Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland: More Personal Ads from the London Review of Books


David Rose - 2010
    These ads prove that even if you’re lonely, you don’t have to be boring, as advertisers in this book demand much more than long walks on the beach from their potential mates. .Arranged by theme (“The Usual Hyperbole and a Whiff of Playful Narcissism”), and including footnotes to obscure references, Sexually I’m More of a Switzerland promises to be, like its predecessor, “a bracing splash of cold reality in the flushed face of romance” ( Chicago Tribune )..

Adulthood Is a Myth


Sarah Andersen - 2016
    Please go away.This book is for the rest of us. These comics document the wasting of entire beautiful weekends on the internet, the unbearable agony of holding hands on the street with a gorgeous guy, dreaming all day of getting home and back into pajamas, and wondering when, exactly, this adulthood thing begins. In other words, the horrors and awkwardnesses of young modern life.

Porn for New Moms: From the Cambridge Women's Pornography Cooperative


Cambridge Women's Pornography Cooperative - 2008
    What really turns them on? The CWPC locked themselves in the lab for months to find out. And the results are in this scientifically proven, steamy photo collection of hunky guys doing exactly what new mothers want. Prepare to enter a fantasy world, a world where men insist on changing diapers, where guys get up for 3 a.m. feedings, and where they just can't help but admire mom's sexy all-sweatpants wardrobe. Page after page of titillatingshots and dream-worthy captions will make every mother swoon. In fact, it might just leave her begging for more. . . . Oh, daddy!

The Go-Girl Guide : Surviving Your 20s with Savvy, Soul, and Style


Julia Bourland - 2000
    Irreverent yet helpful and information, The Go-Girl Guide covers everything from dating to climbing the career ladder to dealing with a body that has packed on some pounds, exactly what girls just entering or already swimming in this brave new world need to know. Julia Bourland's straight-talking survival guide puts the entire decade in perspective, giving you a sense that the uncensored insider's scoop from an older, more worldly sister.

Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose


Constance Hale - 1999
    Copy veteran Constance Hale is on a mission to make creative communication, both the lyrical and the unlawful, an option for everyone.With its crisp, witty tone, Sin and Syntax covers grammar’s ground rules while revealing countless unconventional syntax secrets (such as how to use—Gasp!—interjections or when to pepper your prose with slang) that make for sinfully good writing. Discover how to:*Distinguish between words that are “pearls” and words that are “potatoes”* Avoid “couch potato thinking” and “commitment phobia” when choosing verbs* Use literary devices such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, and metaphor (and understand what you're doing)Everyone needs to know how to write stylish prose—students, professionals, and seasoned writers alike. Whether you’re writing to sell, shock, or just sing, Sin and Syntax is the guide you need to improve your command of the English language.

Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis


Wendy Cope - 1986
    When Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis was first published, it catapulted its author into the bestseller lists and established her as one of our funniest and most eloquent of poets.'Cope has an extraordinary canny sense - quite rare among poets - of what will engage a reader's attention.' Poetry Review'A jet-age Tennyson.' London Review of Books'Like Larkin and Harrison, Cope has proven that a popular poetry is possible without compromising quality.' Acumen Series

Get Positively Beautiful: The Ultimate Guide to Looking and Feeling Gorgeous


Carmindy - 2008
    The underlying message? That there's something inherently wrong with the way women look and that they have to spend time, money, and energy keeping up with all the ways they should 'fix' themselves. In GET POSITIVELY BEAUTIFUL, makeup artist Carmindy from TLC's hit program What Not to Wear shows you how to change your mindset from negative fault-finding to a positive beauty philosphy. You learn how to find and focus on your best features and how to combat negative thoughts about your appearance. Carmindy demonstrates easy makeup techniques for eyes, brows, lashes, lips, cheeks, and skin, and how to adapt looks to different weather conditions and 'beauty moods.'

You Are Worthless: Depressing Nuggets of Wisdom Sure to Ruin Your Day


Scott Dikkers - 1999
    Takes a humorous look at inspirational self-help books by providing hundreds of depressing nuggets of wisdom.

Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation


Aisha Tyler - 2013
    In her book Self-Inflicted Wounds, comedian, actress, and cohost of CBS’s daytime hit show The Talk, Aisha Tyler recounts a series of epic mistakes and hilarious stories of crushing personal humiliation, and the personal insights and authentic wisdom she gathered along the way. The essays in Self-Inflicted Wounds are refreshingly and sometimes brutally honest, surprising, and laugh-out-loud funny, vividly translating the brand of humor Tyler has cultivated through her successful standup career, as well as the strong voice and unique point of view she expresses on her taste-making comedy podcast Girl on Guy. Riotous, revealing, and wonderfully relatable, Aisha Tyler’s Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation is about the power of calamity to shape life, learning, and success.

