Leonard's life at his new junior high is just barely tolerable until he becomes friends with the unusual Alan and with him shares an extraordinary adventure.

Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda has been hailed as "the best-read person in America" (The Paris Review) and "the best book critic in America" (The New York Observer). His latest volume collects fifty of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on a life in literature. Reaching from the classics to the post-moderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson and M. F. K. Fisher to Marilynne Robinson, Hunter S. Thompson, and David Foster Wallace. Dirda's topics are equally diverse: literary pets, the lost art of cursive writing, book inscriptions, the pleasures of science fiction conventions, author photographs, novelists in old age, Oberlin College, a year in Marseille, writer's block, and much more. As admirers of his earlier books will expect, there are annotated lists galore—of perfect book titles, great adventure novels, favorite words, books about books, and beloved children's classics, as well as a revealing peek at the titles Michael keeps on his own nightstand.Funny and erudite, Browsings is a celebration of the reading life, a fan's notes, and the perfect gift for any booklover.

Four-fantastic-books-in-one by the popular author of The Hoboken Chicken Emergency: Borgel Yobgorgle The Worms of Kukumlima The Snarkout Boys & the Baconburg Horror

Walter and Winston set out to rescue the inventor of the Alligatron, a computer developed from an avocado which is the world's last defense against the space-realtors.

Arthur goes to pick up the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner but comes back with a 266-pound chicken.

Melvin recounts his extraordinary adventures in time and space with his 111-year-old sort of great-Uncle Borgel.