Book picks similar to
The Incomplete Book of Failures: The Official Handbook of the Not-Terribly-Good Club by Stephen Pile
humor
trivia
did-not-keep
forgotten
The Dead Guy Interviews: Conversations with 45 of the Most Accomplished, Notorious, and Deceased Personalities in History
Michael A. Stusser - 2007
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
Rolling with the Punchlines: A Memoir
Urzila Carlson - 2020
Urzila talks candidly about her childhood with a great family, apart from her abusive dad, and about growing up in South Africa. She shares crazy but true tales about her OE, her move to New Zealand, coming out, getting married and having children, and her life in comedy. This is a great listen from one of our most loved and most popular comedians.
1500 General Knowledge Quiz Questions and Answers
Terry Dolan - 2012
1500 General Knowledge Quiz Questions and Answers100 x 15 questions together with answersWritten by a member of the High IQ Society MENSA
At the Coalface: Part 1 of 3: The memoir of a pit nurse
Joan Hart - 2015
This is the memoir of Joan, who started nursing in the 1940s and whose experiences took her into the Yorkshire mining pits and through the tumult of the 1984-85 miners’ strike.Joan Hart always knew what she wanted to do with her life. Born in South Yorkshire in 1932, she started her nursing training when she was 16, the youngest age girls could do so at the time. She continued working after she married and her work took her to London and Doncaster, caring for children and miners.When she took a job as a pit nurse in Doncaster in 1974, she found that in order to be accepted by the men under her care, she would have to become one of them. Most of the time rejecting a traditional nurse’s uniform and donning a baggy miner’s suit, pit boots, a hardhat and a headlamp, Joan resolved always to go down to injured miners and bring them out of the pit herself.Over 15 years Joan grew to know the miners not only as a nurse, but as a confidante and friend. She tended to injured miners underground, rescued men trapped in the pits, and provided support for them and their families during the bitter miners’ strike which stretched from March 1984 to 1985.Moving and uplifting, this is a story of one woman’s life, marriage and work; it is guaranteed to make readers laugh, cry, and smile.
Get Divorced, Be Happy: How becoming single turned out to be my happily ever after
Helen Thorn - 2021
Helen shares her own roller coaster journey from the initial shock of a surprise separation, the messy months hanging out in her PJs through to the highs of rediscovering online dating, tiny pants, rock-solid female friendships and the glorious joy of just being by herself.With the help of relationship experts and an army of women "who know", Get Divorced, Be Happy will show you that going it alone isn't the end, it is just the beginning, and you will come out the other side, stronger, happier and goddamn sassier than ever before.
The Bitter Man's Guide to Women
Adam Douglas - 2012
What this book lacks in length, it more than makes up for with ersatz knowledgeability and diagrams. Particularly helpful for guys who have just come out of a long term relationship - but also universally applicable.
The Legacy Letters: Messages of Life and Hope from 9/11 Family Members
Tuesday's Children - 2011
They are first- generation Americans, citizens of other nations, and lifelong New Yorkers. But they all share one thing: They honor their loved ones by living their lives with purpose, and a promise to never forget.These courageous family members share their grief and loss-and hope- speaking in their own words, with love, courage, and strength enough to inspire us all.
How to (Almost) Make Friends on the Internet
Michael Cunningham - 2020
And one very annoyed world.Based on the ingenious Sir Michael Twitter account, How to (Almost) Make Friends on the Internet is the funniest book you'll read this year.Whether it's offering his services as a Karate Lawyer or Funeral DJ, devising the world's worst plan to get a free haircut, or trying to buy a blue bucket that may or may not be for sale, Michael just wants to connect with people.The only problem is that people are slightly less enthusiastic about connecting with him, and the results are utterly hilarious.Warning: you'll never think about adding someone called Michael to a group chat the same way ever again.
The Little Book of Answers
Doug Lennox - 2009
we say, "I hear it thought the grape vine"?
golf assistants are called "caddies"?
there is a best man at weddings?
a leg injury is called a "Charlie horse"?
the British drive o the left and North American on the right?
a coward is "yellow"?
brides are carried over the threshold?
a formal suit is a "tuxedo"?
a lefthander is called a "southpaw"?
