How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.Bestselling author and cartoonist Randall Munroe explains how to predict the weather by analyzing the pixels of your Facebook photos. He teaches you how to tell if you're a baby boomer or a 90's kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth. He offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope, crossing a river by boiling it, and powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time. And if you want to get rid of the book once you're done with it, he walks you through your options for proper disposal, including dissolving it in the ocean, converting it to a vapor, using tectonic plates to subduct it into the Earth's mantle, or launching it into the Sun.By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn't just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in What If?, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible. Full of clever infographics and amusing illustrations, How To is a delightfully mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.

    Like its macho predecessor, Badass: The Birth of a Legend celebrates fearless berserkers of every stripe, male and female, but this time pulls them from the hoary pages of mythology, fantasy fiction, and the silver screen—from Zeus to Beowulf to Dirty Harry Callahan, the most merciless gods, monsters, heroes, villains, and mythical creatures ever envisioned. Forget your whiny Twilight vampires and werewolves, these badasses kick butt!

    Writing very bad poetry requires talent. It helps to have a wooden ear for words, a penchant for sinking into a mire of sentimentality, and an enviable confidence that allows one to write despite absolutely appalling incompetence.The 131 poems collected in this first-of-its-kind anthology are so glaringly awful that they embody a kind of genius. From Fred Emerson Brooks' "The Stuttering Lover" to Matthew Green's "The Spleen" to Georgia Bailey Parrington's misguided "An Elegy to a Dissected Puppy," they mangle meter, run rampant over rhyme, and bludgeon us into insensibility with their grandiosity, anticlimax, and malapropism.Guaranteed to move even the most stoic reader to tears (of laughter), Very Bad Poetry is sure to become a favorite of the poetically inclined (and disinclined).

    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.

    Put on the parachute before jumping from the plane. Don't bring your dog along if you're going to rob a bank. These seem like obvious enough strategies but, unfortunately, we seem to be a race of rattlesnake kissers.Duh! The Stupid History of the Human Race is a hilarious collection of the stupid things that people do-even the really smart people. "Part 1: The Stupid Chronicles" details the unbelievably idiotic things people have done, organized by such topics as politics, history, sports, arts, science, and dumb plays in the face of fate. "Part 2: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Stupidity but Were Too Smart to Ask" looks at the track record of human stupidity in all its dumb glory. And "Part 3: How to Destupify" offers tongue-in-cheek advice on how to avoid ending up in a future edition of the book.

    But what is American democracy? In America (The Book), Jon Stewart and The Daily Show writing staff offer their insights into our unique system of government, dissecting its institutions, explaining its history and processes, and exploring the reasons why concepts like one man, one vote, government by the people, and every vote counts have become such popular urban myths. Topics include: Ancient Rome: The First Republicans; The Founding Fathers: Young, Gifted, and White; The Media: Can it Be Stopped?; and more!

    The little seed in the Styrofoam cup offers a reminder about our own mortality and the delicate nature of life . . . a spider who catches (and loses) a full-grown woman in its web one fine morning teaches us about surviving catastrophe . . . the love story of Jean-Francois Pilatre and his hot-air balloon reminds us to be brave and unafraid to “fly” . . . life lessons hidden in the laundry pile . . . magical qualities found in a box of crayons . . . hide-and-seek vs. sardines—and how these games relate to the nature of God. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is brimming with the very stuff of life and the significance found in the smallest details.

    New, never read

    In this hilarious book of tongue-in-cheek poetry, the author of the internationally syndicated comic strip Sally Forth helps cats unlock their creative potential and explain their odd behaviour to ignorant humans. With titles like Who Is That on Your Lap?, This Is My Chair, Kneel Before Me, Nudge, and Some of My Best Friends Are Dogs, the poems collected in I Could Pee on This perfectly capture the inner workings of the cat psyche. With photos of the cat authors throughout, this whimsical volume reveals kitties at their wackiest, and most exasperating (but always lovable).

    In school, we're taught the basics about how the world works. But sometimes, we just need to dig a little deeper. That's where The Book of Unusual Knowledge comes in. The stories within this volume shed some light on the extraordinary things that the human mind can conceive. You'll discover amazing information about animals and intriguing tidbits about some of today's most revered institutions. What could cause a man to bury ten Cadillacs nose down in a pasture? Why did the king of Prussia assemble an "elite" infantry unit composed entirely of unusually tall men? Find the answers to these questions in the pages that follow.

    Now this must-have book for all Trekkers -- which covers every episode of the original series, the pilot, and all six movies -- reveals all the bloopers, continuity errors, plot oversights, equipment malfunctions, and goof-ups that discerning, die-hard fans love to spot, but may have missed. Written especially for all those who find themselves thinking, Hey, if the transporter is broken, why don't they just use a shuttlecraft?, this nitpicky volume includes Kirk's toupee watch; an examination of the logic of the miniskirted female crew members; number of times Kirk violated the Prime Detective and lots of trivia questions, fun facts, quizzes, and more. Live long and nitpick.

    A proper cuppa tea and rock cakes in Hagrid's hut. Cauldron cakes and pumpkin juice on the Hogwarts Express. With this cookbook, dining a la Hogwarts is as easy as Banoffi Pie! With more than 150 easy-to-make recipes, tips, and techniques, you can indulge in spellbindingly delicious meals drawn straight from the pages of your favorite Potter stories, such as:Treacle Tart--Harry's favorite dessert, Molly's Meat Pies--Mrs. Weasley's classic dish, Kreacher's French Onion Soup, Pumpkin Pasties--a staple on the Hogwarts Express cartWith a dash of magic and a drop of creativity, you'll conjure up the entries, desserts, snacks, and drinks you need to transform ordinary Muggle meals into magickal culinary masterpieces, sure make even Mrs. Weasley proud!

    The Onion has quickly become the world's most popular humor publication, misinforming half a million readers a week with one-of-a-kind social satire both in print (on newsstands nationwide) and online from its remote office in Madison, Wisconsin.Witness the march of history as Editor-in-Chief Scott Dikkers and The Onion's award-winning writing staff present the twentieth century like you've never seen it before.

    Its Philosophy 101 for everyone who knows not to take all this heavy stuff too seriously. Some of the Big Ideas are Existentialism (what do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common?), Philosophy of Language (how to express what its like being stranded on a desert island with Halle Berry), Feminist Philosophy (why, in the end, a man is always a man), and much more. Finally it all makes sense!

    It will come as no surprise to anyone that Jeremy Clarkson loves machines. But it's not just any old bucket of blots, cogs and bearings that rings his bell. In fact, he's scoured the length and breadth of the land, plunged into the oceans and taken to the skies in search of machines with that elusive certain something.And along the way he's discovered:* The safest place to be in the event of nuclear war* Who would win if Superman, James Bond and The Terminator had a fight* The stupidest person he's ever met* What an old Cornish institution called Arthur has to do with 0898chat lines* And how Jean Claude Van Damme might get eaten by a lion . . .In I Know You Got Soul, Jeremy Clarkson tells stories of the geniuses, innovators and crackpots who put the ghost in the machine. From Brunel's SS Great Britain to the awesome Blackbird spy-plane and from the woeful - but inspiring - Graf Zeppelin to Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, they can't help but love them in return.Praise for Jeremy Clarkson:'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time Out'Very funny . . . I cracked up laughing on the tube' Evening Standard