In the great tradition of the American almanac, The Areas of My Expertise is a brilliant and hilarious compendium of handy reference tables, fascinating trivia, and sage wisdom on all topics large and small. Although bestsellers such as Poor Richard’s Almanack and The Book of Lists were certainly valuable, they also were largely true. Here is a different kind of handy desk reference, one in which all of the historical oddities and amazing true facts are sifted through the singular, illuminating imagination of John Hodgman—which is the nice way of saying: He made it all up. John Hodgman brings his considerable expertise to bear in answering all of the questions book buyers have been asking: -What are the mottoes of the 51 United States? THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED -Who were the U.S. presidents who had hooks for hands? THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED -What role does the Yale secret society “Skull and Bones” play in the secret world government? THERE IS NO SECRET WORLD GOVERNMENT -What was the menu at the first Thanksgiving, and did it include eels? Technically, that is two questions, but do not apologize, for John Hodgman shall answer them both . . . LATER. -Aside from a compendium of fake trivia, what is the best kind of book to write? A SIMPLE TABLE OF THE 55 MOST DRAMATIC LITERARY SITUATIONS PROVIDES THE ANSWER, and John Hodgman is the author of that table. Imagine if The Book of Lists had been rewritten by Peter Cook and Jorge Luis Borges under the pseudonym of “John Hodgman” and then renamed The Areas of My Expertise, and you will only begin to have a sense of the dizzying, uproarious, sublimely weird, and strangely wise journey that is contained within this book (along with all the pages and words). Perfect for anyone who thirsts for knowledge, and especially for collectors of books of fake trivia, The Areas of My Expertise offers through absurdity a better understanding of the world we share—and recognizes that while the truth may be stranger than fiction, it is never as strange as lies . . . or as true. Look out for John Hodgman's latest book, Vacationland, available from Viking in Fall 2017.
“[An] affecting and hilarious meditation on fame and prestige as seen through the lens of an airline loyalty program.” —The AV Club A hilarious and honest new book in which John Hodgman, New York Times bestselling author of Vacationland, leaves vacation behind and gets back to work as a still somewhat famous person . . . and then loses his job. An uproarious read. After spending most of his twenties pursuing a career as a literary agent, John Hodgman decided to try his own hand at writing. Following an appearance to promote one of his books on The Daily Show, he was invited to return as a contributor. This led to an unexpected and, frankly, implausible career in front of the camera that has lasted to this very day, or at least until 2016. In these pages, Hodgman explores the strangeness of his career, speaking plainly of fame, especially at the weird, marginal level he enjoyed it. Through these stories you will learn many things that only John Hodgman knows, such as how to prepare for a nude scene with an oboe, or what it feels like to go to a Hollywood party and realize that you are not nearly as famous as the Property Brothers, or, for that matter, those two famous corgis from Instagram. And there are stories about how, when your television gig is canceled, you can console yourself with the fact that all of that travel that made your young son so sad at least left you with a prize: platinum medallion status with your airline. Both unflinchingly funny and deeply heartfelt, Medallion Status is a thoughtful examination of status, fame, and identity--and about the way we all deal with those moments when we realize we aren't platinum status anymore and will have to get comfortable in that middle seat again.
“I love everything about this hilarious book except the font size.” —Jon Stewart Although his career as a bestselling author and on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart was founded on fake news and invented facts, in 2016 that routine didn’t seem as funny to John Hodgman anymore. Everyone is doing it now. Disarmed of falsehood, he was left only with the awful truth: John Hodgman is an older white male monster with bad facial hair, wandering like a privileged Sasquatch through three wildernesses: the hills of Western Massachusetts where he spent much of his youth; the painful beaches of Maine that want to kill him (and some day will); and the metaphoric haunted forest of middle age that connects them. Vacationland collects these real life wanderings, and through them you learn of the horror of freshwater clams, the evolutionary purpose of the mustache, and which animals to keep as pets and which to kill with traps and poison. There is also some advice on how to react when the people of coastal Maine try to sacrifice you to their strange god. Though wildly, Hodgmaniacally funny as usual, it is also a poignant and sincere account of one human facing his forties, those years when men in particular must stop pretending to be the children of bright potential they were and settle into the failing bodies of the wiser, weird dads that they are.
