Lost in Fantasia


Book Description

When virtual reality takes over, it’s hard to tell the difference between what is real and what is a part of a game. Having all memories of life before The Game erased, Tack’s experience is altered when a glitch infiltrates her world. After her partner disappears, infected by the glitch, she is forced to find answers to the mysterious Game malfunction to determine if he is dead or alive. Her home, partner, and game are seemingly destroyed. Glitched herself, Tack embarks on an adventure to unfamiliar and new worlds, including the largest Fantasy role-playing game, Fantasia. However, this glitch isn’t like anything else the Gaming world has experienced. With no one respawning and the Game’s Production team in a communication blackout, the lines between what is virtual and what is real are blurred even further. If Tack can’t stop the glitch, she risks more than just losing her partner forever—everything she knows and loves might disappear. —————— Henry Fudders created the largest virtual reality game in the world, one that everyone experiences, whether they want to or not. The Game is praised for its adventure, creativity, and ability to blur the lines between reality and virtual reality. In less than one hundred years, the Game took over real life and built an experience indistinguishable from imagination—until a glitch began eating away at the core of Fudders’ creation. Fudders is dead, and those who know what to do to stop the malfunction are not doing anything to fix it. Struggling to survive in a world outside her own, she uses her battle tactics to make allies and progress in her quest to protect the world from the glitch. However, when confronted with the answers she’s looking for, Tack is forced to choose between either saving the game or her newfound allies and partner.




Men Are Better Than Women


Book Description

Through a process of exhaustive man research he calls "keeping his eyes open," Dick Masterson has compiled a Magnum-size list of the ways men are better than women. It is an infallible compendium of man's greatness, filled with the most egregiously fallacious arguments ever put to words, but with some kind of miraculous, rock-solid man logic dripping like motor oil from every sentence. It is a manifesto more memorable than bullshit like High Fidelity or which Axe baby powder Maxim thinks you should slap on your nuts before clubbing, more chock-full of devastating man quotes than Oscar Wilde with two wangs. Most important, it is the only one of its kind. In Men Are Better Than Women, Dick Masterson dispenses logic from his man mouth into the eyes of his male readers like some kind of mighty mother man eagle with nutrient-rich word vomit. It's a book that makes you feel like driving a train into a dynamite factory and then tearing a telephone book apart with your bare hands, just because that's the way men have always done it. Masterson's chapters are simple and self-contained, demand no commitments from readers, and have an immediate payoff. Men Are Better Than Women is a dangerous work of satire -- not dangerous in a revolutionary sense, but dangerous in that it walks the razor-thin line between cruelty and absurdity. That line is called hilarious.




Shalimar the Clown


Book Description

Shalimar the Clown is a masterpiece from one of our greatest writers, a dazzling novel that brings together the fiercest passions of the heart and the gravest conflicts of our time into an astonishingly powerful, all-encompassing story. Max Ophuls’ memorable life ends violently in Los Angeles in 1993 when he is murdered by his Muslim driver Noman Sher Noman, also known as Shalimar the Clown. At first the crime seems to be politically motivated—Ophuls was previously ambassador to India, and later US counterterrorism chief—but it is much more. Ophuls is a giant, an architect of the modern world: a Resistance hero and best-selling author, brilliant economist and clandestine US intelligence official. But it is as Ambassador to India that the seeds of his demise are planted, thanks to another of his great roles—irresistible lover. Visiting the Kashmiri village of Pachigam, Ophuls lures an impossibly beautiful dancer, the ambitious (and willing) Boonyi Kaul, away from her husband, and installs her as his mistress in Delhi. But their affair cannot be kept secret, and when Boonyi returns home, disgraced and obese, it seems that all she has waiting for her is the inevitable revenge of her husband: Noman Sher Noman, Shalimar the Clown. He was an acrobat and tightrope walker in their village’s traditional theatrical troupe; but soon Shalimar is trained as a militant in Kashmir’s increasingly brutal insurrection, and eventually becomes a terrorist with a global remit and a deeply personal mission of vengeance. In this stunningly rich book everything is connected, and everyone is a part of everyone else. A powerful love story, intensely political and historically informed, Shalimar the Clown is also profoundly human, an involving story of people’s lives, desires and crises, as well as—in typical Rushdie fashion—a magical tale where the dead speak and the future can be foreseen.




Death Before Decaf


Book Description

USA TODAY BESTSELLER • Caroline Fardig’s captivating mystery novel takes readers behind the counter of a seemingly run-of-the-mill coffeehouse . . . where murder is brewing. After her music career crashes and burns spectacularly, Juliet Langley is forced to turn to the only other business she knows: food service. Unfortunately, bad luck strikes yet again when her two-timing fiancé robs her blind and runs off with her best waitress. Flushing what’s left of her beloved café down the toilet with her failed engagement, Juliet packs up and moves back to her college stomping grounds in Nashville to manage an old friend’s coffeehouse. At first glance, it seems as though nothing’s changed at Java Jive. What could possibly go wrong? Only that the place is hemorrhaging money, the staff is in open revolt, and Juliet finds one unlucky employee dead in the dumpster out back before her first day is even over. The corpse just so happens to belong to the cook who’d locked horns with Juliet over the finer points of the health code. Unimpressed with her management style, the other disgruntled employees are only too eager to spill the beans about her fiery temper to the detective on the case. Add to the mix a hunky stranger who’s asking way too many questions, and suddenly Juliet finds herself in some very hot water. If she can’t simmer down and sleuth her way to the real killer, she’s going to get burned. Praise for Death Before Decaf “I was hooked from the first page. I loved it!”—Dorothy Cannell, award-winning author of the Ellie Haskell mysteries “Caroline Fardig brings a fun cast of characters to life in Death Before Decaf! Juliet had me laughing, smiling, and rooting for her from the first page to the last. I can’t wait for more!”—Gina LaManna, author of Teased to Death “Caroline Fardig keeps you turning pages in this fast-paced mystery set in a Nashville coffee shop.”—Nancy J. Parra, author of Engaged in Murder “With a fair share of twists, turns, and a murderer I did not suspect, Fardig delivers a caffeinated romp and a promising start to the Java Jive mystery series.”—Book Club Librarian “A delightfully charming mystery with humor, suspense and a cast of characters to die for.”—Moonlight Rendezvous “I can see this being a series to help bring a younger audience to the cozy mystery genre.”—Musings and Ramblings “[Juliet’s] temper plus a good sense of humor make her a great series protagonist, someone readers would actually like to befriend.”—Mallory Heart Reviews “This book had me hopping from murder to love interest and back to criminal activities.”—Storeybook Reviews




Movies of the 90s


Book Description

This book's 140 A-Z entries include synopses, film stills, and production photos.




The No Contact Rule


Book Description

You're trying to get over your ex, yet you're still in touch and have ended up being their back-up plan. Maybe you haven't left yet, but you want to and just don't know how. Maybe you're tired of doing the lather, rinse, repeat of getting back together and winding back at square one. It's time to cut contact. The No Contact Rule is an inspiring guide to extinguishing the temptation to stay in touch or to keep engaging, helping you to reclaim your sense of self and move on to a healthier relationship. Through her popular blog Baggage Reclaim, Natalie Lue has helped thousands of people break free from unhealthy relationships and breakups after using No Contact to kick a toxic relationship and transform her life. Discover what 'NC' is and how to do it, how to break an unhealthy cycle and navigate various situations - from Facebook to pesky texts, working together, sharing a child or feeling trapped by your feelings and thoughts. Cut contact and put the focus on you. By treating you with the love, care, trust and respect you deserve, this could be one of the best decisions you've ever made.




Life Without Envy


Book Description

From one artist to another, a helpful guide and a meditation on the nature of the ego and its toxic effects on the creative process Life Without Envy by Camille DeAngelis is a game-changer for artists of all stripes: a practical guide for navigating the feelings of jealousy, frustration, and inadequacy we all experience to create a happy life regardless of how your career is (or isn’t) going. In these pages you'll find strategies for escaping the negative feedback loop you get stuck in whenever you compare yourself to your fellow artists. You'll begin to resolve your hunger for recognition, shifting your mindset from “proving yourself” to making a contribution and becoming part of a supportive creative community. Best of all, you'll come to understand that your worth—as an artist and a human being—has nothing to do with how your work is received in the wider world. Life Without Envy offers a blueprint for real and lasting contentment no matter what setback you’re weathering in your creative life.




Blue Bostock


Book Description

Meet Blue Bostock, Australia's first bullfighter and rodeo clown. Told in an authentic voice by an authentic Aussie character Blue Bostock: Australia's first bullfighter and rodeo clown is the colourful story of one man's life as one of this country's most famous rodeo riders.




Eating My Feelings


Book Description

New from the author of Blackouts and Breakdowns--and in the tradition of Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Chelsea Handler--a collection of funny essays skewering the author's struggles with weight and body image, both as a kid in the 1980s and as a gay man in the 2000s. Mark Rosenberg has had more ups and downs with his weight than Oprah--but unlike Oprah, no one gives a sh*t. Coming of age very outrageously as an overweight, soon-to-be gay kid, he learns to relate to others by way of his beloved Melrose Place and Clueless--which serves him well when exiled to fat camp and faced with an opportunity to bribe an adulterous counselor or poison his stepmother by birthday cake--and thinks nothing of dressing as Homey the Clown (in blackface) for Halloween. This sets him up for adulthood in the image-obsessed world of gay men in New York City, where he hires personal trainers he wants to sleep with, applies an X-rated twist to Julie & Julia in an attempt to reach blogger stardom, and has an imaginary relationship with the man on the P90X workout infomercials that becomes a little bit too real. Hilarious, heartwarming (as if), and especially scandalous, Eating My Feelings leaves no stone unturned and no piece of red velvet cake uneaten.




Delicious Do-Over


Book Description

On the cusp of a new business venture, überpractical accountant Lindsey Shaw has reluctantly let her friends talk her into a "second spring break" in Hawaii. Now she's in Waikiki…and even reuniting with her wickedly hot one-night fling from years ago! Only Lindsey is feeling a tingle of fear—or is that sweet, sweet anticipation? Rick Granger has his own fear—that gorgeous, smart Lindsey might discover more about him than he's ready to reveal. She thinks he's just a surfer dude—fine with him, it keeps things uncomplicated. Only, complications whip up like waves once Lindsey dips a toe in his waters….