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Crap Kitchen: Boiled gannet, calf-brain custard and other 'acquired tastes'
By Geoff Tibballs. 2015
The worst cookbook ever, packed with truly bizarre and utterly disgusting recipes from all over the worldEver since humankind produced…
its first foodie, the culinary world has dished up some staggering confections which could best be described as 'acquired tastes': dishes such as Virgin Boy Eggs (eggs soaked in the urine of prepubescent boys); live octopus, which clutches at the diner's tongue and throat as it is swallowed; and Beard Beer, made from the yeast found in facial hair.In northern Greenland, the Inuit are fond of cramming as many as 500 dead auks (small sea birds) into an old seal skin which they place under a large rock until the birds have fermented into what has rightly been described as a 'sticky, pungent, toxic, cheesy gloop'. Kiviak, as it is called, is eaten by biting off the birds' heads and sucking out the juices. The mighty Roman Empire was built on such delicacies as larks' tongues, stuffed thrush, boiled flamingo and grilled cow's womb, while the Tudors loved nothing more than a roast cockenthrice: the head and upper body of a pig carefully stitched onto the lower body and legs of a turkey.Today, for those with an adventurous mindset and a robust life insurance policy, there is no shortage of nauseating local delicacies to enjoy. In China, not only is tuna eyeball on the menu, but also yak penis (served whole). In Vietnam, one can enjoy the still-beating heart of a freshly-killed snake; in Iceland, raw puffin heart. In the Philippines, there is duck embryo to be had - like a Kinder Surprise . . . only containing a dead foetus instead of a toy. In Sardinia, they like nothing more than a nice bit of maggot-infested cheese; and the favourite tipple of Korean foodies is Ttongsul, a wine made from the fermented faeces of a child.Bon appetit!Saucy Postcards: The Bamforth Collection
By Marcus Hearn. 2013
The Yorkshire-based publisher Bamforth & Co started producing 'saucy' postcards in 1910. These cheeky designs became synonymous with the English…
seaside resorts where they were sold, but were exported all over the world. After WW2, Bamforth artists began to satirise the classic comic archetypes that still resonate today - henpecked husbands, naughty nurses and randy milkmen. Contemporary concerns ranging from the contraceptive pill to the Space Race also received the irreverent Bamforth treatment. Saucy Postcards: The Bamforth Collection celebrates the golden age of these comic gems, with a selection of more than 250 cards originally published from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s. The book's introduction reveals the story behind the company, and the battles with the postcard censorship committees that resulted in almost 150 prosecutions.Panic as Man Burns Crumpets: The Vanishing World of the Local Journalist
By Roger Lytollis. 2021
'For those who know about provincial newspapers, this will be a classic and a gem. Those who don't know will…
envy what they have missed' MELVYN BRAGG'Brisk and entertaining. A very readable love letter to a disappearing world, told with verve and tenderness' STUART MACONIE, author of Pies and Prejudice'Gut-bustingly funny, poignant and packed with astonishing insider information'M. W. CRAVEN, author of the award-winning The Puppet ShowYou dreamed of being a journalist and the dream has come true. You love working for your local paper . . . although not everything is as you imagined.You embarrass yourself with a range of celebrities, from John Hurt to Jordan. Your best story is 'The Man With the Pigeon Tattoo'.A former colleague interviews President Trump. You urinate in the president of the Mothers' Union's garden. Your appearance as a hard-hitting columnist on a BBC talk show does not go well. And being photographed naked is only the second most humiliating thing to happen one infamous afternoon. There are serious stories, such as a mass shooting, a devastating flood, and the search for Madeleine McCann.Meanwhile local papers are dying. Your building is crumbling and your readership is dwindling. Your carefully crafted features are read by fewer people than a story about fancy dress for dogs. Panic as Man Burns Crumpets is the inside story of local newspapers during the past twenty-five years, told in a way that's funny, poignant and revealing.Moving Foreword: Real Introductions to Totally Made-Up Books
By Jon Chattman. 2019
