This is a history/reflection book on a small town in Pennsylvania. The town is full of character and characters-- all real.

**New York Times BestsellerThe creator of The New Yorker’s long running satirical column, and “one of the funniest people in America,” pays tribute to comedic geniuses both past and present, including Mark Twain, George Saunders, Nora Ephron, and more (CBS Sunday Morning).**Library of America’s collection of hilarious stories, essays, and articles is an exclusive Who’s Who of the very best American comic writing. Classic pieces of American humor appear her...

"Every state has its own ghost. Every city has a few spirits. In Ghosts Coast to Coast, a friendly apparition named John takes the reader on a spirited journey through the fifty states visiting famous and obscure haunted houses throughout the United States. It's a haunting journey discovering the haunting activity of Ghosts Coast To Coast...."

Some wonder why and some wonder why not. But it's the latter ones who make you scratch your head and say, 'What in the world were you thinking?'Former Saturday Night Live writer Leland Gregory skewers cruel crooks and the idiotically inane.From absurd 911 calls to presidential philosophizing and political pandering to foolish felons, Leland Gregory generates the best laughs by exposing the worst of human nature. Inside this collection, Gregory offers more than 275 acco...

Kinky Friedman, the original Texas Jewboy, takes us on a rollicking, rock-and-rolling tour of his favorite city: Austin.Maybe you want to know which restaurant President Bush rates as his favorite Austin burger joint. Or maybe you want a glimpse of Willie Nelson’s home life (hint: Willie plays a lot of golf). Perhaps you want to get the best view of the Mexican free-tail bats as they make their nightly flights to and from the Congress Avenue Bridge. Or maybe you’re itching to learn...

Open a copy of the Information Please Almanac and turn to the chapter on famous people. 4000 names and you won't know hardly any. But what about names everyone knows? Pillsbury, Maytag, Kellogg. Nowhere to be found. How many names are more famous than Howard Johnson or Oscar Mayer? But who were these folks? Let's look at the men behind the names where we pull off the road to eat.

Honored in "Best Books of the Year" listings from The New Yorker, National Public Radio, Library Journal, and The Huffington Post."One With Others represents Wright's most audacious experiment yet."-The New Yorker"[A] book . . . that defies description and discovers a powerful mode of its own."- National Public Radio"[A] searing dissection of hate crimes and their malignant legacy."-BooklistTo...

The story of Tulsa's transformation from a nineteenth-century cow town into the "Oil Capital of the World" has been above ground for years, but a great reservoir of Tulsey Town's heritage has remained beneath the surface. These neglected tales include the dirigible flyover of 1929, the Hominy Indians' victory over the New York Giants and the legendary final performance of Spade Cooley, convicted killer and the self-proclaimed "King of Western Swing." From the horrors of the city's early ra...

Apopka, Florida, started out as a place once dubbed "Big Potato" by the Native Americans of the area and was formerly known as the "Fern City," but it is now most notably considered the "Indoor Foliage Capitol of the World." Once-thriving fragrant citrus groves have been replaced by climate-controlled greenhouses and fields of landscaped nurseries and subdivisions. The second largest city in Orange County, Apopka is located in the northwest region of the county. It functions today as a bed...

Having been born on April Fools Day, author Earl B. Russell likes to imagine that in an early sign of his precocious nature, the doctor dried him off, held him up for his mother to see, and then listened as the baby looked at his mother and exclaimed, April Fool! Russells mother knew he was a problem child right off the bat. At first glance, his older brother told everyone Russell would never amount to anythingso much for making a good first impression! As his life began in a rural Tenness...

For as long as he could remember, Frank Hart always looked up to his older brother. Their father, killed in a drunken gun duel and their erratic mother having long-since abandoned them, they had nothing but each other to rely on growing up in the dusty town of Union Springs, Alabama.   These are tales of rising adventure. These are tales of two discarded boys as they find their way out of their sometimes-sinister hometown in the Deep South, and surface thousands of mil...

A sharp tongued and fierce witted full-color collection of maps of America’s greatest cities in all their brutally honest glory.Your City. Judged.When you move to a new city you look at a map to get you where you need to be, but a Google Map of San Francisco won’t tell you where you can get “Real Dim Sum” or where “The Worst Trader Joes Ever” is. Or if you’re visiting Chicago, you might want to see the Magnificent Mile, but not know it’s ri...