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Humor / Pop Culture
New York Times bestselling author and all-time Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings delivers a characteristically engaging and surprisingly useful new book, revealing the truth behind all the terrible things our parents used to warn us about. Don't cross your eyes or they'll stay like that! Feed a cold, starve a fever! Don't touch your Halloween candy until we get it checked out! Never run with scissors Don't look in the microwave while it's running! This will go down on your permanent record Is any of it true? If so, how true? Ken Jennings wants to find out if mother and father always know best. Yes, all those years you were told not to sit too close to the television (you'll hurt your eyes!) or swallow your gum (it stays in your stomach for seven years!) or crack your knuckles (arthritis!) are called into question by our country's leading trivia guru. Jennings separates myth from fact to debunk a wide variety of parental edicts: no swimming after meals, sit up straight, don't talk to strangers, and so on. Armed with medical case histories, scientific findings, and even the occasional experiment on himself (or his kids), Jennings exposes countless examples of parental wisdom run amok. Whether you're a parent who wants to know what you can stop worrying about or a kid (of any age) looking to say, "I told you so," this is the anti-helicopter parenting book you've been waiting for.
Fatherhood is full of ups and downs, quirks and crises. But there is always humor to be found! Featuring 60 all-new cartoons from Andy Riley, Beer Makes Daddy Strong shows the world just how great dads can be: Daddy knows all the best car games (Who can stay quiet the longest?), likes to show off his scars (that he may or may not have obtained while running with the bulls in Spain), and is a great cook (when Spaghetti Bolognese is on the menu). Witty and wise, this affectionate tribute is a celebration of fatherhood and all of its joys, confusion, humor, and, of course, beer.
For nearly a hundred years, young women have competed for the title of Miss America--although what it means to wear the crown and be our "ideal" has changed dramatically over time. The Miss America Pageant began as a bathing beauty contest in 1920s Atlantic City, New Jersey, sponsored by businessmen trying to extend the tourist season beyond Labor Day. In the post-World War II years, the pageant evolved into a national coronation of an idealized "girl next door," as pretty and decorous as she was rarely likely to speak her mind on issues of substance. Since the cultural upheavals of the 1960s, the pageant has struggled to find a balance between beauty and brains as it tries to remain relevant to women who aspire to become leaders in the community, not hot babes in swimsuits. In Being Miss America, Kate Shindle interweaves an engrossing, witty memoir of her year as Miss America 1998 with a fascinating and insightful history of the pageant. She explores what it means to take on the mantle of America's "ideal," especially considering the evolution of the American female identity since the pageant's inception. Shindle profiles winners and organization leaders and recounts important moments in the pageant's story, with a special focus on Miss America's iconoclasts, including Bess Myerson (1945), the only Jewish Miss America; Yolande Betbeze (1951), who crusaded against the pageant's pinup image; and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko (1987), a working-class woman from Michigan who wanted to merge her famous title with her work as an oncology nurse. Shindle's own account of her work as an AIDS activist--and finding ways to circumvent the "gown and crown" stereotypes of Miss America in order to talk honestly with high school students about safer sex--illuminates both the challenges and the opportunities that keep young women competing to become Miss America.
A Killing the Buddha Anthology The second collection to spring from KillingTheBuddha.com, Believer, Beware presents true tales of sex ed in Catholic school, witches in Kansas, sects and the city, Buddhists in the barbershop, Sufis under your nose, an adolescent Jewish messiah in Queens, and more. In a world riven by absolute convictions, these ambivalent confessions, skeptical testimonies, and personal revelations speak to the subtler and stranger dilemmas of faith and doubt-of religion lost and found and lost again.
