It All Began with a Bean: The True Story of the World's Biggest Fart


Book Description

What happens when, one day, a dropped bean is devoured by ten flies, and hundreds of dogs eat cheese fallen from a truck, and thousands of runners begin gulping air, and all the people at home that morning have eggs for breakfast, and then they all fart at once? This hilarious book answers that intriguing question, as readers learn the after-effects of the world's biggest fart on the poor town where it happens, from poodles' curls going limp to elephants plugging their trunks with bananas. This unique picture book, with lighthearted illustrations, will entertain children and parents alike.




Skinny Legs and All


Book Description

An Arab and a Jew open a restaurant together across the street from the United Nations.... It sounds like the beginning of an ethnic joke, but it's the axis around which spins this gutsy, fun-loving, and alarmingly provocative novel, in which a bean can philosophizes, a dessert spoon mystifies, a young waitress takes on the New York art world, and a rowdy redneck welder discovers the lost god of Palestine--while the illusions that obscure humanity's view of the true universe fall away, one by one, like Salome's veils. Skinny Legs and All deals with today's most sensitive issues: race, politics, marriage, art, religion, money, and lust. It weaves lyrically through what some call the "end days" of our planet. Refusing to avert its gaze from the horrors of the apocalypse, it also refuses to let the alleged end of the world spoil its mood. And its mood is defiantly upbeat. In the gloriously inventive Tom Robbins style, here are characters, phrases, stories, and ideas that dance together on the page, wild and sexy, like Salome herself. Or was it Jezebel?




Sweet Farts


Book Description

Keith, tired of being accused of farting up a storm at school, creates a science fair project that turns the foul smell of human gas into something pleasant, but his plans backfire when his project causes a stink at home and at school.




Fart Book


Book Description




Uncommon Grounds


Book Description

The definitive history of the world's most popular drug. Uncommon Grounds tells the story of coffee from its discovery on a hill in ancient Abyssinia to the advent of Starbucks. Mark Pendergrast reviews the dramatic changes in coffee culture over the past decade, from the disastrous "Coffee Crisis" that caused global prices to plummet to the rise of the Fair Trade movement and the "third-wave" of quality-obsessed coffee connoisseurs. As the scope of coffee culture continues to expand, Uncommon Grounds remains more than ever a brilliantly entertaining guide to the currents of one of the world's favorite beverages.




Lost Worlds


Book Description

A “funny, erudite, and fascinating” miscellany of things lost, large and small—from cultures to candies, species to sports gear—by the acclaimed columnist (A.C. Grayling). They go. They vanish. People. Civilizations. Languages. Philosophies. Works of art disappear, species are extinguished, books are lost. Dunwich is drowned, Pompeii buried, Athena’s statue gone from the Parthenon, Suetonius’s Lives of the Great Whores gone the way of the Roman Empire. Whole libraries of knowledge, galleries of secrets. Gone. Little things, too. Train compartments. Snuff, galoshes, smog. Your mother’s perfume. Michael Bywater argues that we are not defined by what we have but by what we have lost along the way. In Lost Worlds, he offers a witty, eclectic, and endlessly fascinating glossary of the missing, a cabinet of absent curiosities, weaving a web of everything we no longer have.




Confessions Of A Non-Violent Revolutionary


Book Description

Britain in the 1980s – strikes, the dole, IRA bombings, CND demos, poll tax riots, vegetarian food, radical feminism and an international build-up of weapons guaranteeing ‘mutually-assured destruction’. Rejecting the privileges that life offers him, Chris Savory seeks to redress wider injustices in society by rejecting future wealth, power and status to follow his ideals. He throws himself into political struggle – living in poverty, sleeping in tents and on floors, braving the mud and cold, surviving on bean stews and wholemeal bread – to the general disapproval of respectable society. His aim? To bring about a non-violent revolution, disarmament and an eco-feminist-socialist utopia! Oxford University in 1980 opens up a world of opportunity, but the threat of imminent nuclear war pushes Chris to make life-changing decisions. Alienated by the casual superiority of his peers, he abandons essay-writing and sherry with the Dean to embark on a constant round of organising and protesting – peace-camps, marches, illegal direct actions, communes and anarchist street theatre. The triumph of Thatcherism and the defeat of progressive politics leaves him feeling despair, anger and isolation. But having given everything to fight the system, how can he re-enter mainstream society? At the heart of this memoir is a deeply honest and heartfelt human story, spiced with humour and colourful details of the 1980s’ counterculture. In an age of climate crisis and Extinction Rebellion, Confessions Of A Non-Violent Revolutionary is a thought-provoking and engaging record of a previous wave of mass civil disobedience and an opportunity to learn lessons from the recent history of grassroots political struggle. ‘... Insights into how individual action can play a role in avoiding Armageddon.’ – Billy Bragg ‘Terrific – thoroughly engaging and a real page-turner ... wonderfully evocative, thought-provoking and a fascinating window into a world which until recently seemed almost old-fashioned, but now has a particular resonance in our re-politicized age.’ – Jason Webster, author of Violencia ‘Intriguing – a fascinating and racy record of a life which will find many resonances in its readers. Particularly striking is its sense of journey through idealism, disillusion, and the yet remaining conviction that the struggle is not lost.’ – Harvey Gillman, author of A Light that is Shining




For God, Country, and Coca-Cola


Book Description

An illustrated history of the Coca-Cola soft drink company.




The Zen of Farting


Book Description

In 1993, a Taiwanese fisherman opened a chest that had been in his family for centuries. Inside, he found a manuscript which may be as significant as the Dead Sea scrolls—a manuscript which will revolutionize our thinking about the origins of Zen. Written on a rice paper scroll, the manuscript records the teachings of the founder of Zen, the Master Reepah Gud Wan. It makes it quite clear that Reepah, a legitimate teacher of Buddhism, was frustrated by the inability of his students to grasp the abstract concepts of the Buddha. In desperation, he decided to play a joke on them. He invented the Zen of Farting, confident that even the densest pupil would realize that he was making a joke and laugh at his excessive seriousness—not to mention his farts. The joke went over like a stale air biscuit. Soon, the Master had thousands of students eager to learn this brave new spiritual teaching, the Zen of Farting. Thus was Zen born, not of heaven, but of the 'ethereal child of earth.'




Crenshaw


Book Description

In her first novel since The One and Only Ivan, winner of the Newbery Medal, Katherine Applegate delivers an unforgettable and magical story about family, friendship, and resilience. Jackson and his family have fallen on hard times. There's no more money for rent. And not much for food, either. His parents, his little sister, and their dog may have to live in their minivan. Again. Crenshaw is a cat. He's large, he's outspoken, and he's imaginary. He has come back into Jackson's life to help him. But is an imaginary friend enough to save this family from losing everything? Beloved author Katherine Applegate proves in unexpected ways that friends matter, whether real or imaginary. This title has Common Core connections.