The minister of silly walks, the dead parrot, banter in a cheese shop - here is every silly, satirical skit, every snide insult, every saucy aside.

    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.

    The two begin to interlock as the characters make their exits from Nothing On only to find themselves making entrances into the even worse nightmare going on backstage. In the end, at the disastrous final performance, the two plots can be kept separate no longer, and coalesce into a single collective nervous breakdown.

    Displayed panels look at such areas of Shakespeare's language as greetings, swear-words and terms of address. Plot summaries are included for all Shakespeare's plays and on the facing page is a unique diagramatic representation of the relationships within each play.

    My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the island but ended up as a delightful account of Durrell’s family’s experiences, from the many eccentric hangers-on to the ceaseless procession of puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies into their home.

    Distinguished from the  detached formal essay by its friendly, conversational tone, its loose structure, and its drive toward candor and self-disclosure, the personal essay seizes on the minutiae of daily life-vanities, fashions, foibles, oddballs, seasonal rituals, love and  disappointment, the pleasures of solitude, reading, taking a walk -- to offer insight into the human condition and the great social and political issues of the day. The Art of the Personal Essay is the first anthology to celebrate this fertile genre. By presenting more than seventy-five personal essays, including influential forerunners from ancient Greece, Rome, and the Far East, masterpieces from the dawn of the personal essay in the sixteenth century, and a wealth of the finest personal essays from the last four centuries, editor Phillip Lopate, himself an acclaimed essayist, displays the tradition of the personal essay in all its historical grandeur, depth, and diversity.

    Lucas, appears to be seducing his mother (and what does that mean for his father?); the BBC refuses to publish his poetry; and his dog swallowed the tree off the Christmas cake. "Why" indeed.

    Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts. After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. EARTH (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life's most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy. Also available as an ebook and as an audiobook.

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    Volume 2A: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries of The Longman Anthology of British Literature is a comprehensive and thoughtfully arranged text that offers a rich selection of major British authors throughout the Romantic period.

    Within its covers are unforgettable episodes from the remarkable series of memoirs that began with All Creatures Great and Small-"the ones my family and I have laughed at over the years and the ones my readers have said they most enjoyed," as Herriot, himself, put it. Yet the book is far more than a simple anthology: Its gorgeous pages also include hundreds of line drawings and color photographs, capturing Herriot's Yorkshire in a worthy complement to the writer's words.The 1991 publication of Every Living Thing, rendered the original edition of this book incomplete. This fall will mark the publication of the complete, definitive edition with the addition of five of his best, more recent stories, as well as new art. Once again The Best of James Herriot becomes the quintessential Herriot volume-one of those invaluable books that will be loved as much in decades to come as it is today.

    This rich treasury includes Tolkien's most beloved short fiction plus his essay on fantasy. Publisher's Note Tolkien's Magic Ring, by Peter S. Beagle The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son Tree and Leaf On Fairy-Stories Leaf by Niggle Farmer Giles of Ham The Adventures of Tom Bombadil The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Bombadil Goes Boating Errantry Princess Mee The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon The Stone Troll Perry-the-Winkle The Mewlips Oliphaunt Fastitocalon Cat Shadow-bride The Hoard The Sea-Bell The Last Ship

    Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty is the book for you. Here, at last, for the first time, are the full scripts of one of British television's funniest comedies. Follow the hilarious misadventures of the despicable Edmund Blackadder and his dimwitted sidekick Baldrick through four centuries of hopelessly mangled English history: from medieval nastiness through English history: from medieval nastiness through Elizabethan and Regency glory, to the mud and sauteed rats of the First World War. Aside from the ball-bouncingly funny scripts themselves, Blackadder also features special bonus sections: "Instruments of Torture in the Late Middle Ages"; "Medieval Medicine" ("1. Herbs; 2. Leeches; 3. Saw It Off"); and an indispensable "Index of Blackadder's Finest Insults".

    If you need to extend your verbal eloquence to include vulgarity from 1811, this is the book for you.

    Though it never saw the light of day in 1939 (it was only supposed to go up if Britain was invaded), it has suddenly struck a chord in our current difficult times, now we are in need of a stiff upper lip and optimistic energy once again. Gordon Brown had one up in 10 Downing Street and James May wears a Keep Calm T-shirt on the telly - it is suddenly everywhere. The book is packed full of similarly motivational and inspirational quotes, proverbs, mantras and wry truths to help us through the recession, from such wits as Churchill, Disraeli and George Bernard Shaw. Funny, wise and stirring - it is a perfect source of strength to get us all through the coming months.'A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain' Mark Twain 'It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own' Harry S. Truman'An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today' Laurence J. Peter'Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine' Lord Byron'Better bread with water than cake with trouble' Russian Proverb