QI: The Sound of General Ignorance


John Lloyd - 2013
    Your new-found wisdom will help you to impress your friends, frustrate your enemies and win every argument. Henry VIII had six wives- WRONG! Everest is the highest mountain in the world- WRONG! Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone- WRONG! Everything you think you know is- WRONG!

Notes for Healthy Kids


Rujuta Diwekar - 2018
    It empowers kids to make the right food choices for themselves. Rujuta also calls out the food industry for targeted and misleading advertisements, as well as policymakers for failing to protect the interests of our children. On the practical side, the book combines the latest in nutrition science with the time-tested wisdom of our grandmothers, and offers easy-to-follow advice for all aspects of a child’s life. Includes food guidelines for:  Age-group 0-15 years | School days | Holidays | Parties | Sports | Obesity | Low immunity | Diabetes | Fatty liver | Frequent illnesses and much more.

The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts into Words


Arthur Plotnik - 1996
    It tugs at our every sentence, but using it to express anything beyond the ordinary is like flapping the tongue to escape gravity. The Elements of Expression offers an adventurous and inspiring flight into words that truly share what's percolating in our minds. Here listeners will discover language to convey precise feelings, move audiences, delight and persuade.No snob or scold, the acclaimed word-maven Arthur Plotnik explores the full range of expressiveness, from playful "tough talk" to finely wrought literature, with hundreds of rousing examples. Confessing that we are all "like a squid in its ink" when first groping for luminous expression, he shines his amiable wit on the elements leading, ultimately, to language of "fissionable intensity."

Bird Watching: On Playing and Coaching the Game I Love


Larry Bird - 1999
    And then, last year in his rookie season as head coach of the Indiana Pacers, he infused the team with these same qualities -- and the results were remarkable. He turned around a slumping franchise and led the Pacers to the conference finals. To finish off a great season, Bird was named the NBA's "Coach of the Year" -- quite an accolade for Bird, who had never coached before and surprised many fans with his unusual and unorthodox coaching methods. This book is a look into one of the greatest minds to have ever stepped on a hardwood court. Larry Bird shares his inner thoughts on basketball that to date only his Celtic teammates and Pacers players have been privy. From dissecting offensive and defensive strategies to assessing the talent of NBA players; from sharing the genesis of his coaching philosophies to how he deals with today's overpriced and temperamental players, it's all there. This book is Larry Bird's basketball playbook, and it's the one book every basketball fan will want to read. Cover design by Tom TafuriCover photograph by Glenn James/NBA Photos

Romancing with Life: An Autobiography


Dev Anand - 2007
    This memoir by Bollywood star, Dev Anand, tells his life story through tales from his youth in 1930s Gurdaspur and Lahore, his years of struggle in 1940s Bombay, his friendship with Guru Dutt and his doomed romance with Suraiya, his marriage to co-star Kalpana Kartik and his relationships with his brothers Chetan and Vijay Anand.

The Anthology of Rap


Adam Bradley - 2010
    In The Anthology of Rap, editors Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois explore rap as a literary form, demonstrating that rap is also a wide-reaching and vital poetic tradition born of beats and rhymes.This pioneering anthology brings together more than three hundred rap and hip-hop lyrics written over thirty years, from the “old school” to the “golden age” to the present day. Rather than aim for encyclopedic coverage, Bradley and DuBois render through examples the richness and diversity of rap’s poetic tradition. They feature both classic lyrics that helped define the genre, including Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s “The Message” and Eric B. & Rakim’s “Microphone Fiend,” as well as lesser-known gems like Blackalicious’s “Alphabet Aerobics” and Jean Grae’s “Hater’s Anthem.”Both a fan’s guide and a resource for the uninitiated, The Anthology of Rap showcases the inventiveness and vitality of rap’s lyrical art. The volume also features an overview of rap poetics and the forces that shaped each period in rap’s historical development, as well as a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and afterwords by Chuck D and Common. Enter the Anthology to experience the full range of rap’s artistry and discover a rich poetic tradition hiding in plain sight.

77 Love Sonnets


Garrison Keillor - 2009
    29, 'When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state' for English class, and fifty years later, that poem is still in my head. Algebra got washed away, and geometry and most of biology, but those lines about the redemptive power of love in the face of shame are still here behind my eyeballs, more permanent than my own teeth. The sonnet is a durable good. These 77 of mine include sonnets of praise, some erotic, some lamentations, some street sonnets and a 12-sonnet cycle of months. If anything here offends, I beg your pardon. I come in peace, I depart in gratitude."–Garrison Keillor Features music by Rich Dworsky. Please note content contains adult themes.

The Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers, from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit


Philip E. Orbanes - 2003
    Parker started with only fifty dollars and a dream. In The Game Makers, Philip E. Orbanes, a game historian and former Parker Brothers executive, explores the often whimsical origins of popular games and toys - from the Monopoly Game to the Nerf ball to Ping-Pong to Sorry! - and reveals how generations of determined entrepreneurs built a family business empire." Through an engaging narrative based on extensive research - including the never-before-published personal archives of George S. Parker and interviews with his successors - Orbanes takes us on a journey through the birth and maturation of the toy industry as seen through the eyes of one of its greatest legends. Sprung from Parker's fervent belief that games were meant to last and be fun, this tiny family firm would grow into a brand powerhouse that reflected - and ultimately helped shape - the culture of a nation. Through world wars and the Great Depression, through natural disasters and family tragedies, Parker Brothers succeeded in bringing smiles to the faces of millions by connecting them to - or helping them forget - the events taking place around them.

