As you might imagine, he gets a lot of letters in response to his often iconoclastic views. As you might not expect, he writes a lot of letters, too. Now Rooney has collected the funniest, wisest, and most interesting of his letters, spanning several decades and addressing issues both momentous and trivial. He responds to complaints from viewers; he corresponds with old friends; and he writes to his children about the things he cares about most. Variously caustic, hilarious, and sage, these unfailingly entertaining letters reveal not only Rooney the iconoclast but Rooney the American Everyman. Sincerely, Andy Rooney is Andy Rooney at his best-and a wonderful gift book that will make readers chuckle and think twice.

    Boyd penned his first book review in 1978—the proverbial bamboo shoot—and we've been reaping the rewards ever since. Beginning with the Whitbread Award–winning A Good Man in Africa, William Boyd has written consistently artful, intelligent fiction and firmly established himself as an international man of letters. He has done nearly thirty years of research and writing for projects as diverse as a novel about an ecologist studying chimpanzees (Brazzaville Beach), an adapted screenplay about the emotional lives of soldiers (The Trench, which he also directed), and a fictional biography of an American painter (Nat Tate). All the while, Boyd has been accruing facts and wisdom—and publishing it in the form of articles, essays, and reviews.Now available for the first time in the United States, Bamboo gathers together Boyd's writing on literature, art, the movie business, television, people he has met, places he has visited and autobiographical reflections on his African childhood, his years at boarding school, and the profession of novelist. From Pablo Picasso to the Cannes Film Festival, from Charles Dickens to Catherine Deneuve, from mini-cabs to Cecil Rhodes, this collection is a fascinating and surprisingly revealing companion to the work of one of Britain's leading novelists.

    "If you got into your car in New York," he says, "and wanted to take a nice long drive, I mean the longest drive you could without turning around or running into a foreign language, this is where you'd wind up." It's a place of moose and salmon and spectacular sunsets, but, Bodett insists, it's also small-town America, a place not all that different from the Michigan town of his youth. That's why he's made it his home: it perfectly suits his contrary appetites for the extreme and the everyday, for the rigors of the outdoor life and the mundane joys of the family circle. As Far As You Can Go Without a Passport, Bodett's first collection of casual essays, contains pieces on everything from trapping, tree cutting, and halibut fishing, to soap operas, lost socks, and sleeping in. It's guaranteed to please both the renegade and the homebody in every reader.

    His humor and short fiction appear in various publications throughout the Southeast.

    It has made him India's most provocative and popular columnist. This new collection brings together his essays and articles on themes as varied as God, the afterlife, the banning of books, caste, prostitution, crank calls and pets. His skills as a raconteur and journalist are used to brilliant effect in his sketches of Gandhi, Raj Kapoor, Vajpayee, Phoolan Devi, Zia-ul-Haq and the Dalai Lama, as also in his travel pieces on Nagaland and France, among other places. The Vintage Sardar ends with a frank and introspective autobiographical piece. Khushwant Singh's distinctive candour, wit and insight make this an engaging and sparkling collection. Khushwant Singh is one of India's best-known columnists and journalists.

    We all know one! They like to groan and grumble, offering their own commentary on the shortcomings of modern life. Whether it is queues at the supermarket, the state of the health system, the price of a pint these days, the hairstyles of teenagers, or the number of Maltesers you actually get in a bag, there is always something that will get their goat. 'The Grumpy Old Git's Guide to Life' is a hilarious celebration of all these grumps, how to identify one, what exactly they find so irritating and why we find their rants quite so amusing.

    I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world. —from the IntroductionActual reader feedback: "I find it truly appalling that there are people in the world like you. You are a disgusting, vile, repulsive, repugnant, foul creature. Because of you, I don't believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist." "I'll stay with God as my lord, but you are my savior. I just finished reading your brilliant stories, and I laughed so hard I almost vomited. I want to bring that kind of joy to people. You're an artist of the highest order and a true humanitarian to boot. I'm in both shock and awe at how much I want to be you." Now with 16 Pages of Photos and a New Introduction

    But will they write ANY essay you request? Only the WORST of these horrible companies were employed in the composition of Mindsploitation. A GREAT DEAL of money was wasted ACROSS THE GLOBE to commission what may be the dumbest collection of ridiculous assignments in HUMAN HISTORY.What does it say about our society that we can buy a quick custom eulogy for our grandmother, or pay to have a love poem for a mistress prepared by a stranger at the click of a button? How entitled is a culture that keeps these services afloat? Mindsploitation uses such questions as a launching pad for wildly entertaining comedic exchanges. The 50 assignments in this book hilariously explore self-help, spirituality, family, health, diet, pop culture, love, and more.

