Recommended Reads
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One-Punch Man
A manga series that packs quite the punch!
Nothing about Saitama passes the eyeball test when it comes to superheroes, from his lifeless expression to his bald head to his unimpressive physique. However, this average-looking guy has a not-so-average problem—he just can’t seem to find an opponent strong enough to take on! Every time a promising villain appears, he beats the snot out of ’em with one punch! Can Saitama finally find an opponent who can go toe-to-toe with him and give his life some meaning? Or is he doomed to a life of superpowered boredom? -
The Way of the Househusband, Vol. 1
It’s a day in the life of your average househusband—if your average househusband is the legendary yakuza “the Immortal Dragon”!
A former yakuza legend leaves it all behind to become your everyday househusband. But it’s not easy to walk away from the gangster life, and what should be mundane household tasks are anything but!
He was the fiercest member of the yakuza, a man who left countless underworld legends in his wake. They called him “the Immortal Dragon.” But one day he walked away from it all to travel another path—the path of the househusband! The curtain rises on this cozy yakuza comedy! -
The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins
Welcome to The Adventure Zone! If your heart sings for Critical Role and Dimension 20, you’ll want to dive right into this gorgeous graphic novel adaptation of the trailblazing D&D podcast, which illustrates exploits of three lovable dummies on their journey from small-time bodyguards to world-class artifact hunters!
Join Taako the elf wizard, Merle the dwarf cleric, and Magnus the human warrior for an adventure they are poorly equipped to handle AT BEST, guided ("guided") by their snarky DM, in a graphic novel that will tickle your funny bone, tug your heartstrings, and probably pants you if you give it half a chance.
With endearingly off-kilter storytelling from master goofballs Clint McElroy and the McElroy brothers, and vivid, adorable art by Carey Pietsch, The Adventure Zone: Here There be Gerblins is the comics equivalent of role-playing in your friend's basement at 2am, eating Cheetos and laughing your ass off as she rolls critical failures and dies to a slime -
The Librarianist
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
From bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself.
Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he's known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.
Behind Bob Comet's straight-man façade is the story of an unhappy child's runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian's vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bob's experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsize players to welcome onto the stage of his life.
With his inimitable verve, skewed humor, and compassion for the outcast, Patrick deWitt has written a wide-ranging and ambitious document of the introvert's condition. The Librarianist celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life, and depicts beautifully the turbulence that sometimes exists beneath a surface of serenity.
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The Disaster Artist
Now a major motion picture—directed by and starring James Franco
From the actor who somehow lived through it all, a “sharply detailed…funny book about a cinematic comedy of errors” (The New York Times): the making of the cult film phenomenon The Room.
In 2003, an independent film called The Room—starring and written, produced, and directed by a mysteriously wealthy social misfit named Tommy Wiseau—made its disastrous debut in Los Angeles. Described by one reviewer as “like getting stabbed in the head,” the $6 million film earned a grand total of $1,800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. Ten years later, it’s an international cult phenomenon, whose legions of fans attend screenings featuring costumes, audience rituals, merchandising, and thousands of plastic spoons.
Hailed by The Huffington Post as “possibly the most important piece of literature ever printed,” The Disaster Artist is the hilarious, behind-the-scenes story of a deliciously awful cinematic phenomenon as well as the story of an odd and inspiring Hollywood friendship. Greg Sestero, Tommy’s costar, recounts the film’s bizarre journey to infamy, explaining how the movie’s many nonsensical scenes and bits of dialogue came to be and unraveling the mystery of Tommy Wiseau himself. But more than just a riotously funny story about cinematic hubris, “The Disaster Artist is one of the most honest books about friendship I’ve read in years” (Los Angeles Times). -
Inept, Impaired, Overwhelmed
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The Monster Stick
Winner of PLA/ALLS Best New Books for New Adult Readers Storytelling World Award
What's the Monster Stick? It's Paul's "nine-foot, surf casting rod full of six miles of brand new 50-pound test Stren Carp cord with 20 pound, custom made, stainless steel, slip-sliding sinkers." The adventures Paul finds himself in from the day the Monster Stick comes into his life rival those of Paul Bunyan but add a modern twist, as when he somehow sets the hook in a DC-10 flown by drug smugglers.
