Book picks similar to
The Big Book of Interesting Stuff by Michael Hopkins
non-fiction
nonfiction
humor
ebook
Ghosts in the Forest (Kindle Single)
Corinne Purtill - 2015
They did not know that the war they were fleeing had in fact ended—25 years earlier. Corinne Purtill was one of the first journalists to meet the families upon their incredible return to society. Years later she returned to Cambodia to learn the truth about their time on the run. What she found was a darker and more complicated tale than the one they first shared, a story of terror, isolation, fierce loyalty, appalling choices and murder. The result is a story that examines the unyielding human need for family and connection and the meaning of survival. Corinne Purtill is a journalist who has reported around the world for publications including Quartz, GlobalPost, CNN, Salon and the Cambodia Daily. She lives in California with her family. Cover design by Hannah Perrine Mode
Teaching Frankenstein: A Cautionary Tale
Viktor James - 2018
But you won’t find it here. Dark, profane, and absurd, this comedy follows the journey of a young teacher on a misguided adventure to resurrect dead dreams. After being let go from his first school, the nameless narrator finds himself at a tough urban high school ready to quit. He decides that the only way to rekindle his passion for teaching is through his favorite novel. It’s a decision that leads him on an unsuspecting journey where he discovers that teaching a book about monsters means dealing with his own first. The story exposes the importance of friendship and the truth behind what it means to be a teacher. Based on real events, the novel parallels Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic, Frankenstein, and shows that 200 years later, humanity still struggles to identify the real monsters. It’s a must-read for aspiring educators, teachers, and those struggling with adulting.Newly Edited Second Edition
A Field Guide to Redheads: An Illustrated Celebration
Elizabeth Graeber - 2016
Illustrated by Elizabeth Graeber, a redhead herself, this pretty little hardcover gift book presents a pantheon of 100 famous redheads, both real and fictional. Each page is a treat in how it surprises and pleases, acting as a field guide to every type of redhead, whether amber or auburn, ginger or strawberry: David Bowie and Rita Hayworth; Archie, Adele, and Axl Rose; Malcolm X, Sylvia Plath, and Yosemite Sam; Eric the Red, Louis C.K., Anne of Green Gables; Woody Woodpecker and Morris the Cat. Not to mention Napoleon, Shirley Temple, and those Raggedy Twins, Ann and Andy. If you are a redhead, celebrate your place among such distinguished company. If you love, or are loved by, a redhead, discover just how special the world is that you orbit.
Walk Like a Man: Coming of Age with the Music of Bruce Springsteen
Robert J. Wiersema - 2011
He's a genuine voice of the people, the bastard child of Woody Guthrie and James Brown, and an elder statesman who has inspired generations of bands. He's won twenty Grammy Awards, an Oscar, two Golden Globes, and is a member of two Halls of Fame.There are dozens of books about Springsteen. What's left to say? Nothing objective, perhaps. But when it comes to music, objectivity is highly overrated. Robert Wiersema has been a Springsteen fan since he was a teenager, following tours to see multiple shows in a row, watching set lists develop in real time via the Internet, ordering bootlegs from shady vendors in Italy. His attachment is deeper than fandom, though: he's grown up with Springsteen's songs as the soundtrack to his life, beginning with his youth in rural British Columbia and continuing on through dreams of escape, falling in love, and becoming a father.Walk Like a Man is the liner notes for a mix tape, a blend of biography, music criticism, and memoir. Like the best mix tapes, it balances joy and sorrow, laughter seasoning the dark-night-of-the-soul questions that haunt us all. Wiersema's book is the story of a man becoming a man (despite getting a little lost along the way), and of Springsteen's songs and life that have accompanied him on his journey.
