Social Studies | FrogenYozurt.Com - Online Literature Magazine

Class A, A Baseball Team in the Middle of Everywhere by Lucas Mann

On May 10, 2013, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Social Studies, Sports, by Editor

An unforgettable chronicle of a year of minor-league baseball in a small Iowa town that follows not only the travails of the players of the Clinton LumberKings but also the lives of their dedicated fans and of the town itself. Part sports story, part cultural exploration, part memoir, Class A is a moving and unique study of why we play, why we watch, and why we remember.

Dad Is Fat, Stories from the Frontline of Urban Parenting by Jim Gaffigan

On May 7, 2013, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Entertainment, Nonfiction, Social Studies, by Editor

In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who’s best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald’s, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children—everything from cousins (“celebrities for little kids”) to toddlers’ communication skills (“they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news”), to the eating habits of four year olds.

If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother – A Funny Look at Being an Adoptive Parent by Julia Sweeney

On April 6, 2013, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Social Studies, by Editor

While Julia Sweeney is known as a talented comedienne and writer and performer of her one-woman shows, she is also a talented essayist. Happily for us, the past few years have provided her with some rich material. Poignant, provocative, and wise, this is a funny, and at times powerful, memoir by a woman living her life with originality and intelligence.

Drinking with Men: A Memoir by New York Times Magazine “Drink” Columnist Rosie Schaap

On January 27, 2013, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Social Studies, by Editor

A vivid, funny, and poignant memoir that celebrates the distinct lure of the camaraderie and community one finds drinking in bars. Rosie Schaap has always loved bars: the wood and brass and jukeboxes, the knowing bartenders, and especially the sometimes surprising but always comforting company of regulars.

Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World by Stephen R. Kellert

On January 23, 2013, in Book Reviews, Health, Mind & Body, Nonfiction, Science, Social Studies, by Editor

Human health and well-being are inextricably linked to nature; our connection to the natural world is part of our biological inheritance. In this engaging book, a pioneer in the field of biophilia—the study of human beings’ inherent affinity for nature—sets forth the first full account of nature’s powerful influence on the quality of our lives.

How to Live like a Lord Without Really Trying by Shepherd Mead

On January 18, 2013, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Social Studies, Travel, by Editor

Written with Mead’s characteristic incisive wit and illustrated with the original dynamic cartoons, How to Live Like a Lord Without Really Trying is packed with pithy advice that is equally revealing of Britain in the 1960s as its bemused American visitors.

Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas by Natasha Dow Schüll

On January 14, 2013, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Social Studies, Technology, by Editor

Recent decades have seen a dramatic shift away from social forms of gambling played around roulette wheels and card tables to solitary gambling at electronic terminals. Addiction by Design takes readers into the intriguing world of machine gambling, an increasingly popular and absorbing form of play that blurs the line between human and machine, compulsion and control, risk and reward.

Nostradamus: How an Obscure Renaissance Astrologer Became the Modern Prophet of Doom by Stéphane Gerson

On January 7, 2013, in Book Reviews, History, Nonfiction, Religious Studies, Social Studies, by Editor

Through prodigious research in European and American archives, Gerson shows that Nostradamus — a creature of the modern West rather than a vestige from some antediluvian era — tells us more about our past and our present than about our future.

Another Insane Devotion: On the Love of Cats and Persons by Peter Trachtenberg

On December 29, 2012, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Social Studies, by Editor

From “a genuine American Dostoevsky” (The Washington Post): a dazzling, funny, bittersweet exploration of the mysteries of relationship, both human and animal. Trachtenberg ponders the mysteries of feline intelligence (why do cats score worse on some tests than pigeons?), the origins of their domestication, their terrible treatment during the Middle Ages.

How the French Invented Love: Nine Hundred Years of Passion and Romance by Marilyn Yalom

On October 29, 2012, in Book Reviews, History, Nonfiction, Social Studies, by Editor

Oh, how the French love love! For hundreds of years, they have championed themselves as guides to the art de l’amour through their literature, paintings, songs, and cinema. A French man or woman without amorous desire is considered defective, like someone missing the sense of smell or taste. Now revered scholar Marilyn Yalom intimately examines the tenets of this culture’s enduring gospel of romance.

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