Then there's Buck-dog, Bil's "extraordinary hunting dog, whose mama was a German shepherd but whose daddy was a determined and extremely prolific basset hound." Buck is smarter than your average human and stronger than four CS&X train engines pulling in unison, which he proves repeatedly as he takes on anything, including the government. These tall tales led the Lepp brothers to so many championships in the West Virginia State Liars' Competition that their amateur status was nearly revoked. But that's another tale...
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Raney
A new edition of Edgerton's first novel, an uproarious Southern story of love, music, and heartache
Clyde Edgerton's Raney is the comic love story of a marriage between Raney, a small-town Southern Baptist, and Charles, a librarian with liberal leanings from Atlanta, united by their shared enthusiasm for country music. The novel both interrogates and honors the faiths and foibles of its subjects as the relationship is tested through trials and revelations. Despite the couple's differences, their marriage slowly evolves into a relationship of equals in which both are willing to compromise for the good of the other and the marriage. Told though Raney's naive and mesmerizing perspective as a southern storyteller, serious and sometimes heartbreaking moments give way to a humorous and joyful tale that pokes fun at and holds respect for just about everyone who passes through these pages.
Raney, Edgerton's first novel, was originally published in 1985. It represents some of Edgerton's most comic, candid, and ambitious writing. This Southern Revivals edition includes a new introduction by the author and a preface from series editor Robert H. Brinkmeyer Jr., director of the University of South Carolina Institute for Southern Studies.
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Walking Across Egypt
She has as much business keeping a stray dog as she would walking across Egypt–which not so incidentally is the title of her favorite hymn. She’s Mattie Rigsbee, an independent, strong-minded senior citizen who, at seventy-eight, might be slowing down just a bit. When teenage delinquent Wesley Benfield drops in on her life, he is even less likely a companion than the stray dog. But, of course, the dog never tasted her mouth-watering pound cake. Wise and witty, down-home and real, Walking Across Egypt is a book for everyone.
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Extremely funny . . . inspired lunacy . . . [and] over much too soon.”—The Washington Post Book World
SOON TO BE A HULU SERIES • Now celebrating the pivotal 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
It’s an ordinary Thursday morning for Arthur Dent . . . until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly after to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and Arthur’s best friend has just announced that he’s an alien.
After that, things get much, much worse.
With just a towel, a small yellow fish, and a book, Arthur has to navigate through a very hostile universe in the company of a gang of unreliable aliens. Luckily the fish is quite good at languages. And the book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . . . which helpfully has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large, friendly letters on its cover.
Douglas Adams’s mega-selling pop-culture classic sends logic into orbit, plays havoc with both time and physics, offers up pithy commentary on such things as ballpoint pens, potted plants, and digital watches . . . and, most important, reveals the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything.
Now, if you could only figure out the question. . . . -
The Color of Magic
Terry Pratchett's profoundly irreverent, bestselling novels have garnered him a revered position in the halls of parody next to the likes of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.
The Color of MagicM is Terry Pratchett's maiden voyage through the now-legendary land of Discworld. This is where it all begins -- with the tourist Twoflower and his wizard guide, Rincewind.
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Delicatessen
Post-apocalyptic surrealist black comedy about the landlord of an apartment building who occasionally prepares a delicacy for his odd tenants.
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Raw Dog
A NEW YORK TIMES AND INDIE BESTSELLER!
Part travelogue, part culinary history, all capitalist critique—comedian Jamie Loftus's debut, Raw Dog, will take you on a cross-country road trip in the summer of 2021, and reveal what the creation, culture, and class influence of hot dogs says about America now.
A Best Book of the Year from NPR and Vulture. Featured in: NPR Weekend Edition • Bon Appétit • Oprah Daily • Glamour • NY Mag • Splendid Table • The Wall Street Journal • Eater • Betches • USA Today • Boston Globe • Eater • Slate • The Next Big Idea Club • Buzzfeed and more
“Wise and funny” —ANDY RICHTER • “Revealing, funny, sad, horny, and insatiably curious” —SARAH MARSHALL • “A wild ride” —ROBERT EVANS • “Deeply incisive and hilariously honest” —JACK O’BRIEN • “Gonzo yet vulnerable” —GABE DUNN • “Hot dog Moby-Dick” —BRANSON REESE • “One of the freshest and most insightful new comedic voices of this decade.” —LINDSAY ELLIS
Hot dogs. Poor people created them. Rich people found a way to charge fifteen dollars for them. They’re high culture, they’re low culture, they’re sports food, they’re kids' food, they’re hangover food, and they’re deeply American, despite having no basis whatsoever in America's Indigenous traditions. You can love them, you can hate them, but you can’t avoid the great American hot dog.
Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs is part investigation into the cultural and culinary significance of hot dogs and part travelog documenting a cross-country road trip researching them as they’re served today. From avocado and spice in the West to ass-shattering chili in the East to an entire salad on a slice of meat in Chicago, Loftus, her pets, and her ex eat their way across the country during the strange summer of 2021. It’s a brief window into the year between waves of a plague that the American government has the resources to temper, but not the interest.
So grab a dog, lay out your picnic blanket, and dig into the delicious and inevitable product of centuries of violence, poverty, and ambition, now rolling around at your local 7-Eleven.
The hardcover edition of Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs includes gorgeous endpapers, an illustrated case, as well as illustrations by the author throughout.
"Raw Dog will leave you nourished." —BuzzFeed
"You will certainly never read a funnier book about taking a hot dog-themed road trip across America." —Glamour
"A journey both silly and profound." —Vulture, Best Books of 2023 -
Hot Dog Girl
A fresh and funny contemporary YA rom-com about teens working as costumed characters in a local amusement park.
Elouise (Lou) Parker is determined to have the absolute best, most impossibly epic summer of her life. There are just a few things standing in her way:- She's landed a job at Magic Castle Playland . . . as a giant dancing hot dog.
- Her crush, the dreamy diving pirate Nick, already has a girlfriend, who is literally the princess of the park. But Lou's never liked anyone, guy or otherwise, this much before, and now she wants a chance at her own happily ever after.
- Her best friend, Seeley, the carousel operator, has always been up for anything, but she's decidedly not on board when it comes to Lou's quest to set her up with the perfect girl or Lou's scheme to get close to Nick.
- And it turns out that this will be their last summer at Magic Castle Playland—ever—unless she can find a way to stop it from closing.
- Jennifer Dugan's sparkling debut coming-of-age queer romance stars a princess, a pirate, a hot dog, and a carousel operator who find love—and themselves—in unexpected people and unforgettable places.
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Hardcore 24
Janet Evanovich's #1 New York Times bestselling sensation Stephanie Plum returns in her twenty-forth thriller as mutilated corpses litter the streets of New Jersey... Trouble comes in bunches for Stephanie Plum. First, professional grave robber and semi-professional loon, Simon Diggery, won't let her take him in until she agrees to care for his boa constrictor, Ethel. Stephanie's main qualification for babysitting an extremely large snake is that she owns a stun gun--whether that's for use on the wandering serpent or the petrified neighbors remains to be seen.
Events take a dark turn when headless bodies start appearing across town. At first, it's just corpses from a funeral home and the morgue that have had the heads removed. But when a homeless man is murdered and dumped behind a church Stephanie knows that she's the only one with a prayer of catching this killer.
If all that's not enough, Diesel's back in town. The 6-foot-tall, blonde-haired hunk is a man who accepts no limits--that includes locked doors, closed windows and underwear. Trenton's hottest cop, Joe Morelli isn't pleased at this unexpected arrival nor is Ranger, the high-powered security consultant who has his own plans for Stephanie.
As usual Jersey's favorite bounty hunter is stuck in the middle with more questions than answers. What's the deal with Grandma Mazur's latest online paramour? Who is behind the startling epidemic of mutilated corpses? And is the enigmatic Diesel's sudden appearance a coincidence or the cause of recent deadly events? -
Lean Mean Thirteen
New secrets, old flames, and hidden agendas are about to send bounty hunter Stephanie Plum on her most outrageous adventure yet!
MISTAKE #1
Dickie Orr. Stephanie was married to him for about fifteen minutes before she caught him cheating on her with her arch-nemesis Joyce Barnhardt. Another fifteen minutes after that Stephanie filed for divorce, hoping to never see either one of them again.