A great foreword is more than just a few pages of self-indulgent frippery that comes before a book. A great…
foreword adds zest. It sets the stage for the page turner you're about to open, and perhaps even puts you in the locked room where a mystery happens or in the high-button shoes of a year gone by. A great foreword—sometimes—is even better than the book it precedes. So why not skip the boring actual-book part? Moving Foreword is a collection of introductions to imaginary books, written by real celebrities, comedians, musicians, and other writers with something to say. With a real foreword by Rainn Wilson, this book offers a no-holds-barred cacophony of laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, and thought-provoking writing that tackles everything from politics to pop culture, true crime to trout fishing, and Star Wars to skin flicks. Highlights include: • Bustin' Through: Confessions of a Kool-Aid Man Foreword by "Pop Candy" columnist Whitney Matheson • Phil Rosenthal's Who's the Boss?: My Unlikely Rise to Rock Stardom Foreword by "Bruce Springsteen" (Phil Rosenthal) • Keep Your Gaze on Me: A True Story of Social Media, Obsession, and Murder Foreword by Shirley Manson, lead vocalist of Garbage • Sock Puppet Mozart: The Life and Gruesome Death of Randy Masterson Foreword by actor Thomas Lennon • Vance DeGeneris: An Unauthorized Biography Foreword by Vance DeGeneres • Everything You Need to Know About Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Regulations Foreword by New Kids on the Block member Jonathan Knight • Fly Ball: How the New York Yankees Have Changed Lives Foreword by talk show host Jerry Springer • Terrible Band Names: A Chronology of Rock History Foreword by John Ondrasik, a.k.a. Five for Fighting • God's Wow, You're All F***ing This Up Big Time Foreword by singer-songwriter Mary Lambert . . . any many more!How to Be a Man (Whatever That Means): Lessons in Modern Masculinity from a Questionable Source
By James Breakwell. 2021
There's no wrong way to be a woman. There are countless wrong ways to be a man. James Breakwell should…
know. He's tried just about all of them. Journalism. Pig ownership. Felony lawn gnome theft. Whatever masculinity is supposed to be, this can't be it. But can you really fail at something no one can quite define? Apparently. Now, in a series of funny, sharply observed, and occasionally poignant essays, everyone's favorite internet-famous father of four daughters lays down a lifetime of lessons in what it means to be a man. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll wonder what really happened to those creepy lawn gnomes on that deserted country road. (Spoiler alert: They're right behind you.) If you ever wanted to know how to fail at altruism, dodge the priesthood, and stumble your way into unexpected wisdom, this book is for you. How to Be a Man (Whatever that Means) presents a vision of manhood that looks very different from what you'll see on TV. And that's a good thing. Probably.Bare Minimum Parenting: The Ultimate Guide to Not Quite Ruining Your Child
By James Breakwell. 2018
This isn't a book about overachieving at parenting. This isn't even a book about achieving exactly the right amount. This…
is a book about doing as little as possible without quite ruining your child. Overachieving parents want you to believe the harder you work, the better your kid will turn out. That lie ends now. The truth is most kids end up remarkably unremarkable no matter what you do, so you might as well achieve mediocrity by the easiest possible route. The goal of "bare minimum parenting" is to turn your child into a functional adult with only a fraction of the effort spent by super moms and dads. If you do it right, your kid will be no better or worse off than their kids, but with more free time left for you. That's more valuable than all the participation trophies in the world. In Bare Minimum Parenting, amateur parenting expert James Breakwell will teach you to stop worrying and embrace your child's destiny as devastatingly average. To get there, you'll have to overcome your kid, other parents, and yourself, all of whom will push you to do more than is absolutely necessary. Honestly, by reading this far, you're already trying too hard. But don't stop now. You're exactly the kind of person who needs this book.Only Dead on the Inside: A Parent's Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
By James Breakwell. 2017
It's not easy being a parent these days. There are bills to pay. Kids to feed. And hordes of undead…
