Based on his column in the acclaimed magazine "mental_floss," this collection of conversations is incredibly funny, but each interview is also based on serious research, so in addition to laughing, readers actually learn real history. "The Dead Guy Interviews" includes discussions with: Alexander the Great Beethoven Napol?on Bonaparte Buddha Julius Caesar Caligula George Washington Carver Catherine the Great Winston Churchill Cleopatra Confucius Crazy Horse Salvador Dal? Charles Darwin Emily Dickinson Albert Einstein Benjamin Franklin Sigmund Freud Genghis Khan Vincent van Gogh Henry VIII J. Edgar Hoover Harry Houdini Thomas Jefferson Joan of Arc Robert Johnson Frida Kahlo Leonardo da Vinci Abraham Lincoln Mao Tse-tung Karl Marx Michelangelo Montezuma Mozart Nostradamus Edgar Allan Poe William Shakespeare Sun Tzu Mae West Oscar Wilde

    The pieces that comprise Non-Fiction prove just how different, in ways both highly entertaining and deeply unsettling. Encounters with alternative culture heroes Marilyn Manson and Juliette Lewis; the peculiar wages of fame attendant on the big budget film production of the movie Fight Club; life as an assembly-line drive train installer by day, hospice volunteer driver by night; the really peculiar lives of submariners; the really violent world of college wrestlers; the underground world of anabolic steroid gobblers; the harrowing circumstances of his father's murder and the trial of his killer - each essay or vignette offers a unique facet of existence as lived in and/or observed by one of America's most flagrantly daring and original literary talents.

    Its Philosophy 101 for everyone who knows not to take all this heavy stuff too seriously. Some of the Big Ideas are Existentialism (what do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common?), Philosophy of Language (how to express what its like being stranded on a desert island with Halle Berry), Feminist Philosophy (why, in the end, a man is always a man), and much more. Finally it all makes sense!

    O’Rourke has had a prolific career as one of America’s most celebrated humorists. But that career almost didn’t happen. As he tells it, “I began to write for pay in the spring of 1970. To tell the truth I didn’t even mean to be a writer, I meant to be a race car driver, but I didn’t have a race car.”Fortunately for us, he had to settle for writing. From his early pieces for the National Lampoon, through his classic reporting as Rolling Stone’s International Affairs editor in the 80s and 90s, and his brilliant, inimitable political journalism and analysis, P.J. has been entertaining and provoking readers with high octane prose, a gonzo Republican attitude and a rare ability to make you laugh out loud. Chris Buckley once described his work as “S.J. Perlman on acid” and when Penguin first published its Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations PJ had more entries than any living writer.For the first time Thrown Under the Omnibus brings together his funniest, most outrageous, most controversial and most loved pieces in the definitive P.J. reader. Handpicked and introduced by the humorist himself, Thrown Under the Omnibus is the essential P.J. O’Rourke anthology.

    Drawing from anthropology, history, contemporary events, popular culture, and the author’s field experiences and travels, the essays draw connections between nature and culture, self and society, the local and the global, as well as the past and the present in order to arrive at a deeper, fuller, critical, yet hopeful view of a country that is larger than many imagine it to be.Published in 2020.

    But their last breakup was devastating. It was enough to make Grace want to run him over in her pale pink Beetle. She even composed 12 steps to quitting him, which wasn’t easy because he admittedly was her first love—the boy she lost her heart to when she was still collecting Hello Kitty stationeries; the boy she never stopped loving since. But something happens that changes Grace’s life forever. Now it’s time for her to reevaluate everything she has going for her and make a decision. Is this the end of Grace’s life as she knows it? Or is she finally going to have the happy ending she so desperately needs?

    But as it is often said nothing ever really happened unless it is written down. There are so many stories to tell of the agonies and triumphs of both doctors and patients, who have peopled this venerable institution through the ages. I wrote the stories because I firmly believe that healing is a mutual process; that the healer is very often himself healed as he goes about caring for the ailing person. So the stories bite both ways.”

    A country of “yellow fever” victimsAs the elitist image of the Aquino regime permeated society as a whole, its propaganda experts began to shape the political landscape as well, and transformed most of the unsuspecting citizens into consumers of its own brand of illiberal democracy symbolized by the yellow banner, the yellow ribbon, and the yellow confetti.Arillo’s Greed & Betrayal relived the events that marked the Aquino regime’s bungled presidency and how it systematically and repeatedly blamed Marcos, Enrile, Honasan, Laurel, Mitra, and others as the all-purpose excuse to hide its own incompetence, failures, and perfidy.This book also inspired the writing of Arillo's latest book, A Country Imperiled: Tragic Lessons of a Distorted History.

    How to be really wealthy in all areas of life.

    You’re my future partner 2. I’m famous and my writings have been immortalized 3. You’ve violated my privacy and these are not meant for you Let’s hope it’s not the last one. Before this year, I had my life all planned out. This book contains the story of the year that changed my life (well, my life so far). It’s the year I learned how to be invincible. That wasn’t really specific, but I guess you have to read on to see what I’m talking about. Love, Camille

    Throughout these pages, she catalogs her encounters with local eccentrics as well as the questions that plague her, such as, "What is the standard length of eyebrow hairs?" Whether she's helping someone scan his face onto an online dating site or explaining why the library doesn't have any dragon autobiographies, Sheridan's bizarre tales prove that she's truly seen it all.Stacked high with hundreds of strange-but-true stories, I Work at a Public Library celebrates librarians and the unforgettable patrons that roam the stacks every day.

    Here in this starkly beautiful volume, she has discovered a language sufficient to the terrors and the joys of the contemporary. The highest praise that can be given to any work of literature—and Dark Hours is most surely literature—is that it is contemporary. This is a very remarkable book.”—Lynn Emanuel

    After sorting out the labels Black, English Whites, Afrikaners, and Coloreds, the discussion pushes on to more difficult questions: Why should you never give a White woman a white-gold engagement ring? Why do Indian men always play sports in jeans? and How do Colored gangsters fare in the navy?

    I should not line dance under the influence, and I think we both know that now. I owe you for letting me borrow that really expensive evening clutch with the feathers. I had no idea puppies liked feathers.I owe you for that really poor financial advice I gave to you. It was loud on the subway, but I thought I heard that guy in the suit say, "Buy Enron." I owe you for Brad. Let's not talk about him ever again. You're smart. You're funny. You text just the right amount. You're the one person who tells my about the thing in my teeth without sounding just a little bit superior. You're the best. You're the Best is a thank-you note to female friends, the women we call when the best things in our lives happen—or the worst. Written by two generations of Satellite Sisters, this beautifully packaged hardcover book explores how we rely on our friends to get us up, get us going, get us through, and, most importantly, get us laughing. It makes a superb gift for friends, sisters, mothers, daughters, and granddaughters.The Satellite Sisters—Julie, Liz, Sheila, Monica, and Lian Dolan—are five sisters who believe that a sense of connection is what gives meaning to our lives. The Dolan sisters created Satellite Sisters first as a nationwide radio show and website. Now, the Satellite Sisters connect with a blog, a podcast, books, personal appearances, and social media; joining them regularly are their cadre of twenty-something nieces. After winning twelve Gracie Allen Awards for excellence in women's media, they still have plenty more to say.

    Santos has presented what may well be the essence of those years - the loneliness and hunger of a people who were almost all of them hurt and broken to the bone. But for an ideal, which Santos so eloquently dramatizes in this book, they would have lost their very souls. In this sense YOU LOVELY PEOPLE is a document and at once a portrait of the Filipino heart.