Funny, odd, deeply personal, yet somehow universal, these are the kind of memories that haunt us all, the small awful moments of shame and humiliation that we'd rather forget than relive.Beth Lisick has made a career of opening her life to her readers in all of its messy, smart hilarity, but this type of story doesn't usually find its way into a memoir. With her trademark humor and sly intelligence, writing in short flashes the way these episodes tend to pop up in memory, Lisick recounts her most embarrassing moments with gusto. From a trick she played on a neighbor thirty years ago to what she accidentally blurted out at last night's dinner party, she explores the bad judgments and free-floating regrets that keep her up at night, and the result is a daring, candid, and wickedly funny collection of embarrassment embraced, the triumph of humor and perspective over everyday mortification.Writer, performer, and independent film actress Beth Lisick is the author of the New York Times best-selling comic memoir Everybody Into the Pool and the gonzo self-help manifesto Helping Me Help Myself.

    This book presents the best of them: pipe-smoking robots, clairvoyant pennies, zoo jailbreaks, literary cannibals, corned beef in space, revolving squirrels, disappearing Scottish lighthouse keepers, reincarnated pussycats, dueling Churchills, horse spectacles, onrushing molasses, and hundreds more. Plus the obscure words, odd inventions, puzzles and paradoxes that have made the website a quirky favorite with millions of readers -- hundreds of examples of the marvelous, the diverting, and the strange, now in a portable format to occupy your idle hours.

    D. Daniels asks in his first book, a series of six letters written during dark nights of the soul. Working from his own highly varied experience—as a janitor, a night watchman, an adjunct professor, a drunk, an exterminator, a dutiful son—he considers how far books and learning and psychoanalysis can get us, and how much we’re stuck in the mud.In prose wound as tight as a copper spring, Daniels takes us from the highways of his native Kentucky to the Balearic Islands and from the Pampas of Brazil to the rarefied precincts of Cambridge, Massachusetts. His traveling companions include psychotic kindergarten teachers, Israeli sailors, and Southern Baptists on fire for Christ. In each dispatch, Daniels takes risks—not just literary (voice, tone, form) but also more immediate, such as spending two years on a Brazilian jujitsu team (he gets beaten to a pulp, repeatedly) or participating in group psychoanalysis (where he goes temporarily insane).Daniels is that rare thing, a writer completely in earnest whose wit never deserts him, even in extremis. Inventive, intimate, restless, streetwise, and erudite, The Correspondence introduces a brave and original observer of the inner life under pressure.

    Each year, the series editor and guest editor curate a truly exceptional collection. The only shared traits among all these diverse styles, voices, and stories are the extraordinarily high caliber of writing, and the pure passion they tap into that can only come from sports.

    In a voice all his own, he brilliantly maps his terrain in lists, collage, and ludic narratives. With topics ranging from Martha Graham to the Flat Earth Society, from the brightest light in Vegas to the artist Henry Darger, who died in obscurity, Halls of Fame hovers on the brink between prose and poetry, deep seriousness and high comedy, the subject and the self.

    He lands an enviable gig writing about shopping and fashion for the city’s major newspaper, but an ill-fated promotional junket gets Albo into hot water. He becomes a gossip item and finds himself caught in an acrimonious war between Old and New Media. Here's a gimlet-eyed account of the back-biting media scene, a glimpse into the inner workings of the fashion crowd, and a candid portrait of what it takes to survive as a writer in today’s chattering and watchful New York City."I was perilously close to exposing a secret underground economy of promotion: favors and junkets and banquets and gifts that keeps the city in motion, and keeps underpaid writers at work. Basically, I became the Silkwood of Swag."

    this prospect frightens me much more than bombs'On the 70th anniversary of George Orwell's death, a new collection of his brilliant essays written during the Second World WarFascism and Democracy collects five brilliant examples of Orwell's writing during the darkest days of World War Two. Grappling with the principles of democracy and the potential of reform, the meaning of literature and free speech in times of violence, and the sustainability of objective truth, Orwell offers a compelling portrayal of a nation where norms and ideals can no longer be taken for granted. Like the best of Orwell's writing, these essays also serve as timeless reminders of the fragility of freedom.

    These are the essentials, the ones that Bittman goes back to time and again. Easy and accessible, each of these is a delicious excuse to grab a spatula and head outside. And, each is accompanied by short essay written in Bittman's trademark conversational style--so you feel like he's right there with you at the grill, sharing a story while the coals heat up. With this must-have grilling collection, Bittman also serves up a short but comprehensive guide to the grill, including how to get started, how to master doneness, what to grill, and what to keep in the pantry to make planning simple. Whether you cook everyday or pick up a set of tongs only on holiday weekends, these recipes are the ones you'll want to have on hand all summer long.