monsters to keep at bay. There are plenty of guides out there about how to survive the zombie apocalypse. All of them assume readers are young, fit, and unencumbered by children. In that scenario, the only living humans left will be smug, outdoorsy Millennials. That's hell on earth, even without the zombies. Only Dead on the Inside is the answer for the rest of us. Written by professional comedy writer and amateur father-of-four James Breakwell (@XplodingUnicorn), Only Dead on the Inside blends traditional parenting advice with zombie survival tips, bringing together two totally unrelated genres in a book no one asked for but everyone needs. This step-by-step manual teaches you how to raise happy, healthy children in a world overrun by the undead. Motivated moms and dads want it all, and that won't change at the end of the world. There's no reason you can't be a zombie killing machine AND parent of the year, but you have to work for it. If you want to make sure your family is apocalypse-ready, Only Dead on the Inside is your best―and only―chance at survival. No pressure, but if you don't read this book, your children will die.The Devil's Candy: The Anatomy Of A Hollywood Fiasco
By Julie Salamon. 2021
"A definitive portrait of the madness of big-time moviemaking" (Newsweek), now the basis for the new season of TCM's hit…
podcast, "The Plot Thickens" and featuring a new afterword by the authorWhen Brian De Palma agreed to allow Julie Salamon unlimited access to the film production of Tom Wolfe's best-selling book The Bonfire of the Vanities, both director and journalist must have felt like they were on to something big. How could it lose? But instead Salamon got a front-row seat at the Hollywood disaster of the decade. She shadowed the film from its early stages through the last of the eviscerating reviews, and met everyone from the actors to the technicians to the studio executives. They'd all signed on for a blockbuster, but there was a sense of impending doom from the start--heart-of-gold characters replaced Wolfe's satiric creations; affable Tom Hanks was cast as the patrician heel; Melanie Griffith appeared mid-shoot with new, bigger breasts. With a keen eye and ear, Salamon shows us how the best of intentions turned into a legendary Hollywood debacle.The Devil's Candy joins John Gregory Dunne's The Studio, Steven Bach's Final Cut, and William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade as a classic for anyone interested in the workings of Hollywood. With a new afterword profiling De Palma ten years after the movie's devastating flop (and this book's best-selling publication), Julie Salamon has created a riveting insider's portrait of an industry where art, talent, ego, and money combine and clash on a monumental scale.Great Lost Albums
By Mark Billingham, Martyn Waites, Stav Sherez, David Quantick. 2014
We can all name the classic rock and pop albums of the last fifty years. But what about the great…
lost albums? The albums that fell behind the back of the musical sofa? The albums that, in a very real sense, have been completely made up by the authors of this book?It took a bestselling crime writer or three to hunt down these fifty lost classics, and an award-winning TV comedy scriptwriter to buy them a pint and make them write it. From the 60s to the 00s, with track listings and full histories, Great Lost Albums reveals the recordings that - just perhaps - never existed, but really should have done. Albums include:· Bob Dylan's legendary collaboration with Liberace· Joy Division's 'musical theatre' period· Coldplay's IKEA Sessions, including 'Conscious Uncoupling (See Leaflet for Details)' and 'In my Place (There's a Lovely HEMNES Shelving System)'· The Who's magisterial, abandoned rock opera 'Bingo Wizard' · Kraftwerk's hastily deleted Christmas album, featuring the melancholic classic 'I Wish to Return this Item'...and many, many more.Jedburgh Justice and Kentish Fire: The Origins of English in Ten Phrases and Expressions
By Paul Anthony Jones. 2014
Did you know that Jedburgh Justice is ‘executing someone first, then giving them a trial’? Or that Kentish Fire is…