The best-selling author of The Areas of My Expertise presents a tongue-in-cheek compendium of made-up facts that fall under such headings as "The Method by Which We Elect Our Presidents," "How to Be a Famous Minor Television Personality," and "Gambling: The Sport of the Asthmatic Man." 150,000 first printing.
In the great tradition of the American almanac, The Areas of My Expertise is a brilliant and hilarious compendium of handy reference tables, fascinating trivia, and sage wisdom on all topics large and small. Although bestsellers such as Poor Richard’s Almanack and The Book of Lists were certainly valuable, they also were largely true. Here is a different kind of handy desk reference, one in which all of the historical oddities and amazing true facts are sifted through the singular, illuminating imagination of John Hodgman—which is the nice way of saying: He made it all up. John Hodgman brings his considerable expertise to bear in answering all of the questions book buyers have been asking: -What are the mottoes of the 51 United States? THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED -Who were the U.S. presidents who had hooks for hands? THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED -What role does the Yale secret society “Skull and Bones” play in the secret world government? THERE IS NO SECRET WORLD GOVERNMENT -What was the menu at the first Thanksgiving, and did it include eels? Technically, that is two questions, but do not apologize, for John Hodgman shall answer them both . . . LATER. -Aside from a compendium of fake trivia, what is the best kind of book to write? A SIMPLE TABLE OF THE 55 MOST DRAMATIC LITERARY SITUATIONS PROVIDES THE ANSWER, and John Hodgman is the author of that table. Imagine if The Book of Lists had been rewritten by Peter Cook and Jorge Luis Borges under the pseudonym of “John Hodgman” and then renamed The Areas of My Expertise, and you will only begin to have a sense of the dizzying, uproarious, sublimely weird, and strangely wise journey that is contained within this book (along with all the pages and words). Perfect for anyone who thirsts for knowledge, and especially for collectors of books of fake trivia, The Areas of My Expertise offers through absurdity a better understanding of the world we share—and recognizes that while the truth may be stranger than fiction, it is never as strange as lies . . . or as true. Look out for John Hodgman's latest book, Vacationland, available from Viking in Fall 2017.
The New York Times bestseller by Famous Minor Television Personality John Hodgman—The Daily Show's "Resident Expert" and the "PC" in the iconic Apple ads—picks up exactly where his first book left off. In fact, "the new volume is in every way a continuation of Areas of My Expertise, except in the ways it's clearly superior." (The Onion AV Club) In 2005, John Hodgman published his first compendium of Complete World Knowledge, The Areas of My Expertise, a handy volume of fake trivia and made-up facts. Hodgmania was born. Virtually overnight, John Hodgman was whisked from tweedy obscurity to the high ether of minor celebrity. And from his strange new vantage point as a Famous Minor Television Personality, Hodgman realized that there is some world knowledge yet to be documented. And so he returned to exactly where he had left off—namely, page 256 of the paperback edition of The Areas of My Expertise. And he brought with him: MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE. Which, naturally, begins on page 257. Like its predecessor, More Information Than You Require consists of brief articles, overlong lists, frighteningly complex charts, and beguiling narratives on new and familiar themes such as: THE PAST (because there is always more of it) THE FUTURE (because they say there is still some left) MOLE-MEN (including a list of 700 Mole-man names) GAMBLING, THE SPORT OF THE ATHSMATIC MAN (including hermit crab racing) CRYPTOGEOGRAPHY (including Canada) HOW TO BE A FAMOUS MINOR TELEVISION PERSONALITY (Hint: Go on television) AND NOW, the relatively pocket-sized and inexpensive paperback edition includes even more. MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE, updated to include the very latest in implausibility. PLUS!: This paperback edition includes a special self-expanding fold-out edition of THE TAXONOMY OF COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE, which you have probably never seen before because it has been carefully hidden. UNTIL NOW. Look out for John Hodgman's latest book, Vacationland, available from Viking in Fall 2017.
