What most people don't know is that Barris allegedly spent close to two decades as a decorated covert assassin for the CIA.Barris, who achieved tremendous success as the creator and producer of hit TV game shows such as The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, claims to have joined the CIA as an agent in the early 1960s, infiltrated the Civil Rights movement, met with militant Muslims in Harlem, and traveled abroad in order to kill enemies of the United States.Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is now a movie directed by and starring George Clooney, with Sam Rockwell as the author, but the original story is wild and gripping, spiced with intrigue, sex, bad behavior and plenty of great one-liners. It is destined to become a classic.

    An illustrated compendium of humorous facts such as the recipe for oxygen tart and an explanation of how man evolved from small rocks.

    It gave us the concept of the global village; that phrase has now been translated, along with the rest of the book, into twelve languages, from Japanese to Serbo-Croat. It helped establish Marshall McLuhan as the original 'media guru.' More than 200,000 copies are in print. The reissue of this landmark book reflects the continuing importance of McLuhan's work for contemporary readers.

    Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts. After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. EARTH (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life's most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy. Also available as an ebook and as an audiobook.

    Bestselling Author of We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier and Bless Your Heart, Tramp Hang on to your hats! We’re in for some fiercely funny weather and crackling-sharp observations from Celia Rivenbark, of whom USA Today has said, “Think Dave Barry with a female point of view.” With her incomparable style and sassy southern wit, you’ll hear from Celia on:--The joys of remodeling Tara--How Harry Potter bitch-slaps Nancy Drew--Britney’s To-Do list: pick okra, cover that thang up--How rugby-playing lesbians torpedoed beach day--Why French women suck at competitive eating--The truth about nature deficit disorder--The difference between cockroaches and water bugs--The beauty of BedazzlersAnd much, much more! Whether she’s doing her taxes or extolling the virtues of Madonna’s mothering skills, Celia Rivenbark will keep you laughing until the very last page.

    Taking on the boorish behavior that for some has become a point of pride, Talk to the Hand is a rallying cry for courtesy. Like Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Talk to the Hand is not a stuffy guidebook, and is sure to inspire spirited conversation. For anyone who’s fed up with the brutality inflicted by modern manners (or lack thereof), Talk to the Hand is a colorful call to arms—from the wittiest defender of the civilized world.

    Godzilla, David Mamet, the award-winning playwright and screenwriter, gives us an exhilaratingly subversive inside look at Hollywood from the perspective of a filmmaker who has always played the game his own way.Who really reads the scripts at the film studios? How is a screenplay like a personals ad? Whose opinion matters when revising a screenplay? Why are there so many producers listed in movie credits? And what the hell do those producers do, anyway? Refreshingly unafraid to offend, Mamet provides hilarious, surprising, and bracingly forthright answers to these and other questions about virtually every aspect of filmmaking, from concept to script to screen. He covers topics ranging from “How Scripts Got So Bad” to the oxymoron of “Manners in Hollywood.” He takes us step-by-step through some of his favorite movie stunts and directorial tricks, and demonstrates that it is craft and crew, not stars and producers, that make great films. He tells us who his favorite actors and what his favorite movies are, who he thinks is the most perfect actor to grace the screen, and who he thinks should never have appeared there.Demigods and sacred cows of the movie business–beware! But for the rest of us, Mamet speaking truth to Hollywood makes for searingly enjoyable reading.

    How do you walk behind a woman you don’t know at night?What do you do if you’ve said goodbye, but then both walk off in the same direction?Or if you’re caught cheating on your hairdresser?Or when you spot someone purposely not taking your call?Well, if you’re Danny Wallace, you feel all awkward.Taken from his multi-award-nominated ShortList column, this is a book that tracks a year in a life of one man’s awkwardness…

    He is best known not just for being funny, but for advocating truth over sensitivity and taking on the political establishment.Maher first came to national attention as the host of the hit ABC-TV program Politically Incorrect, where he offered a combustible mixture of irreverence and acerbic humor that helped him to garner a loyal following, as well as a reputation for being a controversial bad boy.Bill Maher's popular new HBO television show, Real Time, has put Maher more front and center than ever before. Partic-ularly one regular segment on the show, entitled "New Rules," has been a hit with his ever-growing legion of fans. It is the part of the show during which Maher takes serious aim, bringing all of his intelligence, incisiveness, wit, and his signature exasperation to bear on topics ranging from cell phones ("I don't need my cell phone to take pictures or access the Internet. I just need it to make a phone call. From everywhere! Not just the places it likes!") to fast food ("No McDonald's in hospitals. I'm not kidding!) to the conservative agenda ("Stop claiming it's an agenda. It's not an agenda. It's a random collection of laws that your corporate donors paid you to pass.")His new book, the first since his bestselling When You Ride ALONE You Ride with bin Laden, brings these brilliantly conceived riffs and rants to the written page. Appropriately titled New Rules, the book will collect some of the best of the rules derived from previously written material and will also contain substantial new material, including some longer form "editorials"--of course with a twist and bite that only Bill Maher can deliver.

