Jammed with exclusive new artwork, including the first ever strip to star 2D, Noodle, Murdoc Niccals and Russel Hobbs; puzzles, games and more; plus a raft of special guest appearances from Gorillaz collaborators past and present, the Gorillaz Almanac is a compendium of delights which finally puts the most real band around on the printed page.

    I am the danger.”With those words, Breaking Bad’s Walter White solidified himself as TV’s greatest antihero and captured the attention of fans everywhere. Wanna Cook? takes an extensive look at the most critically lauded series on television with analyses of individual episodes as well as ongoing storylines. Exploring the entire series, from Walt's beginnings as a small-time meth peddler to the infamous Heisenberg, readers will get a sense of just how brilliant and calculated Breaking Bad actually is.Meticulously considering everything from details like stark settings, intricate camerawork, and jarring music to the larger themes, including the roles of violence, morality, and self-change, this companion offers indispensable insight into this complex show. Elucidating without spoiling or nitpicking, there's no need for any fan to tread lightly through this thought-provoking and must-have companion book.

    But as the gaming industry grows in numerous directions and everyone talks about the advance of the moment, few explore and seek to understand the forces behind this profound evolution. How did we get from Space Invaders to Grand Theft Auto? How exactly did gaming become a $50 billion industry and a dominant pop culture form? What are the stories, the people, the innovations, and the fascinations behind this incredible growth?Through extensive interviews with gaming's greatest innovators, both its icons and those unfairly forgotten by history, All Your Base Are Belong To Us sets out to answer these questions, exposing the creativity, odd theories--and passion--behind the twenty-first century's fastest-growing medium.Go inside the creation of: Grand Theft Auto * World of Warcraft * Bioshock * Kings Quest * Bejeweled * Madden Football * Super Mario Brothers * Myst * Pong * Donkey Kong * Crash Bandicoot * The 7th Guest * Tetris * Shadow Complex * Everquest * The Sims * And many more!

    Clearly, geeks know something about life in the 21st century that other folks don’t—something we all can learn from. Geek Wisdom takes as gospel some 200 of the most powerful and oft-cited quotes from movies (“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads”), television (“Now we know—and knowing is half the battle”), literature (“All that is gold does not glitter”), games, science, the Internet, and more. Now these beloved pearls of modern-day culture have been painstakingly interpreted by a diverse team of hardcore nerds with their imaginations turned up to 11. Yes, this collection of mini-essays is by, for, and about geeks—but it’s just so surprisingly profound, the rest of us would have to be dorks not to read it. So say we all.

    

    So the next night at her catering job she pretends not to be interested when Gavin, a hot guy with a great smile who attends the very exclusive Moorhurst College, asks her out. Unable to resist his charm, she agrees to have dinner with him.After their first date, Kate’s convinced Gavin’s too good to be true. Funny, sweet, smart, and easy to talk to, he’s nothing like the losers she’s dated in the past. But maybe her luck has changed. Maybe Gavin’s the guy she’s been waiting for.As their relationship grows, Gavin proves he really is the guy Kate’s always wanted but didn’t think existed. She’s even started thinking about a future with him. But those plans come to an abrupt halt when Kate sees something she shouldn’t. Something dark and disturbing. Something that could get her killed if she ever told anyone.Kate’s desperate to tell Gavin her secret but can’t. Even if she did, he’d never believe her. Still, she can’t keep something this big from Gavin, especially when he’s involved in it. Will she risk her life and tell him the truth? Or risk their relationship and keep this secret from the man she loves?(Book one of a two-book story)

     Music critic Matthew Guerrieri reaches back before Beethoven’s time to examine what might have influenced him in writing his Fifth Symphony, and forward into our own time to describe the ways in which the Fifth has, in turn, asserted its influence. He uncovers possible sources for the famous opening notes in the rhythms of ancient Greek poetry and certain French Revolutionary songs and symphonies. Guerrieri confirms that, contrary to popular belief, Beethoven was not deaf when he wrote the Fifth. He traces the Fifth’s influence in China, Russia, and the United States (Emerson and Thoreau were passionate fans) and shows how the masterpiece was used by both the Allies and the Nazis in World War II. Altogether, a fascinating piece of musical detective work—a treat for music lovers of every stripe.

    Money, cars, fame, women— he’s living the life of a rockstar. As with anything in life, all good things come to the end of its cycle, and God takes you off of a path so that you can begin anew. Devin stops getting booked for shows, and it causes a ripple affect on his life. Now unable to take care of his family, he turns to heavy drug use to take his mind off of the pain. When the money stops flowing, all of the love that he thought was genuine, doesn’t exist at all. Scandal after scandal surfaces on all of the major blog sites, allegations and rumors, liens from the IRS, and now rumors of his ties to murder for hire plots has him mentally defeated. It’s just him against the world until he meets and helps Ashlon when she too was down and out. A good girl with problems of her own, Ashlon understands him in a way that nobody else cares to. She vows to do all she can to help him the same way that he helped her when nobody else would. The question is... can Devin escape his spiraling rollercoaster of drug and alcohol addiction enough to help himself? Can he defeat his demons and pull back to reality long enough to accept help? Or will the devil continue to break and take him under? Certified tear-jerker based on a true story. This is a story of addiction and redemption, of overcoming some of life’s most overwhelming obstacles with the help of God and his most qualified angels. –An intimate portrait of a boy becoming a man right before your very eyes. Author David Weaver pens a riveting drama that is sure to become a staple in your African American romance and biography collection.

