Helmreich explores the myths and historical roots of stereotypes pertaining to several ethnic groups. He discusses which stereotypes are false, which are trye, how they originated, and why some of the most libeled groups promote warped perceptions about themselves.

Observations on the many ways we manage to look down on others, from “a writer who can make you laugh out loud on every third page” (The New York Times Book Review). Snobs are everywhere. At the gym, at work, at school, and sometimes even lurking in your own home. But how did we, as a culture, get this way? With dishy detail, Joseph Epstein skewers all manner of elitism as he examines how snobbery works, where it thrives, and the pitfalls and perils in thinking you’re better than anyone else. Offering arch observations on the new footholds of snobbery, including food, fashion, high-achieving children, schools, politics, being with-it—whatever “it” is—name-dropping, and much more, Epstein explores the shallows and depths of a concept that has become part of our everyday lives . . . for better or worse. “Smart, witty, perceptive . . . and almost always—in the best sense of the word—entertaining,” Snobbery provides the ultimate social commentary on arrogance in America (TheWashington Post Book World). It’s a book you shouldn’t be caught dead without.

Animals and their symbolism in diverse world cultures and different eras of human history are chronicled in this lovely volume.

Fifteen families.Four hundred years. The complex saga of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite in America’s history. For decades, writers from Cleveland Amory to Joseph Alsop to the editors of Politico have proclaimed the diminishment of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, who for generations were the dominant socio-cultural-political force in America. While the WASP elite has, in the last half century, indeed drifted from American centrality to the periphery, its relevance and impact remain, as Michael Gross reveals in his compelling chronicle. From Colonial America’s founding settlements through the Gilded Age to the present day, Gross traces the complex legacy of American WASPs—their profound accomplishments and egregious failures—through the lives of fifteen influential individuals and their very privileged, sometimes intermarried families. As the Bradford, Randolph, Morris, Biddle, Sanford, Peabody and Whitney clans progress, prosper and periodically stumble, defining aspects in the four-century sweep of American history emerge: our wide, oft-contentious religious diversity; the deep scars of slavery, genocide, and intolerance; the creation and sometime mis-use of astonishing economic and political power; an enduring belief in the future; an instinct to offset inequity with philanthropy; an equal capacity for irresponsible, sometimes wanton, behavior. “American society was supposed to be different,” writes Gross, “but for most of our history we have had a patriciate, an aristocracy, a hereditary oligarchic upper class, who initiated the American national experiment.” In previous acclaimed books such as 740 Park and Rogues’ Gallery, Gross has explored elite culture in microcosm; expanding the canvas, Flight of the WASP chronicles it across four centuries and fifteen generations in an ambitious and consequential contribution to American history.

The seminal, uncollected essays—lauded as “dazzling” (The New York Times Book Review)—by the late Christopher Hitchens, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller God Is Not Great, showcase the notorious contrarian’s genius for rhetoric and his sharp rebukes to tyrants and the ill-informed everywhere. For more than forty years, Christopher Hitchens delivered essays to numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic that were astonishingly wide-ranging and provocative. His death in December 2011 from esophageal cancer prematurely silenced a voice that was among the most admired of contemporary voices—writers, readers, pundits and critics the world over mourned his loss. At the time of his death, Hitchens left nearly 250,000 words of essays not yet published in book form. “Another great book of essays from a writer who we wish were still alive to produce more copy” (National Review), And Yet… ranges from the literary to the political and is a banquet of entertaining and instructive delights, including essays on Orwell, Lermontov, Chesterton, Fleming, Naipaul, Rushdie, Orhan Pamuk, and Dickens, among others, as well as his laugh-out-loud self-mocking “makeover.” The range and quality of Hitchens’s essays transcend the particular occasions for which they were originally written, yielding “a bounty of famous scalps, thunder-blasted targets, and a few love letters from the notorious provocateur-in-chief’s erudite and scathing assessments of American culture” (Vanity Fair). Often prescient, always pugnacious, formidably learned, Hitchens was a polemicist for the ages. With this posthumous volume, he remains, “America’s foremost rhetorical pugilist” (The Village Voice).

If you love restaurants and you love to travel, this book will be your bible! From the private tatami rooms at Ten-Ichi in Tokyo to the sidewalk tables at Da Silvano in New York City, EVERYBODY EATS THERE: Inside the World's Legendary Restaurants by William Stadiem and Mara Gibbs is the ultimate tour of the liveliest, most beautiful, most delicious, most glamorous, most exclusive 100 restaurants on earth-and how they got that way. Stadiem and Gibbs reveal the mystique and excitement of the world's most fabulous eateries that are packed with A-listers every night. Funny, acerbic, totally in-the-know, EVERYBODY EATS THERE is part travelogue, part social commentary to give readers the real inside dish. Dine topless with Pamela Anderson in St. Tropez, share roast suckling pig with Bill Clinton in Madrid, eat the best Italian food on earth in San Paolo, party with The Stones in Tokyo, join the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a Wild West saloon and get picked up by Warren Beatty in Los Angeles. EVERYBODY EATS THERE weaves together lavish celebrity stories and incisive biographies of the famed chefs and restaurateurs with descriptions of the food that will whet appetites and jump-start plans for future dining excursions. Stadiem and Gibbs-with their discerning palates and social antennae-tell us what to eat, what to wear and how to behave once we make it in. Most guidebooks are about one city, or one country, and overload you with bad choices. EVERYBODY EATS THERE looks at restaurants as one global food club. And we're invited to join in. The result-an engrossing read on the history of modern dining. Read how: Al Capone embraces JOE'S STONE CRAB in Miami as his favorite dining spot Henri Soule jumps ship after the 1939 World's Fair and invents Manhattan snob French cuisine at LE PAVILION Ernest Hemingway turns readers into foodies by mythologizing CASA BOTIN in Madrid and HARRY'S BAR in Venice Hairdresser Michael Chow opens the first MR CHOW in London during the swinging sixties. It was architecturally famous for its firehouse staircase for looking up miniskirts DAVE in Paris pushes the envelope of snob appeal by serving take-out level Chinese fare to the world's chic-est crowd Princess Diana anoints SAN LORENZO as London's royal trattoria Alice Waters builds a special bathroom for future presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton at CHEZ PANISSE And much, much more! The dream tour, EVERYBODY EATS THERE reveals the juiciest details from the backstories to the back rooms, from what's on the menus to what's even better off, from the glamorous (and sometimes scandalous) clientele to the high-powered chefs. And now, we can be a part of this international delight of food, fun and fame!