Hang on to your hats! We're in for some fiercely funny weather and crackling-sharp observations from Celia Rivenbark, of whom USA Today has said, Think Dave Barry with a female point of view. With her incomparable style and sassy southern wit, you'll hear from Celia on:
- The joys of remodeling Tara- How Harry Potter bitch-slaps Nancy Drew
- Britney's To-Do list: pick okra, cover that thang up
- How rugby-playing lesbians torpedoed beach day
- Why French women suck at competitive eating
- The truth about nature deficit disorder
- The difference between cockroaches and water bugs
- The beauty of Bedazzlers
- And much, much more! Whether she's doing her taxes or extolling the virtues of Madonna's mothering skills, Celia Rivenbark will keep you laughing until the very last page.
Trained as a photographer, Terry Border left the commercial world for story-telling. His complex vignettes are made of the simplest, everyday items: a jar of spices, a cigarette stub, a flower, a snack food. These sly photos range from whimsical scenes to sexy scenarios, the sad truths to the hilarious happenings in everyday life. In the tradition of bestselling humorous photography books like Chicks with Baggage, Play with Your Food, and Hello Cupcake!, this volume will surprise you with every viewing. A sunflower missing a petal becomes the tortured artist Van Gogh; an egg arrives to visit his mom only to discover roast chicken on the table; when confronted by a jar of peanut butter, peanuts hold a wake; and hot dogs leave behind their own brand of little presents. Marshmallows, wine corks, bread, soap, rocks, and tea bags--no common household item is safe from the twisted (wire) mind behind these uncommon creations!
A collection of the greatest writing in the American literary canon: email correspondences. From the eerie chain letters forwarded from your aunt to the slyly persuasive emails of Russian black market pharmacists, we scoured inboxes far and wide for this satire of literary collections and flagged a new selection of timeless gems.
The Best American Emails identifies the most poignant and challenging sweaty job queries, awkward breakups, impotent death threats, and more. This collection is edited by author and renowned email receiver Amanda Meadows.
The Best American Emails identifies the most poignant and challenging sweaty job queries, awkward breakups, impotent death threats, and more. This collection is edited by author and renowned email receiver Amanda Meadows.
Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind.
Dave Eggers, who edits The Best American Nonrequired Reading annually, has once again chosen the best and least-expected contemporary fiction, nonfiction, satire, investigative reporting, alternative comics, and more from publications large, small, and on-line -- Zoetrope, Tin House, the Atlantic Monthly, Bomb, SPX, the New York Times, Texas Monthly, GQ, Iowa Review, Esquire, and others. Read on for "some of the best literature you haven't been reading . . . and it's fantastic. All of it" (St. Petersburg Times).
Dave Eggers, who edits The Best American Nonrequired Reading annually, has once again chosen the best and least-expected contemporary fiction, nonfiction, satire, investigative reporting, alternative comics, and more from publications large, small, and on-line -- Zoetrope, Tin House, the Atlantic Monthly, Bomb, SPX, the New York Times, Texas Monthly, GQ, Iowa Review, Esquire, and others. Read on for "some of the best literature you haven't been reading . . . and it's fantastic. All of it" (St. Petersburg Times).
Come spend some time in Liz Climo's world! The artist and popular blogger returns with another collection of her comics--this time following the seasons with her most beloved characters. Fans love Liz Climo's charmingly funny animal kingdom, which was first featured in The Little World of Liz Climo and Lobster is the Best Medicine. Best Bear Ever! follows Bear and Rabbit, along with their other friends (including Otter, Sloth, Skunk, and Turtle), to commemorate special days throughout the year, while also embarking on fun adventures to celebrate the seasons. When you have good pals like these, any time of year can be the BEST EVER!
As Oscar Levant said many years ago, "A pun is the lowest form of wit, especially if you didn't think of it first." In this lively collection you'll find a hilarious abundance of pun-ishment for the millions who can't resist giving a word or phrase a twist... and ammunition for many occasions from movie, TV and theatre wags; from the wits of Wall Street and Washington... the gems from poets and pundits and some of the bottom-of-the-barrel crumbs!
Golf is like taxes. You drive hard to get to the green and wind up in the hole.
