The night before his seventh birthday, Peter Ney and his family were awakened by the sound of yelling and of breaking glass as their home was vandalized. Kristallnacht was just the beginning of the Nazi violence against the Jews, and it shaped the rest of Peters life.Spanning seventy years, Getting Here narrates the many twists and turns of his life. Two months after Kristallnacht, Peters parents placed him on a train to England; he was one of 10,000 German children granted safe re...

As a celebration of dimwits, lunkheads, bad ideas, and just plain wrongheaded foolishness, dive into the shallow end with Uncle John’s Presents: Book of the Dumb.In every field of human endeavor, there are people, things, and ideas that rank among the best mankind has ever produced—the Book of the Dumb isn't about any of that. This volume from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader teaches us one valuable lesson: never underestimate the power of human stupi...

Strategically placed near the best seat in your home, Uncle John’s Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader is jam-packed with great bathroom reading. It’s the gift that keeps on giving...and giving...and giving....The BRI’s 22nd all-new edition--*Uncle John’s Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader--*is like reading several books all rolled into one: a history book, a weird news anthology, a science text, a dictionary, a how-to manual, a sports magazine, a joke ...

It's here! The 23rd annual edition in the popular Uncle John's Bathroom Reader series.The big brains at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute have come up with 544 all-new pages full of incredible facts, hilarious articles, and a whole bunch of other ways to, er, pass the time. With topics ranging from history and science to pop culture, wordplay, and modern mythology, Heavy Duty is sure to amaze and entertain the loyal legions of throne sitters. Read about…...

The New York Times–bestselling author looks at the sixties generation, and how he and his seventy-five million accomplices made America what it is today.A onetime editor-in-chief of National Lampoon who also spent years reporting for Rolling Stone and The Atlantic Monthly, P. J. O'Rourke is known as a conservative-minded political humorist and author of such bestsellers as Parliament of Whores. Not everyone knows that he...

“What caused the American Revolution? This is indeed a rhetorical question that for many years historians have begun chapters with. As well they should. For the American Revolution is without a doubt the single most important historical event to occur in this nation except of course for Super Bowl III (Jets 16. Colts 7. This historian won $35).”So goes the skewed sensibility, the muddied mind, the bent pen of one of America's funniest writers, Dave Barry. This time his subject is U...

The latest, greatest volume in the popular Uncle John’s series, flush with fun facts and figures and plenty of trademark trivia.The dedicated folks at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute are back with some Fast-Acting, Long-Lasting relief for our legions of fans who have been suffering without a new infusion of Uncle John’s trademark trivia and obscure facts. That’s right, folks, this is the book you’ve been waiting for! Number 18 in the Bathroom Reader series is flush...

The twenty-fourth edition in the bestselling bathroom-reading series is jam-packed with over 500 pages of absorbing trivia material.The information miners at the Bathroom Readers' Institute have unearthed a priceless collection of surprising, amazing, head-scratching, and hilarious articles. Divided by length for your sitting convenience, 24-Karat Gold is chock-full of little-known history, random origins, weird news, celebrity secrets, and urban legends. ...

The New York Times calls him “the funniest man in America,” and his legions of fans agree, laughing and snorting as they put his books on bestseller lists nationwide.In Boogers Are My Beat, Dave gives us the real scoop on:• The scientific search for the world’s funniest joke (you can bet it includes the word “weasel”)• RV camping in the Wal-Mart parking lot• Outwitting “smart” kitchen appliances and service contracts• Elections in Flori...

A collection of stories-some well known, some more obscure- capturing some of the best storytelling of this golden age of nonfiction.An anthology of the best new masters of nonfiction storytelling, personally chosen and introduced by Ira Glass, the producer and host of the award-winning public radio program This American Life.These pieces-on teenage white collar criminals, buying a cow, Saddam Hussein, drunken British soccer culture, and how we know everyone in our...

The latest, greatest volume in the popular Uncle John’s series, flush with fun facts and figures and plenty of trademark trivia.Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader, the 19th edition of this best-selling series, has more than 500 pages of the perfect reading material for the throne room. Settle in and read about: Great Moments in Bad TV, the First Detective, the Story of Prohibition, the Queen of the Roller Derby, and the jiggly history of Jel...

A memoir of America's most turbulent, whimsical decade, in the words of the man who experienced it all.From the New York City of Kline and De Kooning to the jazz era of New Orleans's French Quarter to Ken Kesey's psychedelic California, Prime Green explores the 1960s in all its weird, innocent, fascinating glory. An account framed by two wars, it begins with Robert Stone's last year in the Navy, when he took part in an Antarctic expedition navigating the g...