A wickedly entertaining collection of caustic quips and witty criticisms.

Painter Jean-Michel Basquiat was the Jimi Hendrix of the art world: in less than a decade he went from being a teenage graffiti writer to an international art star; he was dead of a drug overdose at age twenty-seven. Phoebe Hoban's Basquiat, the first biography of this charismatic figure, charts the trajectory from the artist's troubled childhood to his volatile passage through the white art world of dealers and nouveau-riche collectors, chronicling the meteoric success and overnight burnout that made him an instant art-world myth.

As much the portrait of an era as the portrait of an artist, Basquiat is an incisive expose of the eighties art market that paints a vivid picture of the rise and fall of the graffiti movement, the East Village art scene, and the out-of-control auction houses. Ten years after the artist's death, Basquiat resurrects both the painter and his time.

A wonderful collection of the nostalgic history, culture and folklore of the drive-in. Neon signs, rollerskating waitresses and more.

This survival guide to college explores topics like dating smart, finding friendships, adapting to different personalities, and making the most of your money.

From Beowulf to Shaw: a history of literature seen through the collected and annotated prefaces of major writers from all over the English-speaking world.

Remember all the times you skipped the preface thinking you would get back to it, and never did? Here is an opportunity to read nothing but prefaces, and you'll be delighted to find what fun you've been missing.

A unique work of literature which will amuse, amaze and inform both casual browsers and students, The Anthology of Prefaces is a work of monumental scholarship and idiosyncratic passion. It is the result of a lifetime's reading, prodigious research and years of creative labor from Scotland's grand old man of letters. Alasdair Gray has chosen and edited all of the prefaces presented in this impressive volume and has included commentary by some thirty other authors including James Kelman, A.L. Kennedy, and Virginia Woolf. The Anthology of Prefaces offers an unusual and unprecedented look at literature, a treat for any reader.

Packed with even more all-new words and images than ever before, this fourth Ripley's Believe It or Not annual book is the biggest and best yet. It is full of incredible bizarre facts, stories, interviews, and features, all proudly displayed in a stunning bright new design.

Our 2nd book of facts about bizarre feats of the human, material and natural world. It is a solid reference work of the strange but true. It shows the world through Ripley's eyes as something that is wonderful and weird, awesome in its variety, jaw-dropping in its uniqueness. This book juxtaposes the quirky, bizarre, outrageous world of people with the pure fascination of the natural and physical world.

From the author of On Writing Well comes a book on how to write clearly aboutany subject--and how to use writing as a means of learning.

This is the clearest, most useful guide to parliamentary procedure, now with new information on effective and reliable procedures for nominations, elections, ballots, balloting, and ballot counting.

Steve Silverman was looking for a way to add some spice to his high school lectures when he realized that weird and bizarre true-life stories would capture his students' attention. In fact, they worked so well that the science teacher then began posting his discoveries to his own Web site, which he dubbed Useless Information. Well-researched and clearly sourced, Silverman's unusual tidbits have gained a wide following.