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Ever since he was a child, David "Mr. Backwards" Fuhrer has had the rare ability to speak backwards as fast and as easily as others speak forwards. In this book, the author shows youngsters how to impress their peers - and confound their parents - by mastering this unusual skill. Backwords not only teaches the amazing art of speaking backwards, it reveals a world of crazy word jokes, trivia, cartoons and games that will amuse and amaze people of all ages including: --Backwards talking and other secret languages to speak with your friends! --Tongue Twisters to tangle your tonsils! --Tips to win at Hangman every time! --Hysterical anagrams and much, much more! --Create a lifelong love of word and language fun with Backwords! The accompanying free DVD contains jaw-dropping demonstrations by Fuhrer, Guiness World Record holder for talking backwards. Also included are games, challenges and tips to master your backwards speaking skills.

Ajay Sahgal's startling debut novel is as conceptually tight and brutally realized an indictment of the culture of Hollywood as we've had in years. Sahgal borrows from the world he satirizes to make Pool part novel, part screenplay - and wickedly, despairingly funny: Think Day of the Locust for Generation X. Emery Roberts is a GQ coverboy and twentysomething movie star who has just walked off the set of a $40 million picture, mega-producer Monty Factor's new buddy-cop thriller, Sun City. Via MGM Grand Air, Emery flees to the lush hills of Vermont to join a group of self-exiled Hollywood refugees who have taken up residence in an old farmhouse. But his flight is futile: Factor soon mounts a nationwide search to recover his missing property, and in a local bar young townie girls fawn abjectly. Back at the farmhouse the faces are all too familiar: his producer's beautiful, alcoholic daughter, a recently fired C.A.A. agent, and a U.S.C. film student who is there to document Emery's breakdown. As if nature itself has gone awry, the nearby lake is infested with snapping turtles, moving one outraged casualty of the industry to begin constructing that essential Hollywood real estate accessory, a backyard pool. Larger than life on the screen, in person Emery is a void. And yet as the novel progresses from one hilariously cruel scene to the next, we see that this isn't simply a pose, but the only way he can protect himself from the valueless landscape and the emptiness of celebrity.

In the gripping first-person accounts of High Rise Stories, former residents of Chicago’s iconic public housing projects describe life in the now-demolished high-rises. These stories of community, displacement, and poverty in the wake of gentrification give voice to those who have long been ignored, but whose hopes and struggles exist firmly at the heart of our national identity.

Since 2005, Voice of Witness has illuminated contemporary human rights crises through its oral history book series. Founded by Dave Eggers, Lola Vollen, and Mimi Lok, Voice of Witness amplifies the voices of people impacted by—and fighting against—injustice. Voice of Witness’s work is driven by the transformative power of the story, and by a strong belief that social justice cannot be achieved without deep listening and learning from those marginalized by systems of oppression. This selection of narratives from the organization’s first ten years includes stories from occupied Palestine, Sudan, Chicago public housing, and the US carceral system, among many others. Together, they form an astonishing record of human rights issues in the early twenty-first century; a testament to the strength of the human spirit in the face of incredible odds; and an opportunity to better understand the world we live in through connection and a participatory vision of history.

Few journalists exemplify the creed ‘without fear or favour’ like Gideon Haigh. Shelf Life selects from twenty-one years of writing on myriad subjects by one of our clearest thinkers, sharpest stylists and most curious journalists. Architecture and airline food. Depression and doodling. Goya and Grossman. Weegee and Wire. When not wiring about cricket, Gideon Haigh has enjoyed taking journalism on unexpected journeys, where curiosity calls, into the past and future as well as the present. Edited by Russell Jackson, Shelf Life samples his work from the last two decades: essays, reportage, reviews, crisp analyses, deep dives into history, of no camp, and independent of the news cycle, from his shelves to yours.