Have you ever been at a party (or in a tutorial... same thing...) when someone brought up a peripheral topic -- not core to your usual research area, but apparently relevant to your studies? 

As a seasoned scholar who understands that knowledge doesn't live in isolated silos, you certainly want to learn a bit more about such peripheral topics. 

As always, though, time is tight. As much as you love the depth of the millions of books in our collection, you really just need a reasonably brief overview of the topic...

<Read on to learn about read-on-a-bus intros to complex topics!>