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In this phenomenal #1 bestseller, David Sedaris plays in the snow with his sisters He goes on vacation with his family. He gets a job selling drinks. He attends his brother’s wedding. He mops his sister’s floor. He gives directions to a lost traveler. He eats a hamburger. He has his blood sugar tested. It all sounds so normal, doesn’t it?

Yet Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below the surface, exposing a world alive with hidden motives and obscure desires. In DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM, one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today gives us his richest book yet..
Price: $4.63 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The best kind of knowledge is uncommon knowledge.

Okay, so maybe you know all the stuff you're supposed to know--that there are teenier things than atoms, that Remembrance of Things Past has something to do with a perfumed cookie, that the Monroe Doctrine means we get to take over small South American countries when we feel like it.  But really, is this kind of knowledge going to make you the hit of the cocktail party, or the loser spending forty-five minutes examining the host's bookshelves?

Wouldn't you rather learn things like how the invention of the bicycle affected the evolution of underwear?  Or that the 1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to a doctor who performed lobotomies with a household ice pick?  Or how Catherine the Great really died?  Or that heroin was sold over the counter not too long ago?

For the truly well-rounded "intellectual," nothing fascinates so much as the subversive, the contrarian, the suppressed, and the bizarre.  Richard Zacks, auto-didact extraordinaire, has unloosed his admittedly strange mind and astonishing research abilities upon the entire spectrum of human knowledge, ferreting out endlessly fascinating facts, stories, photos, and images guaranteed to make you laugh, gasp in wonder, and occasionally shudder at the depths of human depravity.  The result of his labors is this fantastically illustrated quasi-encyclopedia that provides alternative takes on art, business, crime, science, medicine, sex (lots of that), and many other facets of human experience.

Immensely entertaining, and arguably enlightening, An Underground Education is the only book that explains the birth of motion pictures using photos of naked baseball players.


Richard Zacks is the author of History Laid Bare: Love, Sex and Perversity from the Ancient Etruscans to Warren G. Harding, which was excerpted in classy magazines like Harper's and earned the attention of the even classier New York Times, which noted that "Zacks specializes in the raunchy and perverse."  The Georgia State Legislature voted on whether to ban the book from public libraries.  He has studied Arabic, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Hebrew, and received the Phillips Classical Greek Award at the University of Michigan.  He has also told his publisher that he made a living in Cairo cheating royalty from a certain Arab country at games of chance, although the claim remains unverified.  His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, The Village Voice, TV Guide, and similarly diverse publications.  Zacks is married and busy warping the minds of his two children, Georgia and Ziegfield.  He resides in New York City, and can be reached via e-mail at rzacks@echonyc.com.


From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $10.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

It’s a marriage made in BBQ heaven: America’s foremost grilling guru takes on ribs. Baby backs and spare ribs, short ribs and long ribs, pork ribs, beef ribs, lamb ribs, and more—a passionate, single-subject celebration of meaty, smoky, sweet ’n’ spicy, crowd-pleasing, fall-off-the-bone-tender ribs.

A perfect rib is the culmination of the griller’s art, and nobody’s better at showing how to put it all together—the tastes, techniques, ingredients, recipes, tips—than Steven Raichlen, award-winning author of Barbecue! Bible, How to Grill, Beer-Can Chicken, and other BARBECUE! BIBLE® books with 3 million copies in print. Here are 75 mouth-watering, repertoire-expanding, rib-rocking recipes: Buccaneer Baby Backs with Rumbullion Barbecue Sauce. Lone Star Barrel Staves. Tandoori Ribs. Maui-Style Short Ribs. Jamaican Jerk Ribs. Thai Sweet Chili Ribs. The Original Dinosaur Ribs. Cousin Dave’s Chipotle Chocolate Ribs. But the book is also a rib clinic: It covers the nine methods for cooking ribs, from direct grilling to spit-roasting. The essential techniques for handling ribs. Key ingredients in making homemade sauces, mops, and rubs. And boxes throughout to help take your rib cookery to the next level—even to the competition level, with tips on how to enter and how to win..
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Overlook has brought American readers five glittering epics by Penny Vincenzi, the "doyenne of the modern blockbuster" (Glamour). Worldwide, her sales are in the millions and growing Now, for the legions of Vincenzi readers, comes her number-one bestselling work, An Outrageous Affair, her most enthralling family saga yet.

A mysterious, tragic accident in the 1950s; an inexplicable suicide twenty years later. What was the strange link between the two--and Caroline Hunterton's long-buried past? How many loved ones will Caroline's secret take down with her? Caroline's two daughters, Chloe and Fleur, have been "protected" from the truth and their deep mutual hatred their entire lives--until journalist Magnus Phillips decides to tell the story that would tear their lives apart. Moving from wartime England to fifties Hollywood, from glitzy Madison Avenue to London's theatrical aristocracy, An Outrageous Affair explores the extraordinary, sometimes fatal, consequences of truth..
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Celebrating the Bard in all his bawdy glory, a hilarious and insightful look into the down-and-dirty sexual puns lurking in Shakespeare’s body of work

London’s Elizabethan theaters were located in the seedy part of town, close to whorehouses but never far from Puritanical scorn. In that climate, Shakespeare became a master of the double entendre, crafting lines and scenes that unfolded in a variety of meanings—the wickedly funny, the suggestively erotic, and even hard-hitting send-ups of corrupt politicians and clerics.

