Harpignies argues convincingly that many of the unspoken assumptions underlying the media's discourse about society are at serious odds with the reality of modern lives. He offers compelling evidence that people are collectively far less sane, far more corruptible, and zanier than they generally admit.

The Magic Carpet Ride is the autobiography of a man who has been on a highly unusual musical and life odyssey for the last 80 plus years. Born in East Harlem in 1930 to Armenian parents who had fled the genocide, Souren Baronian grew up surrounded by traditional Armenian and Middle Eastern and Balkan music at home and got swept up in the golden age of jazz all around him, awed by Lester Young and Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker and company that he snuck into the 52nd Street clubs to see. After his return from being in the army in Korea (a wild episode), he began intensive studies with...