Absurd History

At last—the definitive field guide to doing nothing… brilliantly. Part faux-history, part ridiculous self-help, this delightfully unserious book uncovers the “lost” chronicles of thumb twiddling—from ancient rain rituals and secret knight codes to royal salon scandals and laboratory-grade procrastination. You’ll meet legendary twiddlers (real, imagined, and questionably sourced), tour the great debates of clockwise vs. counter-clockwise, and discover why a tiny circular motion just might be the world’s most soothing coping mechanism. Inside you’ll find: A totally unnecessary...

Cat's Cradle is Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a little person as the protagonist; a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer; and a vision of the future that is at once blackly...

Kaleidoscopic culture critic Chuck Klosterman rewrites the history of reality, built off a question that has never been asked or (in all likelihood) even considered: What if Phillip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle was actually about rock music? The Velvet Underground & Nico was released...

Experience history as a glorious and uproarious comedy of errors. Murderers, schemers, traitors, fools, thieves, oligarchs, and torturers make up the real history of Britain's "nobility" and their misdeeds, this Victorian bestseller was written by one of the founders of Punch narrated with wicked wit by Charles Featherstone.

From actor, comedian, writer, and host of the hit history podcast SNAFU, Ed Helms brings you an absurdly entertaining look at history’s biggest blunders. History contains a plethora of insane screwups—otherwise known as SNAFUs. Coined during World War I, SNAFU is an acronym that stands for...

Serge A. Storms is back on the road in the latest zany Florida caper from the “wickedly funny” (Entertainment Weekly) Tim Dorsey. After a long and arduous COVID-19 quarantine, Serge A. Storms is fully vaccinated and ready to hit the road. Along with his condo neighbors, he cooks up a wild...

Unhinged History isn't your grandma's history lesson (unless your grandma is secretly awesome and knows about bat bombs). It's a laugh-out-loud, jaw-dropping collection of the most bizarre true tales that prove the past was a wild, wacky, and wonderfully weird place. Get ready for history, but with all the boring bits surgically removed and replaced with pure WTF-ery!

Boldly going wherever common sense gave up Commander Lyra Starling never meant to lead a reverse-harem of humanoid Meerkats into battle, but fate (and very bad paperwork) had other plans. Now she’s juggling three boyfriends with claws, a divine AI gone rogue, cocaine-addicted hedgehogs, and drag-queen squirrels who can out-glitter the gods. Across three gloriously unhinged adventures — Brave New Harem, Do Androids Dream of Sexy Meerkats?, and Missionary Impossible — Lyra and her furry disaster squad will save the universe, ruin diplomacy, and prove that true love doesn’t need logic,...

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” —Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1850 “How do I hate thee? How much time do you have?” —Joan Rivers, today, about two-ish Joan Rivers is a groundbreaking, award-winning, internationally renowned entertainment goddess. She’s also...

Prove you are the smartest schmuck in the room with 500 true trivia facts that sound absurd. These facts are so far-fetched some might even say that they sound like bull$#*t! Give the gift that keeps giving to friends, family, fathers, or grads. Knowledge is power! Crush the competition at...

In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan. The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there.

War is hell....but sometimes it's also funny as hell.

Prove you are the smartest person in the room with 500 true trivia facts about world history. These facts are so absurd some might even say that they sound like bull$#*t! Explore the wild and the wacky or history in this fun addition to the True Facts series that shares all things from all over...

Das Ende des nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Reichs scheint klar verortet: Am 7. bzw. 9. Mai wird die bedingungslose Kapitulation der deutschen Wehrmacht unterzeichnet. Damit war zwar der Krieg zu Ende, noch nicht aber waren Wehrmacht und "Drittes Reich" endgültig untergegangen. Nicht jeder bekam sogleich mit oder wollte mitbekommen, dass alles zu Ende war. Manche kämpften weiter, Hinrichtungen von "Deserteuren" gab es noch massenhaft. Manche versuchten sich abzusetzen, begingen Selbstmord oder gerierten sich als Unbeteiligte wie Albert Speer.

Almost half a century ago, a young reporter from Germany arrived in still-glamorous Saigon to cover the Vietnam War over a period of five years. In this memoir he now tells the story of how he fell in love with the Vietnamese people. He praises the beauty, elegance and feistiness of their women. He describes blood-curdling Communist atrocities and fierce combat scenes he had witnessed. He introduces a striking array of characters: heroes, villains, statesmen and spooks, hilarious eccentrics, street urchins and orphans herding water buffalos.

REVIEWS “Michael Burk recounts bizarre, fascinating, and tragic vignettes from cultural history… with a beguiling voice that is informative, respectful when necessary, and delightfully mischievous.” – Kirkus Reviews “A carnival where the popcorn is stale, the rides are dangerous, and yet somehow, we can’t look away.” – Kirkus Reviews “An absorbing, if often dark, compendium of stories from pop culture history.” – Kirkus Reviews The Allure & The Absurd: Curious Tales from Art, Music, Film, Sports & More invites readers to dive into a world of quirky, often bizarre ...

In 1528, 600 Spanish conquistadors landed in the Florida panhandle to look for gold and glory. Eight years later, the expedition's four survivors stumbled out of a desert in Southern Mexico. Told in a casual tone with splashes of modern humor, History, F Yeah's Cross-Country Conquistadors is a true story of humbled conquerors and unbelievable perseverance.

This audiobook includes an exclusive conversation between authors Ceridwen Dovey and Eliza Bell and their composer Keppie Coutts. After sharing their artistic frustrations at the school gate, two women decide to take a risk: to co-write a book about early motherhood. Off-colour, offbeat, off...

From the author of Heaven and Earth, a searing novel of the journey from youth into manhood A heartrending, at times darkly comic but ultimately redemptive novel, Paolo Giordano’s The Human Body is an exploration of brotherhood and family, of modern war and the wars we wage within ourselves...

Our world is chock-full of fascinating facts, unbelievable but true stories, and mind-blowing trivia. This book is your one-stop guide to all the extraordinary, shocking, and enthralling information you didn’t know you needed to learn. Impress your friends and family with a vast knowledge of topics guaranteed to stimulate interesting conversations.