John Hodgman—bestselling author, The Daily Show's "Resident Expert," minor television celebrity, and deranged millionaire—brings us the third and final installment in his trilogy of Complete World Knowledge. In 2005, Dutton published The Areas of My Expertise, a handy little book of Complete World Knowledge, marked by the distinction that all of the fascinating trivia and amazing true facts were completely made up by its author, John Hodgman. At the time, Hodgman was merely a former literary agent and occasional scribbler of fake trivia. In short: a nobody. But during an interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, an incredible transformation occurred. He became a famous minor television personality. You may ask: During his whirlwind tornado ride through the high ether of minor fame and outrageous fortune, did John Hodgman forget how to write books of fake trivia? The answer is: Yes. Briefly. But soon, he remembered! And so he returned, crashing his Kansas farmhouse down upon the wicked witch of ignorance with More Information Than You Require, a New York Times bestseller containing even more mesmerizing and essential fake trivia, including seven hundred mole-man names (and their occupations). And now, John Hodgman completes his vision with That Is All, the last book in a trilogy of Complete World Knowledge. Like its predecessors, That Is All compiles incredibly handy made-up facts into brief articles, overlong lists, and beguiling narratives on new and familiar themes. It picks up exactly where More Information left off—specifically, at page 596—and finally completes COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE. Look out for John Hodgman's latest book, Vacationland, available from Viking in Fall 2017.
Great reads for busy people. This is a guide to help busy people find great reads in fiction and nonfiction. Filled with recommendations of popular, entertaining reading, this book covers mystery and suspense, romance, women’s fiction and chick lit, Westerns, science fiction, such nonfiction topics as animals, art, biography, memoirs, business, true crime, and more. Plus, each entry includes a summary of the book, its significance, and a critique/observation/comment.
Click here to find out about the 2009 MLA Updates and the 2010 APA Updates. Designed to be clear and simple, How to Write Anything re-imagines how texts work, with support for students wherever they are in their writing process. The Guide, in Parts 1 and 2, lays out focused advice for writing common genres, while the Reference, in Parts 3 through 9, covers the range of writing and research skills that students need as they work across genres and disciplines. Intuitive cross-referencing and a modular chapter organization that’s simple to follow make it easy for students to work back and forth between the chapters and still stay focused on their own writing. Now also available in a version with 50 fresh, additional readings from a wide range of sources, organized by the genres covered in the guide. The result is everything you need to teach composition in a flexible, highly visual guide, reference, and reader. Introducing Author Talk: Watch our video interview with Jay Dolmage.
The true story of Raymond Loewy, whose designs are still celebrated for their unerring ability to advance American consumer taste. Born in Paris in 1893 and trained as an engineer, Raymond Loewy revolutionized twentieth-century American industrial design. Combining salesmanship and media savvy, he created bright, smooth, and colorful logos for major corporations that included Greyhound, Exxon, and Nabisco. His designs for Studebaker automobiles, Sears Coldspot refrigerators, Lucky Strike cigarette packs, and Pennsylvania Railroad locomotives are iconic. Beyond his timeless designs, Loewy carefully built an international reputation through the assiduous courting of journalists and tastemakers to become the face of both a new profession and a consumer-driven vision of the American dream. In Streamliner, John Wall traces the evolution of an industry through the lens of Loewy's eclectic life, distinctive work, and invented persona. How, he asks, did Loewy build a business while transforming himself into a national brand a half century before "branding" became relevant? Placing Loewy in context with the emerging consumer culture of the latter half of the twentieth century, Wall explores how his approach to business complemented—or differed from—that of his well-known contemporaries, including industrial designers Henry Dreyfuss, Walter Teague, and Norman Bel Geddes. Wall also reveals how Loewy tailored his lifestyle to cement the image of "designer" in the public imagination and why the self-promotion that drove Loewy to the top of his profession began to work against him at the end of his career. Streamliner is an important and engaging work on one of the longest-lived careers in industrial design.