When the Fat Lady Sings: Opera History As It Ought To Be Taught
David W. Barber - 1990
Now, to celebrate a decade of delighting opera fans and foes alike, musical historian and humorist David Barber has prepared a special revised and expanded edition of his hilarious bestselling history of opera. Chapters such as Serious Buffoonery, Teutonic Tunesmiths and, of course, Italian Sausage Machines display Barber's rapier wit and knack for knowing fascinating, if sometimes useless, information about music, musicians and the offbeat world they live in. This expanded edition includes new material ranging from Strauss to ragtime, opera to the Tenor Menace. From Italian castrati to German Ring-bearers, from Handel's fights with rival sopranos to Puccini's nicotine habit, the author of Bach, Beethoven and the Boys and Tenors, Tantrums and Trills delivers a funny yet informative, irreverent yet affectionate history of serious music's most serious art form as only he can - and as only he would dare to do.
Air Mail: Letters From The World's Most Troublesome Passenger
Terry Ravenscroft - 2007
But are they? He is probably the only man who has ever requested the recipe for an airline’s lasagna or wanted to enjoy his flight with an inflatable rubber woman sat on his knee. Prepare to meet the man who must have his diet of stir-fried mulberry leaves accommodated and the man who left his false teeth on a flight and is sure he recognized them on a later flight—in a flight attendant's mouth. Ravenscroft's correspondence tackles travel annoyances like excess baggage charges alongside more surreal letters, such as the one starting out asking an Australian airline if they offer an authentic Australian experience (for instance, Australian cuisine or in-flight movies) which then moves on to the question of at what age a baby is safe from being swallowed by a dingo.
How to be a Brit: How to be an Alien, How to be Inimitable, How to be Decadent
George Mikes - 1986
The first of these came out in 1946: the ever famous "How to be an Alien." Later he enlarges the picture with "How to be inimitable" and "How to be Decadent." All three books were illustrated by the master of the cartoonists' art, the late Nicolas Bentley. Here they are, all in one volume, which will make life much easier for today's would-be Brits than it was for those who pervaded them. It is said that a few of the latter actually failed to become indistinguishable from the genuine British article because they found it too tiresome to seek out three separate books: a misfortune that need never again occur to anyone.
Running: Cheaper Than Therapy: A Celebration of Running
Chas Newkey-Burden - 2017
Written by a Telegraph and Guardian journalist and self-confessed running nut, this smartly packaged and brilliantly knowing miscellany details entertaining, real-life runners' stories (being overtaken by a kid/OAP or getting lost while training) and takes a humorous look at the mistakes runners make (wearing a brand new pair of trainers for half marathon or getting so pumped by your morning run you have arguments with everyone at work).
The Stupid Crook Book
Leland Gregory - 2002
The man admitted he had attempted to siphon gas from a motor home but inadvertently put the siphon tube in the wrong tank. Instead of gasoline, the man sucked out the contents of the sewage holding tank. If stupidity were lethal, all of the criminals highlighted in The Stupid Crook Book would be dead. This book from highly successful author Leland H. Gregory III captures hilarious tales of captured criminals who are so dumb you almost feel sorry for them. Almost. This lineup of criminal bozos includes: * Michael Anthony Silver, who made a $250 call to a 1-900 psychic hotline in the course of robbing a home. When the phone bill came later that month the homeowners called the police, who traced the call back to the hotline. It turns out Silver used his real name with the psychic.* A would-be bank robber who fainted when a bank teller told him she had no money. The police later found his getaway car and discovered the key locked inside it.* Tony Bariteau, who was arrested and pled guilty to breaking into the Deja Vu store in Troy, Alabama-twice! He was arrested because the same witness spotted him smashing the same window and stealing much of the same merchandise. Deja vu indeed.* A wanted fugitive from Maryland who was running low on cash and stopped by a police station in Texas to ask for gas money. The police saved him the expense and gave him a free ride back to prison.The Stupid Crook Book builds on the successful trail Gregory blazed with America's Dumbest Criminals, the book he coauthored that spent 17 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.Author's web site: www.realwacky.com/