For their first Valentine's Day outside of an ICU, Jack decides to go big. However, his over the top Valentine extravaganza is about to completely miss the mark. Nina loves her much simpler life with Jack and values their time more than any gift he could ever buy. Her Valentine wish is for a night alone at the cabin, only she doesn’t have the heart to tell Jack.For their first Valentine's Day outside of an ICU, Jack decides to go big. However, his over the top Valentine extravaganza is about to completely miss the mark. Nina loves her much simpler life with Jack and values their time more than any gift he could ever buy. Her Valentine wish is for a night alone at the cabin, only she doesn’t have the heart to tell Jack.Get ready to celebrate another holiday with the Spears family and get a peek into Jack and Nina’s-almost-happily ever after :)

A satire of Victorian admiration for all things medieval, this early work by Thackeray is decidedly contrary—a self-confessed middle-aged novel that begins where most novels end: with marriage. Rebecca and Rowena calls into question the ending of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, exploring the miserable marriage of Sir Wilfrid to the 'icy, faultless, prim' Rowena. In an irreverent and theatrical plot, in which the dead come back to life, marriage is exposed as really quite dull, and imperialism is mocked mercilessly, Thackeray ridiculously reunites Ivanhoe with his first love, Rebecca, claiming they were wrongly separated in the earlier novel.

This major novel, written with sophistication and wonderful wit, has some of the flavor of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, as it tells the story of a group of people who meet at a drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation clinic.

At the close of the last millennium, Helen Fielding debuted the irrepressible (and blockbuster-bestselling) Bridget Jones. Now, Fielding gives us a sensational new heroine for a new era . . . Move over 007, a stunning, sexy-and decidedly female-new player has entered the world of international espionage. Her name is Olivia Joules (that’s "J.O.U.L.E.S. the unit of kinetic energy") and she's ready to take America by storm with charm, style, and her infamous Overactive Imagination. How could a girl not be drawn to the alluring, powerful Pierre Ferramo-he of the hooded eyes, impeccable taste, unimaginable wealth, exotic international homes, and dubious French accent? Could Ferramo really be a major terrorist bent on the Western world’s destruction, hiding behind a smokescreen of fine wines, yachts, and actresses slash models? Or is it all just a product of Olivia Joules’s overactive imagination? Join Olivia in her heart-stopping, hilarious, nerve-frazzling quest from hip hotel to eco-lodge to underwater cave, by light aircraft, speedboat, helicopter, and horse, in this witty, contemporary, and utterly unputdownable novel deluxe. **

Following the death of a friend, the poet and pets' mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park. Within its golden gates, death, American-style, is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday-and Dennis gets drawn into a bizarre love triangle with Aimée Thanatogenos, a naïve Californian corpse beautician, and Mr. Joyboy, a master of the embalmer's art. Waugh's dark and savage satire on the Anglo-American cultural divide depicts a world where reputation, love, and death cost a very great deal.

A princess should be as good as she is beautiful. So says The Art of Being a Princess, which Princess Imogene is supposed to be reading. But since she is neither particularly good nor all that beautiful, she skips her homework to visit the pond. There she meets a talking frog who claims to be a prince under a witch's spell. Imogene kindly kisses him to remove the spell - and gets turned into a frog instead! Now the only way for the princess to un-frog herself is to convince someone else to kiss her. But before she can figure out a plan, Imogene gets kidnapped and becomes the unwilling star attraction in a third-rate traveling theater company. Can she find a way to undo the witch's spell - or will she be frogged forever?

this book contains jokes about different topics in life. It makes you laugh and smile. it also give you some educational information in a form of humor. This is the first part of it. It will be the second one later.Bizarre, puzzling, and complex are a few of the many adjectives used to define extraterrestrial encounters with humans. This essay explores some of the complexities of this fascinating phenomena. Included in this essay is a description of the standardized encounter categories, the various theories and beliefs attempting to explain close encounters, a brief chronology of the different types of aliens and their origins, and the testimony of worldwide prominent individuals regarding extraterrestrials and their visitations to this planet. This short but informative article will leave readers with a clear overview and a better understanding of extraterrestrial encounters, a most challenging phenomena of our time.