    His slow descent into semi-madness is chronicled here, in The Office, The Scripts volume 2. Following on from the phenomenal success of series 1 voted Comedy of the Year at the British Comedy Awards the second series averaged over 4 million viewers, with a 25% audience share. This book features the scripts from all six episodes and contains over 500 picture screengrabs taken from the broadcast masters and available exclusively in this BBC publication. Original and accurate and painfully funny: it will have every office in the country twitching with spasms of recognition This is a gem. The Times

    Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver. All six of these writers were alcoholics, and the subject of drinking surfaces in some of their finest work, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to A Moveable Feast. Often they did their drinking together—Hemingway and Fitzgerald ricocheting through the cafés of 1920s Paris; Carver and Cheever speeding to the liquor store in Iowa in the icy winter of 1973.Olivia Laing grew up in an alcoholic family herself. One spring, wanting to make sense of this ferocious, entangling disease, she took a journey across America that plunged her into the heart of these overlapping lives. As she travels from Cheever's New York to Williams' New Orleans, from Hemingway's Key West to Carver's Port Angeles, she pieces together a topographical map of alcoholism, from the horrors of addiction to the miraculous possibilities of recovery. Beautiful, captivating and original, The Trip to Echo Spring strips away the myth of the alcoholic writer to reveal the terrible price creativity can exert.

    If you cherish every piece of art, every book report, every letter to Santa your child gives you, then this book is not for you. If your refrigerator is adorned with mementos from your kid's childhood, then you are a sucker. Maddox, who has been writing hilarious essays for his popular site, TheBestPageInTheUniverse.com since 1996, can spell, do math, and run faster than your kids, and he is here to show you just how inferior your kids are. Marvel as Maddox deconstructs an eight-year-old's crayon-drawn family portrait! Laugh uproariously as he judges sub-par Valentines, homemade "gifts" and other areas of elementary-aged underperformance!Why reward weakness and mediocrity with gold stars? You are in Maddox's world now, and no child is safe from the scrutiny and critical gaze of the world's foremost authority on children's crappy artwork.

    In the other, Michel Houellebecq, bestselling author of The Elementary Particles, widely derided as a sex-obsessed racist and misogynist. What began as a secret correspondence between bitter enemies evolved into a remarkable joint personal meditation by France’s premier literary and political live wires.  An instant international bestseller, Public Enemies has now been translated into English for all lovers of superb insights, scandalous opinions, and iconoclastic ideas.In wicked, wide-ranging, and freewheeling letters, the two self-described “whipping boys” debate whether they crave disgrace or secretly have an insane desire to please. Lévy extols heroism in the face of tyranny; Houellebecq sees himself as one who would “fight little and badly.” Lévy says “life does not ‘live’” unless he can write; Houellebecq bemoans work as leaving him in such “a state of nervous exhaustion that it takes several bottles of alcohol to get out.” There are also touching and intimate exchanges on the existence of God and about their own families.Dazzling, delightful, and provocative, Public Enemies is a death match between literary lions, remarkable men who find common ground, confident that, in the end (as Lévy puts it), “it is we who will come out on top.”

    It follows Eddy Nugent, a bored fifteen-year-old, living in Manchester, as he travels through the drinking, swearing and sex-obsessed world of our nation's finest.

    Written by Lawrence Miles (Faction Paradox) and long-time sci-fi commentator Tat Wood, About Time focuses on the continuity of Doctor Who (its characters, alien races and the like), but also examines the show as a work of social commentary. In particular, Miles and Wood dissect the politics and social issues that shaped the show during its unprecedented 26-year run (from 1963 to 1989), detailing how the issues of the day influenced this series. As part of this grand opus, About Time 1 examines Doctor Who Seasons 1 to 3 (1963 to 1966) -- the show's every beginnings, with William Hartnell in the lead role. Among other things, About Time 1 answers such vitally important Who questions as Where (and When) is Gallifrey? and Why Couldn't the BBC Just Have Spent More Money?