Book picks similar to
Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction: Build Implements of Spitball Warfare by John Austin
non-fiction
nonfiction
science
reference
All My Friends Are Dead
Avery Monsen - 2010
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
Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants
John Drury Clark - 1972
A favorite of Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, listeners will want to tune into this "really good book on rocket[s]," available for the first time in audio. Ignition! is the story of the search for a rocket propellant which could be trusted to take man into space. This search was a hazardous enterprise carried out by rival labs who worked against the known laws of nature, with no guarantee of success or safety. Acclaimed scientist and sci-fi author John Drury Clark writes with irreverent and eyewitness immediacy about the development of the explosive fuels strong enough to negate the relentless restraints of gravity. The resulting volume is as much a memoir as a work of history, sharing a behind-the-scenes view of an enterprise that eventually took men to the moon, missiles to the planets, and satellites to outer space. A classic work in the history of science, listeners will want to get their hands on this influential classic, available for the first time in decades.
The LEGO® Ideas Book
Daniel Lipkowitz - 2011
You have what it takes! Did you ever wonder what you can do with all of those LEGO® bricks after you have created the project they came with?Now with The LEGO Ideas Book, you can take what you already have and make something new! The book is divided into six themed chapters—transportation, buildings, space, kingdoms, adventure, and useful makes—each with basic templates of key models and spreads to inspire you to create your own.Hints and tips from Master Builders can help you turn your classic car into a race car or add a bridge to your castle! Don't be concerned if you haven't got all the bricks you need: this book also shows how to simplify details, making this a great user-friendly guide for any building ability.Featuring all-new LEGO® building projects, tips to supplement and enhance your LEGO creations, inspirational builds, and expert advice from LEGO Master Builders, The LEGO Ideas Book will keep kids of all ages creating for hours.
James Herriot's Favorite Dog Stories
James Herriot - 1986
But no animal was dearer to his heart, and no animal provided him with more heartwarming and wonderful tales. With over a million copies sold, James Herriot's Favorite Dog Stories has inspired dog lovers the world over. After being out of print for many years, it is now again available in an affordable, beautifully repackaged hardcover edition, filled with original watercolors that illustrate Herriot's charming and wholesome tales. This classic heartwarming collection of ten stories about dogs - from border collies and sheepdogs to the exploits of Tricki Woo, the unforgettable Pekinese - by the late author of All Creatures Great and Small is prefaced by a moving introduction from Herriot himself - the very last piece of writing the beloved author ever completed. So, follow the master veterinarian as he journeys through Yorkshire, caring for big dogs and small with his characteristic gentleness and peace, profound observation, and deep, loving humor.A warm and joyful collection of James Herriot’s loving tales of our furry friends. From delightful old favorites like Tricki Woo to heartwarming stories of Brandy, Hermann, Jock, and more. James Herriot’s Favorite Dog Stories is a must-have for any dog lover.Contains:“Tricki Woo Goes Crackerdog” * “Prince and the Card Above the Bed” * “Jock Top Dog” * Tricki Woo “A Triumph of Surgery” * “Jake Rides into Town”* Gyp “Only One Woof” * Roy “From Rags to Riches” * Tricki Woo “A Judge of Form” * Hermann “A Happy Ending” * Brandy “The Dustbin Dog”
Understanding Physics
Isaac Asimov - 1966
In this reader-friendly, unabridged edition of three of his best-selling books, renowned science writer Isaac Asimov demystifies physics, teaching the fundamentals in a manner easily understood by lay people. Including the complete text of Motion, Sound and Heat, Light, Magnetism and Electricity, and The Electron, Proton and Neutron, this volume will guide you through the evolution of physics from its early Greek beginnings up to the modern theories of the creation of time, space and matter. Each volume relates the tale of the human quest through the ages for answers to the fundamental questions of how the universe works. Told in its historical context, this quest for knowledge is a story of high drama and uncommon valor, when men put their very lives on the line for the sake of scientific truth.3 Volumes in One: Motion, Sound & Heat; Light, Magnetism & Electricity; The Electron, Proton & Neutron. 1993 Barnes & Noble reprint of three Isaac Asimov classics. Originally published in 1966.
