It was probably around the time he hit 300 pounds, and that was quite a few pounds ago. At six-foot-six, he's the elephant in the room nobody notices. Still, his social leprosy doesn't keep him from putting in for a promotion in the stats department, or from carrying a torch for the gorgeous Alison, who just might see through the blubber to the real Buck inside.So when Buck gets Shanghaied to Tokyo for a family emergency, the last thing he expects is to be marveled at everywhere he goes. Little kids run up to him and want to pull the hair on his arms. He's suddenly the Jolly Blond Giant.As his life takes a new turn in a country where being big can mean fame and fortune, Buck must embark on the most dangerous yet adventurous ride of his life--to find the ultimate meaning of love and acceptance. Even if it means risking his life and giving up everything he has.

    He’s also a vampire. He lives alone and avoids the other vampires in L.A., but Pete’s simple life goes haywire when he falls for Angie, the cute bartender at a Sunset Strip dive -- and when sinister vampire lord Carson Fitzgerald returns to claim his children, Pete learns that nothing's ever easy for a creature of the night.

    She's got problems though when bits of her ex-husband turn up in different places and the slimy DI Savage seems to be bending the evidence to link her to the death. Add the fact that she's being pressured into taking a ‘job’ by hard-nosed Vera Devlin from the estate and having to work in a topless bar to make ends meet and you can see she's up against it. Desperate to extricate herself from the mess she breaks into her old marital home to find the diary of her dead husband, except that his mother has taken up residence and arrives back early from bingo… Set against a backdrop of Northern council estate life, this fast paced, humorous novel exemplifies the problems caused by poverty, piles and unruly children, think Jeremy Kyle meets the Thorn Birds and you won't be far wrong!

    Another super collection of naughty and not-so-naughty jokes, humorous anecdotes, comic interludes, hilarious situations and bitchy remarks, selected by Khushwant Singh from amongst the thousands contributed by his readers and fans - and some manufactured by him.

    As in Thanks for the Mammogram!, she uses hilarious vignettes and a delightful mix of wit and wisdom to connect with her readers. With chapters about how "All Varicose Veins Lead to Rome" and "PMS Is a Picnic in the Park," this book helps women dealing with "mentalpause" and those around them gain a better understanding--and certainly a lighter attitude--about this passage of life. Mentalpause . . . and Other Midlife Laughs will get readers laughing at themselves as they hear Laura lightheartedly describe her age spots, lament her sagging everything, and look anew at love after forty.

    WHAT are the dangers of getting directions from a fairy tale frog? WHERE do archangels go to kick back and relax? HOW can a garden gnome mend a broken heart? WHO is the last person you’d expect to visit you at Christmas? WHY shouldn’t you let Satan organise your funeral? Find out the answers to these and other pressing questions in this collection of short stories from the authors of the Clovenhoof series.

    Described as the most original voice in cricket, The Grade Cricketer represents the fading hopes and dreams of every ageing amateur sportsman. In this tell-all 'autobiography', The Grade Cricketer describes his cricketing career with unflinching honesty and plenty of humour, in turn providing insights into the hyper-masculine cricket 'dressing room'. This one-time junior prodigy is now experiencing the lean, increasingly existential years of adult cricket. Here, he learns quickly that one will need more than just runs and wickets to make it in the alpha-dominated grade cricket jungle, where blokes like Nuggsy, Bruiser, Deeks and Robbo reign supreme. Through it all, The Grade Cricketer lays bare his deepest insecurities - his relationship with Dad, his fleeting romances outside the cricket club - and, in turn, we witness a gentle maturation; a slow realisation that perhaps, just maybe, there is more to life than hitting 50 not out in third grade and enjoying a few celebratory beers afterwards. Or is there? * * * The Grade Cricketer book is based upon the popular Twitter account, @gradecricketer, which has received critical acclaim for its frighteningly honest portrayal of amateur cricket. Now, the time has finally come for this middling amateur sportsman to tell his story in full. 'The Grade Cricketer is the finest tribute to a sport since Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, and the best cricket book in yonks. It's belly-laughing funny but it's also a hymn to the grand and complex game delivered with a narrative pace and ability I'm afraid most Test players don't have. For anyone who ever dreamed of excelling at a sport but never quite made it but still gave it your life, this is the story. A great read!' - Tom Keneally AO.