Click here to find out about the 2009 MLA Updates and the 2010 APA Updates. Designed to be clear and simple, How to Write Anything combines the thoughtfulness of rhetorics with the efficiency of brief handbooks. Through memorable visuals and honest talk, John Ruszkiewicz shows students how to write in any situation — wherever they are in their writing process. With everything you need to teach composition, the Guide lays out focused advice for writing common genres, while the Reference covers the range of writing and research skills that students need as they work across genres and disciplines. An intuitive, visual cross-referencing system and a modular chapter organization that’s simple to follow make it even easier for students to work back and forth between chapters and stay focused on their own writing.
“I love everything about this hilarious book except the font size.” —Jon Stewart Although his career as a bestselling author and on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart was founded on fake news and invented facts, in 2016 that routine didn’t seem as funny to John Hodgman anymore. Everyone is doing it now. Disarmed of falsehood, he was left only with the awful truth: John Hodgman is an older white male monster with bad facial hair, wandering like a privileged Sasquatch through three wildernesses: the hills of Western Massachusetts where he spent much of his youth; the painful beaches of Maine that want to kill him (and some day will); and the metaphoric haunted forest of middle age that connects them. Vacationland collects these real life wanderings, and through them you learn of the horror of freshwater clams, the evolutionary purpose of the mustache, and which animals to keep as pets and which to kill with traps and poison. There is also some advice on how to react when the people of coastal Maine try to sacrifice you to their strange god. Though wildly, Hodgmaniacally funny as usual, it is also a poignant and sincere account of one human facing his forties, those years when men in particular must stop pretending to be the children of bright potential they were and settle into the failing bodies of the wiser, weird dads that they are.
War in the Shallows, published in 2015 by the Naval History and Heritage Command, is the authoritative account of the U.S. Navy's hard-fought battle along Vietnam's rivers and coastline from 1965-1968. At the height of the U.S. Navy's involvement in the Vietnam War, the Navy's coastal and riverine forces included more than 30,000 Sailors and over 350 patrol vessels ranging in size from riverboats to destroyers. These forces developed the most extensive maritime blockade in modern naval history and fought pitched battles against Viet Cong units in the Mekong Delta and elsewhere. War in the Shallows explores the operations of the Navy's three inshore task forces from 1965 to 1968. It also delves into other themes such as basing, technology, tactics, and command and control. Finally, using oral history interviews, it reconstructs deckplate life in South Vietnam, focusing in particular on combat waged by ordinary Sailors. Vietnam was the bloodiest war in recent naval history and War in the Shallows strives above all else to provide insight into the men who fought it and honor their service and sacrifice. Illustrated throughout with photographs and maps. Author John Darrell Sherwood has served as a historian with the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) since 1997. -- Provided by publisher.
First published in 1998, this volume examines how in the 1980s Australian governments experienced dramatic change in the policy-making environment. The use of consultants by successive Hawke Labour governments in the mid-to-late 1980s to facilitate reviews of public policy was a strategy important to dealing with the complexity of these issues. This book shows how the use of policy consultants complements traditional policy-making processes and the management of public policy change by government. In the 1980s Australian governments experienced dramatic and often unprecedented change in policy-making environment. Moves towards market-orientated, 'small' government in a context of worlds economic liberalisation created new and challenging issues for national governments. The use of consultants by successive Hawke Labour governments in the mid-to-late 1980s to facilitate reviews of public policy was a strategy important to dealing with the complexity of these issues. Using insights from a range of public policy literatures, the research investigated the hypothesis that the use of consultants to review important policy areas could be an effective strategy for devising major new directions needed in a context of economic turbulence. In this situation, the book suggests, use of policy consultants complements traditional policy-making processes and the management of public policy change by government.
The Economics of Banking (Fourth Edition) examines trends and operations in banking within a microeconomic framework. Covering a range of topics, including global trends in banking, theories of the banking firm, economics analysis of bank behaviour, and much more, this book addresses the need for a user-friendly and mathematically accessible textbook in this subject area.Each successful edition has expanded on new and emerging developments in global banking. This fourth edition explores the challenge of fintech and non-bank financing to the banking market. It examines the implications of the digitisation of the means of payment on the banking system, and the emergence of the digital bank. It also addresses recent developments in shadow banking (both globally and with a specific focus on China), P2P, Islamic banks and challenger banks. The section on credit rationing and credit pricing has been expanded to include additional material on the geography of credit allocation and spatial rationing. China features strongly in the updated material on bank efficiency and competition. Bank regulation has also been updated to examine the recent changes in global bank regulation and particularly the application of Basel III standards to China and other Asian economies.The Economics of Banking provides a sound theoretical basis for understanding bank behaviour, while requiring only a basic knowledge of microeconomics. The book is aimed at final year undergraduates undertaking a Banking & Finance degree, and to MBA and specialised PG degrees in Finance that include a Banking option.
