Each chapter of this book focuses on a type of logology, or wordplay, such as palindromes, homophones and anagrams. Evans also discusses the linguistic talents of scholars, authors and especially comedians. Woody Allen, Groucho Marx and Stephen Colbert all make appearances in the chapter on sentences and phrases with unexpected endings, known in the world of wordplay as paraprosdokians (Greek for "beyond expectation").

This lyrical novel tells the story of a woman's self-imposed solitude. Amelia, a mathematics professor, is separated from her husband and spending the winter in a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains with only her dogs for company. By writing letters to her mother, who died when she was a girl, Amelia tries to make sense of her life, nearly descending into madness in the process.

Sociologist Matthew Hughey spent more than a year studying a white nationalist group and a white antiracist group by attending their meetings, reading their literature and spending time with members and their families. Hughey came to an unexpected realization: although the two groups are incredibly different socially, they construct their white racial identities in similar ways.