Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Popular Culture

Too many popular histories seek to establish heroes, pioneers and martyrs but as Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller argue, the past is filled with queer people whose sexualities and/or dastardly deeds have been overlooked. We all remember Oscar Wilde, but who speaks for Bosie? What about those 'bad gays' whose un-exemplary lives reveals more than we might expect? Part-revisionist history, part-historical biography and based on the hugely popular podcast series, Bad Gays subverts the notion of gay icons and queer heroes.

Bianca Bosker plunges deep inside the world of art and the people who live for it: gallerists, collectors, curators and, of course, artists themselves—the kind who work multiple jobs and let their paintings sleep soundly in the studio while they wake up covered in cat pee on a friend's couch. Encompassing everything from color theory to evolutionary biology, and from ancient cave paintings to Instagram as it attempts to discern art's role in our culture, our economy and our hearts, Get the Picture is a rollicking adventure that will change the way you see forever.

Until very recently, scientists believed our brains were fully developed in childhood. Now, thanks to imaging technology, we know that the brain goes on developing and changing right through adolescence into adulthood. So, what makes the adolescent brain different? Why does an easy child become a challenging teenager? And why is it that many mental illnesses begin during these formative years? Drawing upon her cutting-edge research, award-winning neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore explains how adolescence is fundamental to how we invent ourselves.

Did you know that Alexander the Great was a sloppy drunk, William Shakespeare was a stoner, and George Washington drank a spoonful of opium every night to staunch the pain from his fake teeth? Or how about the fact that China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, ingested liquid mercury in an (ironic) attempt to live forever, or that Alexander Shulgin, inventor of no fewer than 230 new psychedelic drugs, was an employee of the DEA?

Originally published in 1979, The Great Shark Hunt, the first volume of the bestselling 'Gonzo Papers' is Hunter S. Thompson’s largest and, arguably, most important work. These essays cover Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine, offering brilliant commentary and outrageous humour, in signature Thompson style.

When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter's lively recounting of how he made his mark as one of society's most talented editors and shapers of culture. Carter arrived in New York from Canada with little more than a suitcase, a failed literary magazine in his past and a keen sense of ambition. He landed a job at Time, went on to work at Life, cofounded Spy magazine and edited The New York Observer before catching the eye of Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse, who tapped him to run Vanity Fair.

Exploring subjects like work and comedy, history and sport, the beauty industry and domesticity, anonymous author Man Who Has It All imagines a world in which men are bombarded with the same stereotypical bullshit as women. What if men's t-shirts were emblazoned with slogans encouraging them to be smiley, positive and kind? What if we laughed at jokes about fathers-in-law and male drivers? What if men's history was a niche topic? Behind the jokes about crazy cat gentlemen, testerical men and the 24-hour moustache, lies a deeper, darker message about language, power and control.

Can you remember the first time you encountered true darkness? The kind that remains as black and inky whether your eyes are open or closed? Where you can't see your hand in front of your face? Jacqueline Yallop can. It was in an unfamiliar bedroom while holidaying in Yorkshire as a child, and ever since then she has been fascinated by the dark, by our efforts to capture or avoid it, by the meanings we give to it and the way our brains process it.

Bestselling children's author Andy Stanton has made a career out of writing differently—from the unconventional ‘hero' of his bestselling Mr Gum series to his penchant for absurdist plots, his children's books are anything but formulaic. When a friend introduces him to ChatGPT, the new large language chatbot, Andy is as sceptical as he is curious. Can this jumble of algorithms really mimic the spontaneity of human thought? Could it one day replace human authors like him for good? And are we soon to be ruled over by despotic robot overlords.

In his debut collection of short stories, Robert Sheehan disappears into characters, challenging the complacencies of everyday experience, often from entirely unexpected angles. Informed by the author’s peripatetic life, Disappearing Act reflects on the absurdity of human behaviour. Sheehan delves deep into his characters’ streams of self-talk and self-imposed delusions, exploring the dark impulses that lurk below the shiny surfaces of many outwardly normal lives.

In this bold and far-reaching exploration of our new political landscape, William Davies reveals how feelings have come to reshape our world. Drawing deep on history, philosophy, psychology and economics, he shows how some of the fundamental assumptions that defined the modern world have dissolved. With advances in science and medicine, the division between mind and body is no longer so clear-cut. The spread of digital and military technology has left us not quite at war nor exactly at peace. 

It's a tough time to be a woman on the internet. Over the past two generations, the political map of human relations has been redrawn by feminism and by changes in technology. In Cybersexism, Laurie Penny goes to the dark heart of the matter and asks why threats of violence are being used to try to silence female voices, analyses the structure of online misogyny, and makes a case for real freedom of speech - for everyone.

In Stop Being Reasonable, philosopher and journalist Eleanor Gordon-Smith tells six lucid, gripping stories that show the limits of human reason. From the woman who realised her husband harboured a terrible secret, to the man who left the cult he had been raised in since birth, and the British reality TV contestant who, having impersonated someone else for a month, discovered he could no longer return to his former identity, all of the people interviewed radically altered their beliefs about the things that matter most. 

Death. Sex. Money. Tricky subjects we’re taught to avoid in polite conversation. But if they’re so unpleasant, why do so many people tune in regularly to hear Anna Sale asking perfect strangers about them? What if, rather than declaring them off-limits, we could all benefit from discussing them more? In Let’s Talk About Hard Things, Sale - the host of cult podcast Death, Sex & Money, which tackles life’s hard questions - takes her quest for more honest communication into her own life. 

In 1977 a group of scientists, artists and writers gathered in a house in Ithaca, New York to work on the most important mixtape ever conceived. It wasn’t from one person to another - it was from Earth to the cosmos. When NASA sent Voyagers 1 and 2 on a grand tour of the outer planets, they knew the ultimate fate of these plucky probes would be to drift forever in the unimaginable void of interstellar space. 

Hold Tight is the book that kick-started the 'Grime Library'. Bursting into bookshops in July 2017 to rave reviews and a sold-out event at Rough Trade East, Hold Tight paved the way for Grime-related books such as Wiley's Eskiboy, Dan Hancox's Inner City Pressure and DJ Target’s Grime Kids. Celebrating more than 60 key songs that make up Grime’s DNA, Jeffrey Boakye explores the meaning of the music and why it has such resonance in the UK. 

Taking listeners on an irresistible adventure through some of the most colourful, outrageous and polarising events of recent years—from Brexit to the Capitol Hill Riots and QAnon rallies to Extinction Rebellion protests—Phoenix Andrews shows how if we want to understand what's really happening behind the headlines we need to think about one overlooked phenomenon: fandom.

In Feeding the Monster, Anna Bogutskaya dispels this notion once and for all by examining how horror responds to and fuels our feelings of fear, anxiety, pain, hunger and power.

Have you heard that Bill Gates is running a secret genocidal plot? That the war in Ukraine isn't real? Or that people are paid to act out some of the worst attacks imaginable? In Among the Trolls, BBC journalist Marianna Spring meets the people spreading online conspiracy theories—and their victims. Far from a few lone wolves, she uncovers a staggering network of true believers and conspiracy influencers engaged in an international information war.

This deeply researched and rigorously reported biography of Gwyneth Paltrow takes us inside the world of one of the most influential, aspirational, and polarizing celebrities of the last thirty years.