For almost 17 years, “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” brilliantly redefined the borders between television comedy, political satire and opinionated news coverage. It launched the careers of some of today's most significant comedians, highlighted the hypocrisies of the powerful and garnered 23 Emmys. Now the show's behind-the-scenes gags, controversies and camaraderie have been chronicled by the players themselves in this oral history, which takes the reader behind the curtain for all the show's highlights --- from its origins as Comedy Central's underdog late-night program hosted by Craig Kilborn to Jon Stewart's long reign to Trevor Noah's succession.

Hank Williams, a frail, flawed man who had become country music’s first real star, instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr when he died in the backseat of a Cadillac at the age of 29. Six decades later, Mark Ribowsky traces the miraculous rise of this music legend --- from the dirt roads of rural Alabama to the now-immortal stage of the Grand Ole Opry, and, finally, to a lonely end on New Year’s Day in 1953. Examining Williams’ chart-topping hits while also recreating days and nights choked in booze and desperation, HANK uncovers the real man beneath the myths, reintroducing us to an American original whose legacy, like a good night at the honkytonk, promises to carry on and on.

Foraging persists as a viable economic strategy both in remote regions and within the bounds of developed nation-states. Given the economic alternatives available, why do some groups choose to maintain their hunting and gathering lifeways? Through a series of detailed case studies, the contributors to this volume examine the decisions made by modern-day foragers to sustain a predominantly hunting and gathering way of life. What becomes clear is that hunter-gatherers continue to forage because the economic benefits of doing so are high relative to the local alternatives and, perhaps more importantly, because the social costs of not foraging are prohibitive.

Bellevue Hospital, on New York City's East Side, occupies a colorful and horrifying place in the public imagination: a den of mangled crime victims, vicious psychopaths, assorted derelicts, lunatics and exotic-disease sufferers. In its two and a half centuries of service, there was hardly an epidemic or social catastrophe --- or groundbreaking scientific advance --- that did not touch Bellevue. David Oshinsky chronicles the history of America's oldest hospital and, in so doing, also charts the rise of New York to the nation's preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution.

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of “The Daily Show” began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Abraham Zapruder didn't know when he began filming President Kennedy's motorcade on November 22, 1963 that his home movie would change not only his family's life but American culture and history as well. Now his granddaughter tells the whole story of the Zapruder film for the first time. With the help of personal family records, previously sealed archival sources, and interviews, she traces the film's complex journey through history, considering its impact on her family and the public realms of the media, courts, Federal government and the arts community. Zapruder shows how 26 seconds of film changed a family and raised some of the most important social, cultural and moral questions of our time.

From its humble agrarian origins to its present-day artisanal glory, butter has a fascinating story to tell. With tales about the ancient butter bogs of Ireland, the pleasure dairies of France, and the sacred butter sculptures of Tibet, former pastry chef Elaine Khosrova details butter’s role in history, politics, economics, nutrition, and even spirituality and art. Readers will also find the essential collection of core butter recipes, including beurre manié, croissants, pâte brisée, and the only buttercream frosting anyone will ever need, as well as practical how-tos for making various types of butter at home --- or shopping for the best.

Scholars have long argued that the developmental state of the human infant at birth is unique. COSTLY AND CUTE expands that argument, pointing out that many distinctively human characteristics can be traced to the fact that we give birth to infants who are highly dependent on others and who learn how to be human while their brains are experiencing growth unlike that seen in other primates. The contributors to this volume take a broad look at how human infants are similar to and different from the infants of other species, how our babies have constrained our evolution over the past six million years, and how they continue to shape the ways we live today.

This new volume of Pat Conroy’s nonfiction brings together some of the most charming interviews, magazine articles, speeches and letters from his long literary career, many of them addressed directly to his readers with his habitual greeting, “Hey, out there.” Ranging across diverse subjects, such as favorite recent reads, the challenge of staying motivated to exercise, and processing the loss of dear friends, Conroy’s eminently memorable pieces offer a unique window into the life of a true titan of Southern writing.