Book picks similar to
Book of Secrets by Thomas Eaton
non-fiction
nonfiction
history
reference
Mongo: Adventures in Trash
Ted Botha - 2005
Decorating his apartment with the furniture and objects he found on Manhattan's streets, he soon realized he wasn't the only person finding things of value in the garbage, and he began meeting all kinds of collectors. Mongo is Botha's remarkable record of his travels among these varied and eccentric people-an appropriately addictive tribute to this longtime, universal phenomenon.
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"?
Envelopes: A Puzzling Journey Through the Royal Mail
Harriet Russell - 2005
You may find it hard to believe that the majority of envelopes arrived at their intended destinations, but they did, and all have postmarks to prove it! Their safe delivery is a tribute to the heroic postal employees who rose to the challenge.
Writers Gone Wild: The Feuds, Frolics, and Follies of Literature's Great Adventurers, Drunkards, Lovers, Iconoclasts, and Misanthropes
Bill Peschel - 2010
If you've imagined famous writers to be desk-bound drudges, think again. Writers Gone Wild rips back the (book) covers and reveals the seamy underside of the writing life.Insightful, intriguing, and irresistibly addictive, Writers Gone Wild reveals such fascinating stories as:* The night Dashiell Hammett hired a Chinese prostitute to break up S. J. Perelman's marriage (and ran off with his wife).* Why Sylvia Plath bit Ted Hughes on the cheek.* Why Ernest Hemingway fought a book critic, a modernist poet, and his war correspondent/wife Martha Gellhorn (but not at the same time).* The near-fatal trip Katherine Anne Porter took while high on marijuana in Mexico.* Why women's breasts sent Percy Bysshe Shelley screaming from the room.* The day Virginia Woolf snuck onto a Royal Navy ship disguised as an Abyssinian prince.Pull up a chair, turn on good reading light, and discover what your favorite writers were up to while away from their desks. Sometimes, they make the wildest characters of all.
Doctor Who: Who-ology
Cavan Scott - 2013
Packed with facts, figures and stories from the show's entire run, this unique tour of space and time takes you from Totters Lane to Trenzalore, taking in guides to UNIT call signs, details of the inner workings of sonic screwdrivers, and a reliability chart covering every element of the TARDIS. With tables, charts and illustrations dotted throughout, as well as fascinating lists and exhaustive detail, you won't believe the wonders that await. Are you ready? Then read on, you clever boy. And remember.
Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity
Janell L. Carroll - 2004
Janell Carroll clearly conveys foundational biological and health issues, extensively cites both current and classic research, and addresses all material in a fresh and fun way; her book helps teach students what they need, and want, to know about sexuality. Her focus takes into account the social, religious, ethnic, racial, and cultural contexts of today's students. Dr. Carroll has used feedback from the first edition to add even further value to this popular title-streamlining student pedagogy and providing dynamic learning opportunities through Active Summaries at the end of chapters, a new online student tutorial, new video components, and content for Classroom Response Systems. This continues to be the text most representative of today's students, incorporating new sexual position art, a new pronunciation guide, and (for instructors) a new cross-cultural Slang Guide.
Talking Pictures: Images and Messages Rescued from the Past
Ransom Riggs - 2012
Each image in Talking Pictures reveals a singular, frozen moment in a person’s life, be it joyful, quiet, or steeped in sorrow. Yet the book’s unique depth comes from the writing accompanying each photo: as with the caption revealing how one seemingly random snapshot of a dancing couple captured the first dance of their 40-year marriage, each successive inscription shines like a flashbulb illuminating a photograph’s particular context and lighting up our connection to the past.
Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience
Shaun Usher - 2013
Kennedy, Groucho Marx, Charles Dickens, Katharine Hepburn, Mick Jagger, Steve Martin, Clementine Churchill, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut and many more.
The Explainer
Slate Magazine - 2004
Often inspired by events in the news, the "Explainer" column asks the questions we never think to ask, or that we're too embarrassed to admit we don't know how to answer. Filling in these overlooked blanks of our daily lives, the book provides memorable tidbits for conversations, further rumination, or important context as we follow current events from day to day. Full of fascinating information about unlikely but important subjects, The Explainer will entertain and inform anyone who has ever stopped to wonder who runs Antarctica, how cell phones can reveal your location, or whether one can live off lizard meat.
