For most Americans, candy is an uneasy pleasure, eaten with side helpings of guilt and worry. Yet candy accounts for only 6 percent of the added sugar in the American diet. And at least it's honest about what it is—a processed food, eaten for pleasure, with no particular nutritional benefit. So why is candy considered especially harmful, when it's not so different from the other processed foods, from sports bars to fruit snacks, that line supermarket shelves? How did our definitions of food and candy come to be so muddled? And how did candy come to be the scapegoat for our fears about the dangers of food? In Candy: A Century of Panic and Pleasure, Samira Kawash tells the fascinating story of how candy evolved from a luxury good to a cheap, everyday snack. After candy making was revolutionized in the early decades of mass production, it was celebrated as a new kind of food for energy and enjoyment. Riding the rise in snacking and exploiting early nutritional science, candy was the first of the panoply of "junk foods" that would take over the American diet in the decades after the Second World War—convenient and pleasurable, for eating anytime or all the time. And yet, food reformers and moral crusaders have always attacked candy, blaming it for poisoning, alcoholism, sexual depravity and fatal disease. These charges have been disproven and forgotten, but the mistrust of candy they produced has never diminished. The anxiety and confusion that most Americans have about their diets today is a legacy of the tumultuous story of candy, the most loved and loathed of processed foods.Candy is an essential, addictive read for anyone who loves lively cultural history, who cares about food, and who wouldn't mind feeling a bit better about eating a few jelly beans.

From NYT Bestselling Author, JA Huss, comes a new sexy standalone in the Jordan's Game series. Oaklee Ryan needs a boyfriend but not for any of the reasons you might think... It's a simple request. But the girl... Well, she's not so simple. Oaklee Ryan is a pragmatist. She lives in reality, she deals with facts, and she's goal oriented. So when she paid a visit to Jordan Wells asking for a game, calling it, "The Boyfriend Experience," he thought he knew what she was getting at. Wining, dining, maybe a date to a wedding to appease her meddling mother... No. That's not quite what Oaklee had in mind. Lawton Gabriel took this game as a favor to his friend. And it only took him five minutes to regret it. Because Oaklee Ryan is insane. She's loud, she's demanding, and she's dead set on getting her way. If she thinks he's gonna turn into her version of a boyfriend... Just. No. He'll do anything it takes to get out of this crazy contract!

First published in 2006. Food, Morals and Meaning examines our need to discipline our desires, our appetites and our pleasures at the table. However, instead of seeing this discipline as dominant or oppressive it argues that a rationalisation of pleasure plays a positive role in our lives, allowing us to better understand who we are. The book begins by exploring the way that concerns about food, the body and pleasure were prefigured in antiquity and then how these concerns were recast in early Christianity as problems of 'natural' appetite which had to be curbed. The following chapters discuss how scientific knowledge about food was constructed out of philosophical and religious concerns about indulgence and excess in 18th and 19th Century Europe. Finally, by using research collected from in-depth interviews with families, the last section focuses on the social organisation of food in the modern home to illustrate the ways that the meal table now incorporates the principles of nutrition as a form of moral training, especially for children. Food, Morals and Meaning will be essential reading for those studying nutrition, public health, sociology of health and illness and sociology of the body.

Food in Britain today is more plentiful, more nutritious, more varied, and much more affordable than ever in our history. This is something to celebrate, and Rob Lyons does exactly that. In a series of short up-beat chapters he challenges head on the fashionable critics of so-called junk food and the "wacky world" of organic and locally-sourced food campaigners. They have created needless panic and made our cheap and tasty food an object of shame and blame, when it should be a cause for rejoicing. "Panic on a Plate" draws on history, science, and official reports to show the fearmongers are wrong: the changing face of food is full of hope.

Renowned journalist Nell Frizzell explores what happens when a woman begins to ask herself: should I have a baby? We have descriptors for many periods of life—adolescence, menopause, mid-life crisis, quarter-life crisis—but there is a period of profound change that many women face, often in their late twenties to early forties, that does not yet have a name. Nell Frizzell is calling this period of flux “the panic years,” and it is often characterized by a preoccupation with one major question: should I have a baby? And from there—do I want a baby? With whom should I have a baby? How will I know when I’m ready? Decisions made during this period suddenly take on more weight, as questions of love, career, friendship, fertility, and family clash together while peers begin the process of coupling and breeding. But this very important process is rarely written or talked about beyond the clichés of the “ticking clock.” Enter Frizzell, our comforting guide, who uses personal stories from her own experiences in the panic years to illuminate the larger social and cultural trends, and gives voice to the uncertainty, confusion, and urgency that tends to characterize this time of life. Frizzell reminds us that we are not alone in this, and encourages us to share our experiences and those of the women around us—as she does with honesty and vulnerability in these pages. Raw and hilarious, The Panic Years is an arm around the shoulder for every woman trying to navigate life’s big decisions against the backdrop of the mother of all questions.

