A.J. Jacobs
The Puzzler is the best new book from Jacobs since The Year of Living Biblically. Less of a personal experiment than his past titles, Jacobs delves into the world of puzzles – be it crosswords, jigsaw, sudoku, puzzle boxes or scavenger hunts. Fortunately for the Jabobs family, …
My Remarkable Life in Show Business
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks has been an icon of comedy for 70+ years. From his early Borscht Belt days, through years as a tv comedy writer and into his movie career, Brooks has brought us some of the biggest laughs in show biz. His …
Kirk Anderson
You may be familiar with Anderson’s political cartoons from such notable publications at the NY Times, Washington Post, Forbes and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Now, Anderson has released his his coup de gras. This scrupulously researched anthropological masterpiece will tell you all you need to know when …
John Hodgman
Hodgman is one of those comedians you probably have heard of, but may have a hard time recalling what exactly he was in. He would like to remind you. Which is fine, because John Hodgman is the sort of storyteller that can make the most mundane and awkward …
Caitlin Doughty
The magnificent, hilarous and always fascinating mortician Caitlin Doughty (Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes) is back with another intriguing look at death.
Death is inevitable. But the way Americans and many in the west act, it is something shameful …
Lisa Birnbach with Chip Kidd
Julia Chaplin
Finding our “tribe” in a melting-pot country like the US can be difficult. With every option available, finding “your” people is often a relief. These tribes, peopled with members drawn to each other by some basic fundamental values, soon spawn off an entire …
John Kenney
There’s is something about the word “poem” that makes the average American recoil. Add “love” on there, and we’re rolling our eyes and getting out the barf bags. But wait! You haven’t read Kenney’s magnificent, hilarious, and deadly-accurate collection of poems. This is not the book you get …
Caitlin Doughty
Mortician and author Doughty takes questions about children and turns them into educational comedy gold. She tackles a host of disgusting, weird and fascinating death-related topics in a practical, and hilarious, manner. From “Can We Give Grandma a Viking Funeral?” to “We Eat Chickens, Why Not Dead People?” …
John Waters
The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder
Water’s new memoir starts out with a tongue-in-cheek scree at his notoriety and fame:
Suddenly the worst thing that can happen to a creative person has happened to me. I am accepted. How can I “struggle” when my onetime underground movies …
Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne
The Princess Bride meets Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings.
Popular fantasy authors Dawson and Hearne gleefully take a whack at every fairy tale trope in the (standard) book. After being informed by the pixie Staph that he is the The Chosen One, Worstely, …
Edgar Cantero
Scooby-doo meets H.P. Lovecraft. What’s not to love? Cantero’s hilarious novel blends the cheesiness of Saturday morning cartoons with creepy, supernatural beasts from the depths of the earth. Years after the Blyton Summer Detective Club solves its last case, the gang decides to reform and revisit the case. …
Clothes We Can’t Believe We Bought
Tom Coleman
Photography by Jerome Jakubiec
Everyone can relate to this book because everyone has had at least one fashion disaster in their life. Maybe it’s the “fashion forward” item you bought because you thought it would be cutting edge, only to discover that …
The Funnies/Worst Place on Earth
Wendy E. Simmons
Simmons’ title really does sum it up. A life-long travel addict, her ten day guided trip to North Korea is more than deserving of a book. Simmons chronicles as much of her “holiday” as she could remember (once she was out of …
Simon R. Green
Green, author of the fabulous Nightside series, has a new …”hero.” Ishmael Jones is an alien, crashed on the Earth decades ago. With no memory of who or what he is, but endowed with all sorts of handy strengths, he works for a secret organization protecting …
Danny Wallace
Micro-nation
founder, comedian and author of Friends Like These Danny Wallace is the British equivalent of AJ Jacobs (or perhaps vice versa?). He’s happiest when he’s on a quest, a self-created adventure to achieve something. Wallace comes up with a set of self-created rules, then strives to follow …
Danny Wallace
The rise of social media makes the idea of losing track of friends seem a bit quaint. But even if you are “friends” with some of your former classmates, co-workers or other pals on Facebook or Twitter, its not the same thing as seeing them in the flesh …
