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Futility Closet

Author: Greg Ross

Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub

Published: 2013-11-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9780989887106

For nine years the popular website Futility Closet has collected arresting curiosities in history, literature, language, art, philosophy, and mathematics. This book presents the best of them: pipe-smoking robots, clairvoyant pennies, zoo jailbreaks, literary cannibals, corned beef in space, revolving squirrels, disappearing Scottish lighthouse keepers, reincarnated pussycats, dueling Churchills, horse spectacles, onrushing molasses, and hundreds more. Plus the obscure words, odd inventions, puzzles and paradoxes that have made the website a quirky favorite with millions of readers -- hundreds of examples of the marvelous, the diverting, and the strange, now in a portable format to occupy your idle hours.

The Road to En-dor

Author: E. H. Jones

Publisher: Hesperus Press

Published: 2014-05-01

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 1780941587

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The incredible true story of two WWI POWs who used amateur magic to convince their captors that they were in touch with the spirit world Captured during World War I, Lieutenant E. H. Jones, a Welsh officer in the Indian Army, and Lieutenant C. W. Hill, an Australian serving in the R.A.F., were prisoners of war at the Yozgad prison camp in Turkey. Duty-bound as officers to attempt to escape, Jones sensed that what had previously been the harmless fun of fooling around with a homemade Ouija board could be turned into something much more productive. Playing on the credulous nature of their captors, Hill and Jones weaved an incredibly elaborate plot, hatched to plan their escape. Acting as mediums for the Ouija board, they attempted to convince their captors that they were gradually descending into insanity—which, had it been true, would have seen them repatriated. A true story of bravery, dedication, and extreme hardship, this book is a fascinating insight account of a daring escapade. As well as containing astonishing original materials including photographs, letters, and postcards, the book contains a preface by the author's grandson, as well as a foreword by Neil Gaiman who is linked to a film which is currently in pre-production. A free companion ebook is available to download from the Hesperus website (www.hesperuspress.com/the-road-to-en-dor) which includes back stories on the characters, maps, letters,and coded messages; and an exclusive short story written by Jones.

Futility Closet 2

Author: Greg Ross

Publisher:

Published: 2014-10-27

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9780989887120

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Here's a second helping of entertaining oddities in history, literature, language, art, philosophy, and mathematics from Futility Closet, the online catalog of beguiling curiosities: joyous dogs, soul-stirring Frenchmen, runaway balloons, U-turning communists, manful hummingbirds, recalcitrant Ws, intractable biplanes, vengeful whales, hairless trombonists, abusive New Zealanders, unreconstituted cannibals, mysterious blimps, thrice-conscripted Koreans, imaginary golf courses, irate Thackerays, and hundreds more. Plus the amusing inventions, curious words, puzzles and oddities that regularly entertain millions of website visitors and podcast listeners. Editorial Reviews "A wild, wonderful, and educational romp through history, science, zany patents, math puzzles, wonderful words (like boanthropy, hallelujatic, and andabatarian), the Devil's Game, self-contradicting words, and so much more. Buy this book and feed your mind " -- Clifford A. Pickover, author of The Mathematics Devotional "Futility Closet delivers concentrated doses of weird, wonderful, brain-stimulating ideas and anecdotes, curated mainly from forgotten old books. I'm hooked -- there's nothing quite like it " -- Mark Frauenfelder, founder, Boing Boing

Good In Bed

Author: Jennifer Weiner

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2008-09-04

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1847395821

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From the bestselling author of In Her Shoes, All Fall Down and the forthcoming novel Who Do You Love, Good in Bedis a funny and tender story full of heart. Cannie Shapiro never wanted to be famous. The smart, sharp, plus-sized reporter was perfectly happy writing about other people's lives for her local newspaper. And for the past twenty-eight years, things have been tripping along nicely for Cannie. Sure, her mother has come charging out of the closet, and her father has long since dropped out of her world. But she loves her job, her friends, her dog and her life. She loves her apartment and her commodious, quilt-lined bed. She has made a tenuous peace with her body and she even felt okay about ending her relationship with her boyfriend Bruce. But now this... 'Loving a larger woman is an act of courage in our world,' Bruce has written in a national woman's magazine. And Cannie - who never knew that Bruce saw her as a larger woman, or thought that loving her was an act of courage - is plunged into misery, and the most amazing year of her life.

Dark Tide

Author: Stephen Puleo

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2019-01-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0807078018

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A new 100th anniversary edition of the only adult book on one of the odder disasters in US history—and the greed, disregard for poor immigrants, and lack of safety standards that led to it. Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston’s North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like roaring surf, one of them said later. Like a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence, said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window—“Oh my God!” he shouted to the other men, “Run!” A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston’s waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour. It demolished wooden homes, even the brick fire station. The number of dead wasn’t known for days. It would be years before a landmark court battle determined who was responsible for the disaster.