Everyone has heard of the mysterious and utterly frightening legends that surround cryptids, monsters, and villains - but what do these beings do during their regular day-to-day lives? The Humdrum Lives of Cryptids, Monsters, and Villains hilariously details what a zombie does at an outdoor music festival, how Bigfoot starts a blog, how a minotaur orders pizza to the labyrinth - and much more!The fantastic, intriguing, and exciting stories and legends of mysterious creatures and their enigmatic habits have been well documented and retold over and over for millennia… But what do these critters do during a regular day in their lives? It almost seems as though their normal lives are even more mysterious than their legendary brushes with mankind. For instance, how does Bigfoot fare during a trip to the grocery store? Can the Loch Ness Monster deal with customer service representatives long enough to get her rockin’ custom made electric guitar replaced? Are mummies able to adequately replace broken air conditioning units and interpret text messages from their estranged ex-girlfriends? Can the robot that the Loch Ness Monster built to simplify her life adequately perform stand-up comedy and survive being launched into space? The Humdrum Lives of Cryptids, Monsters, and Villains examines these scenarios and many more! No longer will the day-to-day activities of these creatures remain shrouded in mystery. This collection of thirteen original short stories includes: Bigfoot: A Trip to the Grocery Store Zombie: Attending an Outdoor Music Festival Loch Ness Monster: Ordering an Electric Guitar Mummy: Repairing an Air Conditioner Werewolf: Opening A Café Mermaid: Replacing a VCR Centaur: A Subpar Vacation Experience Minotaur: Ordering a Pizza to the Labyrinth Bigfoot: Starting a Blog A Day in the Afterlife of Bigfoot’s Ghost: Renewing a Library Card Some Ado About Literally Everything: A Play by William Snakespeare The Robot Loch Ness Monster: Trying Stand-Up Comedy Again Dragon: Selected for Jury Duty

Private eye R.J. Decker is hired to investigate a bizarre multi-million dollar racket in the professional bass fishing circuit in Florida. Hiaasen is also the author of Tourist Season.

In the good old days, magic was indispensable—it could both save a kingdom and clear a clogged drain. But now magic is fading: drain cleaner is cheaper than a spell, and magic carpets are used for pizza delivery. Fifteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians—but it’s hard to stay in business when magic is drying up. And then the visions start, predicting the death of the world’s last dragon at the hands of an unnamed Dragonslayer. If the visions are true, everything will change for Kazam—and for Jennifer. Because something is coming. Something known as . . . Big Magic.

"Talk to the hand, 'cause the face ain't listening," the saying goes. When did the world stop wanting to hear? When did society become so thoughtless? It's a topic that has been simmering for years, and Lynne Truss says it's now reached the boiling point. Taking on the boorish behavior that for some has become a point of pride, Talk to the Hand is a rallying cry for courtesy. Like Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Talk to the Hand is not a stuffy guidebook, and is sure to inspire spirited conversation. Why hasn't your nephew ever thanked you for your carefully selected gift? What makes your contractor think it's fine to snub you in the midst of a major renovation? Why do crowds spawn selfishness? What accounts for the appalling treatment you receive in stores (if you're lucky enough to get a clerk's attention at all)? Most important, what will it take to roll back a culture that applauds those who are disrespectful? In a recent U.S. survey, 79 percent of...

One of Henry James’ main themes was the interaction between the Old World and the New. Restless Baroness Eugenia Munster and her charming bohemian brother Felix are visiting their American cousins in Boston, New England. The effect these two extravagant characters have on their austere Puritan relations forms the substance of the book and is told in a series of scenes or‘sketches’. The author writes with subtly observed good humour which accelerates and escalates into higher comedy as Felix, the main protagonist, manipulates his cousin’s emotional affiliations.

