Singular and star-studded writings on America’s neon-lit playgroundAt once a Technicolor wonderland and the embodiment of American mythology, Las Vegas exists at the Ground Zero of a reverence for risk-taking and the transformative power of a winning hand. Jake Johnson edits a collection of short essays and flash ideas that probes how music-making and soundscapes shape the City of Second Chances. Treating topics ranging from Cher to Cirque de Soleil, the contributo...

College guides written by students for students.Vassar College Students Tell It Like It IsThis insider guide to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, features more than 160 pages of in-depth information, including student reviews, rankings across 20 campus life topics, and insider tips from students on campus. Written by a student at Vassar, this guidebook gives you the inside scoop on everything from academics and nightlife to housing and the meal plan. Read both the good an...

Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability.The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that's easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at.Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exac...

In the spirit of Gretchen Rubin’s megaseller The Happiness Project and Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss, a journalist embarks on a project to discover what it takes to love where you liveThe average restless American will move 11.7 times in a lifetime. For Melody Warnick, it was move #6, from Austin, Texas, to Blacksburg, Virginia, that threatened to unhinge her. In the lonely aftermath of unpacking, she wondered: Aren’t we supposed to put...

From the underbelly of the nuts behind hit websites failblog.org and icanhascheezburger.com comes FAIL Nation, your silent guide and handler to the not-even-close-to-perfect nation of FAIL, chock-full of irrelevant tips and useless suggestions about why to shop, who to eat, and when to see. So fasten your exit and check for the nearest seatbelt—your FAIL plane departs now.

The Ultimate Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the DormDorm life offers you a great chance to meet new people and try new things. But leaving the comforts of home for the first time to enter the roommate-having, small-room-sharing, possibly-coed-bathroom-using world of the dorms can be overwhelming and intimidating.The College Dorm Survival Guide offers expert advice and the inside scoop on:• Choosing the right residence hall for you• Getting along...

When fifty-eight-year-old Gabe Kaplan, perhaps best known for his performance in the title role of the popular seventies sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, got an e-mail asking him to participate in a show called Celebrity Boxing, he couldn't resist the urge to have a little fun with the request. After exchanging a series of ludicrous e-mails with the show's talent coordinator in a mock-serious attempt at negotiation, Gabe was inspired to start a prank e-mail campaign. The resu...

If your child seems indecisive about college, don't read the riot act, read this landmark book instead. College is not the only alternative. A New York Times editor and concerned parent tells you why and helps you to find happy alternatives to starting college before your child is ready.As an educated, committed parent, Linda Lee harbored the usual expectation of a prestigious college degree as the illustrious preface to a top-flight career for her child. Some fif...

Branding, says James Twitchell, is nothing more than commercial storytelling; brands are the stories that are associated with products. (For example, the special taste of Evian, says Twitchell, is in the brand, not the water.) Branding has become so successful, so ubiquitous that even institutions that we thought were above branding, antithetical to branding, have succumbed. Such cultural institutions as religion, higher education, and the art world have learned t...

College guides written by students for students.McGill University Students Tell It Like It IsThis insider guide to McGill University in Montreal, QC, features more than 160 pages of in-depth information, including student reviews, rankings across 20 campus life topics, and insider tips from students on campus. Written by a student at McGill, this guidebook gives you the inside scoop on everything from academics and nightlife to housing and the meal plan. Read both the good ...

A beloved folk singer presents an impassioned account of the fall and rise of the small American towns she cherishes.Dubbed by the New Yorker as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters," Dar Williams has made her career not in stadiums, but touring America's small towns. She has played their venues, composed in their coffee shops, and drunk in their bars. She has seen these communities struggle, but also seen them thrive in the face of postindustria...

Are your ideas stupid? Unreasonable? Or maybe just non-existing? If that is the case, We All Need Heroes is a book for you. Simon Zingerman, with his fantastic collection of anecdotes about the believable, unbelievable and always winning ideas, inspires even the most uninspired couch potato to get up and DO SOMETHING! If your creativity is on a standstill, or if you're just stuck in a project, small or big, this book can be the key to you getting back in business. With these stories you ge...