The Bigamist: The True Story of a Husband's Ultimate Betrayal
Mary Turner-Thomson - 2007
The woman on the other end of the line told her that Will Jordan, Mary's husband and the father of her two younger children, had been married to her for fourteen years and they had five children together. The Bigamist is the shocking true story of how one man manipulated an intelligent, independent woman, conning her out of £200,000 and leaving her to bring up the children he claimed he could never have. It's a story we all think could never happen to us, but this shameless con man has been doing the same thing to various other women for at least 27 years, spinning a tangled web of lies and deceit to cover his tracks. How far would you go to help the man you love? How far would he go to deceive you? And what would you do when you found out it was all a lie?
Six Little Miracles: The Heartwarming True Story of Raising the World's First Sextuplet Girls
Janet Walton - 2015
Then they told it was not just one baby, but six!On 18 November 1983, Janet Walton gave birth to the world’s first all-female sextuplets: Hannah, Lucy, Ruth, Sarah, Kate and Jennie.Janet takes us through the reality of parenting six children of the same age – the extreme sleep deprivation, the bottle-feeding, and later the chaotic routine of getting six girls to school on time. As they grew up, Janet learned to keep a sense of humour through the teenage tantrums and boy trouble, and she watched her little girls blossom into individual, confident young women. She has loved every minute.
Buzz Books 2020: Fall/Winter
Ken Follett - 2020
Our “digital convention” features such major bestselling authors as Ken Follett, Matt Haig, Jonathan Lethem, and Sue Miller. Other sure-to-be popular titles are by Rumaan Alam, J’nell Ciesielski, Vendela Vida, and Bryan Washington. At the end of most excerpts, you will find a link to the full galley on NetGalley!Buzz Books has had a particularly stellar track record with highlighting the most talented, exciting debut authors. Simon Stephenson’s novel about a humanlike bot has already been optioned for film, while Finnish sensation Max Seeck’s thriller is due out as a television series. Robert Jones Jr.’s The Prophets and Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club were both sold at auction.Our nonfiction selections include an inspirational World War II story, Three Ordinary Girls: The Remarkable Story Of Hannie Schaft And The Oversteegen Sisters: Teenaged Saboteurs and Nazi Assassins by Tim Brady, a true crime read; We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper; and the incisive Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation by BuzzFeed columnist Anne Helen Petersen.
What Is Love? A Simple Guide to Romantic Happiness
Taro Gold - 2003
Presents practical, Buddhist-based guidelines to achieving happiness in romantic relationships through a series of inspirational quotes complemented by thematic watercolors and divided into three sections that explore the concepts of illusion, reality, and life.
Chunk (Kindle Single)
Brian Donovan - 2015
Chunk follows him along his crazy, overweight journey; from the chubby 10-year old who stole brownies and tricked his parents into thinking he’d lost weight, to the teenage boy who made regular after-school plans to eat entire pies, to the adult man who still hates working out and still loves Cinnabons. It’s a bracingly funny and delightfully uncomfortable collection of essays exploring food, fitness, and the funny things that happen when we try to slim down and grow up. Brian Donovan has written for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, National Public Radio, and, most recently, ABC’s The Neighbors. His work has also appeared on Chapelle’s Show, Funny or Die, and Off Broadway in New York City. His “Not a Match: My True Tales of Online Dating Disasters” is currently being developed for television. Cover design by Adil Dara.
What About Love? Reminders for Being Loving
Gina Lake - 2011
A paperback is still available on Amazon. What About Love? Reminders for Being Loving is a free ebook collection of 23 essays and 58 short quotes about love and relationship taken from Gina Lake’s many books, which are meant to expand your understanding of love, drop you into a more loving space, and inspire you daily to be more loving. Here is a sample:“It is actually possible to love anyone. There are people whose heart doesn’t close to anyone, no matter what someone looks like or how someone acts or how different he or she is, because they see beyond the person’s disguise to what is Real. The Real—the divine Self—is apparent in everyone if we choose to look for it. It’s easier to see it in some people than in others, but it can be seen in the eyes of anyone. The eyes are where it is most easily seen. Everyone knows what it looks like, although not everyone looks for it or chooses to see it.”Download this and other spiritual ebooks for free here:http://endless-satsang.com/free-spiri...
