is sure to make you laugh.Ellen DeGeneres published her first book of comic essays, the #1 bestselling My Point...And I Do Have One, way back in 1996. Not one to rest on her laurels, the witty star of stage and screen has since dedicated her life to writing a hilarious new book. That book is this book. After years of painstaking, round-the-clock research, surviving on a mere twenty minutes of sleep a night, and collaborating with lexicographers, plumbers, and mathematicians, DeGeneres has crafted a work that is both easy to use and very funny. Along with her trademark ramblings, The Funny Thing Is... contains hundreds of succinct insights into her psyche and offers innovative features including: -More than 50,000 simple, short words arranged in sentences that form paragraphs. -Thousands of observations on everyday life—from terrible fashion trends to how to handle seating arrangements for a Sunday brunch with Paula Abdul, Diane Sawyer, and Eminem. -All twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

    In the seventy years since, his wit (and the occasional ‘gaffe’) has continued to endear him to the nation, as he travelled the world taking his unique and charmingly British sense of humour to its far-flung corners. Hailed as a god by a tribe in Vanuatu, the Prince has had his fair share of brickbats from the media nearer home, but his outspokenness never fails to raise laughs – and eyebrows.From notorious one-liners to less newsworthy witticisms and from plain speaking to blunt indifference, the Prince does what we all wish we could do now and again – forgets polite conversation and says what he thinks. In the year in which the Prince has stepped down from his royal duties, this joyous and timely book celebrates his wry humour and supremely wicked wit.

    Of course, this is more than snippy waiters or rude drivers who cut you off. It is a finely honed selection of 738 exasperating things, people, situations, complaints, and attitudes that everyone who's ever had a bad day can appreciate. And which will make us all feel better, just because we know someone else is paying attention--at last. Talk about annoying:Yoga instructors who smoke.Pets that only show affection right before mealtime.Tipping someone who hasn't earned it only because you don't want to look cheap.Late fees for a video you didn't have time to watch.The second-to-last day of a two-week vacation.A sneeze that lingers in your nose, doesn't come out, and then is absorbed by your forehead.When your Cracker Jack has melted into one big Jack.When your doctor asks if you mind if an intern watches your colonoscopy.

    The hilarity of TheOatmeal.com is now presented in book form with 35 never-before-seen pieces and 25 classic favorites from the Web site, including 6 Types of Crappy Hugs and 17 Things Worth Knowing about Your Cat.In Matthew Inman's New York Times best selling 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (And Other Useful Guides), samurai sword-wielding kittens and hamsters that love .50-caliber machine guns commingle with a cracked out Tyrannosaur that is extremely hard to potty train. Bacon is better than true love and you may awake in the middle of the night to find your nephew nibbling on your toes.Inman creates these quirky scenes for theoatmeal.com, which launched in July 2009 and already has more than 82 million page views. In fact, every 15 to 30 seconds, someone Googles one of theoatmeal.com's creations. Now, 60 of Inman's comic illustrations and life-bending guides are presented in full-color inside 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (And Other Useful Guides). Consider such handy advice as: 4 Reasons to Carry a Shovel at All Times, 6 Types of Crappy Hugs, 8 Ways to Tell if Your Loved One Plans to Eat You, 17 Things Worth Knowing About Your Cat, and 20 Things Worth Knowing About Beer.

    They're burning through cash, sales have stalled, and investors are nowhere to be found. Welcome to the reality of the new tech boom. Sure, it has produced its glittering share of billion-dollar "exits." But for the vast majority of startups life is nasty, brutish, and short on glamour. NO EXIT explores the feverish world of company founders who are desperately trying to keep their dream afloat. It’s a harrowing and hilarious look at the Silicon Valley no one sees. This is an extended version of a story that appears in the May 2014 issue of WIRED magazine.

    Frank wore a big fake head. Nobody outside his inner circle knew his true identity. This became the subject of feverish speculation during his zenith years. Together, they rode relatively high. Then it all went wrong.Twenty-five years later and Jon has co-written a movie, Frank, inspired by his time in this great and bizarre band. Frank is set for release in 2014, starring Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Domhnall Gleeson and directed by Lenny Abrahamson.Frank: The True Story that Inspired the Movie is a memoir of funny, sad times and a tribute to outsider artists too wonderfully strange to ever make it in the mainstream. It tells the true story behind the fictionalized movie.

    Who Stole My Spandex? is a witty selection of stories from Doyle’s madcap world of menopausal pitfalls, wardrobe malfunctions, and a family full of pranksters. This clever compilation includes laugh-out-loud pieces like "Queen of Klutz,” "One Size Fits None," and "Hands off my Egg Roll!" From couples' colonoscopies to nightmare holidays to disappearing spandex, no topic—no matter how crazy or unimaginable—is too taboo. With a heavy dose of self-deprecating humor, and a dash of sentiment, this marvelous collection of anecdotes will resonate with anyone who’s ever felt the call of nature at exactly the wrong time. Welcome to the nuthouse that Marcia Kester Doyle calls home.

    It is filled with dozens of humorous tales of musician antics and concert meltdowns. Outsiders are rarely allowed such access, but at last you can have your own personal tour of the mystical and magical realm of professional orchestras and the people who play in them. "Real Men Don't Rehearse" was written by Justin Locke, who spent 18 seasons as a professional freelance double bassist in Boston. He played with the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops, as well as for ballets, operas, and Broadway shows. He is also well known in the symphonic world as the author of "Peter VS. the Wolf" and "The Phantom of the Orchestra," which are internationally acclaimed programs for orchestra family concerts. This is the perfect gift for your favorite music lover! This is a book no musical library should be without!

