Twisting My Melon


Book Description

This title tells the raw, undiluted story of an icon of hedonism, whose music and antics inspired a generation of 24-hour party people.




How to Be a Rock Star


Book Description

THE TOP TEN BESTSELLER 'Candid, brilliant and bizarre' Guardian 'Stories about the frontman and his bandmates are legion ... [like] Peter Kay with menaces' The Sunday Times As lead singer of Happy Mondays and Black Grape, Shaun Ryder was the Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of his generation. A true rebel, who formed and led not one but two seminal bands, he's had number-one albums, headlined Glastonbury, toured the world numerous times, taken every drug under the sun, been through rehab - and come out the other side as a national treasure. Now, for the first time, Shaun lifts the lid on the real inside story of how to be a rock star. With insights from three decades touring the world, which took him from Salford to San Francisco, from playing working men's clubs to headlining Glastonbury and playing in front of the biggest festival crowd the world has ever seen, in Brazil, in the middle of thunderstorm. From recording your first demo tape to having a number-one album, Shaun gives a fly-on-the-wall look at the rock 'n' roll lifestyle - warts and all: how to be a rock star - and also how not to be a rock star. From numerous Top of the Pops appearances to being banned from live TV, from being a figurehead of the acid-house scene to hanging out backstage with the Rolling Stones, Shaun has seen it all. In this book he pulls the curtain back on the debauchery of the tour bus, ridiculous riders, run-ins with record companies, drug dealers and the mafia, and how he forged the most remarkable comeback of all time. 'There are enough stories about Happy Mondays to keep people talking about them forever. Bands live on through the myth really, myth and legend' (Steve Lamacq)




Wrote For Luck


Book Description

In the mid-1980s the Happy Mondays emerged as the prime mischief makers on the Madchester scene. Chief protagonist was Shaun Ryder, a man whose lyrical street swagger in songs like Kinky Afro, 24 Hour Party People and Performance, would come to define a generation. Here collected and edited for the first time, in trade and special editions, are his unforgettable lyrics.




The Last Mile


Book Description

Most organizations spend much of their effort on the start of the value creation process: namely, creating a strategy, developing new products or services, and analyzing the market. They pay a lot less attention to the end: the crucial “last mile” where consumers come to their website, store, or sales representatives and make a choice. In The Last Mile, Dilip Soman shows how to use insights from behavioral science in order to close that gap. Beginning with an introduction to the last mile problem and the concept of choice architecture, the book takes a deep dive into the psychology of choice, money, and time. It explains how to construct behavioral experiments and understand the data on preferences that they provide. Finally, it provides a range of practical tools with which to overcome common last mile difficulties. The Last Mile helps lay readers not only to understand behavioral science, but to apply its lessons to their own organizations’ last mile problems, whether they work in business, government, or the nonprofit sector. Appealing to anyone who was fascinated by Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s Nudge, or Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow but was not sure how those insights could be practically applied, The Last Mile is full of solid, concrete advice on how to put the lessons of behavioral science to work.




The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English


Book Description

Booklist Top of the List Reference Source The heir and successor to Eric Partridge's brilliant magnum opus, The Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, this two-volume New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English is the definitive record of post WWII slang. Containing over 60,000 entries, this new edition of the authoritative work on slang details the slang and unconventional English of the English-speaking world since 1945, and through the first decade of the new millennium, with the same thorough, intense, and lively scholarship that characterized Partridge's own work. Unique, exciting and, at times, hilariously shocking, key features include: unprecedented coverage of World English, with equal prominence given to American and British English slang, and entries included from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, South Africa, Ireland, and the Caribbean emphasis on post-World War II slang and unconventional English published sources given for each entry, often including an early or significant example of the term’s use in print. hundreds of thousands of citations from popular literature, newspapers, magazines, movies, and songs illustrating usage of the headwords dating information for each headword in the tradition of Partridge, commentary on the term’s origins and meaning New to this edition: A new preface noting slang trends of the last five years Over 1,000 new entries from the US, UK and Australia New terms from the language of social networking Many entries now revised to include new dating, new citations from written sources and new glosses The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English is a spectacular resource infused with humour and learning – it’s rude, it’s delightful, and it’s a prize for anyone with a love of language.




Happy Mondays


Book Description

'Their story is a vindication for every northern hooligan rock band out there. Happy Mondays sparked a British guitar pop renaissance.' Alan McGee In 1985, when the Happy Mondays exploded onto the Manchester music scene like a Molotov cocktail, no one had heard anything like them before. As they developed into the face of the Acid House ‘Madchester’ movement, critics ranked them alongside The Velvet Underground and the Sex Pistols as cultural lightning rods, and that was just for the music. The stories of their excesses are the stuff of rock ’n’ roll legend: the overdoses, fights on stage, the death threats, the gangsters, the stabbings and shootings in the studio. Yet this seemingly unhinged and uncontrollable band – encouraged by their equally crazed benefactors at Factory Records – transformed British music forever, leaving behind five infectious albums of unparalleled dirt and delight. Twenty-five years after their breakthrough appearance on Top of the Pops, in November 1989, Simon Spence, the acclaimed biographer of The Stone Roses: War and Peace, tells the story of how the Happy Mondays came to provide the soundtrack to Britain’s last great youth movement. Based on extensive interviews with the band and key associates, he reveals the truth behind the mythic stories that have ensured their outlaw reputation, and unravels the chaos that led to the group’s ultimate implosion and the tragic collapse of Factory Records. A riotous mix of pills, thrills and joyous chart hits, this is the untold story of Britain’s greatest rock ’n’ roll gang.




The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: J-Z


Book Description

Entry includes attestations of the head word's or phrase's usage, usually in the form of a quotation. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).




Tasty Baby Belly Buttons


Book Description

Urikohime, a girl born from a melon, battles the monstrous oni, who steal babies to eat their tasty belly buttons.




The Killing Jar


Book Description

In her stunning debut, Nicola Monaghan lays bare the gritty underbelly of life in Nottingham, England. Very early on, Kerrie-Ann begins to dream of the world beyond the rough council estate where she lives. Her father is nowhere to be found, her mother is a junkie, and she is left to care for her little brother. Clever, brave, and frighteningly independent, Kerrie-Ann has an unbreakable will to survive. She befriends her eccentric, elderly neighbor, who teaches her about butterflies, the Amazon, and life outside of her tough neighborhood. But even as Kerrie-Ann dreams of a better life she becomes further entangled in the cycles of violence and drugs that rule the estate. Brilliant, brutal, and tender, The Killing Jar introduces a brave new voice in fiction. Nicola Monaghan's devastating prose tells an unforgettable story of violence, love, and hope.




Twist My Charm: Love Potion #11


Book Description

Middle school crushes are WAY more complicated when you have a love potion. Everyone knows love potions don’t really work. But Cleo got one as a gift. And it would be crazy not to at least try it . . . right? The plan is simple: make Cleo’s ex–best friend Samantha and her (secret) crush Larry fall in love. If it works, Sam will be so happy, she’ll want to be Cleo’s friend again! But when Sam gets suspicious, only Larry drinks the love potion. And now suddenly Larry is in love with . . . Cleo? And then it gets worse. Cleo’s dad drank the other glass of punch, and suddenly he’s in love with Samantha’s mom. Which would have been really cool when Cleo and Sam were still friends . . . but now that they’re frenemies? Disaster! Is there a potion to make everything go back to normal? Fans of Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Wendy Mass will love this fresh contemporary story with just a touch of magic.