    You can't shoot a guy full of holes after eating chicken and pastry, spoon bread, okra, and tomatoes.What does a Southern woman consider grounds for divorce? When daddy takes the kids out in public dressed in their pajama tops and Tweety Bird swim socks. Again.What is the Southern woman's opinion of a new "fat virus" theory? Bring it on! We've got a lot of skinny friends we need to sneeze on.In this wickedly funny follow-up to her bestselling novel Bless Your Heart, Tramp, Celia Rivenbark welcomes you, once again, to the South she loves, the land of "Mama and them," "precious and dahlin'," and mommies who mow. Y'all come back now, you hear?

    We are a bombarded generation: Facebook, billboards, Twitter, Instagram, taxes, newspapers, watches monitoring our sleep, apps that read our pulse, terrorism. There's such an onslaught to the senses these days it's a marvel any of us manage to get out of bed. I love bed. While we are overwhelmed and confused by the miasmic cloud of information, there are those that seek to take advantage: there are parking fines, hate Tweets, Nigerian email scams and Christmas newsletters from old school friends about their ugly kids. And just as we're getting round to doing something about it, we're distracted again. I, Joe Lycett, comedian, wordsmith, and professional complainer, am here to help. During my short life of doing largely nothing I've discovered solutions to many of life's problems, which I impart to you, dear Reader. Containing a centurion of complaint letters to unsuspecting celebrities, companies and anyone brave enough to clog up my phone, as well as illustrations, one-liners , jokes and life hacks, this little gem offers you a collection of tips and advice* for all manner of modern woe. By the time you have finished reading this book you will have learnt how to: - Reverse a parking fine - Manipulate the tabloid press - Navigate social media - Respond to hate mail - Out-weird internet trolls - Contest a so-called ripe avocado - Send the perfect Christmas newsletter - Defeat ISIS - Take down multi-national companiesAND MUCH, MUCH MORE! Joe Lycett x * If you are looking for guidance with taxes, quitting smoking, moving house, love, divorce, education, healthcare or anything actually important may I recommend speaking to friends or family members and not consulting a book by a comedian who eats halloumi at least twice a day.

    They remove the books that patrons no longer check out. And they put back the books they treasure. Annie Spence, who has a decade of experience as a Midwestern librarian, does this not only at her Michigan library but also at home, for her neighbors, at cocktail parties—everywhere. In Dear Fahrenheit 451, she addresses those books directly. We read her love letters to The Goldfinch and Matilda, as well as her snarky break-ups with Fifty Shades of Grey and Dear John. Her notes to The Virgin Suicides and The Time Traveler’s Wife feel like classics, sure to strike a powerful chord with readers. Through the lens of the books in her life, Annie comments on everything from women’s psychology to gay culture to health to poverty to childhood aspirations. Hilarious, compassionate, and wise, Dear Fahrenheit 451 is the consummate book-lover's birthday present, stocking stuffer, holiday gift, and all-purpose humor book.

    because he wants to watch Caillou, he’s an a-hole. When your daughter outlines every corner of your living room with a purple crayon, she’s an a-hole. When your rug rats purposely decorate the kitchen ceiling with their smoothies, they’re a-holes. So it’s only natural to want to kill them sometimes. Of course you can’t because you’d go to prison, and then you’d really never get to poop alone again. Plus, there’s that whole loving them more than anything in the whole world thing. Karen Alpert is the writer of the popular blog Baby Sideburns. You may have seen some of her more viral posts like “Ten Things I Really F’ing Want for Mother’s Day,” “Daddy Sticker Chart” and “What NOT to F’ing Buy My Kids this Holiday.” Or you may know her from her Facebook page that has over 130,000 followers. I Heart My Little A-Holes is full of hilarious stories, lists, thoughts and pictures that will make you laugh so hard you’ll wish you were wearing a diaper.

    Like those other outstanding comics Spike Milligan and Peter Cook he had an innate belief in absurdity as a way of life - his humour and sheer joy in madness for its own sake was as likely to find its outlet on the street as on the stage. The other Pythons often said that just listening to Graham tell them about one of his wild evenings out was fodder for a dozen sketches. He was inventive, fearless, willing to take chances and make stands. Openly gay, capable of outrageous alcohol-fuelled behaviour, Graham Chapman lived an untidy life, and in some respects this book mirrors that. Inside is everything from television scripts and sketches to humorous essays on serious topics, comic flights of fancy that serve no purpose except to elicit a laugh, letters to friends and fellow hellraisers like Keith Moon and Ringo Starr, his behind-the-scenes account of the filming of Life of Brian, his views on fellow Pythons, and much more.

    Whether David Rakoff's contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good-times-and-chicken-wings populism of Hooters Air; working as a cabana boy at a South Beach hotel; or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core video shoot where he is provided with his very own personal manservant rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly skewered. Somewhere along the line, our healthy self-regard has exploded into obliterating narcissism; our manic getting and spending have now become celebrated as moral virtues. Simultaneously a Wildean satire and a plea for a little human decency, Don t Get Too Comfortable shows that far from being bobos in paradise, we are in a special circle of gilded-age hell.

    Celebrate all the holidays–and then some–with renowned storyteller Kevin Kling, whose sense of the ridiculous never gets in the way of his appreciation for human nature.