And, for better or worse, I 'jotted' them down. It was only later, when perhaps I received an angry letter from someone, that it struck me: Hey! Someone's been reading my diary!"Gary Larson, from the preface to The Complete Far SideRevered by its fans as the funniest, most original, most "What the ... ?"-inspiring cartoon ever, The Far Side® debuted in January 1980 and enjoyed an illustrious 14 years on the worlds comics pages until Gary Larson's retirement in 1994. The Complete Far Side celebrates Gary's twisted, irreverent genius in this ultimate Far Side book, a lavish production, which takes its place alongside collector's-edition art books.A masterpiece of comic brilliance, The Complete Far Side contains every Far Side cartoon ever syndicated over 4,000 if you must know presented in (more or less) chronological order by year of publication, with more than 1,100 thathave never before appeared in a book. Also included are additional Far Side cartoons Larson created afterhis retirement: 13 that appeared in the last Far Side book, Last Chapter and Worse, and six cartoons that periodically ran as a special feature in The New York Times Science Times section as The Far Side of Science.Creator Gary Larson offers a rare glimpse into the mind of The Far Side®in quirky and thoughtful introductions to each of the 14 chapters. Complaint letters, fan letters, and queries from puzzled readers appear alongside some of the more provocative or elusive panels. Actor, author,and comedian Steve Martin offers his pithy thoughts in a foreword, and GaryLarson's former editor describes what it was like to be "the guy who could explain every Far Side cartoon."The Complete Far Side © 2003 by FarWorks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Far Side ® and the Larson ® signature are registered trademarks of FarWorks, Inc.

    Three of the first five U.S. Presidents died on July 4th. The company name Atari was chosen so consumers would think the Northern California-based company was Japanese. These and other eye-opening revelations await the reader of Who Knew? Part pop culture, part pop quiz, this quirky compilation of little-known facts and figures will amaze and amuse readers of all ages. Who Knew? collects tidbits and trivia about well-known personalities and products that we are all familiar with—or at least think we're familiar with. From Twinkies to Tupperware to toys and television, these offbeat informational nuggets are guaranteed to entertain and enthrall.

    For lovers of facts, students of popular culture, history buffs, and science enthusiasts, the fascinating stories behind 500 everyday items, expressions, and customs--from Kleenex to steak sauce, Barbie Dolls to honeymoons.

    In Elephants on Acid, Boese details the results of this scientific trial, as well as answers to the questions: Why can't people tickle themselves? Would the average dog summon help in an emergency? Will babies instinctually pick a well-balanced diet? Is it possible to restore life to the dead? Read on to find out...

    In other words, perfect." - The Huffington PostAn amusing and captivating tale that's a delightful primer for laughing at the inevitable: If you're a dinosaur, all of your friends are dead. If you're a pirate, all of your friends have scurvy. If you're a tree, all of your friends are end tables. Each page of this laugh-out-loud, illustrated humor book showcases the downside of being everything from a clown to a cassette tape to a zombie. Cute and dark all at once, this hilarious children's book for adults teaches valuable lessons about life.From the sock whose only friends have gone missing to the houseplant whose friends are being slowly killed by irresponsible plant owners (like you), All My Friends Are Dead presents hilariously entertaining stories about life and existential predicaments.The simple yet effective imagery, the personification of inanimate objects, and short, hilarious quips come together to create an amusing adventure through each character's unique grievance and wide-eyed dilemmas.Written by Avery Monsen, an actor, artist, and writer and Jory John, a writer, editor, and journalist. They are friends, and neither is dead. Yet.All My Friends Are Dead is both the saddest funny book and the funniest sad book you'll ever read.Children's book written for adults Displayed in an accessible cartoon form

    For your convenience, every book of the holy word has been reduced to a few sentences, in what we're calling "The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness." Your abridged bible will be pocket-sized for maximum convenience.

