Best Popular Culture in Social Sciences Books of 2025

Badass Affirmations: The Wit and Wisdom of Wild Women is a motivational book filled with positive affirmations, inspirational quotes, and profiles of powerful women. Becca Anderson, the author, emphasizes the importance of affirming oneself daily to strengthen self-esteem and empower oneself. The book is a perfect gift for women who need a little bit of sass and encouragement in their lives. What makes this book unique is the mix of short bios and longer profiles of badass women who have left their mark on the world. The book also includes journal prompts to help readers reflect on their own feelings and thoughts. Overall, this book is a must-read for women who need a little bit of inspiration and empowerment in their lives.

All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks is a powerful and timeless book that explores the meaning and importance of love in our society. hooks argues that our culture has failed to provide a model for learning how to love, leading to a loveless society that lacks care, compassion, and unity. Through her incisive insights, she offers a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and the nation. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the transformative power of love and learn how to create a more loving and just world.

The book "Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral" by Ben Smith is an insightful account of the early days of online media and the pursuit of attention at scale. Smith chronicles the candid inside tale of two online media rivals, Jonah Peretti of HuffPost and BuzzFeed, and Nick Denton of Gawker Media, who helped release the dark forces that would overtake the internet and American society. The book explores the unintended consequences of the pursuit of clicks and the great irony of our time: the internet, which was supposed to help the left remake the world in its image, has become the motive force of right populism. Overall, "Traffic" is a must-read book for anyone interested in the media and communications industry.

Knowing What We Know by Simon Winchester is a comprehensive exploration of how humans acquire, retain, and pass on knowledge. Winchester examines various disciplines, from education to museum curation to artificial intelligence, and how they have contributed to knowledge diffusion. He also raises important questions about the impact of technology on our ability to think and the value of knowledge without wisdom. This book is a fascinating tour of learning and the human mind, and Winchester's insights force readers to ponder what it means to be a rational human in the age of information.

Unfuck Your Brain is a humorous yet insightful guide on how to deal with various mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and anger. Dr. Faith Harper explains the science behind our brains' behavior and provides practical advice on retraining our brains to respond appropriately to everyday life situations. The book also covers post-traumatic stress disorder and how to effectively deal with traumas. The writing style is engaging and informative, making it a refreshing change from typical dry self-help books. Overall, Unfuck Your Brain is a must-read for anyone interested in personal transformation and the latest neuroscience research.

New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction • A New York Times Notable Book • Bloomberg Best Book of 2018. “Their distinctive contribution to the higher-education debate is to meet safetyism on its own, psychological turf . . . Lukianoff and Haidt tell us that safetyism undermines the freedom of inquiry and speech that are indispensable to universities.” —Jonathan Marks, Commentary. “The remedies the book outlines should be considered on college campuses, among parents of current and future students, and by anyone longing for a more sane society.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising—on campus as well as nationally. How did this happen?. First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures.  Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life.. Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to promote the spread of these untruths. They explore changes in childhood such as the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised, child-directed play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. They examine changes on campus, including the corporatization of universities and the emergence of new ideas about identity and justice. They situate the conflicts on campus within the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization and dysfunction.. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.

The Psilocybin Mushroom Bible is an extensive guide to growing and using magic mushrooms. Written by Virginia Haze and Dr. K Mandrake, the book covers every step of the cultivation process, from sterilizing equipment to consuming the mushrooms safely. With over 40 step-by-step photographic guides, readers can learn how to produce high-quality mushrooms quickly and effectively. The book also includes a detailed history and botany of psilocybin mushrooms, giving readers a comprehensive understanding of their prevalence throughout human history. Overall, The Psilocybin Mushroom Bible is an excellent resource for anyone interested in growing and using magic mushrooms.

This book, titled "One Idea To Rule Them All: Reverse Engineering American Propaganda," explores the techniques used by Idea Bullies to influence the beliefs of small communities in a technological society. The author argues that propaganda is not just lies and distortions, but a sophisticated tool that can be used to manipulate individuals and shape public opinion. The book delves into the roots of stagecraft and story narrative, which have replaced objective truth-seeking in society. Overall, this book is a thought-provoking read that sheds light on the power dynamics at play in the marketplace of ideas.

The Nineties: A Book by Chuck Klosterman is a witty and insightful examination of the social, political, and cultural history of the era. Klosterman dissects film, music, sports, TV, pre-9/11 politics, and the changes regarding race, class, and sexuality. The book is a multidimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in the pop culture of the 90s and its impact on society.

Saving Time by Jenny Odell is a paradigm-destroying book that explores the problems that arise from our dominant conceptions of time. Odell shows how our painful relationship to time is not only connected to persisting social inequities but to the climate crisis, existential dread, and a lethal fatalism. The book offers different ways to experience time - inspired by pre-industrial cultures, ecological cues, and geological timescales - that can bring within reach a more humane, responsive way of living. Saving Time is a subversive, hopeful, and deeply insightful book that challenges readers to become stewards of different rhythms of life in which time is not reducible to standardized units.