The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst


John Wilson - 2005
    A paperback guide to 100 of the funniest bad movies ever made, this book covers a wide range of hopeless Hollywood product, and also including rare Razzie ceremony photos and a complete history of everything ever nominated for Tinsel Town's Tackiest Trophy.

Bad with Money: The Imperfect Art of Getting Your Financial Sh*t Together


Gaby Dunn - 2019
    In the first episode of her “Bad With Money” podcast, Gaby Dunn asked random people at a coffee shop two questions: First, what’s your favorite sex position? Everyone was game to answer, even the barista. No holds barred. Then, she asked them how much money was in their bank accounts. Deathly silence. People were aghast. “That’s a very personal question!” they cried. And therein lies the problem.Gaby argues that our inability to speak honestly about money is our #1 barrier to understanding it, nurturing a stigma that leads to our shame, embarrassment, and anxiety, which in turn prevents us from taking ownership over this important part of our lives. She wants you to know that there are real reasons to feel helpless when it comes to managing your money, and that the patronizing know-it-alls on TV who blow air horns in your face and charge you up the wazoo for their self-help seminars do not have the answers.But despair not, there is a light at the end of this dark, moneyless tunnel. Through her own journey toward “financial literacy,” Gaby uncovers the real reasons that we feel so disempowered when it comes to finance—deeply rooted habits we inherited from our families, systemic imbalances, and intentionally-complicated terminology that makes it impossible for regular people to feel competent. Bad With Money isn’t going to tell you how to get rich or erase your debt, nor will it offer up a litany of humiliating confessions about horrible financial decisions that Gaby has made (okay, maybe some): it is an invitation from a friend who is just as clueless as you are. Equal parts memoir and journalistic investigation, Gaby covers topics like the financial dynamics of dating, the costs of mental health, and how to maintain your self-respect as a freelancer. In addition to debunking the “entitled millennial” stereotype, Gaby reveals essential truths like how “401K” is not the name of a sci-fi movie, why it feels like your bank teller is speaking a foreign language, and how to decide whether to take an unpaid internship.Weaving her own stories with the perspectives of various researchers, artists, students, her parents, a financial psychologist, her exes, and more, she reveals the ways that money makes us feel confused, hopeless, and terrified, and what it might look like to start taking control of our financial futures.

The Dangerous Book for Boys


Conn Iggulden - 2006
    This is a wonderful collection of all things that make being young, or young at heart, fun. Audio includes: Questions About the World, How to Play Stickball, The Rules of Soccer, Fishing, Famous Battles, Extraordinary Stories, Girls, First Aid, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Seven Modern Wonders of the World The perfect book for every boy from eight to eighty.

The Classic Ten: The True Story of the Little Black Dress and Nine Other Fashion Favorites


Nancy MacDonell Smith - 2003
    Incorporating sources from history, literature, magazines, and cinema, as well as her own witty anecdotes, Smith has created an engaging, informative guide to modern style.

The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood


Sy Montgomery - 2006
    The Good Good Pig celebrates Christopher Hogwood in all his glory, from his inauspicious infancy to hog heaven in rural New Hampshire, where his boundless zest for life and his large, loving heart made him absolute monarch.

The Mammoth Book of Losers


Karl Shaw - 2014
    It rejoices in men and women made of the Wrong Stuff: writers who believed in the power of words, but could never quite find the rights ones; artists and performers who indulged their creative impulse with a passion, if not a sense of the ridiculous, an eye for perspective or the ability to hold down a tune; scientists and businessmen who never quite managed to quit while they were ahead; and sportsmen who seemed to manage always to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Like Walter Oudney, one of three men chosen to find the source of the River Niger in Africa, who could not ride a horse, nor speak any foreign languages and who had never travelled more than 30 miles beyond his native Edinburgh; or the explorer-priest Michel Alexandre de Baize, who set off to explore the African continent from east to west equipped with 24 umbrellas, some fireworks, two suits of armor, and a portable organ; or the Scottish army which decided to invade England in 1349 - during the Black Death. Entries include: briefest career in dentistry; least successful bonding exercise; most futile attempt to find a lost tribe; most pointless lines of research by someone who should have known better; least successful celebrity endorsement; least convincing excuse for a war; worst poetic tribute to a root vegetable; least successful display of impartiality by a juror; Devon Loch - sporting metaphor for blowing un unblowable lead; least dignified exit from office by a French president; and least successful expedition by camel.