    Told through an examination of animal and plant life today - with occasional juxtapositions of extinct fossil forms to reveal the origin of living creatures - "Life on Earth" is an astonishing pageant of life, with a cast of characters drawn from the whole range of living animals the world over. Attenborough's perceptive, dynamic approach to the evolution of some four million species of living organisms that populate the planet is to trace the most significant thread in the history of each major group. He then proceeds to explain from the evidence of living representatives and fossil remains why certain animals adapted and survived, evolved to more complex and "higher" forms of life, while others, by some inherent limitation imposed by their physiology or structure, failed and became extinct. "Life on Earth" is a book of wonders. A model of clarity and ease as a guide, Attenborough takes the reader around the world with him into jungles where orchids have petals that "impersonate" wasps to attract pollinating insects; to Australia, where honeypot ants force feed nectar to workers of a special caste, then hang them up by their forelegs like living storage jars; to remote mountains in Japan where little monkeys called macaques have learned to combat the winter snows by bathing in hot volcanic springs.

    It explains all this and much more. It discloses the best time to have a sex change, how to have a virgin birth, when to seduce your sisters or eat your lover. Quirky and brilliant, it takes as its starting point all creatures great and small worried about their bizarre sex lives, and the letters they write to the wise Dr Tatiana, the only agony aunt in all creation with a prodigious knowledge of both natural history and evolutionary biology.

    The instructions are friendly, humorous and so understandable they set a still-current industry standard for anyone-can-do-it clarity.

    Two books bound as one.

    In Why Fish Fart and Other Useless (or Gross) Information About the World, Francesca Gould sifts through the world's most unpleasant creatures, diseases, physical deformities, culinary delicacies, ritual practices, and hideous torture tactics to uncover every horrifying and stomach-turning fact under the sun. This book is full of questions you never thought to ask?and perhaps will wish you?d never had answered?including:?What exactly is maggot cheese? ?How did anal hair help to lead to the conviction of the Great ?Train Robbers? ?What is the job of a ?fart catcher How exactly do ?crabs? cause such intense itching around one's private parts? ?The real story behind why the toilet is often referred to as ?the john.? ?Why you might want to steer clear of some coffees. (Hint: If poo isn't exactly your idea of appetizing . . .)Why Fish Fart and Other Useless (or Gross) Information About the World is sure to delight any and all hard-core fans of the obscure, esoteric, and?last but not least?grotesque.

    She puts the English national character under her anthropological microscope, and finds a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and byzantine codes of behaviour. The rules of weather-speak. The ironic-gnome rule. The reflex apology rule. The paranoid-pantomime rule. Class indicators and class anxiety tests. The money-talk taboo and many more ...Through a mixture of anthropological analysis and her own unorthodox experiments (using herself as a reluctant guinea-pig), Kate Fox discovers what these unwritten behaviour codes tell us about Englishness.

    A quick read packed with information from cover to cover.Here you will find out: How did a Frenchman successfully use a spontaneous combustion defense during a murder trial? How did a German teenager help end the Cold War? Why did some really smart guys think foam houses would be the wave of the future? What is a chupacabra and why are there two of them? Did Cleopatra really die from a snake bite? You'll be glued to the pages of this book reading interesting fact after interesting fact as Interesting Stories for Curious People brings you the in-depth knowledge of some things you may have heard about and always wondered, but now will learn the truth. You'll finally be able to separate fact from fiction and will be surprised to learn that some of the things you've been told, even by your teachers, was just plain wrong! Whether you are a trivia maven or just a person who likes to learn new things, you'll learn something new and find yourself entertained as you discover some of the most fascination criminals, ghost stories, strange habits of historical figures, and just weird things that are a part of our world. So open this book and your mind and see another side of things that you may not know existed.

    Now these and twenty-two more of history's most famous personages are brought brilliantly to life, in this collection of unfailingly accurate yet undeniably hilarious biographies. You'll laugh while you learn about the very real people behind the legendary names, including why Montezuma was so vengeful, and why Catherine was so Great. You'll even finally lay to rest the rumor that Charlemagne was called "Chuck" by his friends.

    Topics range from ruminations on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men to the haunting science fiction of J.G. Ballard; from the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell to the persistent agonies of anti-Semitism and jihad. Hitchens even looks at the recent financial crisis and argues for the enduring relevance of Karl Marx. The book forms a bridge between the two parallel enterprises of culture and politics. It reveals how politics justifies itself by culture, and how the latter prompts the former. In this fashion, Arguably burnishes Christopher Hitchens' credentials as (to quote Christopher Buckley) our "greatest living essayist in the English language."