    A leading spokesman for the English Aesthetic movement, Wilde promoted "art for art’s sake" against critics who argued that art must serve a moral purpose. On every page of this collection the gifted literary stylist admirably demonstrates not only that the characteristics of art are "distinction, charm, beauty, and imaginative power," but also that criticism itself can be raised to an art form possessing these very qualities.In the opening essay, Wilde laments the "decay of Lying as an art, a science, and a social pleasure." He takes to task modern literary realists like Henry James and Emile Zola for their "monstrous worship of facts" and stifling of the imagination. What makes art wonderful, he says, is that it is "absolutely indifferent to fact, [art] invents, imagines, dreams, and keeps between herself and reality the impenetrable barrier of beautiful style, of decorative or ideal treatment."The next essay, "Pen, Pencil, and Poison," is a fascinating literary appreciation of the life of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, a talented painter, art critic, antiquarian, friend of Charles Lamb, and — murderer.The heart of the collection is the long two-part essay titled "The Critic as Artist." In one memorable passage after another, Wilde goes to great lengths to show that the critic is every bit as much an artist as the artist himself, in some cases more so. A good critic is like a virtuoso interpreter: "When Rubinstein plays … he gives us not merely Beethoven, but also himself, and so gives us Beethoven absolutely…made vivid and wonderful to us by a new and intense personality. When a great actor plays Shakespeare we have the same experience."Finally, in "The Truth of Masks," Wilde returns to the theme of art as artifice and creative deception. This essay focuses on the use of masks, disguises, and costume in Shakespeare.For newcomers to Wilde and those who already know his famous plays and fiction, this superb collection of his criticism offers many delights.The introduction is by Percival Pollard New York, July, 1905.

    A comprehensive guide to preparing for and hiking the Appalachian Trail

    It is the story of a worldwide network of rabid fans escaping everyday mundanity through music, of cut-throat corporate arseholes ripping off those fans and the bands they worship to line their pockets. The expansive pantheon of heavy metal musicians includes junkies, Satanists and murderers, born-again Christians and teetotallers, stadium-touring billionaires and toilet-circuit journeymen.Award-winning comedian and life-long heavy metal obsessive Andrew O'Neill has performed his History of Heavy Metal comedy show to a huge range of audiences, from the teenage metalheads of Download festival to the broadsheet-reading theatre-goers of the Edinburgh Fringe. Now, in his first book, he takes us on his own very personal and hilarious journey through the history of the music, the subculture, and the characters who shaped this most misunderstood genre of music.

    Why we do it, when we do it, and how to stop doing it—for good.Coexisting but conflicting needs create self-sabotaging behaviors. This is why we resist efforts to change, often until they feel completely futile. But by extracting crucial insight from our most damaging habits, building emotional intelligence by better understanding our brains and bodies, releasing past experiences at a cellular level, and learning to act as our highest potential future selves, we can step out of our own way and into our potential.For centuries, the mountain has been used as a metaphor for the big challenges we face, especially ones that seem impossible to overcome. To scale our mountains, we actually have to do the deep internal work of excavating trauma, building resilience, and adjusting how we show up for the climb.In the end, it is not the mountain we master, but ourselves.

    Easy-to-find answers to the most common (and obscure but fascinating) baseball questions." - USA Today"A great starting point for newbies of the game." - Ron Kaplan, "501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read Before They Die""Surprisingly, there is no other book so comprehensive, concise or readable." - St. Paul Pioneer-Press"Instructive and fun." - Chicago Sun-Times**Selected for the Baseball Hall of Fame Bookstore in Cooperstown**Lose yourself in all the marvelous memories and hallowed history of America’s national pastime with "The Book of Baseball Literacy: 3rd Edition." From the gloveless pioneers of the 1840s to the strife-ridden headlines of the 2000s, this comprehensive reference offers nearly 700 important baseball yarns, stats, and stories—cross-referenced and hyperlinked—in a style as lively as the game itself. Incredibly thorough, never dull, the book answers these and countless other questions:- Who was Ray Chapman, and why is he important?- Did Abner Doubleday really invent baseball?- What is sabermetrics?- Who set off the Pine Tar Incident?- Where was the first organized baseball game?- Were the Cubs cursed by a billy goat?- What are waivers and options?Written by SABR member and former college baseball broadcaster David H. Martinez and even selected as required reading for a college course on baseball history, "The Book of Baseball Literacy: 3rd Edition" puts over a century and a half of legends and lore, right in your mitt. It will settle arguments and provoke them, answer questions and ask them. It’s a must for veteran baseball fans—and a perfect way to get up to speed on baseball history for newcomers.

    He proposes his solution.

    Revised and updated to cover the Clash's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the band members' post-Clash careers, The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town now includes the first full account of Joe Strummer's "Wilderness Years," his triumphant comeback with the Mescaleros, and his sudden and tragic early death. Extensively revised and updated from both its 1995 and 2001 incarnations, The Clash traces the band members' progress from dispiriting rehearsals in damp London basements to packed American stadiums. A fascinatingly detailed account of the first band to take punk's radical politics to the masses and survive for a decade against all the odds, it also offers an intriguing investigation into the gap between rock mythology and rock reality.