“If Stephen Leacock and Woody Allen had a baby, they would name it Patrick Ledwell.”

Homo sapiens have been speaking for hundreds of years—and yet basic communication still stymies us. We freeze up in elevators, on dates, at parties, under Dumpsters. We stagger through our exchanges merely hoping not to crash, never considering that we might soar. We go home sweaty and eat a birthday cake in the shower.But no more. With What to Talk About you'll learn to speak—fluently, intelligently, charmingly—to family, friends, coworkers, lovers, future lovers, horse t...

Hamilton Spectator columnist Paul Benedetti’s essays paint a wonderfully funny portrait of family life today.Paul Benedetti has a good job, a great family, and successful neighbours — but that doesn’t stop him from using it all as grist for a series of funny, real, and touching essays about a world he can’t quite navigate.Benedetti misses his son, who is travelling in Europe, misplaces his groceries, and forgets to pick up his daughter at school. H...

Foul your mouth—while expanding your Mandarin vocabulary—with a guide to the phrases that could get you a laugh . . . or a punch in the face.Next time you're traveling or just chattin' in Chinese with your friends, drop the textbook formality and bust out with expressions they never teach you in school, including:Cool slangFunny insultsExplicit sex termsRaw swear wordsDirty Chinese teaches the casua...

The Player's Guide provides the tools for effective communication with the opposite sex. This fun, funny, and effective guide shares the language and tactics of a successful Player. Based on years of experience blogging, and out on the town, this is a guide you should read, apply, and hide. The strategies are subtle, persuasive, and will create the rapport you need to enjoy your social life!

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. In "100+1 Romantic Tips," relationship expert Julianne Collelo offers a comprehensive guide to keeping the spark alive in your relationship. With over 100 practical and creative tips, this book is a must-have for anyone looking to add more romance and intimacy to their love life.From simple gestures like leaving love notes for your partner to more elaborate date night ideas, Collelo covers a wide ran...

Call it wisdom of the heart. Or the broken heart.A knowing, funny gift for everyone who's ever been in love and then out of love: the newly single, the lonely-hearted, and even the happily re-paired. Dear Old Love is a collection of anonymous love notes to the ones who got away—or were left behind. They're the notes that ex-lovers have written to set the record straight. Or crooked. They're concise, witty, melancholy, revealing, sweet, sentimental, outrageous, withering, i...

The Get-Over-Yourself Self-Help Book and Other Essays presents a collection of vignettes, narratives, and rants that detail the often absurd business of getting on with life. In an attempt to aspire to a so-called higher life, many of us fear both death and youth, reaching for perfection through the latest technical gadgets that encourage us to cling to preconceived notions of ourselves and to define ourselves through a text message. But is that really any way to truly live? Baby boomer co...

From comedian and journalist Faith Salie, of NPR's Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me! and CBS News Sunday Morning, a collection of daring, funny essays chronicling the author's adventures during her lifelong quest for approvalFaith Salie has done it all in the name of validation. Whether she’s trying to impress her parents with a perfect GPA, undergoing an exorcism to save her toxic marriage, or baking a 3D excavator cake for her son’s birthday, Salie is th...

Mindful living is happy living. This refreshing book from the creators of Happiness Is . . . illustrates 500 inspiring ways to slow down, unplug, de-stress, connect with others, and relish the simple moments in life: sitting under a ceiling fan on a hot day, taking lunch away from your desk, letting go of negative thoughts, a beach yoga session, and more. Featuring the brand's signature charming illustration style and friendly tone, this book sparks positive reflection and serves ...

Longlisted, 20188 Leacock Medal for HumourA hilarious collection of Jack Knox's best-loved humour columns.In this side-splitting follow-up to the bestseller Hard Knox: Musings from the Edge of Canada, Jack Knox presents his best writing, marking his twenty-year anniversary as a humour columnist at the Victoria Times Colonist, the newspaper that made him a household name. Revisiting his most—and least!—popular colu...

Vancouver news icon and co-host of CTV’s The Last Word,” Mike McCardell is the crafter of human-interest stories that counteract the doom and gloom of conventional news programming. With his unerring instinct for teasing out the powerful hook” of human connection from the most innocuous (or bizarre) events, McCardell’s unique perspective has endeared him to hundreds of thousands of fans.He has also collected many of his favourite stories within several essay collections that have...