A "New York Times" Notable Book, "The Debt to Pleasure" is a wickedly funny ode to food as the novel's snobbish narrator instructs readers in his philosophy on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of the menu.

On a summer night in 2007, the Azure Party, part of Sydney’s annual gay and lesbian Mardi Gras, is underway. Alongside the party outfits, drugs, lights, and DJs is a volunteer care team trained to deal with the drug-related emergencies that occasionally occur. But when police appear at the gates with drug-detecting dogs, mild panic ensues. Some patrons down all their drugs, heightening their risk of overdose. Others try their luck at the gates. After twenty-six attendees are arrested with small quantities of illicit substances, the party is shut down and the remaining partygoers disperse into the city streets. For Kane Race, the Azure Party drug search is emblematic of a broader technology of power that converges on embodiment, consumption, and pleasure in the name of health. In Pleasure Consuming Medicine, he illuminates the symbolic role that the illicit drug user fulfills for the neoliberal state. As he demonstrates, the state’s performance of moral sovereignty around substances designated “illicit” bears little relation to the actual dangers of drug consumption; in fact, it exacerbates those dangers. Race does not suggest that drug use is risk-free, good, or bad, but rather that the regulation of drugs has become a site where ideological lessons about the propriety of consumption are propounded. He argues that official discourses about drug use conjure a space where the neoliberal state can be seen to be policing the “excesses” of the amoral market. He explores this normative investment in drug regimes and some “counterpublic health” measures that have emerged in response. These measures, which Race finds in certain pragmatic gay men’s health and HIV prevention practices, are not cloaked in moralistic language, and they do not cast health as antithetical to pleasure.

Not Everyone Needs A Master. Not everyone needs to really live, either. Some people are content to be a participant in the game of life. Others want to play for real. If you want to play for real, come to me, lovely. I'll give you that little push you need. I'll open your mind, and your world, and soul. Lay you bare. Let you feel the heat of my stare. Take you places you've never been before. Your body is my chessboard, sweets. And if you give in to me, and you play, you might even win. It's just... your prize might not be what you went looking for.

**Winner of Reader's Favorite Book Award** **Winner of Book Excellence Award** **Winner of the Body Mind Spirit Book Award** For seekers of truth, Al Zaabi is a wise and intrepid guide through the wilderness of the self. In plainspoken and heartfelt language, she shine light on the spiritual path and reveals the beauty and necessity of surrender, which has for too long been misunderstanding in the west. -Krista Bremer, author of A Tender Struggle Do you ever wish you could switch off the chatter in your mind? This is what brings many of us to self-help, the fears and worries that go along with being human. It is the reason many of us investigate spirituality: emotions and the thoughts beneath them. Indeed, many approaches to religion and spirituality will tell you that the mind causes your suffering and teach you to quiet your inner voice. The Art of Surrender stands out among self-help books because it offers a completely new approach to spirituality, health, and healing. You do not have to silence your thoughts. Your brain and mind are a gift; they have a spiritual purpose, which is to seek the truth and establish genuine spirituality. Drawing on her Muslim heritage and her wise and careful exploration of spirituality without religion yet informed by it, Eiman Al Zaabi guides you in the delightful art of spiritual inquiry, investigating ideas for yourself and incorporating only those truths that resonate deeply. Whether you are taking the first steps on your spiritual journey or have long traveled such a path, The Art of Surrender will transform your relationship with yourself, the Divine, and the world around you. You’ll learn the deepest needs of your soul and discover how to meet them. You’ll be guided through the four stages of the spiritual journey: finding Source, knowing Source, aligning with Source, and surrendering to Source. With this approach to self-help, anxiety melts away as you develop a spirituality of gratitude and trust. When you read this book, you’ll discover the ultimate state of fulfillment and joy: surrender.

As rehearsals begin for the ballet version of Peter Pan, the teenaged members of an Ohio dance troupe lose their focus when one of their own goes missing.