation of young people coming of age in an all-wired, overeducated, and underemployed world. People are obsessed with Ryan O'Connell's blogs. With tens of thousands reading his pieces on Thought Catalog and Vice, watching his videos on YouTube, and hanging on to each and every #dark tweet, Ryan has established himself as a unique young voice who's not afraid to dole out some real talk.

From the best-selling author of You Just Don't Understand comes another groundbreaking examination of the way we communicate - in public, in the media, in politics, in our courtrooms and classrooms - letting us see in a new way forces that are powerfully shaping our lives.

Sports is religion. Nobody knows this better than the preeminent sports documentarian Gotham Chopra, who just so happens to be the son of world-renowned spiritualist Deepak Chopra. While his father taught him to find faith through prayer, Gotham felt pulled towards the Boston Garden and Larry Bird instead. Tracing his unique path from being a diehard fan to witnessing miracles alongside the gods of sport, Gotham makes a compelling case for sports as a modern-day faith.

Just as Susan Sontag did for photography and Marshall McLuhan did for television, Virginia Heffernan (called one of the "best living writers of English prose") reveals the logic and aesthetics behind the Internet. Since its inception, the Internet has morphed from merely an extension of traditional media into its own full-fledged civilization. It is among mankind's great masterpieces - a massive work of art. As an idea, it rivals monotheism.

Status was once easy to identify—fast cars, fancy shoes, sprawling estates, elite brands. But in place of Louboutins and Lamborghinis, the relevance of the rich, famous, and gauche is waning and a riveting revolution is underfoot. Chuck Thompson—dubbed “savagely funny” by The New York Times and “wickedly entertaining” by the San Francisco Chronicle—sets out to determine what “status” means today and learns that what was once considered the low life has become the high life.

More than thirty years have passed since The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air premiered on NBC but unlike other family sitcoms of its era, it has remained culturally relevant and beloved by new generations of fans. With fresh eyes on the show in the wake of 2022’s launch of Bel-Air, a Fresh Prince reboot on NBC’s Peacock, The Fresh Prince Project brings us never-before-told stories based on exclusive interviews with the show’s cast, creators, writers, and crew.

In How You Get Famous, journalist Nicole Pasulka raucously documents the rebirth of the New York drag scene, following a group of iconoclastic performers with undeniable charisma, talent, and a hell of a lot to prove. In the past decade, drag has become a place where edgy, competitive showoffs can find security in a callous and over priced city, a shot at real money, and a level of recognition queer people rarely achieve. But can drag keep its edge as it travels from the backroom to the main stage?

From growing up in Detroit, where he marched as a 10-year-old with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to attending the inauguration of President Barack Obama, where he narrowly avoided the Purple Tunnel of Doom but still saw nothing, David Alan Grier examines how he - and America - have changed for the better and the funnier.

With eye-opening research and inspiring interviews, The Revolution Generation is the first in-depth exploration of the world-changing activism and potential of people born between 1980 and 2000. Labeled Generation Y or Millennials, theirs is the first digitally fluent generation. From sex and dating, to parental relationships, to jobs and the economy, Millennials live within a dynamic interplay of technological advances and real world setbacks.

From a VICE magazine columnist, "a deeply entertaining - if occasionally horrifying" (Joshua Piven, coauthor of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook) look at how humanity is likely to weather such happenings as nuclear war, a global internet collapse, antibiotics shortages, and even immortality.