This book contains70 short storiesfrom 10 classic, prize-winning and noteworthy authors. The stories were carefully selected by the criticAugust Nemo, in a collection that will please theliterature lovers. For more exciting titles, be sure to check out our 7 Best Short Stories and Essential Novelists collections. This book contains: Fitz-James O'Brien: - The Diamond Lens. - The Lost Room. - What Was it? A Mystery. - My Wife's Tempter. - The Golden Ingot. - The Child Who Loved a Grave. - The Wondersmith.Francis Marion Crawford: - The Dead Smile. - The Screaming Skull. - Man Overboard! - For The Blood Is The Life. - The Upper Berth. - By The Waters of Paradise. - The Doll's Ghost.Francis Stevens: - Behind the Curtain. - Unseen Unfeared. - Elf Trap. - Serapion. - Friend Island. - Citadel of Fear. - Nightmare!Barry Pain: - Aunt Martha. - The Bet. - The Boy in the Book. - The Discovery of Nesting. - Eliza and the Special. - The Kindness of the Celestial. - The Victim of Apparatus.Frank L. Packard: - Corporal Bob. - The Guardian of the Devil's Slide. - Where's Haggerty? - McQueen's Hobby. - Munford. - "If a Man Die" - The Blood of Kings.Paul Laurence Dunbar: - The Scapegoat. - One Christmas At Shiloh. - The Mission Of Mr. Scatters. - A Matter Of Doctrine. - Old Abe's Conversion. - The Race Question. - A Defender Of The Faith.Otis Adelbert Kline: - The Corpse on the Third Slab. - The Man from the Moon. - The Cup of Blood. - Mignight Madness. - The Malignant Entity. - The Bird-People. - The Thing of a Thousand Shapes.John Ulrich Giesy: - The Occult Detector. - The Purple Light. - The Significance of the High "D". - The Wistaria Scarf. - The Master Mind. - Rubies of Doom. - The House of Invisible Bondage.Valery Bryusov: - The Republic of the Southern Cross. - The Marble Bust. - For Herself or for Another. - In the Mirror. - Protection. - The "Bemol" Shop of Stationery. - Rhea Silvia.Eleanor H. Porter: - A Delayed Heritage. - The Folly of Wisdom. - The Letter. - The Elephant's Board and Keep. - Crumbs. - The Lady in Black. - That Angel Boy.
This final work in John Lent's series of bibliographies on comic art gathers together an astounding array of citations on American comic books and comic strips. Included in this volume are citations regarding anthologies and reprints; criticism and reviews; exhibitions, festivals, and awards; scholarship and theory; and the business, artistic, cultural, legal, technical, and technological aspects of American comics. Author John Lent has used all manner of methods to gather the citations, searching library and online databases, contacting scholars and other professionals, attending conferences and festivals, and scanning hundreds of periodicals. He has gone to great length to categorize the citations in an easy-to-use, scholarly fashion, and in the process, has helped to establish the field of comic art as an important part of social science and humanities research. The ten volumes in this series, covering all regions of the world, constitute the largest printed bibliography of comic art in the world, and serve as the beacon guiding the burgeoning fields of animation, comics, and cartooning. They are the definitive works on comic art research, and are exhaustive in their inclusiveness, covering all types of publications (academic, trade, popular, fan, etc.) from all over the world. Also included in these books are citations to systematically-researched academic exercises, as well as more ephemeral sources such as fanzines, press articles, and fugitive materials (conference papers, unpublished documents, etc.), attesting to Lent's belief that all pieces of information are vital in a new field of study such as comic art.
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