    

    With Happy Hour is for Amateurs, he brings his hilarious, biting, spot-on rants, revelations, and remembrances to the printed page. Part Office Space, part Howard Stern—with a bit of Bukowski thrown in for good measure—Happy Hour is for Amateurs is a drunken and debauched tour through the courtrooms, bars, and bedrooms of the American legal system. As The Philadelphia Lawyer’s subtitle so succinctly puts it, “Work Sucks. Life Doesn’t Have To.”

    As her world implodes, she sets off on an epic road trip to reclaim everything she believes she's sacrificed since her wild youth: Great friendship, passionate love, and her art. But as she careens across the U.S. from Detroit to New York to Memphis to Nashville, nothing turns out as she imagines. Ultimately, she finds herself resurrected on the other side of the globe, on a remote island embroiled in a crisis far bigger than her own.Irresistibly funny, whip-smart, and surprisingly moving, DONNA HAS LEFT THE BUILDING spins an unforgettable tale about what it means to be brave -- and to truly love -- in a tumultuous world.

    Now late in his career, Savard and his teammate and best friend, Cam Carter, are trying to fulfill their boyhood dreams of winning a Stanley Cup before they retire. A surprise late-season trade pits the friends against each other in a playoff series both could lose but only one can win. Saved takes the reader into the rinks, dressing rooms, planes, buses, and hotels that are the backdrop to the long grind of an NHL season. That grind is made bearable by the likes of players such as Bruno Govoni, whose cell phone ring tone is the orgasmic moaning of a porn star Loretta (Lash) LaRue; of Phil Flipside Palmer, the only person besides the Kingsmen who knows all the words to Louie Louie or that Child of the Moon was the flipside of the Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash; and team enforcer Kevin Quigley, who claims all his fights are retaliations, but sometimes I retaliate first. Most sports novels bring the game to the reader. Saved brings the reader to the game. Praise for Jack Falla Falla's graphic portrayal of a violent sport (and its colorful players) and his insider's view of how hockey is played, coached, and officiated is exciting, surefire entertainment. -- Publishers Weekly on Saved Literary hot chocolate that will warm your heart. ---Robert Lipsyte, The New York Times, on Home Ice The best hockey book ever. ---John Buccigross, ESPNsportscaster, on Home Ice Possibly the best hockey book since Ken Dryden's The Game, ---Toronto Globe and Mail, on Home Ice

    Air & Fire is about a group of French people sent to California at the end of the 19th century to build a church. The Insult is about a man blinded by a robber in a supermarket parking lot who discovers one night that--because of a bizarre experiment--he can see again. Thomson's latest finds three very different characters--an aimless waitress, a reluctant hit man, and an ambitious young marketing executive--linked by the sudden success of a new soft drink. But a closer look confirms the feeling that Soft! continues the author's fascination with the way science can bend and shape the destinies of all sorts of nonscientific people. Certainly Glade Spencer, the flaky young woman who flies off periodically for unpleasant encounters with her American lawyer boyfriend, has no idea when she signs up for a sleep clinic to earn some extra cash that the soda slogans planted in her brain could cause her death. Barker Dodds, the nightclub bouncer from Plymouth, doesn't know why he's being paid to kill Glade. And James Lyle, the striving marketer who thought up the brainwashing scheme in the first place, is deliberately out of the loop about its consequences. All three are so perfectly drawn that you'd recognize them on the street, and the way Thomson describes their quirky, weirdly decorated flats and lifestyles captures the flickering pulse of London with uncanny accuracy. --Dick Adler

    Crowned "Calamity Jayne" by Iowa Department of Natural Resources officer Rick Townsend, Tressa's out to gain a little hometown respect --or die trying. Unfortunately for Tressa, that may be the case. She's just been handed the perfect opportunity to get "Ranger Rick," the doubting Don Juan of the DNR, and a skeptical citizenry to finally take her seriously. How? By solving a murder no one else believes happened...No one, that is, except the killer.Yup, Calamity Jayne is in it up to her hot pink snakeskin cowgirl boots and matching rhinestone belt. Tressa would tell you her momma never raised no dummies, but the jury's still out on that one.

    No Jobs. No friends. Just buckets of our own ignorance. Follow along in horror and hilarity as the family acclimates to the new small town way of life and the author bounces from jobs working in a school cafeteria to selling women’s clothing in a call center to opening a barbecue restaurant. Written in a smart, self-deprecating, salty style, Small Town Ho is all at once poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, full of the struggle of an ordinary family consisting of three boys, one big black lab, one assassin of a cat, and two very tired parents.

    A core book for any golfer--how to read a golf course, through the eyes of a course architect.