Perhaps all of Jonathan Ames' problems-and the genesis of this hilarious book-can be traced back to the late onset of his puberty. After all it can't be easy to be sixteen with a hairless "undistinguishable from that of a five year old's."
This wonderfully entertaining memoir is a touching and humorous look at life in New York City. But this is life for an author who can proclaim "my first sexual experience was rather old-fashioned: it was with a prostitute"-an author who can talk about his desire to be a model for the Hair Club for Men and about meeting his son for the first time. Often insightful, sometimes tender, always witty and self-deprecating, What's Not to Love? is an engaging memoir from one of our most funny, most daring writers.
The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race collects both Krassner's later stories, as well as his most famous satirical pieces from past years. Swiftian in intention and contemporary in subject matter, the book reveals Krassner to have the heart of a muckraker and the spirituality of a seeker after truth. In Krassner's world, Lyndon Johnson chuckles over the dead corpse of J.F.K., a psychiatrist hypnotically regresses a woman who shot her television set, and Nancy Reagan's Just say no to drugs becomes If anybody tries to sell you an ounce of marijuana for $500, that's way too expensive, so just say no. Kneading fantasy into reality, Krassner ferrets out the higher truths that spotlight the absurdity all around.
Speaker and author Karen O'Connor urges her post-fifty friends to "laugh and love all the way home to the Father's house." With humor and wisdom, Karen shares personal and gathered stories about the blessings of surviving and surpassing middle-age.
Gettin' Old Ain't for Wimps overflows with candor and helps the boomin' baby boomer market celebrate with:
- funny stories of the antics and adventures of getting older
- "conversations with God" for a deeper prayer life
- hopeful words for the tough times
For those who have already traded in their wimp status for a more courageous existence or those still wondering about the future, this delightful read affirms that the latter decades are filled with God's promises and joys.
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don't need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on. Don't be carefree and foolish with your most precious asset--life. This book is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now without your even knowing it. The Zombie Survival Guide offers complete protection through trusted, proven tips for safeguarding yourself and your loved ones against the living dead. It is a book that can save your life.
We are all fascinated by the legal system and the people behind it. With Dracula Was a Lawyer, trivia experts Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo explore lawyers we love to hate (until we need one ), the pitfalls in our legal system, celebrity lawyers, and more. This compendium puts lawyers and legal history on trial and exposes over 500 outrageous oddities from the wild world of law.
From This American Life alum David Rakoff comes a hilarious collection that single-handedly raises self-deprecation to an art form. Whether impersonating Sigmund Freud in a department store window during the holidays, climbing an icy mountain in cheap loafers, or learning primitive survival skills in the wilds of New Jersey, Rakoff clearly demonstrates how he doesn't belong-nor does he try to.
In his debut collection of essays, Rakoff uses his razor-sharp wit and snarky humor to deliver a barrage of damaging blows that, more often than not, land squarely on his own jaw-hilariously satirizing the writer, not the subject. Joining the wry and the heartfelt, Fraud offers an object lesson in not taking life, or ourselves, too seriously.
In the pre-Internet, pre-VCR--oh, go ahead, call them prehistoric--days of baby boomers' grade school, the high art of audiovisual classroom programming was the filmstrip. If you're old enough, you remember the darkened room, the hum of the projector, and the beeep that signaled the teacher to turn to the next frame.
If you weren't busy shooting spitballs, filmstrips might even have taught you something about science, hygiene, the great bounty of American farms and factories. With simple illustrations and quaint photographs that evoke a more innocent era, Change Your Underwear Twice a Week is the first book to collect dozens of these filmstrip treasures together, creating a panorama of four decades of overlooked graphic design, popular culture, and inadvertent humor.
Readers from the Internet generation will get a good chuckle over what appears to be electronic cave art. But you'll also discover one of the great subtexts of postwar American life. From the mid-1940s until the late 1960s, filmstrips were the coming attractions of capitalism and the American way, teaching youngsters how society wanted them to view the world.
Filmstrips celebrated our foundering railroads ("Tommy Takes a Train Trip"), the space program ("The Moon, Our Nearest Neighbor"), and our trusted friend the butcher, the milkman, the mailman, and the cop. They taught us not to sit too close to our new TV sets and why we should change our underwear twice a week (presumably, Commies did this only once a week).
A chronicle of America's filmstrip experience, Change Your Underwear Twice a Week is also a glimpse into the companies and eccentric pioneers who created these graphic gems and how they influenced several generations of American youth.
