Overlooked for centuries, our simple dictionaries, spellers, almanacs, and how-to manuals are the unexamined touchstones for American cultures and customs. While profiling the authors and their reading public, Jess McHugh explores how we have been shaped by such books as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Webster's Dictionary, Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, the McGuffey Reader, and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask).