Half-digested pieces of eel and water vole skull on your head is not a good look. Just so you know.'Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to British Birds is all about comedian Bailey's love of birds. A visual feast - it is packed with illustrations, sketches and notes by Bailey - as well as informative, it is funny and insightful, and positively crackles with energy, knowledge and wit as he takes us on a journey around the British isles, zooming in on those birds that enthuse him the most. Whether it's what they eat, where they fly to or how they communicate, these birds are always fascinating, and Bailey introduces us to their weird and wonderful ways in a manner that is always entertaining. If you're a parent who'd like to appear a bit clever when your child asks you the name of a bird; if you want to find a new and healthy hobby that takes you outdoors; or whether, quite simply, you want to understand a bit more about our natural environment and have a laugh at the same time, this is the perfect companion book to have.Alongside music and stand-up, one of Bailey's favourite pastimes is birdwatching, which he has been doing since he was a child in the West Country. His fondest memories are of family outings with parents, grandparents and cousins, ticking the birds off in his little Observer's Book of Birds. As he has said about those formative years, 'birdwatching gave a purpose to the day and a love of the natural world which has carried on into my adult life'. A beautifully and originally designed hardback, it will delight Bailey's fans as well as those who like a bit of armchair escapism.

    Avoid Grammatical Minefields with this Entertaining GuideConfused about when to use "its" or "it's" or the correct spelling of "principal" and "principle"? My Grammar and I...or Should That Be me? is a refresher course for anyone who has ever been stumped by spelling confusion, dangling modifiers, split infinities, or for those who have no idea what these things even are.Clever, informative, and fun, this delightful little handbook offers practical and humorous guidance on how to avoid falling into language pitfalls.* Sentence Structure: Let's ponder the subject or object: Is it "I" or is it "me"?* Parts of Speech: "whose" or "who's"? "which" or "that"?* Punctuation: So where does that comma go, anyway?* Spelling and Confusables: There are times when the spelling "rules" confuse.* Elements of Style: You'll find there's lots more to know about grammar.* ...and for grammar know-it-alls, there are entertaining "Smart Aleck" tidbits throughout.

    One hundred crystal-clear articles explore the Law Code of Hammurabi, the Renaissance, the American Revolution, World War II, and much, much more, bringing the events and people of history to life.As part of DK's award-winning Big Ideas Simply Explained series, The History Book uses infographics and images to explain key ideas and themes. Biographies of key leaders, thinkers, and warriors, from Julius Caesar to Barack Obama, offer insight into their lives and further historical insight into these world-changing episodes.The History Book makes the past 4,000 years of history accessible and provides enlightenment on the forces that shaped the world as we know it today, for students and history buffs alike.Series Overview: Big Ideas Simply Explained series uses creative design and innovative graphics, along with straightforward and engaging writing, to make complex subjects easier to understand. These award-winning books provide just the information needed for students, families, or anyone interested in concise, thought-provoking refreshers on a single subject.Reviews:"[The Big Ideas Simply Explained books] are beautifully illustrated with shadow-like cartoons that break down even the most difficult concepts so they are easier to grasp. These step-by-step diagrams are an incredibly clever learning device to include, especially for visual learners." - Examiner.com"The visual layout promotes browsing with illustrations, pull quotes, and simple mind maps to explain concepts quickly." - Library Journal"Accessible guide to the great thinkers." - School Library Journal"Clever and engaging." - Booklist

    Featuring 50 common North American birds, such as the White-Breasted Butt Nugget and the Goddamned Canada Goose (or White-Breasted Nuthatch and Canada Goose for the layperson), Matt Kracht identifies all the idiots in your backyard and details exactly why they suck with ink drawings. Each entry is accompanied by facts about a bird's (annoying) call, its (dumb) migratory pattern, its (downright tacky) markings, and more.The essential guide to all things wings with migratory maps, tips for birding, musings on the avian population, and the ethics of birdwatching.

    From moral ethics to the philosophies of religions, The Philosophy Book sheds a light on the famous ideas and thinkers from the ancient world through the present day. Including theories from Pythagoras to Voltaire and Mary Wollstonecraft to Noam Chomsky, The Philosophy Book offers anyone with an interest in philosophy an essential resource to the great philosophers and the views that have shaped our society.

    Now the best of these questions and answers--from the profound to the ridiculous--are collected in book form so that you can know a little about a lot. Exploding myths, revealing shocking truths, and explaining all major mysteries of the cosmos, The Straight Dope contains more than four hundred fully-indexed entries on topics ranging from sex to consumer products, science to history, and rock 'n' roll to much, much more!

    Lavishly illustrated with Dilbert strips, these hilarious essays on incompetent bosses, management fads, bewildering technological changes and so much more, will make anyone who has ever worked in an office laugh out loud in recognition. The Dilbert Principle: The most ineffective workers will be systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage -- management.Since 1989, Scott Adams has been illustrating this principle each day, lampooning the corporate world through Dilbert, his enormously popular comic strip. In Dilbert, the potato-shaped, abuse-absorbing hero of the strip, Adams has given voice to the millions of Americans buffeted by the many adversities of the workplace.Now he takes the next step, attacking corporate culture head-on in this lighthearted series of essays. Packed with more than 100 hilarious cartoons, these 25 chapters explore the zeitgeist of ever-changing management trends, overbearing egos, management incompetence, bottomless bureaucracies, petrifying performance reviews, three-hour meetings, the confusion of the information superhighway and more. With sharp eyes, and an even sharper wit, Adams exposes -- and skewers -- the bizarre absurdities of everyday corporate life. Readers will be convinced that he must be spying on their bosses, The Dilbert Principle rings so true!

    Unfortunately, not all of the hopeful thinkers and academics around the globe can become Nobel laureates, but some are lucky enough to win the Ig Nobel Prize instead. Drawn from the world’s wackiest actual research, The Ig Nobel Prizes demonstrates the extreme measures that people will take in the quest for knowledge, and pays tribute to those individuals whose achievements cannot—or should not—be reproduced. Recent Ig Nobel honorees include: • The professor who proved that toast falls buttered side down more often than not • The Southern Baptist Church of Alabama which devised a formula to determine how many Alabamans will go to hell • The founder of the amusement park known as “Stalin World” Featuring these endeavors and many more, The Ig Nobel Prizes is an entertaining exhibition of brains and determination.

    BBC hit Sherlock has brought Conan Doyle's legendary detective to a whole new audience and Sherlock: The Casebook is The Great Game for the next generation. This is no ordinary guide. Each case is brought to life on the page and re-examined through Dr Watson's blog, Inspector Lestrade's police reports, newspaper articles about the crimes, Sherlock's detective notes and any other surviving clues from the cases. Interspersed amongst the evidence are exclusive interviews with the stars of the show, Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and Rupert Graves, writers and co-creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat and the production team on everything from writing the scripts and bringing the characters to life on screen to set design and production. This is a multi-dimensional companion to Sherlock and a glorious tribute to the world-famous detective.

    From the great city of Ankh-Morpork, featuring a river you could skateboard across if it wasn't so knobbly, to the distant Ramtop Mountains and mysterious Counterweight Continent, the Discworld is a place where Death waits around every corner... For safety's sake, you need a guide. And here it is. Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs, respectively chronicler and cartographer of the Discworld, have the produced the one and only definitive guide to the flat planet - its geography, its flora and fauna, its (many) religions, its architecture and customs, and its outstanding personalities. What is a Quantum Weather Butterfly? What does Death keep on his desk? Would you drink Bearhugger's Homeopathic Sipping Whiskey? How are the kings of Ankh-Morpork different from the kings of Ankh? Everything the Discworld traveller needs to know is contained in these pages, together with useful maps and illustrations of significant places and emblems in this unique world.

    Whether you’re a competitive veteran or a recreational beginner, this essential guide will tell you exactly what to eat, what to wear, what to expect, and how to train. When race day arrives, author Dave Kuehls, contributing editor at Runner’s World and a marathoner himself, will have you in the best shape of your life—physically and mentally. All you have to do is take the first step.Four Months to a Four-Hour Marathon includes:• Day-by-day training schedules for 4-hour and 5-hour marathoners• Detailed diet plans• The marathoner’s mind-set• Right and wrong things to wear• How to pick the right sneakers• Pain vs. performance—how far to go• Common pitfalls to avoid—in training and during the race• A list of the 36 marathons in North America where you can run the fastest times

    You’ve had a martini or three, and you mingle through the crowd, wondering how long you need to stay before going out for pizza. Suddenly you’re introduced to someone new, Dr. Nice Tomeetya. You forget the pizza. Now is the perfect time to bring up all those strange questions you’d like to ask during an office visit with your own doctor but haven’t had the guts (or more likely the time) to do so. You’re filled with liquid courage . . . now is your chance! If you’ve ever wanted to ask a doctor . . .•How do people in wheelchairs have sex?•Why do I get a killer headache when I suck down my milkshake too fast?•Can I lose my contact lens inside my head forever?•Why does asparagus make my pee smell?•Why do old people grow hair on their ears?•Is the old adage “beer before liquor, never sicker, liquor before beer . . .” really true? . . . then Why Do Men Have Nipples? is the book for you.Compiled by Billy Goldberg, an emergency medicine physician, and Mark Leyner, bestselling author and well-known satirist, Why Do Men Have Nipples? offers real factual and really funny answers to some of the big questions about the oddities of our bodies.

    Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan’s 45-year hole of fire called the Door of Hell, coffins hanging off a side of a cliff in the Philippines, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England.Atlas Obscura revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden, and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book you can open anywhere.

    LOOK LIKE A MAN.For years now, people have insisted that you should avoid the foods you love. For years, they've maintained that if you want total health, you won't find it in the weight room...that you're supposed to jog your way to maximum fitness. And for years, the supposed know-it-alls have been sending the message that testosterone-- the most basic of hormones that makes you a man-- is bad, bad, bad.In the meantime, American men have kept getting fatter and more frustrated. Which is why we've looked into all this. And on the basis of what we've learned, we believe the know-it-alls are wrong, wrong, wrong.The Testosterone Advantage Plan(TM) is about realizing your full potential-- as a man. We'll show you how nature intended for you to eat. We'll give you a cutting-edge workout regimen that will help you attain the shape you've always admired-- the shape women lust after. We'll explain how you can boost your testosterone levels naturally, without supplements of any kind. Finally, we'll tick off the long list of benefits you'll likely reap in terms of energy and enthusiasm, power and potency, confidence and charisma.THIS MUCH YOU KNOW: What you've done in the past hasn't worked. Why not try it our way? You have everything to gain-- and nothing to lose except your gut.

    Her tote bag is stocked with lint rollers and catnip. All her photos get the #catlady or #crazycatlady hashtags. And she’s not alone—each tag has over 4 million posts on Instagram! With clever text by Ms. Scholten and utterly charming artwork by Ms. Loonstra (a regular Flow illustrator), Crazy Cat Lady is a celebration of the quirky, relatable, and instantly recognizable habits of devoted feline fans. There are mottos for the perpetually fur-covered: Cat hair, don’t care. Quotes for the owners who know the more the merrier: “Cats are like glasses of wine. You can’t have just one.” Flowcharts on what to name your kitten. “How to draw a cat” tutorials. Fun facts: Did you know that a cat has 230 bones in its body, more than you? And portraits of crazy cat ladies through history, from Florence Nightingale to Katy Perry. At an impulse-friendly price, this sweetly edgy little book has the fresh outlook on cat fanaticism the modern feline lover has been waiting for.