Itchingham Lofte is back—and now hes the most protected boy in the world! After narrowly escaping the thugs from Greencorps and disposing of element 126, Itch and his family live under constant surveillance by Englands famed MI5. But even these top agents may not be able to help him when enemies old and new scheme to get their hands on the super-radioactive rocks—even if they have to kill Itch to do it. Filled with danger, thrills, and some shocking surprises, this suspenseful sequel is every bit as exciting as the first!

'A great debut. You'll be itching to read more.' Anthony Horowitz Meet Itch - an accidental, accident-prone hero. Science is his weapon. Elements are his gadgets. All-action adventure perfect for fans of Alex Rider and Young Bond. Itchingham Lofte - known as Itch - is fourteen, and loves science, especially chemistry. He's also an element-hunter: he's collecting all the elements in the periodic table. Which has some interesting and rather destructive results in his bedroom. Then, Itch makes a discovery. A new element, never seen before. At first no one believes him - but soon someone hears about the strange new rock and wants it for himself. And Itch and his family are catapulted into a breathless adventure with terrifyingly high stakes . . . The debut novel from BBC radio presenter Simon Mayo.

Exploding euros and exciting elements - join Itch, Jack and Chloe on their latest adventure. Itchingham Lofte, teenage element hunter and unlikely hero, has had anough excitement to last him a lifetime. Stumbling across an unknown radioactive element and trying to keep it out of the hands of those who want to use it for their own ends was hard enough. But when a school trip to Spain ends in exploding currency and rioting locals, he knows that he has to continue to look for answers. Itch knows the lives of those closest to him are at risk. He must track down a deadly enemy who will stop at nothing to take his vengeance . . .

The hilarious true story of the making of the cult classic hit show 30 Rock It’s hard to remember a time when Tina Fey wasn’t a star, but back in the early 2000s, she was an SNL writer who was far from a household name. It’s even harder to remember when Fey’s sitcom 30 Rock was tanking, but it was—it premiered in the fall of 2006, and by November, the New York Times wrote that 30 Rock was “perilously close to a flop.” But despite all expectations (including those of some of the cast and crew), Tina Fey’s eccentric buddy comedy lasted 138 episodes, spanning seven seasons. It resurrected the career of Alec Baldwin, survived an extended absence by Tracy Morgan, and permeated the culture— its breakneck pacing, oddball characters, and extremely rich joke writing are deeply beloved by millions of fans. Through more than fifty original interviews with cast, crew, critics, and more, culture writer Mike Roe brings to life the history of the gloriously goofy show that became an all-time classic. The 30 Rock Book has everything in it, from tales of the amazing music still stuck in our heads, to the iconic bit characters that make the show, to all the love and drama of the backstage crew . . . and the creative failures and successes along the way. So grab your night cheese and muffin tops, cuddle up with your slanket against your Japanese body pillow, and settle in for the story of one of the funniest shows in television history.

An NPR Best Book of 2021 NYPL 10 Best Books for Adults, 2021 A story collection, in the vein of Carmen Maria Machado, Kelly Link, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, spanning worlds and dimensions, using strange and speculative elements to tackle issues ranging from class differences to immigration to first-generation experiences to xenophobia What does it mean to be other? What does it mean to love in a world determined to keep us apart? These questions murmur in the heart of each of Brenda Peynado’s strange and singular stories. Threaded with magic, transcending time and place, these stories explore what it means to cross borders and break down walls, personally and politically. In one story, suburban families perform oblations to cattlelike angels who live on their roofs, believing that their “thoughts and prayers” will protect them from the world’s violence. In another, inhabitants of an unnamed dictatorship slowly lose their own agency as pieces of their bodies go missing and, with them, the essential rights that those appendages serve. “The Great Escape” tells of an old woman who hides away in her apartment, reliving the past among beautiful objects she’s hoarded, refusing all visitors, until she disappears completely. In the title story, children begin to levitate, flying away from their parents and their home country, leading them to eat rocks in order to stay grounded. With elements of science fiction and fantasy, fabulism and magical realism, Brenda Peynado uses her stories to reflect our flawed world, and the incredible, terrifying, and marvelous nature of humanity.

Tells the story of transsexual rocker Hedwig Schmidt, an East German immigrant whose sex change operation has been botched and who finds herself living in a trailer park in Kansas.

"Jon Fine spent nearly thirty years performing and recording with bands that played various forms of aggressive and challenging underground rock music, and, as he writes in this memoir, at no point were any of those bands 'ever threatened, even distantly, by actual fame.' Yet when members of his first band, Bitch Magnet, reunited after twenty-one years to tour ... diehard longtime fans traveled from far and wide to attend those shows, despite creeping middle-age obligations of parenthood and 9-to-5 jobs, testament to the remarkable staying power of the indie culture that the bands predating the likes of Bitch Magnet--among them Black Flag, Mission of Burma, and Sonic Youth --willed into existence through sheer determination and a shared disdain for the mediocrity of contemporary popular music"--Amazon.com.