‘applauding sarcastically to silence your opponents’? From the author of Haggard Hawks and Paltry Poltroons, this is a fascinating collection of curious phrases and expressions from the English language, together with the stories of their etymology and anecdotes about their use in history. Where Haggard Hawks focused on lists of ten words of a particular kind, this collection instead focuses on lists phrases and expressions, also arranged by their quirky and specific origins. The contents will include: 10 PHRASES DERIVED FROM PLACES IN BRITAIN (Jedburgh justice, Kentish fire, Scarborough warning…) 10 PHRASES DERIVED FROM PLACES IN LONDON (A draught on the pump at Aldgate, Kent Street ejectment…) 10 PHRASES DERIVED FROM PLACES IN AMERICA (Hollywood yes, Michigan bankroll, Chicago Overcoat…) 10 LATIN PHRASES USED IN ENGLISH (Quid pro quo, nunc est bibendum…) 10 FRENCH PHRASES USED IN ENGLISH (La vie en rose, C’est la guerre, Revenons à nos moutons…) 10 SHAKESPEAREAN EXPRESSIONS (Gild the lily, Salad days, All that glitters is not gold…) 10 LITERARY EXPRESSIONS (A thing of beauty is a joy forever, Abandon hope all ye who enter here…) 10 PHRASES FROM COMICS & CARTOONS (Keep up with the Joneses, Mutt and Jeff…) 10 PHRASES FROM SONGS (Miss Otis regrets, The birds and the bees, Potato po-tah-to…) 10 WAYS OF SAYING ‘WOW’ (Great Scott, My stars, Mamma mia…)Tinder Fails: The Most WTF? Moments from the World's Favourite Dating App
By Tom Phillips. 2014
Online dating was supposed to make life easier, to help us bypass cheesy chat-up lines and avoid those awkward getting-to-know-you…
chats. But thanks to Tinder, the world's favourite dating app, you can now be horrified by lewd come-ons, cringe at incompetent smalltalk and wonder at what some people think passes for 'banter' in the comfort of your own home! Isn't technology great?Featuring some of the most awkward, embarrassing and outright insane Tinder conversations ever committed to smartphone, this is an essential - and entertaining - guide to how NOT to use Tinder.Surely Not, Doctor! (The Dr Clifford Chronicles)
By Dr Robert Clifford. 1985
Doctor Bob's country practice is in Tadchester on the Somerset coast, but no one can accuse the town of being…
a sleepy little backwater. All human life is there with its quirks, colour, comedy and richness . . .There's the absent-minded, incontinent vicar of St Peter's; the well-known London publisher whose dog has more taste than most; the lady magistrate who travels for miles for a doctor with warm hands and the packet of suppositories which prompts a bomb scare! Then there's the hairdresser with a penchant for male strippers and the whispering journalist who learnt how to shout. Even off duty, Doctor Bob's life is full of incident and he himself ends up with a long spell in hospital.It all goes to show that truth can be so much stranger than fiction . . .Horrid Henry's Ghosts: A Horrid Factbook (Horrid Henry #1)
By Francesca Simon. 2014
From multi-million-copy selling author, Francesca Simon, and David Walliams' illustrator, Tony Ross, comes the latest title in the successful Horrid…
Henry's Factbooks series. What's the most haunted house in the world? What's the scariest ghost story ever told? And what's hiding under your bed right now?Bursting with scary facts and horrible trivia, this is the perfect guide to everything a Horrid Henry fan has ever wanted to know about ghosts. Terrify your family and amaze your friends with your nasty new knowledge!Quick Pint After Work?: And Other Everyday Lies
By Luke Lewis. 2014
Jargon, clichés, euphemisms . . . lies. Ever wished there was a phrasebook to help you translate all this endless…
bullsh*t?When your boss asks 'Can I have a quick word?' (real meaning: I don't have anything to discuss, I just like putting the fear of God into you) or an estate agent describes something as having 'incredible potential' (real meaning: absolute shithole), you'd better have Luke Lewis's essential new book to hand. And if you need a way to spin your latest work disaster, here are numerous tried-and-tested porkies to help you out. Based on the incredibly popular BuzzFeed series 'What People Say vs What They Mean', this in an indispensible - and hilarious - guide to interpreting secret codes, little white lies and complete and utter bollocks.Examples from What People Say at Work vs What They Mean'Anyone fancy a cup of tea?' - Offer strictly limited to the three people in my immediate vicinity.'This is beyond my remit' - I can't be arsed to deal with this'Team player' - Has basic social skills, is not an outright sociopath'Let's park this for now' - Let's never mention this again'We wish her all the best in her new job' - Burn in hell, traitorDANGEROUS DAYS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE is the first in a new adult series by Terry Deary, the author of…