Body Language (Need to Know?)


Carolyn Boyes - 2005
    If you cross your legs are you relaxed or tense? What does it mean if you stroke your chin? Do you know the meaning behind a friend lowering their eyebrows? Would you know how to greet an inhabitant of Greenland? How would you subliminally show ownership of your brand-new car or house? All these questions and many more are answered in Need to Know? Body Language. Fully illustrated with colour photographs of hundreds of gestures, postures and 'attitudes', this is the handiest visual analysis of body gestures and everyday scenarios available. Contents: Introduction 1 The Basics of body language 2 The Eyes and Face 3 Hands, arms and legs 4 Body and Touch 5 Territory and Personal Space 6 Meeting, Greeting and Saying Goodbye 7 Getting on Well 8 Attraction and Dating 9 Boredom, Discomfort, Displeasure 10 Lying and Deceit 11 Power, dominance and submission 12 Getting on at work

Fresh Air: Just For Laughs


Terry Gross - 2010
    Drawn from her long-running, award-winning public radio show, this new collection features in-depth interviews with the bright, shining wits of our time. One of the nation’s leading interviewers, Gross is incisive, respectful, and always well-informed. She puts her guests at ease, which makes for rewarding listening. Insights abound and the humor is unstoppable.

A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America


Craig Werner - 1998
    . . extraordinarily far-reaching. . . . highly accessible."-Notes"No one has written this way about music in a long, long time. Lucid, insightful, with real spiritual, political, intellectual, and emotional grasp of the whole picture. A book about why music matters, and how, and to whom."-Dave Marsh, author of Louie, Louie and Born to Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story"This book is urgently needed: a comprehensive look at the various forms of black popular music, both as music and as seen in a larger social context. No one can do this better than Craig Werner."-Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University"[Werner has] mastered the extremely difficult art of writing about music as both an aesthetic and social force that conveys, implies, symbolizes, and represents ideas as well as emotion, but without reducing its complexities and ambiguities to merely didactic categories."-African American ReviewA Change Is Gonna Come is the story of more than four decades of enormously influential black music, from the hopeful, angry refrains of the Freedom movement, to the slick pop of Motown; from the disco inferno to the Million Man March; from Woodstock's "Summer of Love" to the war in Vietnam and the race riots that inspired Marvin Gaye to write "What's Going On."Originally published in 1998, A Change Is Gonna Come drew the attention of scholars and general readers alike. This new edition, featuring four new and updated chapters, will reintroduce Werner's seminal study of black music to a new generation of readers.Craig Werner is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, and author of many books, including Playing the Changes: From Afro-Modernism to the Jazz Impulse and Up Around the Bend: An Oral History of Creedence Clearwater Revival. His most recent book is Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul.

Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop


Joseph G. Schloss - 2004
    But hip-hop deejays and producers have collectively developed an artistic system that features a complex aesthetic, a detailed array of social protocols, a rigorous set of ethical expectations and a rich historical consciousness. Based on ten years of research among hip-hop producers, Making Beats is the first work of scholarship to explore the goals, methods and values of this surprisingly insular community. Focusing on a variety of subjects--from hip-hop artists' pedagogical methods to the Afro-diasporic roots of the sampling process to the social significance of "digging" for rare records--Joseph G. Schloss examines the way hip-hop artists have managed to create a form of expression that reflects their creative aspirations, moral beliefs, political values and cultural realities.

India Positive Citizen: Building a Great Nation, One India Positive Action at a Time.


Savitha Rao - 2020
    A book that offers highly actionable ideas on how every Indian - from a child to a senior citizen can participate in nation building. Gender, age, education, socio economic status does not matter. You don't even have to be within the geographic borders of India. You can be anywhere on the planet and contribute towards making a positive difference in India.From food to environment to water to Swachh Bharat and many more aspects where we can make a positive difference to the country as we go about our daily lives.Stories of unsung heroes from across India will leave you enormously inspired. Citizens have shared their action ideas. The youngest contributor is 7.5 years. The oldest is 104 years.The author invites you to read, reflect and write your ideas and bring them to life with your actions. Inspire India with your actions. Get inspired by the actions of fellow citizens. Join the journey to be an #IndiaPositiveCitizen

The Perfectly Useless Book of Useless Information: You'll Never Need to Know Anything That's in This Book...But Read It Anyway


Don Voorhees - 2010
    Frank Sinatra's mother was a convicted felon. Bugs Bunny was born in Brooklyn. The average American home contains $90 in loose change. It is illegal to use the American flag in advertising.And there's no good reason to also discover...Which game show host previously worked as a garbageman. Which day of week is the most popular to rob a bank. Which millionaire loaned his kidnapped grandson ransom money at 4 percent interest. Which country once had a dog for a king.

50 Big Ideas You Really Need to Know


Ben Dupré - 2009
    Every important principle of philosophy, religion, politics, economics, the arts and the sciences is profiled in a series of short illustrated essays, complemented by an informative array of timelines and box features.