A monastery in financial trouble decided to go into the fish-and-chips industry to raise revenues. One night a customer knocked on the door and a monk answered. "Are you the fishfriar?" the customer asked. "No," the robed figurereplied, "I'm the chipmonk."
The book also contains a PUNdix, a PUNabridged dictionary and a collection of the best... and worst... jokes in the world!
Capturing centuries of rhythmic wisdom just in time for Saturday night, this must-have compendium of classic dance moves and exciting new gyrations is cause for footloose celebration. Here are the illustrated, step-by-step moves for 100 hot-blooded hipshakers sure to please veteran groove-machines as well as those with two left feet. With easy-to-follow guides for the Robot, Running Man, Cabbage Patch, Smurf, Hustle, Funky Chicken, Moonwalk, and dozens of other bustable maneuvers, plus inspiration, suitable music, and special advice for each dance, this fun and stylish guide is the key to walking like an Egyptian or breaking it down like Napoleon Dynamite.
Now in its landmark fifth year, Da Capo Best Music Writing has become one of the most eagerly awaited annuals of them all. Celebrating the year in music writing by gathering a rich array of essays, missives, and musings on every style of music from rock to hip-hop to R&B to jazz and more, it is essential reading for anyone who loves great music and accomplished writing. Scribes of every imaginable sort-novelists, poets, journalists, musicians-are gathered to create a multi-voiced snapshot of the year in music writing.Past contributors have included: Lynn Hirschberg * Chuck Klosterman * Elizabeth Gilbert * Jay McInerney * Elvis Costello * Susan Orlean * Jonathan Lethem * Lorraine Ali * Greil Marcus * Richard Meltzer * Robert Gordon * Sarah Vowell * Nick Tosches * Anthony DeCurtis * William Gay * Whitney Balliett * Lester Bangs * Rosanne Cash * Eddie Dean * Selwyn Seyfu Hinds * Alec Wilkinson * David Hadju * Lenny Kaye * The Onion * Gary Giddins * Luc Sante * Monica Kendrick * Kalefa Sanneh
Back in 1998, the internet was young and wild and free. Along with listservs, pornography, and listservs dedicated to pornography, there was a website that ran all its articles in the same font and within abnormally narrow margins. This site was called McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and many dozens of people read it. Now, fifteen years later, most of those readers have died, but the Tendency still exists, publishing, every day, quasi-humor writing in the same font within the same abnormally narrow margins. The site has no ads, and no revenue prospects, and thus, every year or so, we collect some of the site's better material and attempt to trick readers into paying for a curated, glued-together version of what is available online for free. This collection is the best and most brazen of such attempts. Please enjoy it, after you have paid for it.
Featuring: ?It's Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers!" ?What I Would Be Thinking About if I Were Billy Joel Driving Toward a Holiday Party Where I Knew There Was Going to Be a Piano" ?I Regret to Inform You That My Wedding to Captain Von Trapp Has Been Canceled" ?Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition)" ?In Which I Fix My Girlfriend's
"Genius... It is miraculous to read these pieces... You must read The Best of Me." --Andrew Sean Greer, New York Times Book Review A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A CNN and Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Month For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing. Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler's lap. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say "give it to me" in five languages, and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird. But if all you expect to find in Sedaris's work is the deft and sharply observed comedy for which he became renowned, you may be surprised to discover that his words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision. Nowhere is this clearer than in his writing about his loved ones. In these pages, Sedaris explores falling in love and staying together, recognizing his own aging not in the mirror but in the faces of his siblings, losing one parent and coming to terms--at long last--with the other. Taken together, the stories in TheBest of Me reveal the wonder and delight Sedaris takes in the surprises life brings him. No experience, he sees, is quite as he expected--it's often harder, more fraught, and certainly weirder--but sometimes it is also much richer and more wonderful. Full of joy, generosity, and the incisive humor that has led David Sedaris to be called "the funniest man alive" (Time Out New York), The Best of Me spans a career spent watching and learning and laughing--quite often at himself--and invites readers deep into the world of one of the most brilliant and original writers of our time.
