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Flip-Flops After 50 comes to Byrd’s Books on May 2nd at 6:30 p.m. with Cindy Eastman!

12/05/2013 by Leave a Comment

Join us at Flip-Flop Night on Friday May 2nd at 6:30p.m. at Byrd’s Books! Celebrate Spring, wear your favorite flip-flops and join us as we laugh and discuss Cindy Eastman’s new book, “Flip-Flops After 50: And Other Thoughts On Aging I Remembered to Write Down.”

About the book: Flip Flops

“Flip-flops After 50 “will amuse, enlighten, and provoke readers to think about the topics that affect all of us. Who hasn’t dealt with the emotions from family events, stress from lousy jobs, or the bittersweet feelings when the kids leave home? Not to mention body image, high school reunions, and parenting. Eastman’s conversational style and easy humor tackle the sublime and the ridiculous, the sacred and the profane. After a certain age–and it’s no secret that it’s 50–Eastman argues that attitudes change for the better. Making decisions gets easier, although there’s no guarantee that life does. Even so, her writing allows us to take a look at our own issues with the reassuring handholding of a confidante. (April 8 release)

Advance praise:

“Cindy Eastman’s Flip-Flops After Fifty: And Other Thoughts on Aging I Remembered to Write Down is as funny, warm, and inviting as its title. Filled with the kind of everyday humor that made Erma Bombeck everybody’s favorite columnist, Eastman’s wit and generosity reach out to embrace the reader. With every laugh, there’s a moment of recognition and a sense of camaraderie.

—Dr. Gina Barreca, professor of English and feminist theory and author of It’s Not That I’m Bitter

About the author:

Cindy Eastman’s work is informed by her ability to be an observer as well as a participant in her life. With her dry sense of humor, she is able to address a variety of topical subjects and deliver an insightful analysis that’s both provocative and amusing. Currently she coordinates a supervised visitation service with her husband in his counseling practice and facilitates diversity and anti-bullying trainings for the Anti-Defamation League. She also teaches a writing course for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the Waterbury campus of UConn. Eastman makes her home in Connecticut with her husband, Angelo, and their cat. She is working on a second book when not babysitting her grandson.

 

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Hyperbole and a Half

11/19/2013 by Leave a Comment

Hyperbole and a HalfHyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

By Allie Brosh

Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices.

Touching, absurd, and darkly comic, Allie Brosh’s highly anticipated book Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations.

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written.

Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to.

FROM THE AUTHOR:

This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative – like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it – but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book:

  • Pictures
  • Words
  • Stories about things that happened to me
  • Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
  • Eight billion dollars*
  • Stories about dogs
  • The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

Filed Under: Autobiography & Biography, Indie Next Tagged With: , ,

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion

11/06/2013 by Leave a Comment

All Girl's FillingBy Fannie Flagg

The one and only Fannie Flagg, beloved author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven, and I Still Dream About You, is at her hilarious and superb best in this new comic mystery novel about two women who are forced to reimagine who they are.

Mrs. Sookie Poole of Point Clear, Alabama, has just married off the last of her daughters and is looking forward to relaxing and perhaps traveling with her husband, Earle. The only thing left to contend with is her mother, the formidable Lenore Simmons Krackenberry. Lenore may be a lot of fun for other people, but is, for the most part, an overbearing presence for her daughter. Then one day, quite by accident, Sookie discovers a secret about her mother’s past that knocks her for a loop and suddenly calls into question everything she ever thought she knew about herself, her family, and her future.

Sookie begins a search for answers that takes her to California, the Midwest, and back in time, to the 1940s, when an irrepressible woman named Fritzi takes on the job of running her family’s filling station. Soon truck drivers are changing their routes to fill up at the All-Girl Filling Station. Then, Fritzi sees an opportunity for an even more groundbreaking adventure. As Sookie learns about the adventures of the girls at the All-Girl Filling Station, she finds herself with new inspiration for her own life.

Fabulous, fun-filled, spanning decades and generations, and centered on a little-known aspect of America’s twentieth-century story, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is another irresistible novel by the remarkable Fannie Flagg.

Filed Under: Best Sellers, Popular Fiction Tagged With: ,

Alice in Tumblr-Land: And Other Fairy Tales for a New Generation

11/06/2013 by Leave a Comment

AliceBy Tim Manley

Disney meets Lena Dunham in this illustrated humor book featuring your favorite fairy-tale characters dating and finding their way in 21st-century America.

The Ugly Duckling still feels gross compared to everyone else, but now she’s got Instagram, and there’s this one filter that makes her look awesome. Cinderella swaps her glass slippers for Crocs. The Tortoise and the Hare Facebook stalk each other. Goldilocks goes gluten free. And Peter Pan finally has to grow up and get a job, or at least start paying rent.

Here are more than one hundred fairy tales, illustrated and re-imagined for today. Instead of fairy godmothers, there’s Siri. And rather than big bad wolves, there are creepy dudes on OkCupid. In our brave new world of social networking, YouTube, and texting, fairy tales can once again lead us to “happily ever after” – and have us laughing all the way.

Filed Under: Popular Fiction Tagged With:

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls

04/30/2013 by Leave a Comment

Lets Explore DiabetesBy David Sedaris

A guy walks into a bar car and…

From here the story could take many turns. When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless, but the result is always the same: he will both delight you with twists of humor and intelligence and leave you deeply moved.

Sedaris remembers his father’s dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered Pygmy.

With Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris shows once again why his work has been called “hilarious, elegant, and surprisingly moving” (Washington Post).

Filed Under: Popular Non-Fiction Tagged With: ,

Vader’s Little Princess

04/23/2013 by Leave a Comment

Vaders Little PrincessBy Jeffrey Brown

In this irresistibly funny follow-up to the breakout bestseller Darth Vader and Son, Vader – Sith Lord and leader of the Galactic Empire – now faces the trials, joys, and mood swings of raising his daughter Leia as she grows from a sweet little girl into a rebellious teenager. Smart and funny illustrations by artist Jeffrey Brown give classic Star Wars moments a twist by bringing these iconic family relations together under one roof. From tea parties to teaching Leia how to fly a TIE fighter, regulating the time she spends talking with friends via R2-D2′s hologram, and making sure Leia doesn’t leave the house wearing only the a skirted metal bikini, Vader’s parenting skills are put hilariously to the test.

Filed Under: Popular Fiction Tagged With: , ,

Insane City

01/30/2013 by Leave a Comment

Insane CityBy Dave Barry

A dark comic masterpiece – the first solo adult novel in more than a decade from the Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author.

Seth Weinstein knew Tina was way out of his league in pretty much any way you could imagine, which is why it continued to astonish him that he was on the plane now for their destination wedding in Florida. The Groom Posse had already sprung an airport prank on him, and he’d survived it, and if that was the worst of it, everything should be okay. Smooth sailing from now on.

Seth has absolutely no idea what he’s about to get into. In the next several hours, he and his friends will become embroiled with rioters, Russian gangsters, angry strippers, a pimp as big as the Death Star, a very desperate Haitian refugee on the run with her two children from some very bad men, and an eleven-foot albino Burmese python named Blossom. And there’re still two days to go before the wedding.

As it turns out, it’s not smooth sailing, it’s more like a trip on the Titanic. And the water below him is getting deeper every minute. By the end, amid gunfire, high-speed chases, and mayhem of the most unimaginable sort, violent men will fall, heroes will rise, and many lives will change.

Seth’s, not least of all.

Filed Under: Featured, Popular Fiction Tagged With: ,

America Again

12/01/2012 by Leave a Comment

America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t

By Stephen Colbert

Book store nation, in the history of mankind there has never been a greater country than America. You could say we’re the #1 nation at being the best at greatness.

But as perfect as America is in every single way, America is broken! And we can’t exchange it because we’re 236 years past the 30-day return window. Look around – we don’t make anything anymore, we’ve mortgaged our future to China, and the Apologist-in-Chief goes on world tours just to bow before foreign leaders. Worse, the L.A. Four Seasons Hotel doesn’t even have a dedicated phone button for the Spa. You have to dial an extension! Where did we lose our way?!

It’s high time we restored America to the greatness it never lost!

Luckily, America Again will singlebookedly pull this country back from the brink. It features everything from chapters, to page numbers, to fonts. Covering subject’s ranging from healthcare (“I shudder to think where we’d be without the wide variety of prescription drugs to treat our maladies, such as think-shuddering”) to the economy (“Life is giving us lemons, and we’re shipping them to the Chinese to make our lemon-flavored leadonade”) to food (“Feel free to deep fry this book – it’s a rich source of fiber”), Stephen gives America the dose of truth it needs to get back on track.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
“America Again” Release
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

This book is an excellent gift for fans of the Colbert Report and anyone who enjoys goofy humor and political satire.

Filed Under: Holiday Picks Tagged With:

Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?

12/01/2012 by Leave a Comment

By Rhoda Janzen

What does it mean to give church a try when you haven’t really tried since you were twelve? At the end of her bestselling memoir Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen had reconnected with her family and her roots, though her future felt uncertain. But when she starts dating a churchgoer, this skeptic begins a surprising journey to faith and love.

Rhoda doesn’t slide back into the dignified simplicity of the Mennonite church. Instead she finds herself hanging with the Pentecostals, who really know how to get down with sparkler pom-poms. Amid the hand waving and hallelujahs Rhoda finds a faith richly practical for life – just in time for some impressive lady problems, an unexpected romance, and a quirky new family.

Does This Church Make Me Look Fat? is for people who have a problem with organized religion, but can’t quite dismiss the notion of God, and for those who secretly sing hymns in their cars, but prefer a nice mimosa brunch to church. This is the story of what it means to find joy in love, comfort in prayer, and – incredibly, surprisingly – faith in a big-hearted God.

This book would make an excellent gift for fans of Rhoda Janzen’s memoir Mennonite in a Little Black Dress or any reader who has experienced a change or uncertainty in their religion.

Filed Under: Holiday Picks Tagged With: ,

Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores

09/26/2012 by Leave a Comment

By Jen Campbell

Customer: Have you read every single book in here?

Bookseller: No, I can’t say I have.

Customer: Well, you’re not very good at your job, are you?

A simple Twitter question posed by John Cleese – “What is your pet peeve?” – inspired Jen Campbell to start a blog collecting all the ridiculous conversations overheard in her bookstore, everything from “Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about dinosaurs?” to the hunt for a paperback which could forecast the next year’s weather; from “I’ve forgotten my glasses, please read me the first chapter” to “Excuse me…is this book edible?”; and from “Can books conduct electricity?” to “My children are just climbing your bookshelves: that’s ok….isn’t it?”

If we didn’t know it already, this irresistible book is proof positive that booksellers are heroes, the world over.

Filed Under: Popular Non-Fiction Tagged With:
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