SWEET THURSDAY (273 pp.)—John Steinbeck—Viking ($3.50). John Steinbeck respects the underdog, but he melts uncontrollably before a no-good, boozed-up bum. His sentimental eulogies of riffraff began with his first successful book. Tortilla Flat (1935), continued in Cannery Row (1945), and appear again in Sweet Thursday, which is really a return visit to Cannery Row. It reads like stuff that has been salvaged from the wastebasket. All the characters in Sweet Thursday (who live in Monterey, Calif.

Brendan O'Sullivan / Getty Images Websites and blogs that support anorexia — known as pro-ana sites — have been widely banned online by the likes of Pinterest, Yahoo and Tumblr. For anyone who’s ever visited a pro-ana site, the reason is clear: the content exchanged in these online communities is often shocking. They use images of emaciated models and celebrities as “thinspiration” for vulnerable girls, and include frank discussions on the best methods for achieving extreme weight loss.

October 10, 2014 4:43 PM EDT In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, or at least, that’s what they told you in Kindergarten class. In fact, that’s probably all you really remember about the Genoa-born explorer, Christopher Columbus — and only when Columbus Day rolls around, if you’re fortunate enough to get a day off for it (Only 23 states give their workers a paid day off to celebrate it, according to a 2013 Pew poll).

Every Nigerian who just read that knows what it’s about. So commonly have these words been said that nothing needs to be added to them before the message comes across to the reader very clearly. Those four words have somehow defined what too many women look for in a guy when the time comes to date or choose a life partner. The average Nigerian woman who is yet to find the bone of her bone knows this all too well.

TIME June 29, 1981 12:00 AM EDT The ultimate cologne Human sweat will certainly attract mosquitoes, but will it also lure members of the opposite sex? That hardly seems to be a gripping question for a perfume company. But Jovan Inc. of Chicago (1980 sales: $120 million) currently is thinking about little else. In 1972 the company scored a hit with Musk Oil, a fragrance for which it claimed almost mystical powers of “animal arousal.