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Just in time for Valentine's Day,
the Guardian in London has
reviewed and raved about
The Secret Language of Sleep.
And, for the rest of the week,
you can buy it for $5!
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The Better of McSweeney's, Volume 2 McSweeney's Quarterly Concern features every kind of writing you can imagine, plus a few brand new kinds. The Better of McSweeney's, Volume 2 features science-fiction, immigration drama, and naval disasters. There are tragically dysfunctional families and enjoyably dysfunctional families. There are movie stars and bears, and a man who marries a tree. The Better of McSweeney's, Volume 2 will feature issues 11-20, and include stories from writers such as Stephen Millhauser, Chris Adrian, Stephen Elliott, Susan Straight, Brian Evenson, Yannick Murphy, Wells Tower, Allison Smith, Tom Bissell, and Tony D'Souza In short, this is a rollicking assortment of contemporary literature, and a celebration of fiction at the dawn of the 21st century. - - - - 52 Weeks, Heads, and Quotes The very first planner highlighting the Charles Burns's cover illustrations from The Believer magazine. This planner has lots of space for writing, doodling, and getting down all those important dates. It's also a flexible planner, allowing you to start whenever you like − just write in the month and date you wish to start and away you go! Each week features an illustration by Burns of a person interviewed in The Believer, along with a quote from that interview. There is everyone from Joan Didion to Jack White, and each week is its own color for maximum manageability. A few samples from the planner: "I want every day to be about spelling bee champions and baby basketball." "Peace is a resistance to the terrible satisfactions of war." "Every few years when it's been another five years that have passed and I haven't made a film and the depression starts taking over totally, I allow myself to do a commercial. And then I feel really dirty and get to work promptly." "When I'd reupholster furniture I'd take off the old fabric and I started to write poems and things inside the furniture, so if it was ever reupholstered again one day they'd get little messages from the last person who upholstered it. I thought it'd be cool if we all wrote each other messages." - - - - A Very Bad Wizard: Morality Behind the Curtain Do we have free will? What counts as justice in the Peruvian Amazon? Is Catherine Zeta-Jones objectively hotter than Drew Barrymore? These are just a few of the questions that philosopher Tamler Sommers attempts to answer in far-spanning interviews with ten acclaimed researchers in the burgeoning field of moral psychology. Philip Zimbardo talks about his famous "Stanford Prison Experiment" and how it relates to abuses of Abu Ghraib. Harvard neuroscientist Josh Greene reports on the ways our brains react to ethical dilemmas. Jonathan Haidt explains why we object to incest and how that relates to disagreements between conservatives and liberals. Renowned Primatologist Frans de Waal juxtaposes human behavior with that of the bonobo (a species he terms the "hippie ape.") And much more. A Very Bad Wizard is essential reading for anyone curious about the origins and inner workings of our moral lives. - - - - The Wild Things The Wild Things, based loosely on the storybook by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay co-written with Spike Jonze, is about the confusions of a boy, Max, making his way in a world he can't control. His father is gone, his mother is spending time with a younger boyfriend, his sister is becoming a teenager and no longer has interest in him. At the same time, he finds himself capable of startling acts of wildness − he wears a wolf suit, bites his mom, can't always control his outbursts. During a fight at home, Max flees and runs away into the woods. He finds a boat there, jumps in, and ends up on the open sea, destination unknown. He lands on the island of the Wild Things, and soon he becomes their king. But things get complicated when Max realizes that the Wild Things want as much from him as he wants from them. Funny, dark, and alive, The Wild Things is a timeless and time-tested tale for all ages. - - - - Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary A lost classic of underground cartooning, Binky Brown meets the Holy Virgin Mary is Justin Green's autobiographical portrayal of his struggle with religion and his own neuroses. Binky Brown is a young Catholic struggling with all the usual problems of adolescence − puberty, agnosticism, and the fear that the strange ray of energy emanating from his private parts will strike a picture of the Holy Virgin Mary. Deeply confessional, with artwork that veers wildly between formalist and hallucinogenic, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary is the controversial masterpiece that invented the Autobiographical Graphic Novel. - - - - Self Portraits A collection of brand-new self portraits by writers, musicians, directors, actors, chefs, philosophers − all kinds of people you might know, but probably not for their drawing ability (which may be scant). Contributors include writers Judy Blume, Jonathan Ames, Stephen Elliott, and Trinie Dalton; filmmakers Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze; poets David Berman, Kevin Young, and Matthea Harvey; musicians David Byrne; philosopher Slavoj Zizek; comedian Sarah Silverman, and hundreds of others. With a dozen or so bonus "vintage" self portraits made by unlikely candidates, such as Jorge Luis Borges, who was blind. - - - - What If I Ate This Boot? More than ever, what we eat and where what we eat comes from matters. We bandy about terms like organic, grass-fed, free-range, and omega-3 fatty acids. Yet, while parents around the world become more aware of the origins of their food, children − remain woefully uninformed about how food makes it to the plate. Our book is something of an Omnivore's Dilemma for kids. Not only will it be a guide to what makes food good − both for our bodies and for our planet − but it will also teach the simple lesson that food comes from somewhere. There is a great variety of food available to most of us today, and it's only fair that our children be able to share in that abundance of choice. However, we'd like them to know that what we choose to eat is inextricably tied to our futures, and the health of our planet. The book itself will be equal parts information and fun, with a healthy smattering of nonsense. It'll address the appetizing and thoroughly unappetizing. And even if it doesn't make kids want to eat better, it'll inform them that there better things out there.
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