Stuff Every Woman Should Know
Alanna Kalb - 2010
With advice on etiquette and social situations, entertaining and cooking tips, do-it-yourself instructions, health information, self-defense techniques, and much, much more, this is the ultimate--but petite!--reference guide for go-getters, self-starters, and independent women everywhere. Featuring:- How to Ask for a Raise
- Ten Stylish Pieces Every Woman Should Own
- How to Throw a Football
- Good Responses to Bad Pick-Up Lines
- How to Host a Cocktail Party
- How to Parallel Park
Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Throughout the Ages
Leland Gregory - 2007
Historians and humorists alike may be surprised to learn that:* Samuel Prescott made the famous horseback ride into Concord, not Paul Revere.* As a member of Parliament, Isaac Newton spoke only once. He asked for an open window.* On April 24, 1898, Spain declared war on the U.S., thus starting the Spanish-American War. The U.S. declared war the very next day, but not wanting to be outdone, had the date on the declaration changed from April 25 to April 21.With these and many other stories, leading humorist Leland Gregory once again highlights both the strange and the funny side of humankind.
Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn't Change the World
Paul Collins - 2001
Those enshrined in its annals are men and women whose ideas, accomplishments, or personalities have dominated, endured, and most important of all, found champions. John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage, Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, and Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets are classic celebrations of the greatest, the brightest, the eternally constellated.Paul Collins' Banvard's Folly is a different kind of book. Here are thirteen unforgettable portraits of forgotten people: men and women who might have claimed their share of renown but who, whether from ill timing, skullduggery, monomania, the tinge of madness, or plain bad luck-or perhaps some combination of them all-leapt straight from life into thankless obscurity. Among their number are scientists, artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and adventurers, from across the centuries and around the world. They hold in common the silenced aftermath of failure, the name that rings no bells.Collins brings them back to glorious life. John Banvard was an artist whose colossal panoramic canvasses (one behemoth depiction of the entire eastern shore of the Mississippi River was simply known as "The Three Mile Painting") made him the richest and most famous artist of his day. . . before he decided to go head to head with P. T. Barnum. René Blondot was a distinguished French physicist whose celebrated discovery of a new form of radiation, called the N-Ray, went terribly awry. At the tender age of seventeen, William Henry Ireland signed "William Shakespeare" to a book and launched a short but meteoric career as a forger of undiscovered works by the Bard -- until he pushed his luck too far. John Symmes, a hero of the War of 1812, nearly succeeded in convincing Congress to fund an expedition to the North Pole, where he intended to prove his theory that the earth was hollow and ripe for exploitation; his quixotic quest counted Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe among its greatest admirers.Collins' love for what he calls the "forgotten ephemera of genius" give his portraits of these figures and the other nine men and women in Banvard's Folly sympathetic depth and poignant relevance. Their effect is not to make us sneer or revel in schadenfreude; here are no cautionary tales. Rather, here are brief introductions-acts of excavation and reclamation-to people whom history may have forgotten, but whom now we cannot.
How to Fake a Moon Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial
Darryl Cunningham - 2012
His lively storytelling approach incorporates comics, photographs, and diagrams to create substantive but easily accessible reportage. Cunningham's distinctive illustrative style shows how information is manipulated by all sides; his easy-to-follow narratives allow readers to draw their own fact-based conclusions. A graphic milestone of investigative journalism!
The Making of Star Trek
Stephen E. Whitfield - 1968
Filled with quotations from cast members, memos to and from Gene Roddenberry, biographies of cast members, sketches, photographs, set descriptions, and even budgets and cast schedules, this volume is a fascinating, invaluable behind-the-scenes account of the development and production of the original Star Trek™ series."- source unknown"The book on how to write for TV! The complete story on how the U.S.S. Enterprise was designed, the original concept behind the show, backgrounds of the characters—the whole authentic history." - Ballantine
The Dangerous Book for Boys
Conn Iggulden - 2006
This is a wonderful collection of all things that make being young, or young at heart, fun. Audio includes: Questions About the World, How to Play Stickball, The Rules of Soccer, Fishing, Famous Battles, Extraordinary Stories, Girls, First Aid, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Seven Modern Wonders of the World The perfect book for every boy from eight to eighty.