    From the streets of Danang, where a boy falls in with an American missionary, to the Canadian prairies, where an aging rancher finds himself smitten and a teenage boy’s infatuation reveals his naiveté, and a young woman in a cloistered Mennonite community is torn between faith and doubt, Here the Dark deftly renders moral complexities and asks what it means to be lost—and how, through grace, we can be found.

    At the center of his world was his larger-than-life father—a hunter, a fighter, a football coach, "a man better suited to living in a remote frontier wilderness of the nineteenth century than contemporary America, with all its progressive ideas and paved roads and lack of armed duels. He was a great man, and he taught me many things: how to fight and work and cheat and how to pray to Jesus about it, how to kill things with guns and knives and, if necessary, with hammers."Harrison, with his love of books and excessive interest in hugging, couldn't have been less like Pop, and when it became clear that he was not able to kill anything very well, or otherwise make his father happy, he resolved to become everything his father was not: an actor, a Presbyterian, and a doctor of philosophy. But when it was time to settle down and start a family of his own, Harrison began to view his father in a new light and realized—for better and for worse—how much like his old man he'd become.Sly, heartfelt, and tirelessly hilarious, The World's Largest Man is an unforgettable memoir—the story of a boy's struggle to reconcile himself with an impossibly outsize role model, and a grown man's reckoning with the father it took him a lifetime to understand.

    America is changing fast.  Cities are becoming dangerous.  Time to bug out…Security Engineer, Logan Cahill, and a woman who may or may not be his girlfriend, Skylar Madigan, live together, but only because it makes their conspiring that much easier.  Logan, like Skylar, is tormented by the notion that time is running out for America. As the nation spins perilously out of control and foreign forces make their foothold in the country known, Logan is tasked with investigating the mysterious Harper Whitaker, a programmer he believes to be working under false pretenses.  Is she caught up in cyber espionage, or something darker?  And how does Skylar fit in with this?  Has she been using him to get to Harper?Things are not as they seem, and the lid is about to blow off the whole city, maybe even the country.  The question that plagues Logan is the question of when, and how.  When does he bug out?  How will he survive a total collapse of society?  The good news is, Skylar has a plan and Harper just might be a part of it.  Will they be able get off the grid before all hell breaks loose?  The apocalypse is coming, which means the end is near…

    The masterful blending of text and photos sweeps readers into a maelstrom of monsters watching from above--a nightmare in the sky. 24 full-color photos, 100 duotones.

    Through the introduction of MTV and the alternative rock revolution, it's been many things. Rude. Brilliant. Soulful. Snotty. Angry. Delirious. In the past two decades, genres have spawned like mad, from goth, indie rock, and gangsta rap to emo and the garage rock revival. This twentieth-anniversary tribute celebrates the passion and fury of the music, with original essays, quotes, and photographs by contributors who are as hopelessly obsessed with it as you are. SPIN: 20 Years of Alternative Music features: Alan Light on Beastie Boys, Ann Powers on U2, Charles Aaron on R.E.M., Dave Eggers on The Smiths + Morrissey, Marc Spitz on Goth, Simon Reynolds on Depeche Mode + Synth-pop, Dave Itzkoff on ’80s Teen Movies, Chuck Klosterman on Weezer, Will Hermes on Radiohead, Neil Strauss on Nine Inch Nails + Industrial, Sacha Jenkins on Public Enemy, Andy Greenwald on Emo, RJ Smith on Gangsta Rap, Jon Dolan on The White Stripes, Chris Norris on Nirvana, Doug Brod on Oasis + Britpop, Jim DeRogatis on Smashing Pumpkins, Laura Sinagra on Courtney Love, Ta-Nehisi Coates on Tupac

    He thinks Mount Sinai Hospital is an exclusive golf course and his catheter is a gym bag. His only link to reality is his thirty-five-year-old nephew, who makes his living as a hired gun for thirteen softball teams and still goes by the name College Boy.But College Boy's body has begun to betray him -- almost as much as his lack of ambition. (His only legitimate paycheck comes from a gig as a laugher on a morning radio show.) Not only that, the Dirt King, a small-time gangster who controls all the replacement soil in Central Park, is after College Boy. As their lives collide, College Boy takes refuge in the arms of Sheila -- his uncle's cleaning woman and a part-time call girl.And then it gets weird.

    She's not intending to stay long, but after tracking down her distant family, Jo becomes more involved in village life than she could ever have imagined - and suddenly in danger too.Jo also finds herself drawn to Nick, a handsome newcomer to the village. Nick had planned to settle in Birch End and start a business, but as he grows closer to Jo, he realises he may have to choose between his dreams and a chance at love.Meanwhile, the new local council are faced with some tough decisions of their own. It's time to take a stand against the poor conditions in Backshaw Moss, the nearby slum, but some councillors want things to stay as they are - and will go to any lengths to make sure they get their way . . .Will the decent people of the valley win a brighter future for themselves? And can Jo find a way to stay with Nick in a place she's grown to love?