**NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • The captivating, deeply reported true story of how one of the most notorious novels ever written—Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom—landed at the heart of one of the biggest scams in modern literary history.“Reading The Curse of the Marquis de Sade, with the Marquis, the sabotage of rare manuscript sales, and a massive Ponzi scheme at its center,felt like a twisty waterslide shooting through a sleazy and bizarre landsca...

Part road-trip comedy and part social science experiment, a scientist and a journalist “shed fascinating light on what makes us laugh and why” (New York Post).Two guys. Nineteen experiments. Five continents. 91,000 miles. The Humor Code follows the madcap adventures and oddball experiments of Professor Peter McGraw and writer Joel Warner as they discover the secret behind what makes things funny. In their search, they interview countless comics, f...

**NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • The captivating, deeply reported true story of how one of the most notorious novels ever written—Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom—landed at the heart of one of the biggest scams in modern literary history.“Reading The Curse of the Marquis de Sade, with the Marquis, the sabotage of rare manuscript sales, and a massive Ponzi scheme at its center,felt like a twisty waterslide shooting through a sleazy and bizarre landsca...

Dr. Peter McGraw, founder of the Humor Research Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, teamed up with journalist Joel Warner on a far-reaching search for the secret behind humor. Their journey spanned the globe, from New York to Japan, from Palestine to the Amazon. Meanwhile, the duo conducted their own humor experiments along the way—to wince-worthy, hilarious, and illuminating results.In their quixotic search, they questioned countless experts, from comedians like Louis C. K....

**A striking, nuanced biography of Nero—the controversial populist ruler and last of the Caesars—and a vivid portrait of ancient Rome“Exciting and provocative . . . Nero is a pleasure to read.”—Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium**The Roman emperor Nero’s name has long been a byword for cruelty, decadence, and despotism. As the stories go, he set fire to Rome and thrummed his lyre as it bur...

No disease sparked as much dread in the 18th century as smallpox. The virus killed millions across the globe, carrying off one in every five victims and disfiguring survivors with tell-tale pitted scars. But one mysterious method offered hope: inoculation, the practice of piercing the skin to insert a drop of infected matter and induce a mild case of smallpox. Those inoculated safely were protected from the ‘Speckled Monster’ and stayed immune for life. Only one problem remained: convincin...

From the noted Hollywood biographer and author of The Contender comes this celebration of the great American love story—the romance between Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart—capturing its complexity, contradictions, and challenges as never before.InBogie & Bacall, William Mann offers a deep and comprehensive look at Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and the unlikely love they shared. Mann details their early years—Bogart’s effete upbringing in New Y...

A former soldier turned PI solves crime in a world that's lost its magic in this brilliant sequel to actor Luke Arnold's debut The Last Smile in Sunder City.The name's Fetch Phillips -- what do you need?Cover a Gnome with a crossbow while he does a dodgy deal? Sure.Find out who killed Lance Niles, the big-shot businessman who just arrived in town? I'll give it shot.Help an old-lady Elf track down her husband's murderer? That's right...

“A delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter . . . . Simon Winchester has firmly earned his place in history . . . as a promulgator of knowledge of every variety, perhaps the last of the famous explorers who crisscrossed the now-vanished British Empire and reported what they found to an astonished world.” — New York TimesFrom the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient m...

Most things you ‘know’ about science and religion are myths or half-truths that grew up in the last years of the nineteenth century and remain widespread today.‘A deeply researched history of the interplay between the two ways of understanding the world.’ ECONOMIST, BEST BOOKS OF 2023The true history of science and religion is a human one. It’s about the role of religion in inspiring, and strangling, science before the scientific r...

A collection of twenty classic short stories by Isaac Asimov, author of the Foundation series, featuring the definitive version of “Nightfall”From one of history’s most influential writers of science fiction comes this collection of twenty short works of fiction, arranged in order of publication from 1941 to 1967. Compiled by Asimov himself, who prefaced each story with an introduction, it begins with “Nightfall,” the tale of a world with eternal sun that is sudden...

**#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century • “The Art Thief, like its title character, has confidence, élan, and a great sense of timing."—The New YorkerA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Lit Hub"Enthralling." —The Wall Street Journal**Stéphane Bréitwieser is the most prolific art thief of all time.He pulled off more than...