MISTAKE #2
Doing favors for super bounty hunter Carlos Manoso (a.k.a. Ranger). Ranger needs her to meet with Dickie and find out if he's doing something shady. Turns out, he is. Turns out, he's also back to doing Joyce Barnhardt. And it turns out Ranger's favors always come with a price...
MISTAKE #3
Going completely nutso while doing the favor for Ranger, and trying to apply bodily injury to Dickie in front of the entire office.
Now Dickie has disappeared and Stephanie is the natural suspect in his disappearance. Is Dickie dead? Can he be found? And can she stay one step ahead in this new, dangerous game? Joe Morelli, the hottest cop in Trenton, NJ is also keeping Stephanie on her toes—and he may know more than lets on about her...It's a cat-and-mouse game for Stephanie Plum, where the ultimate prize might be her life.
With Janet Evanovich's flair for hilarious situations, breathtaking action, and unforgettable characters, Lean Mean Thirteen shows why no one can beat Evanovich for blockbuster entertainment. -
Mama Learns to Drive
Presents stories from the author's youth in 1950s North Carolina as well as stories describing the childhood of his mother, who came of age in the Smoky Mountains in the 1930s.
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Dad is Fat
In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who's best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children--everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers' communication skills ("they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news"), to the eating habits of four year olds ("there is no difference between a four year old eating a taco and throwing a taco on the floor"). Reminiscent of Bill Cosby's Fatherhood, Dad is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home.
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The World According to Star Wars
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
#1 Washington Post Bestseller
There’s Santa Claus, Shakespeare, Mickey Mouse, the Bible, and then there’s Star Wars. Nothing quite compares to sitting down with a young child and hearing the sound of John Williams’s score as those beloved golden letters fill the screen. In this fun, erudite, and often moving book, Cass R. Sunstein explores the lessons of Star Wars as they relate to childhood, fathers, the Dark Side, rebellion, and redemption. As it turns out, Star Wars also has a lot to teach us about constitutional law, economics, and political uprisings.
In rich detail, Sunstein tells the story of the films’ wildly unanticipated success and explores why some things succeed while others fail. Ultimately, Sunstein argues, Star Wars is about freedom of choice and our never-ending ability to make the right decision when the chips are down. Written with buoyant prose and considerable heart, The World According to Star Wars shines a bright new light on the most beloved story of our time.
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Shakespeare Insult Generator
Put dullards and miscreants in their place with more than 150,000 handy mix-and-match insults in the bard's own words. This entertaining insult generator and flip book collects hundreds of words from Shakespeare's most pointed barbs and allows readers to combine them in creative and hilariously stinging ways. From "apish bald-pated abomination" to "cuckoldly dull-brained blockhead" to "obscene rump-fed hornbeast," each insult can be chosen at random or customized to fit any situation that calls for a literary smackdown. Featuring an informative introduction on Shakespearean wit, and notes on which terms were coined or only used once by the author in his work, this delightful book will sharpen the tongue of Shakespeare fans and insult aficionados without much further ado.
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The Wit & Wisdom of Tyrion Lannister
The perfect gift for fans of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels and HBO’s Game of Thrones: a collection of wicked one-liners from the incomparable Imp of Casterly Rock, fully illustrated by Jonty Clark!
“My mind is my weapon. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind . . . and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge.”
The jealous masses of the Seven Kingdoms may call him Halfman, but none have ever accused Tyrion Lannister of being a halfwit. His golden tongue has saved his skin slightly more often than it has landed him in mortal peril. Now, this special illustrated volume preserves his most essential knowledge for future generations, featuring time-tested guidance on such varied subjects as . . .
The art of persuasion
“The best lies are seasoned with a bit of truth.”
Fine dining
“A little honest loathing can be refreshing, like a tart wine after too much sweet.”
The fair sex
“The young ones smell much better, but the old ones know more tricks.”
Royal politics
“Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them.”
Common ailments
“A sword through the bowels. A sure cure for constipation.”
At once charming, insightful, and ruthlessly irreverent, The Wit & Wisdom of Tyrion Lannister is short on pretense and overflowing with finely crafted gems—just like the man himself.