The Squares of the City

Author: John Brunner

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1497617871

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Hugo Award Finalist: “Story plotting holding much in common with chess . . . An exciting political thriller in the vein of Graham Greene” (Speculiction). In The Squares of the City, Brunner takes the moves of a classic championship chess game and uses them as the structure to build a novel about a revolution in a South American country obsessed with chess and dominated by a dictator who sees people as pawns in his game of power and survival. Intriguing premise, dramatic story, future setting, great entertainment. “One of the most important science fiction authors. Brunner held a mirror up to reflect our foibles because he wanted to save us from ourselves.” —SF Site

A Sense of the World

Author: Jason Roberts

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2008-12-20

Total Pages: 526

ISBN-13: 0061979945

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He was known simply as the Blind Traveler -- a solitary, sightless adventurer who, astonishingly, fought the slave trade in Af-rica, survived a frozen captivity in Siberia, hunted rogue elephants in Ceylon, and helped chart the Australian outback. James Holman (1786-1857) became "one of the greatest wonders of the world he so sagaciously explored," triumphing not only over blindness but crippling pain, poverty, and the interference of well-meaning authorities (his greatest feat, a circumnavigation of the globe, had to be launched in secret). Once a celebrity, a bestselling author, and an inspiration to Charles Darwin and Sir Richard Francis Burton, the charismatic, witty Holman outlived his fame, dying in an obscurity that has endured -- until now. A Sense of the World is a spellbinding and moving rediscovery of one of history's most epic lives. Drawing on meticulous research, Jason Roberts ushers us into the Blind Traveler's uniquely vivid sensory realm, then sweeps us away on an extraordinary journey across the known world during the Age of Exploration. Rich with suspense, humor, international intrigue, and unforgettable characters, this is a story to awaken our own senses of awe and wonder.

Caliban's War

Author: James S. A. Corey

Publisher: Orbit

Published: 2012-06-26

Total Pages: 511

ISBN-13: 0316202274

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The second book in the NYT bestselling Expanse series, Caliban's War shows a solar system on the brink of war, and the only hope of peace rests on James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante's shoulders. Now a Prime Original series. HUGO AWARD WINNER FOR BEST SERIES We are not alone. On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a high-level politician struggles to prevent interplanetary war from reigniting. And on Venus, an alien protomolecule has overrun the planet, wreaking massive, mysterious changes and threatening to spread out into the solar system. In the vast wilderness of space, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante have been keeping the peace for the Outer Planets Alliance. When they agree to help a scientist search war-torn Ganymede for a missing child, the future of humanity rests on whether a single ship can prevent an alien invasion that may have already begun . . . The Expanse Leviathan Wakes Caliban's War Abaddon's Gate Cibola Burn Nemesis Games Babylon's Ashes Persepolis Rising Tiamat's Wrath Leviathan Falls Memory's Legion The Expanse Short Fiction Drive The Butcher of Anderson Station Gods of Risk The Churn The Vital Abyss Strange Dogs Auberon The Sins of Our Fathers

Silent Alarm

Author: Jennifer Banash

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2015-03-10

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0698173430

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Alys’s whole world was comprised of the history project that was due, her upcoming violin audition, being held tightly in the arms of her boyfriend, Ben, and laughing with her best friend, Delilah. At least it was—until she found herself on the wrong end of a shotgun in the school library. Her suburban high school had become one of those places you hear about on the news—a place where some disaffected youth decided to end it all and take as many of his teachers and classmates with him as he could. Except, in this story, that youth was Alys’s own brother, Luke. He killed fifteen others and himself, but spared her—though she’ll never know why. Alys’s downward spiral begins instantly, and there seems to be no bottom. A heartbreaking and beautifully told story.

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

Author: George Saunders

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks

Published: 2016-04-26

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0812987683

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Since its publication in 1996, George Saunders’s debut collection has grown in esteem from a cherished cult classic to a masterpiece of the form, inspiring an entire generation of writers along the way. In six stories and a novella, Saunders hatches an unforgettable cast of characters, each struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world. With a new introduction by Joshua Ferris and a new author’s note by Saunders himself, this edition is essential reading for those seeking to discover or revisit a virtuosic, disturbingly prescient voice. Praise for George Saunders and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline “It’s no exaggeration to say that short story master George Saunders helped change the trajectory of American fiction.”—The Wall Street Journal “Saunders’s satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it’s also ferocious and very funny.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “George Saunders is a writer of arresting brilliance and originality, with a sure sense of his material and apparently inexhaustible resources of voice. [CivilWarLand in Bad Decline] is scary, hilarious, and unforgettable.”—Tobias Wolff “Saunders makes the all-but-impossible look effortless.”—Jonathan Franzen “Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny.”—Zadie Smith “An astoundingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic, and funny—telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times.”—Thomas Pynchon