Other books that might interest you

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  The Babel Message - A Love...

  Keith Kahn-Harris

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  'Quite simply, and quite ridiculously, one of the funniest and most illuminating books I have ever read. I thought I was obsessive, but Keith Kahn-Harris is playing a very different sport. He really has discovered the whole world in an egg.' Simon Garfield
  A thrilling journey deep into the heart of language, from a rather unexpected starting point.
  
  Keith Kahn-Harris is a man obsessed with something seemingly trivial - the warning message found inside Kinder Surprise eggs:
  
  WARNING, read and keep: Toy not suitable for children under 3 years. Small parts might be swallowed or inhaled.
  
  On a tiny sheet of paper, this message is translated into dozens of languages - the world boiled down to a multilingual essence. Inspired by this, the author asks: what makes 'a language'? With the help of the international community of language geeks, he shows us what the message looks like in Ancient Sumerian, Zulu, Cornish, Klingon - and many more. Along the way he considers why Hungarian writing looks angry, how to make up your own language, and the meaning of the heavy metal umlaut.
  
  Overturning the Babel myth, he argues that the messy diversity of language shouldn't be a source of conflict, but of collective wonder. This is a book about hope, a love letter to language.
  'This is a wonderful book. A treasure trove of mind-expanding insights into language and humanity encased in a deliciously quirky, quixotic quest. I loved it. Warning: this will keep you reading.' - Ann Morgan, author of Reading the World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer

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  Malört - The Redemption of a...

  Josh Noel

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  Malört may be the worst thing you'll ever taste. 
   
   
   
  Known primarily for its intense bitterness, the infamous Chicago liqueur has been compared to "a forest fire, if the forest was made of earwax." Yet lurking in the horror and the mockery lies the truth of Malört: we keep going back for more. For nearly a hundred years, we've gone back. 
   
   
   
  Jeppson's Malört could have died a hundred deaths in that time. Its survival wasn't always a given. There were cultural shifts and fortunate timing that helped transform a drink rooted in centuries-old Swedish tradition into the American sensation it is today. 
   
   
   
  Malört is a story of love, relationships, and how one generation finds meaning where generations before did not. 
   
   
   
  Author and beer expert Josh Noel unpacks a uniquely American tale, equal parts culture, business, and personal relationships—involving secret love, federal prison, a David vs. Goliath court battle, and the 2018 sale of Jeppson's Malört, which made Pat Gabelick, a seventy-five-year-old Chicago woman who spent much of her life as a legal secretary, into an unlikely millionaire. 
   
   
   
  Malört isn't just the story of one brazen liquor—it is the story of modern tastes and cultural shifts.

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  The Art of War

  Sun Tzu

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  The Art of War, literally The Laws of War by Master Sun is the most famous ancient Chinese treatise, dedicated to a military strategy and policy, written by Sun Tzu. The treatise by Sun Tzu influenced crucially on a whole military art of the East. Although it is the first treatise on the military art, it includes clearly expressed common principles of strategy as well as tactics. A special place in a military theoretical literature belongs to comments on Sun Tzu, the earliest of which appeared in the Han era (206-220 AD), and the new ones are still being created...The traditional story of Lao-Tzu is that he was a 6th-century B.C.E. philosopher and teacher in China. Indeed, his very name means 'Old Master.' Lao-Tzu was a keeper of records for the Zhou Dynasty while he also taught philosophy to any who would listen. One of these, purportedly, was the giant of Chinese philosophy, Confucius, who in his own writings speaks of meeting with Lao-Tzu. The Art of War is divided into 13 chapters:  Laying PlansWaging WarAttack by StratagemTactical DispositionsUse of EnergyWeak Points and StrongManeuvering an ArmyVariation of TacticsThe Army on the MarchClassification of TerrainThe Nine SituationsAttack by FireUse of Spies

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  Becoming a Cosmopolitan - What...

  Jason D Hill

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  The philosopher and author of Beyond Blood Identities offers a new paradigm of persona freedom and moral self-possession. As a Jamaican immigrant arriving in the United States at the age of twenty, Jason Hill noticed how often Americans identified themselves in terms of race and ethnicity. He observed, for example, the reluctance of West Indians to joins 'black causes' for fear of losing their identity. He began to ask himself what sort of world he wanted to live in, a quest that in time led him to the idea of the cosmopolitan.   In Becoming a Cosmopolitan, Jason D. Hill argues that we need a new understanding of the self. He revives the idea of the cosmopolitan, the person who identifies the world as home. Arguing for the right to forget where we came from, Hill proposes a new moral cosmopolitanism for the new millennium.

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  Kids at Work - Latinx Families...

  Emir Estrada

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  Street food markets have become wildly popular in Los Angeles—and behind the scenes, Latinx children have been instrumental in making these small informal businesses grow. In Kids at Work, Emir Estrada shines a light on the surprising labor of these young workers, providing the first ethnography on the participation of Latinx children in street vending.  
  Drawing on dozens of interviews with children and their undocumented parents, as well as three years spent on the streets shadowing families at work, Estrada brings attention to the unique set of hardships Latinx youth experience in this occupation. She also highlights how these hardships can serve to cement family bonds, develop empathy towards parents, encourage hard work, and support children—and their parents—in their efforts to make a living together in the United States. Kids at Work provides a compassionate, up-close portrait of Latinx children, detailing the complexities and nuances of family relations when children help generate income for the household as they peddle the streets of LA alongside their immigrant parents.

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  A Suspicious Science - The Uses...

  Rami Gabriel

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  From self-help to medication, therapy, and cognitive neuroscience, this book traces the uses and limits of psychology. Offering a systematic exploration of the ways in which psychology is used in contemporary society, it refines our understanding of the extent of the field. In addition to conceptual analysis of how science, truth, biology, mind, and meaning intersect and interact in the mind sciences, A Suspicious Science draws from history and anthropology to articulate an interdisciplinary multi-level form of psychology that may serve to orient the field. The book synthesizes debates in psychology and philosophy concerning methodology and the nature of explanation with debates about its practical context as a human science. Ultimately, it suggests psychology provides us myths and rituals that ground a particular sense of meaning and motivation in our lives. By aligning cultural, emotional, and philosophical uses of psychology, this book clarifies a synoptic, humanistic model of the mind within the human sciences.

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