His book, You’re Not Helping… is a collection of short comedy articles that guide you through his delightful, inventive, and often nonsensical take on everything from attention-seeking dolphins to home invasions by the The Barenaked Ladies. You’re Not Helping… blends both humor and heart in what literary critics around the world are describing as “technically a book.” Join the 10s of readers worldwide enchanted by Ryan’s unique brand of wit.Ryan Patricks lives in San Francisco via Philadelphia. He is an aspiring comedy writer and once saw John Cusack at a Jamba Juice. You can follow him on Twitter @Ryan_Patricks or you can choose not to, it’s totally up to you.

    

    The four of them run New Orleans with an iron fist. With their father stepping down and handing the thrown to Karlos and his brothers they have to live up to everything Kaine has built. Karlos aka Killz is a straight Savage! He does not play about his family or their business that stretches from Louisiana to Miami. All about his business, and pretty much nothing in between, love was never in the agenda. As fate would have it, he has a change of heart when he meets the sexy, Kylee Ricci. Kylee is the oldest of her three sisters, Kimmora, Kelly and Keira. They are from Italy but moved to the states with their drug dealing father after their mother died giving birth to the twins Kelly and Keira. The sisters are head strong, smart, beautiful and extremely close. Life as they know it changes dramatically when Kylee finds herself unintentionally falling for Killz the Savage from New Orleans. When the Royals meet the Ricci's, it is one hell of a ride! Infidelity, shoot outs, robberies and betrayal at an all-time high. Through it all, will love prevail? Or will the dangerous lives of the Royals fill the sisters hearts with regret? Find out what happens when the Royals give their hearts to New Orleans Savages in between the pages of this captivating read.

    Built by an eccentric owner, molded by a visionary coach and loaded with hardscrabble miners, college All Americans and the sky's the limit ethos of the Roaring Twentys, the Maroons did the unthinkable and dominated the NFL in their rookie season. (Their improbable rise was chronicled each week in the local paper by a rookie Pottsville sportswriter named John OOHara.)Little Pottsville outscored its first seven opponents 162-6. The boys so thoroughly pummeled one opponent, angry fans shot up their train car as the Maroons rode out of town. In the final game of that first season the Maroons traveled to the Midwest to face the league-leading Chicago Cardinals in what was viewed as the championship game for 1925. The Maroons overcame a Windy City snowstorm and an injury to their best player to defeat the Cardinals 21-7.But the fans wanted more.College ball was still king. And as news of PottsvilleOs success was splashed across the news reels and headlines throughout the country, a movement began to have the Maroons face a team of college All-Stars from the University of Notre Dame, featuring the legendary Four Horsemen, the finest collection of talent the game had ever known. Experts believed the NFL was still decades away from competing with college football. But on a neutral field in Philadelphia, in a battle described as The Greatest Football Game Ever Seen, the Maroons shocked the world and turned the football establishment upside-down, defeating Notre Dame 9-7 on a last-second field goal by their captain Charlie Berry who had his kicking cleat bronzed for eternity.The championship was theirs. The NFL was finally on the map. The Maroons victory over Notre Dame had legitimized the league. It also destroyed the town and the team that made it all possible.Claiming the upstart Maroons had violated the territory of another franchise by playing Notre Dame in Philadelphia, the NFL suspended Pottsville and awarded the 1925 NFL championship to the Chicago Cardinals. The Cardinals refused to accept the bogus title and the 1925 crown was never officially awarded. For more than 80 years, fans of the Pottsville MaroonsNthe team Red Grange said was the greatest he ever facedNhave fought to have the 1925 title returned to its rightful owners.With Breaker Boys their remarkable story is told at last.

    It helped in the American conquest of California, the launch of the Republican Party, and the ignition of the western Indian wars. And along the way, Lake Tahoe even found the time to invent the ski industry, spark the sexual revolution, and win countless Academy Awards. Tahoe beneath the Surface brings this hidden history of America s largest mountain lake to life through the stories of its most celebrated residents and visitors over the last ten thousand years. It mixes local Washoe Indian legends with tales of murderous Mafia dons, and Rat Pack tunes with Steinbeck novels. It establishes Tahoe as one of America s literary hot spots by tracing the steps of more than a dozen authors including Bertrand Russell, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Michael Ondaatje. Tahoe beneath the Surface reveals how the lake transformed the lives of conservationists like John Muir, humorists like Mark Twain, and Hollywood icons like Frank Sinatra. It even touches upon some of the darker aspects of American history, including anti-Chinese racism and the Kennedy assassination. Despite the impact Lake Tahoe has had on America, environmental threats loom large, and Tahoe Blue a term that Lankford uses to encompass the whole range of life, beauty, and meaning the lake represents grows increasingly vulnerable. In Tahoe beneath the Surface, human history and natural history combine in a most engaging way, one that will both inform and inspire all who would keep Tahoe blue.

     The true story of how mildly successful guitarist and New York Times writer Dan Crane relinquished his instrument and became Björn Türoque (pronounced "b-yorn too-RAWK"), the second greatest air guitarist in the nation. This exploration of the international air guitar sub-culture addresses the issue of dedicating oneself to an invisible art in order to achieve the ultimate goal of "airness"-that is, when air guitar transcends the "real" art that it imitates and becomes an art form in and of itself.