So I was driving to work when this angry suicidal lawyer crashed into me. She and I were flung out of our bodies, into the sky. So far, not a good day.Captured, argued over, sold, our souls ended up in a cage called Paradise, where two evil spirits were market-testing new temptations for a sales conference.Then a snake appeared. It was OK though: he was offering counselling.'Paradise - A divine comedy' shows what happens when what's hidden inside us, comes out. Reviews:'‘Hitchhikers Guide meets Screwtape meets Pilgrims Progress meets the Discworld!’ (Phil Grasham)'...absolutely loved it. A hysterical surrealist take on what is out there after life on earth, or next to life on earth, or simultaneous with life on earth, or whatever. A story of Gods in kilts, crystal clear memories, and walls made of our pixelated fears. Delightful. (Jeannette M, Goodreads.com)Sometimes you want to hit the main character on the back of the head and tell him to stop being a wuss, but how would you react if you had to build a paradise controlled by some used-car-salesman-style gods? If you like quirky and surreal stories about the afterlife, then I would highly recommend Paradise. (Katie Webb, Goodreads.com)What a great book! Loved the characters, the creativity, the dialogue, the imaginative idea of evil spirits keeping humans as pets …. a delightfully comic but definitely insightful look into the human psyche and soul. It’s a mark of a good book (for me, at least) when I look forward to picking it up again to read and am slow to put it down. I loved every aspect of it. (Susan Sutton, author)An interview with Glenn MyersQ. So what is this book like and what books do you like the most?A. Off-beat, quirky. British humour I guess. About the afterlife or at least about near-death experiences and the soul.Q. Why this subject?A. We spend loads of time grooming our appearance, because that's what people see. But what are we like on the inside? If your soul was like a landscape, what would it look like? How would it change? What would be attacking it or wearing it down? I thought it would be a lot of fun to picture that. Q. And you get to ask big questions?A. I think the best comedy does. Life, death, love, redemption: all those, but handled lightly. I see comic fiction like a ridge walk on a mountain range -- scary drops each side, but a carefree stroll on the top. Q. With two warring characters at the heart?A. Three actually. The main protagonist Jamie is at war with Keziah the girl who crashed into him and so sent them both to the afterlife. If he's smug, laid-back and bone idle, she's spiky, focussed and driven. They just don't get on. There's no possible world, living or dead, where they could ever get on. Yet they have to work together. And hovering in the background is Jamie's ex-girlfriend Caroline, who he's completely failed to love and she's left him. So they're all struggling. They're all lost souls. And of course the stress of being dead, of your soul exposed, and of being experimented on by evil spirits, all that tends to crank up the conflict. So there's missed love and disappointment and secret goodness and slow discovery. Such wonderful fun to write!Q. There’s a lot of food mentioned in the books: Afghan (murtabak), Indian (for example, roti prata), Singaporean Chinese (Hainanese Chicken Rice) and Malay (Mee Goreng, Laksa, Nasi Lemak). Have you eaten all these foods? A. Yes. It’s important -- vital research.

In the future, humans and androids desperately need to find a way to get along with each other, but they're failing miserably. A hand-picked group of Future Leaders is sent to a special academy, a sort of Blade Runner High School, where the young ones must learn how to just get along. In this absurdist fable, they're going to need all the luck they can get.In the future, humans and androids desperately need to find a way to get along with each other, but they're failing miserably. Mired in war and environmental catastrophe, a new generation has to rise to the challenge. A hand-picked group of Future Leaders is sent to a special academy, a sort of Blade Runner High School. Its up to these young people learn to overcome their differences, to see past the great divide of their time, and usher in a new era of peace and humanoid cooperation. Can't they all just get along? In this absurdist fable, they're going to need all the luck they can get.

THE JESUS TWIN is a comic fiction short story about the nature of faith. Written by Wright Forbucks, the author of THE WALKING MAN, THE JESUS TWIN tells the story of two professors as they struggle to interpret three ancient scrolls that appear to be the Gospel According to Jessup, the younger brother of Jesus Christ.This story takes place after the second Guardians novel "Blood in the Water" and is about the Water Guardian's mother and her unexpected journey into Faerie.