From The Two Gentlemen of Verona to The Tempest and King Lear, the plays and poems pulsate with puns on body parts and what they do, and reveal shocking meanings beneath the brilliant codes.

Shakespeare’s genius lies in his matchless understanding of the human condition, but for centuries we’ve been deprived of the full extent of one of his most brilliant dramatic devices. Finally, acclaimed Shakespearean scholar Pauline Kiernan unlocks the meaning behind the coded words. FILTHY SHAKESPEARE presents more than 70 examples of the Bard at his raunchiest, with each passage translated into modern English and the hidden meanings of the original words explained. A fascinating introduction shows how Shakespeare’s amazing range of wordplay had its roots in the social and political reality of Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Revealing and riotously funny, FILTHY SHAKESPEARE is the perfect gift for anyone who wants to rediscover the master of the sexual pun at his most inventive, and an intriguing look into the richness and complexity of Shakespeare’s language and his world..
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This is the first-ever biography of the legendary wrestler Gorgeous George, filled with incredible never-before-told stories George directly influenced the likes of Muhammad Ali, who took his bragging and boasting from George; James Brown, who began to wear sequined capes onstage after seeing George on TV; John Waters, whose films featured the outrageous drag queen Divine as an homage to George; and too many wrestlers to count. Amid these pop culture discoveries are firsthand accounts of the pro wrestling game from the 1930s to the 1960s.

The ideal American male used to be stoic, quiet, and dignified. But for a young couple struggling to make ends meet, in the desperation born of the lingering Depression and wartime rationing, an idea was hatched that changed the face of American popular culture, an idea so bold, so over-the-top and absurd, that it was perfect. That idea transformed journeyman wrestler George Wagner from a dark-haired, clean-cut good guy to a peroxide-blond braggart who blatantly cheated every chance he got. Crowds were stunned—they had never seen anything like this before—and they came from miles around to witness it for themselves.

Suddenly George—guided by Betty, his pistol of a wife—was a draw. With his golden tresses grown long and styled in a marcel, George went from handsome to . . . well . . . gorgeous overnight, the small, dank wrestling venues giving way to major arenas. As if the hair wasn't enough, his robes—unmanly things of silk, lace, and chiffon in pale pinks, sunny yellows, and rich mauves—were but a prelude to the act: the regal entrance, the tailcoat-clad valet spraying the mat with perfume, the haughty looks and sneers for the "peasants" who paid to watch this outrageously prissy hulk prance around the ring. How they loved to see his glorious mane mussed up by his manly opponents. And how they loved that alluringly alliterative name . . . Gorgeous George . . . the self-proclaimed Toast of the Coast, the Sensation of the Nation!

All this was timed to the arrival of that new invention everyone was talking about—television. In its early days, professional wrestling and its larger-than-life characters dominated prime-time broadcasts—none more so than Gorgeous George, who sold as many sets as Uncle Miltie.

Fans came in droves—to boo him, to stick him with hatpins, to ogle his gowns, and to rejoice in his comeuppance. He was the man they loved to hate, and his provocative, gender-bending act took him to the top of the entertainment world. America would never be the same again.

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Price: $12.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From the demented pages of MAD Magazine comes a depraved and uproarious look at contemporary politics' juiciest scandals. Revel in the salacious animation of our fearless leaders' most embarrassing moments. Hunt with Dick Cheney, learn how to spell with Dan Quayle, take speech lessons with George W. Bush, and find out why Alfred E. Neuman is running for President...again and again and again.

Mad About Politics: A Pop-Up Book spares nothing at the expense of our elected officials, highlighting the unbearable truth about who's in charge. With precise pop-up ingenuity American power players have never looked so enjoyably foolish. If you're wondering who to vote for on Election Day let Mad About Politics give you some pointers. Suitable for the sardonic this tome of asinine political parody will have anyone with a sense of humor rolling in the aisles..
Price: $20.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Zobmondo!! takes the idea of parlor game questions to a new level of debate and lunacy. Based on the new Hasbro board game of the same name, it's a chunky book of 400 questions that range from the heinous to the nauseating to the downright disturbing, each a field-tested conversation starter-because no matter how strange or far-fetched, Zobmondo!! knows that choice provokes thinking, and thinking is fun.

Some questions, like a Rorschach test, reveal values: Would you rather . . . Age only from the neck up-OR-age only from the neck down? Be stupid and rich-OR-smart and poor? Some delight in their own grossness: Eat three earthworms-OR-wear a necklace made of them on your wedding day? Be trapped in an elevator with wet dogs-OR-three fat men with bad breath? Some churn up prejudices: Lose your mate to the same sex as yourself-OR-the opposite sex? Some create that squirming sensation: Get a bad case of poison ivy way up inside your nose-OR-inside your inner ear? Or ethical dilemmas: Be president of a firm that poaches endangered species-OR-work for a corrupt politician? And some are just deliciously absurd: Catch a porcupine thrown from a second-story window-OR-a skunk thrown from the same window? Each question is followed up with related, often off-the-wall information, from odd trivia to dumb jokes to the occasional practical advice (go for the skunk--the porcupine's got 30,000 quills, while tomato juice will take away the skunk smell)..
Price: $3.83 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In this masterfully written and brilliantly informed work, Dr. Thorne, the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, leads readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, answering the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know what they know? Features an introduction by Stephen Hawking..
Price: $6.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]