A CNN and Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Month For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing. Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler's lap. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say "give it to me" in five languages, and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird. But if all you expect to find in Sedaris's work is the deft and sharply observed comedy for which he became renowned, you may be surprised to discover that his words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision. Nowhere is this clearer than in his writing about his loved ones. In these pages, Sedaris explores falling in love and staying together, recognizing his own aging not in the mirror but in the faces of his siblings, losing one parent and coming to terms--at long last--with the other. Taken together, the stories in TheBest of Me reveal the wonder and delight Sedaris takes in the surprises life brings him. No experience, he sees, is quite as he expected--it's often harder, more fraught, and certainly weirder--but sometimes it is also much richer and more wonderful. Full of joy, generosity, and the incisive humor that has led David Sedaris to be called "the funniest man alive" (Time Out New York), The Best of Me spans a career spent watching and learning and laughing--quite often at himself--and invites readers deep into the world of one of the most brilliant and original writers of our time.
(Signature Licks Guitar). Learn the trademark acoustic guitar elements of rock's most influential band! This book with online audio files by guitar dean Wolf Marshall provides in-depth analysis of 21 songs, including: Across the Universe * And I Love Her * Blackbird * Girl * Here Comes the Sun * Hey Jude * I Will * I've Just Seen a Face * Julia * Norwegian Wood * Rocky Raccoon * Til There Was You * Yesterday * You've Got to Hide Your Love Away * and more.
The best of the worst: these cartoons rejected by The New Yorker were deemed too dumb, too weird, or too naughty--but not for lack of laughs! Every week, hundreds and hundreds of cartoons pour into The New Yorker. Most are rejected. Doesn't matter how big a deal the cartoonist is, either. Roz Chast, David Sipress, Kim Warp, Sam gross, Ed Steed, Emily Flake, Navied Mahdavian, or Mary Lawton--if the work in question is too weird, too naughty, too juvenile, or too dark, it's out. Luckily for us, Matthew Diffee has been bravely sifting through the circular file to rescue the best of the worst.
Here are 297 cartoons in a revised second edition featuring more than 50 new cartoons--even better, even worse! The cartoon set-ups may be familiar--a couple in bed, a few people stranded on a desert island, a doctor and patient in an examining room--but the joke are anything but, with twists so unexpected, you can't help but laugh out loud.
Here are 297 cartoons in a revised second edition featuring more than 50 new cartoons--even better, even worse! The cartoon set-ups may be familiar--a couple in bed, a few people stranded on a desert island, a doctor and patient in an examining room--but the joke are anything but, with twists so unexpected, you can't help but laugh out loud.
A New York Times bestseller--a brilliantly funny exploration of the Sunshine State from the man who knows it best: Pulitzer Prize winner Dave Barry. We never know what will happen next in Florida. We know only that, any minute now, something will. Every few months, Dave Barry gets a call from some media person wanting to know, "What the hell is wrong with Florida?" Somehow, the state's acquired an image as a subtropical festival of stupid, and as a loyal Floridian, Dave begs to differ. Join him as he goes in hunt of the legendary Skunk Ape; hobnobs with the mermaids of Weeki Wachee Springs; and visits Cassadaga, the psychic capital of the world, to have his dog's aura read (apparently, she's "very spiritual"). Hitch a ride for the non-stop thrills of alligator-wrestling ("the gators display the same fighting spirit as a Barcalounger"), the hair-raising spectacle of a clothing-optional bar in Key West, and the manly manliness of the Machine Gun Experience in Miami. It's the most hilarious book yet from "the funniest damn writer in the whole country" (Carl Hiaasen, and he should know). By the end, you'll have to admit that whatever else you might think about Florida--you can never say it's boring.