    Introducing two eccentric ladies who form an unlikely friendship.Meet Mavis and Dot - two colourful, retired ladies who live in Worthington-on-Sea, where there are charity shops galore. Apart from bargain hunting, they manage to tangle themselves in escapades involving illegal immigrants, night clubs, nude modelling, errant toupees and more. And then there’s Mal, the lovable dog who nobody else wants. A gently humorous, often side-splitting, heart-warming snapshot of two memorable characters with past secrets and passions. Escape for a couple of hours into this snapshot of a faded, British seaside town. You'll laugh and cry but probably laugh more."This book is quirky and individual, and has great pathos...[it] will resonate with a lot of readers." Gill Kaye - Editor of Ingenu(e). Written with a light touch in memory of a dear friend who passed away from ovarian cancer, Angela Petch’s seaside tale is a departure from her successful Tuscan novels. All profits from the sale of the books will go towards research into the cure for cancer.

    No Jobs. No friends. Just buckets of our own ignorance. Follow along in horror and hilarity as the family acclimates to the new small town way of life and the author bounces from jobs working in a school cafeteria to selling women’s clothing in a call center to opening a barbecue restaurant. Written in a smart, self-deprecating, salty style, Small Town Ho is all at once poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, full of the struggle of an ordinary family consisting of three boys, one big black lab, one assassin of a cat, and two very tired parents.

    According to Katherine Dunn, author of the cult classic Geek Love, Portland is the home of America's " fugitives and refugees." Get to know these folks, the " most cracked of the crackpots, "as Palahniuk calls them, and come along with him on an adventure through the parts of Portland you might not otherwise believe actually exist. No other travel guide will give you this kind of access to " a little history, a little legend, and a lot of friendly, sincere, fascinating people who maybe should've kept their mouths shut."Here are strange personal museums, weird annual events, and ghost stories. Tour the tunnels under downtown Portland. Visit swingers' sex clubs, gay and straight. See Frances Gabe's famous 1940s Self-Cleaning House. Look into strange local customs like the I-Tit-a-Rod Race and the Santa Rampage. Learn how to talk like a local in a quick vocabulary lesson. Get to know, I mean really get to know, the animals at the Portland zoo.Oh, the list goes on and on.

    But when Grayson Park's bride leaves him at the altar, a solo trip to paradise seems like just the thing to take him far from his troubles. Then he meets the beautiful and enigmatic Hi'iaka, and his troubles just begin--because when she's abducted by the sinister Kamapua'a, a savage creature bent on draining her life by the light of the full moon, she calls on Grayson to rescue her. With his loyal, new-found Hawaiian friend Polunu as his steadfast guide, Grayson sets out on an incredible adventure that pits him against the very gods of Hawaiian mythology and leads him to the heart of Pele's volcano, into the ocean to find the mythical Hook of Maui, and through the strange and brutal upcountry fleeing from demonic mo'o sent to destroy him. But there are only two nights left before the moon becomes full, and Grayson is running out of time to save Hi'iaka...and himself.

    The station manager who hired him was the first to recognize his considerable on-air talent, and helped start what has become a legendary radio career. Often compared to Howard Stern, Carton has hosted a series of highly rated shows, and in 2007 he joined WFAN, where he and Boomer Esiason host an eponymous show every morning for four hours out of a studio in New York City.In this debut book, Carton invites the reader to join him as he recounts tales from his suburban youth, defends his long-held love affair with the New York Jets, reminisces about the shenanigans of some of the highest paid and most celebrated athletes playing today, and reflects on his work as one of radio’s craftiest, most hilarious personalities ever to get behind the microphone.

    After more than thirty years of being asked the same question—"Why don't you give us some good news for a change?"—veteran television news anchor Bruce Lindsay obliges us with humorous and heartwarming stories from the idyllic town that we believe we grew up in—or wished we did. Inspired from the stories found in real small-town newspapers, Bruce Lindsay introduces us to the down-to-earth, foible-filled characters from Parley's Grove—folks who can make the mundane mesmerizing and the absurd endearing. Warm, poignant, and always hilarious, these affectionate vignettes of small-town life will help you remember who you are and where you're from.

    Laugh out loud as they encounter ‘crocodiles’ on the wall, strange African customs and unintelligible Afrikaans accents. Cringe with them as their visiting in-laws embarrass them in front of their new SA friends.If you enjoyed Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine you will recognise Mavis Turner.Set in the 1970s, But Can You Drink The Water? uses subtle observational humour with an underlying pathos to portray the upsets, hurt and changing family dynamics that emigration brings. (The story is based on a 13-part sitcom) ReviewWith a droll, witty, utterly British voice, this manuscript tackles playfully and sincerely the age-old fish out of water tale. What sustains this book, however, is the narrative voice, the dry and self-deprecating humor, and the ability of this author to tell a story simply and well. Publisher’s Weekly reviewer for the ABNA semi-finals.

    Killed the Mad King and defeated the Demon Lord.Now that I'm mortal again, all I'd like to do is to brew some tasty ales and serve my regulars at the Tipsy Pelican Tavern.Most of all, I'd like to avoid any trouble involving the church or the nobility.That's not too much to ask right? ....Right?This light novel contains...- Fantasy & Action- An unconventional op mc- A unique magic system- Slice of life arcs- A beautiful cast- Loads of humor- Several pages of original art- A heartwarming moment or two

    His innocent letter requesting an autographed picture begins a bizarre turn of events that eventually costs him his job, foils his romantic intentions toward a coworker, drains his finances, and generally ruins his life. Sid, a Don Quixote character with large blind spots regarding the fate of his one-sided correspondence with the movie star and his own behavior, cannot escape the wrath of lawyers, public relations bulldogs, angry bosses, and ex-girlfriends that drags his life down the tubes. Until he fights back.