    And Taylor knows how to sin. As a small-town hero in the early '90s, he threw himself into a fierce-drinking, drug-abusing, hard-loving, live-for-the moment life. Soon Taylor's music exploded, and he found himself rich, wanted, and on the road. His new and ever-more extreme lifestyle had an unexpected effect, however; for the first time, he began to actively think about what it meant to sin and whether sinning could--or should--be recast in a different light. Seven Deadly Sins is Taylor's personal story, but it's also a larger discussion of what it means to be seen as either a "good" person or a "bad" one. Yes, Corey Taylor has broken the law and hurt people, but, if sin is what makes us human, how wrong can it be?

    William Waldorf Astor (born 1848) and his cousin John Jacob Astor IV (born 1864) led incomparably privileged lives in the blaze of public attention. Novelist, sportsman, and inventor, John Jacob went down with the Titanic, after turbulent marital adventures and service in the Spanish-American War. Collector of art, antiquities, and stately homes, William Waldorf became a British subject and acquired the title of Viscount Astor. In New York during the 1890s and after, the two feuding Astors built monumental grand hotels, chief among them the original Waldorf-Astoria on lower Fifth Avenue. The Astor hotels transformed social behavior. Home of the chafing dish and the velvet rope, the Waldorf-Astoria drew the rich, famous, and fashionable. It was the setting for the most notorious society event of the era—a costume extravaganza put on by its hosts during a time of widespread need and unemployment. The celebrity-packed lobbies, public rooms, lavish suites, and exclusive restaurants of the grand hotels became distinctive theaters of modern life.

    A prequel and sequel to the 1933 novel that introduced King Kong blends the talents of a renowned fantasy artist with those of a top science fiction writer to create a worthy and long-awaited successor to the Depression-era fantasy that spawned numerous feature-length films.

    More important, she earned her own keep, controlled her own destiny, and secured liberties that modern women take for granted. Her newfound freedom heralded a radical change in American culture.Whisking us from the Alabama country club where Zelda Sayre first caught the eye of F. Scott Fitzgerald to Muncie, Indiana, where would-be flappers begged their mothers for silk stockings, to the Manhattan speakeasies where patrons partied till daybreak, historian Joshua Zeitz brings the era to exhilarating life. This is the story of America’s first sexual revolution, its first merchants of cool, its first celebrities, and its most sparkling advertisement for the right to pursue happiness.The men and women who made the flapper were a diverse lot. There was Coco Chanel, the French orphan who redefined the feminine form and silhouette, helping to free women from the torturous corsets and crinolines that had served as tools of social control. Three thousand miles away, Lois Long, the daughter of a Connecticut clergyman, christened herself “Lipstick” and gave New Yorker readers a thrilling entrée into Manhattan’s extravagant Jazz Age nightlife.In California, where orange groves gave way to studio lots and fairytale mansions, three of America’s first celebrities—Clara Bow, Colleen Moore, and Louise Brooks, Hollywood’s great flapper triumvirate—fired the imaginations of millions of filmgoers.Dallas-born fashion artist Gordon Conway and Utah-born cartoonist John Held crafted magazine covers that captured the electricity of the social revolution sweeping the United States.Bruce Barton and Edward Bernays, pioneers of advertising and public relations, taught big business how to harness the dreams and anxieties of a newly industrial America—and a nation of consumers was born.Towering above all were Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, whose swift ascent and spectacular fall embodied the glamour and excess of the era that would come to an abrupt end on Black Tuesday, when the stock market collapsed and rendered the age of abundance and frivolity instantly obsolete.With its heady cocktail of storytelling and big ideas, Flapper is a dazzling look at the women who launched the first truly modern decade.

    The umbrella becomes her constant companion and protector. But there are others, in the village, who would also like the umbrella for their own and will go to great lengths to get it.Sita lives with her grandparents on a tiny island in the middle of a river. One day, when her grandparents are away the river begins to rise. The friendly stretch of water becomes an angry, rushing flood and Sita watches as her beloved home is washed away. Will she be able to save herself?The Blue Umbrella and The Angry River, two wonderful stories from one of India's most loved storywriters, Ruskin Bond.

    The summer months of 1776 witnessed the most consequential events in the story of our country’s founding. While the thirteen colonies came together and agreed to secede from the British Empire, the British were dispatching the largest armada ever to cross the Atlantic to crush the rebellion in the cradle. The Continental Congress and the Continental Army were forced to make decisions on the run, improvising as history congealed around them. In a brilliant and seamless narrative, Ellis meticulously examines the most influential figures in this propitious moment, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Britain’s Admiral Lord Richard and General William Howe. He weaves together the political and military experiences as two sides of a single story, and shows how events on one front influenced outcomes on the other.Revolutionary Summer tells an old story in a new way, with a freshness at once colorful and compelling.

    Written by Yvette Fernandez and illustrated by Nicole Lim, Princess Lea narrates how Lea went from a six-year-old who landed a part in a local production of The King and I to an internationally renowned performer who has starred as Kim in Miss Saigon, Eponine and Fantine in Les Miserables, and Mei-Li in Flower Drum Song; won honors from the US’ Tony Awards and the UK’s Laurence Olivier Awards; and sung for six Philippine presidents, three American presidents, and the Queen of England. To encourage aspiring young entertainers to reach for their dreams, Princess Lea also lets readers in on common terms in the performing industry and imparts the lessons Lea has learned throughout her journey to becoming a singing superstar.