The right reasons to fall in love with The Bachelor When it debuted in 2002, The Bachelor raised the stakes of first-wave reality television, offering the ultimate prize: true love. Since then, thrice yearly, dozens of camera-ready young-and-eligibles have vied for affection (and roses) in front of a devoted audience of millions. In this funny, insightful examination of the world’s favorite romance-factory, Suzannah Showler explores the contradictions that are key to the franchise’s genius, longevity, and power and parses what this means for both modern love and modern America. She argues the show is both gameshow and marriage plot — an improbable combination of competitive effort and kismet — and that it’s both relic and prophet, a time-traveler from first-gen reality TV that proved to be a harbinger of Tinder. In the modern media-savvy climate, the show cleverly highlights and resists its own artifice, allowing Bachelor Nation to see through the fakery to feel the romance. Taking on issues of sex, race, contestants-as-villains, the controversial spin-offs, and more, Most Dramatic Ever is both love letter to and deconstruction of the show that brought us real love in the reality TV era.

*A New York Times Bestseller* The first definitive, unauthorized, behind-the-scenes cultural history of the Bachelor franchise, America’s favorite guilty pleasure. For sixteen years and thirty-six seasons, the Bachelor franchise has been a mainstay in American TV viewers’ lives. Since it premiered in 2002, the show’s popularity and relevance have only grown—more than eight million viewers tuned in to see the conclusion of the most recent season of The Bachelor. Los Angeles Times journalist Amy Kaufman is a proud member of Bachelor Nation and has a long history with the franchise—ABC even banned her from attending show events after her coverage of the program got a little too real for its liking. She has interviewed dozens of producers, contestants, and celebrity fans to give readers never-before-told details of the show’s inner workings: what it’s like to be trapped in the mansion “bubble”; dark, juicy tales of producer manipulation; and revelations about the alcohol-fueled debauchery that occurs long before the Fantasy Suite. Kaufman also explores what our fascination means, culturally: what the show says about the way we view so-called ideal suitors; our subconscious yearning for fairy-tale romance; and how this enduring television show has shaped society’s feelings about love, marriage, and feminism by appealing to a marriage plot that’s as old as the best of Jane Austen.

William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois (1868-1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. Contents: A Negro Schoolmaster in the New South Of the Training of Black Men The Talented Tenth The Conservation of Races The Economic Revolution in the South Religion in the South Strivings of the Negro People The Black North: A Social Study

In this delicious book of essays, Wendy Wasserstein perfects the urbane, wacky and compassionate sensibility that informed plays like her Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles.

“Do you love romance? Do you love reading? Do you love The Bachelor? Are you from Texas? If you answered ‘yes’ to any two of those questions, do we ever have a book for you.”—Huffington Post As the longtime host of ABC’s hit shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, Chris Harrison has witnessed the joys and heartbreak of men and women searching for everlasting love. A true romantic at heart, he believes that everyone deserves their own fairytale ending. Now, in his first work of fiction, Chris draws on his unique insights and wisdom in a remarkable debut novel that explores love and its consequences—a must-read for Bachelor fans and hopeless romantics everywhere. Leigh Merrill spent ten years running away from her past. Now she’s going back . . . A talented young book editor in New York City, Leigh leads a rich life full of writing, parties, and romance, far from the dust of her grandfather’s horse farm in Texas. And she is engaged to Joseph, a brilliant, generous man who adores her. Still, when she’s invited to a writer’s conference in Austin, Leigh can’t help but feel that Texas, with all of its tangled secrets, is calling her home. She tells herself the trip is just a few days away to catch up with old friends, meet new authors, and clear her mind. But Leigh’s plans for a quiet retreat quickly dissolve when she discovers a stack of letters from her past in her hotel room . . . letters that bare her soul and her deepest and darkest secrets . . . letters she wrote to the love of her life. After years of running, but with nowhere left to hide, Leigh must finally decide what she truly wants . . . and just how much she’ll risk to get it.