The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History
Katherine Ashenburg - 2007
For the seventeenth-century aristocratic Frenchman, it meant changing his shirt once a day, using perfume to obliterate both his own aroma and everyone else’s, but never immersing himself in – horrors! – water. By the early 1900s, an extraordinary idea took hold in North America – that frequent bathing, perhaps even a daily bath, was advisable. Not since the Roman Empire had people been so clean, and standards became even more extreme as the millennium approached. Now we live in a deodorized world where germophobes shake hands with their elbows and where sales of hand sanitizers, wipes and sprays are skyrocketing.The apparently routine task of taking up soap and water (or not) is Katherine Ashenburg’s starting point for a unique exploration of Western culture, which yields surprising insights into our notions of privacy, health, individuality, religion and sexuality.Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, medieval steam baths, castles and tenements, and in bathrooms of every description. She reveals the bizarre rescriptions of history’s doctors as well as the hygienic peccadilloes of kings, mistresses, monks and ordinary citizens, and guides us through the twists and turns to our own understanding of clean, which is no more rational than the rest. Filled with amusing anecdotes and quotations from the great bathers of history, The Dirt on Clean takes us on a journey that is by turns intriguing, humorous, startling and not always for the squeamish. Ashenburg’s tour of history’s baths and bathrooms reveals much about our changing and most intimate selves – what we desire, what we ignore, what we fear, and a significant part of who we are.
The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls
Valorie Schaefer - 1998
With tips, how-to's, letters from girls, and facts from the experts, here's straightforward advice you can really use.
Secrets of Mental Math: The Mathemagician's Guide to Lightning Calculation and Amazing Math Tricks
Arthur T. Benjamin - 1993
Get ready to amaze your friends—and yourself—with incredible calculations you never thought you could master, as renowned “mathemagician” Arthur Benjamin shares his techniques for lightning-quick calculations and amazing number tricks. This book will teach you to do math in your head faster than you ever thought possible, dramatically improve your memory for numbers, and—maybe for the first time—make mathematics fun.Yes, even you can learn to do seemingly complex equations in your head; all you need to learn are a few tricks. You’ll be able to quickly multiply and divide triple digits, compute with fractions, and determine squares, cubes, and roots without blinking an eye. No matter what your age or current math ability, Secrets of Mental Math will allow you to perform fantastic feats of the mind effortlessly. This is the math they never taught you in school.Also available as an eBook
The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories
Barbara M. Walker - 1979
A great gift for Little House fans and anyone who wants more information about what life on the praisie was really like.With this cookbook, you can learn how to make classic frontier dishes like corn dodgers, mincemeat pie, cracklings, and pulled molasses candy. The book also includes excerpts from the Little House books, fascinating and thoroughly researched historical context, and details about the cooking methods that pioneers like Ma Ingalls used, as well as illustrations by beloved artist Garth Williams.This is a chance to dive into the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder, American pioneer, women's club member, and farm homesteader.This book has been widely praised and is the winner of the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. The Horn Book praised it as "a culinary and literary feast."
Ed Emberley's Drawing Book: Make a World
Ed Emberley - 1972
Emberley shows young artists how drawing simple shapes can lead to more complex renderings of objects in the world around them.
The Zentangle Untangled Workbook: A Tangle-a-Day to Draw Your Stress Away
Kass Hall - 2013
Now in The Zentangle Untangled Workbook, you'll get enough Zentangle instruction and inspiration to last all year long. Filled with dozens of new tiles and four never-before seen tangles designed especially for this book, you'll be using Zentangle in ways you never dreamed. Create shapes, letterforms, borders, even Zendalas as you master each new tangle, all while reducing stress through the intentional act of creating repetitive patterns. Perfect for artists of all levels, this workbook will immerse you in a daily meditation of Zentangle. Insides you'll find: Seven step-by-step demonstrations to help you get started. Inspiration and guidance on how to use those tangles to create unique and beautiful tiles throughout the year. More than 400 blank or partially started tiles so you can practice all year inside this book and without the fear of the blank page. It's time to tangle!
The Encylopedia of Immaturity
Klutz - 2007
The Encyclopedia of Immaturity contains more than 300 entries: How to Skip a Stone, How to Do a Wheelie, How to Hang a Spoon from Your Nose, How to Really Annoy Your Older Sibling Have fun
Tesla: Man Out of Time
Margaret Cheney - 1981
Called a madman by his enemies, a genius by others, and an enigma by nearly everyone, Nikola Tesla was, without a doubt, a trailblazing inventor who created astonishing, sometimes world-transforming devices that were virtually without theoretical precedent. Tesla not only discovered the rotating magnetic field -- the basis of most alternating-current machinery -- but also introduced us to the fundamentals of robotics, computers, and missile science. Almost supernaturally gifted, unfailingly flamboyant and neurotic, Tesla was troubled by an array of compulsions and phobias and was fond of extravagant, visionary experimentations. He was also a popular man-about-town, admired by men as diverse as Mark Twain and George Westinghouse, and adored by scores of society beauties. From Tesla's childhood in Yugoslavia to his death in New York in the 1940s, Cheney paints a compelling human portrait and chronicles a lifetime of discoveries that radically altered -- and continue to alter -- the world in which we live. Tesla: Man Out of Time is an in-depth look at the seminal accomplishments of a scientific wizard and a thoughtful examination of the obsessions and eccentricities of the man behind the science.
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody: Great Figures of History Hilariously Humbled
Will Cuppy - 1950
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.