Perfectly Impossible
Elizabeth Topp - 2020
An artist at heart, Anna works a day job as a private assistant for Bambi Von Bizmark, a megarich Upper East Side matriarch who’s about to be honored at the illustrious Opera Ball.Caught between the staid world of great wealth and her unconventional life as an artist, Anna struggles with her true calling. If she’s supposed to be a painter, why is she so much more successful as a personal assistant? When her boyfriend lands a fancy new job, it throws their future as a couple into doubt and intensifies Anna’s identity crisis. All she has to do is ensure everything runs smoothly and hold herself together until the Opera Ball is over. How hard could that be?Featuring a vibrant array of characters from the powerful to the proletarian, Perfectly Impossible offers a glimpse into a world you’ll never want to leave.
Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction
Gabrielle Moss - 2018
The pink covers, the flimsy paper, the zillion volumes in the series that kept you reading for your entire adolescence. Spurred by the commercial success of Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters Club, these were not the serious-issue YA novels of the 1970s, nor were they the blockbuster books of the Harry Potter and Twilight ilk. They were cheap, short, and utterly beloved.PAPERBACK CRUSH dives in deep to this golden age with affection, history, and a little bit of snark. Readers will discover (and fondly remember) girl-centric series on everything from correspondence (Pen Pals and Dear Diary) to sports (The Pink Parrots, Cheerleaders, and The Gymnasts) to a newspaper at an all-girls Orthodox Jewish middle school (The B.Y. Times) to a literal teen angel (Teen Angels: Heaven Can Wait, where an enterprising guardian angel named Cisco has to earn her wings “by helping the world’s sexist rock star.”) Some were blatant ripoffs of the successful series (looking at you, Sleepover Friends and The Girls of Canby Hall), some were sick-lit tearjerkers à la Love Story (Abby, My Love) and some were just plain perplexing (Uncle Vampire??) But all of them represent that time gone by of girl-power and endless sessions of sustained silent reading.In six hilarious chapters (Friendship, Love, School, Family, Jobs, Terror, and Tragedy), Bustle Features Editor Gabrielle Moss takes the reader on a nostalgic tour of teen book covers of yore, digging deep into the history of the genre as well as the stories behind the best-known series.
Oh Boy, You're Having a Girl: A Dad's Survival Guide to Raising Daughters
Brian A. Klems - 2013
In "Oh Boy, You're Having a Girl," Brian, a father of three girls, shares his tactics for surviving this new and glittery world. From baby dolls and bedtime rituals to potty training and dance recitals, he leads you through all the trials and tribulations you'll face as you're raising your daughter. He'll also show you how to navigate your way through tough situations, like making sure that she doesn't start dating until she's fifty.Complete with commandments for restroom trips and properly participating in a tea party, "Oh Boy, You're Having a Girl" will brace you for all those hours playing house--and psych you up for the awesomeness of raising a daughter who has you lovingly wrapped around her little finger.
Tea & Bee's Milk
Karen Gilden - 2008
So they quit their jobs, sold their house and car, and flew off to Turkey with two bags each, a laptop computer and a camera. If you've ever dreamed of ditching the rat race and taking a year off, you’ll find inspiration in this charming and humorous series of essays and emails. A delightful memoir of a memorable year.
Fact. Fact. Bullsh*t!: Learn the Truth and Spot the Lie on Everything from Tequila-Made Diamonds to Tetris's Soviet Roots - Plus Tons of Other Totally Random Facts from Science, History and Beyond!
Neil Patrick Stewart - 2011
It's going to be a lot harder than you think to pick out the BS. Each entry hides one well-crafted fib among a pair of unbelievable truths. And it's up to you to figure out what's fascinating and what's fabricated on everything from koala bears to Confucius to high-fructose corn syrup.Was Cleopatra the last Egyptian pharaoh?Can you really make diamonds out of tequila?Is the platypus actually poisonous?A flip of the page reveals whether you're right or wrong as well as more information on the true trivia—and why you might've fallen for the fake fact. You'll really need to know your sh*t if you plan on correctly calling bullsh*t.