An educational and humorous look at life, language and culture in Britain through the eyes of an American who lives in Scotland, sometimes against her will.

    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.

    Curtis has noticed several distinct patterns that the media uses to turn the non-news into the news readers see each day. Exposing just how little reporting is actually going on, his book asks why we are overexposed to so much rubbish from news outlets.

    Based on Crystal's one-man Broadway show of the same name, "700 Sundays"--referring sadly to the time shared by an adoring father and his devoted son--offers a heartfelt, hilarious memoir.

    For each volume, the very best pieces are selected by a leading writer in the field, making the Best American series the most respected and most popular of its kind. "The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011" includes Daniel Alarcon, Clare Beams, Sloane Crosley, Anthony Doerr, Neil Gaiman, Mohammed Hanif, Mac McClelland, Michael Paterniti, Olivier Schrauwen, Gary Shteyngart, and others"

    Now, an even broader audience can discover Miller's stinging wit in paperback.Dennis Miller respects no boundaries. Whether the subject is dope-addled baseball players who can no longer swing their bats, do-nothing politicians who devote their careers to creating meaningful sound bites, or the nation's resigned acceptance of violence as a way of American life, these thematically arranged monologues are funny and angry. More significantly, they shatter the conventions of comedy by simultaneously making us laugh, think, and seethe. When Miller takes the stage, the audience demands, "the rants, the rants, the rants." Here is the collection of his invigorating and thought-provoking monologues that showcase his singular point of view.

    Widely read in prerevolutionary Russia, banned and forgotten under Communism; and recently rediscovered to great excitement, A Calendar of Wisdom is a day-by-day guide that illuminates the path of a life worth living with a brightness undimmed by time. Unjustly censored for nearly a century, it deserves to be placed with the few books in our history that will never cease teaching us the essence of what is important in this world.

    A twenty-eight year old — and not widely famous — Christopher Wren was giving a lecture on astronomy. As his audience listened to him speak, they decided that it would be a good idea to create a Society to promote the accumulation of useful knowledge.With that, the Royal Society was born. Since its birth, the Royal Society has pioneered scientific exploration and discovery. Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Banks, Humphry Davy, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, John Locke, Alexander Fleming — all were fellows.Bill Bryson’s favourite fellow was Reverend Thomas Bayes, a brilliant mathematician who devised Bayes’ theorem. Its complexity meant that it had little practical use in Bayes’ own lifetime, but today his theorem is used for weather forecasting, astrophysics and stock market analysis. A milestone in mathematical history, it only exists because the Royal Society decided to preserve it — just in case. The Royal Society continues to do today what it set out to do all those years ago. Its members have split the atom, discovered the double helix, the electron, the computer and the World Wide Web. Truly international in its outlook, it has created modern science.Seeing Further celebrates its momentous history and achievements, bringing together the very best of science writing. Filled with illustrations of treasures from the Society’s archives, this is a unique, ground-breaking and beautiful volume, and a suitable reflection of the immense achievements of science.

    . . . His enthusiasm for literature is a joyous intoxicant.” —New York TimesIn this charming anthology, esteemed literary critic Harold Bloom collects the last poems of history's most important and celebrated poets. As with his immensely popular Best Poems of the English Language, Bloom has carefully curated and annotated the final works of one hundred poets in Till I End My Song, with selections from John Keats, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, D.H. Lawrence, W.H. Auden, John Milton, Herman Melville, Emily Brontë, and others. Written with the same wise and discerning commentary of earlier books—including his acclaimed Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human and The Book of J—Till I End My Song is a moving and provocative meditation on the relationship between art, meaning, and ultimately, death, from the literary titan of our time.

    Eponymous, adj. Giving one's name to a person, place, or thing.Anonymous, adj. Anonymous.Anonyponymous, adj. Anonymous and eponymous.The Earl of Sandwich, fond of salted beef and paired slices of toast, found a novel way to eat them all together. Etienne de Silhouette, a former French finance minister, was so notoriously cheap that his name became a byword for chintzy practices—such as substituting a darkened outline for a proper painted portrait. Both bequeathed their names to the language, but neither man is remembered.In this clever and funny book, John Bemelmans Marciano illuminates the lives of these anonyponymous persons. A kind of encyclopedia of linguistic biographies, the book is arranged alphabetically, giving the stories of everyone from Abu "algorithm" Al-Khwarizmi to Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Along with them you'll find the likes of Harry Shrapnel, Joseph-Ignace Guillotine, and many other people whose vernacular legacies have long outlived their memory.Accented by amusing line portraits and short etymological essays on subjects like "superhero eponyms," Anonyponymous is both a compendium of trivia and a window into the fascinating world of etymology. Carefully curated and unfailingly witty, this book is both a fantastic gift for language lovers and a true pleasure to read.

    It takes in calculating beauties and sadistic husbands along with such real-life supporting characters as Colette, the Duchess of Windsor, Montgomery Clift, and Tallulah Bankhead. Above all, this malevolently funny book displays Capote at his most relentlessly observant and murderously witty.

    12), the cat who single-handedly wiped out an entire species. Or Ahmedabad (p. 61), a Siamese kitten who sparked riots throughout Pakistan. Or Snowball (p. 14), the cat who helped to convict dozens of murderers and criminals. Or Felix (p. 155), the first cat to explore outer space.These are just four of the 100 Cats Who Changed Civilization, and this book honors their extra-ordinary contributions to science, history, art, government, religion, and more. You'll meet a cat who filed a lawsuit (p. 66) and a cat who was slapped with a restraining order (p. 75). You'll meet cats who have inspired great works of literature (p. 90) and classical music (p. 102). You'll even meet a cat who telephoned the police to save the life of his owner (p. 162). These beautifully illustrated true stories are a tribute to the intelligence, bravery, and loving nature of cats all over the world.

    In Why We Suck, Dr. Denis Leary uses his common sense, and his biting and hilarious take on the world, to attack the politically correct, the hypocritical, the obese, the thin--basically everyone who takes themselves too seriously. He does so with the extra oomph of a doctorate bestowed upon him by his alma mater Emerson College. "Sure it's just a celebrity type of thing--they only gave it to me because I'm famous," Leary explains. "But it's legal and it means I get to say I'm a doctor--just like Dr. Phil." In Why We Suck, Leary's famously smart style and sardonic wit have found their fullest and fiercest expression yet. Zeroing in on the ridiculous wherever he finds it, Leary unravels his Irish Catholic upbringing, the folly of celebrity, the pressures of family life, and the great hypocrisy of politics with the same bright, savage, and profane insight he brought to his critically acclaimed one-man shows No Cure for Cancer and Lock 'n Load, and his platinum-selling song, "Asshole." Proudly Irish American, defiantly working class, with a reserve of compassion for the underdog and the overlooked, Leary delivers blistering diatribes that are penetrating social commentary with no holds barred. Leary's book will find wide appeal among people who want to laugh out loud or find a guide who matches their view of what's wrong in America and the world-at-large; and fans of his one-man shows, his many movies, and Rescue Me, Leary's Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated television show. Why We Suck is the latest salvo from one of America's most original and biting comic satirists.

    His range is wide, and his insights are acute, frequently ironic, and often downright funny. Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

    Presidents features outrageous and uncensored profiles of the men in the White House - complete with hundreds of little-known, politically incorrect, and downright wacko facts.