the hugely bestselling Horrible Histories, popular among children for their disgusting details, gory information and sharp wit, and among adults for engaging children (and themselves) with history.The Romans have long been held up as one of the first 'civilised' societies, and yet in fact they were capable of immense cruelty. Not only that, but they made the killing of humans into a sport. The spoiled emperors were the perpetrators (and sometimes the victims) of some imaginative murders. DANGEROUS DAYS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE will include some of the violent ways to visit the Elysian Fields (i.e. death) including: animal attack in the Coliseum; being thrown from the Tarpeian Rock - 370 deserters in 214 AD alone (or if the emperor didn't like your poetry); by volcanic eruption from Vesuvius; by kicking (Nero's fatal quarrel with the Empress Poppea); from poison mushrooms (Claudius); by great fires; torturous tarring; flogging to death; boiling lead (the invention of 'kind' Emperor Constantine); or being skinned alive by invading barbarians. DANGEROUS DAYS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE looks at the back-story leading up to the victims' deaths, and in doing so gives the general reader a concise history of a frequently misunderstood era.How to Raise a Jewish Dog
By The Rabbis of the Boca Raton Theological Seminary, Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman. 2007
Underwater Babies
By Seth Casteel. 2015
Photographer Seth Casteel's underwater photographs have captivated an international audience, from our best companions in Underwater Dogs and Underwater Puppies…
to some of the decade's most innovative animal photography. Now, after what are among the most joyful shoots of his career, Seth has found a remarkable new way to capture images of our youngest humans at their most playful and pure: underwater.A beautiful gift book with more than 70 previously unpublished photographs, Underwater Babies reveals adorable babies as they explore the underwater world, chubby-cheeked, curious, mischievous, and joyous, all in Casteel's signature style.The Digested Twenty-first Century
By John Crace. 2014
John Crace's Digested Read first appeared in in February 2000 and has been running ever since. Each week Crace reduces…
a new book – anything from a Booker Prize winner to a Nigella cookery book is fair game – to 700 words in a parody of the plot, style, dialogue and themes. Or lack of them. The Digested Read has not just become an institution for readers; it is read and enjoyed by publishers and authors too. So long as it is not their book being digested. A few years ago Crace wrote Brideshead Abbreviated, A Digested Read of the 20th Century. This is the 21st Century. So far.The Mammoth Book of Tasteless and Outrageous Lists (Mammoth Books #2)
By Karl Shaw. 2014
Prepare to be even more revolted, flabbergasted, appalled and entertained by this incredible follow-up collection of bizarre but absolutely true…
trivia. Nothing is too distasteful for this astonishing compendium, including scores of eclectic lists to amuse, astonish and appal your friends.Entries include:10 Road-kill RecipesHistory’s 10 Most Murderous Regimes10 Historic Sex Toys10 People who Married Their Nieces10 Deaths by Sex10 People Killed by Falling Animals 10 Ancient Remedies Containing Body Parts10 Flatalogical Facts8 Most Violent National Anthems15 Premature Obituaries10 Unusual Royal Deaths10 Cruel and Unusual Punishments10 Notable Executions12 Elizabethan InsultsThree Times A Day, Doctor (The Dr Clifford Chronicles)
By Dr Robert Clifford. 1977
Three Times a Day, Doctor? combines the first three books in this humorous and heartwarming doctor series: Just Here Doctor;…
Not There Doctor; and What Next, Doctor? Together the paint a richly entertaining portrait of life in a small West Country community as seen through the eyes of its G.P.We read of the time he rode off on a horse to tend to a hunting casualty - and rode back in an ambulance as the casualty; of the craziest, most drunken rugby tour of France ever undertaken; of the pregnant woman whose X-rays revealed a medical phenomenon; of the elderly couple who turned out to be mother and son - the son being eighty-one . . .Teeming with colourful places and curious characters, by turns comic, dramatic and tragic, these tales provide an immensely entertaining slice of life delivered with a warmth and humour that will make them a real delight to read.