A new, edgy, entertaining book about grammar and usage in the spirit of the bestselling Eats, Shoots &...

Grammar has finally let its hair down! Unlike uptight grammar books that overwhelm us with every single grammar rule, Kiss My Asterisk is like a bikini: it’s fun, flirty, and covers only the most important bits. Its lessons, which are 100 percent free of complicated grammar jargon, have been carefully selected to include today’s most common, noticeable errors—the ones that confuse our readers or make them wonder if we are, in fact, smarter than a fifth grader. What is the proper use of an apostrophe? When should an ellipsis be used instead of an em dash? Why do we capitalize President Obama but not “the president”? And why is that question mark placed outside of the end quote? Author Jenny Baranick is an English professor whose students can’t believe she’s actually that into grammar. Upon experiencing the joys of grammar at an early age, raising grammar awareness became Jenny’s raison d’être. By spreading her remarkably user-friendly and hilarious approach to grammar, she hopes everyone will experience the satisfaction of a properly placed comma, a precisely used semicolon, and a correctly deployed en dash. Kiss My Asterisk shows grammar as it’s never been seen before: uncomplicated, laugh-out-loud funny, and, dare we say, a little risqué.

Grammar has finally let its hair down! Unlike uptight grammar books that overwhelm us with every single grammar rule, Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares is like a bikini: it’s fun, flirty, and covers only the most important bits. Its lessons, which are 100 percent free of complicated grammar jargon, have been carefully selected to include today’s most common, noticeable errors—the ones that confuse our readers or make them wonder if we are, in fact, smarter than a fifth grader. What is the proper use of an apostrophe? When should an ellipsis be used instead of an em dash? Why do we capitalize President Obama but not “the president”? And why is that question mark placed outside of the end quote? Author Jenny Baranick is an English professor whose students can’t believe she’s actually that into grammar. Upon experiencing the joys of grammar at an early age, raising grammar awareness became Jenny’s raison d'être. By spreading her remarkably user-friendly and hilarious approach to grammar, she hopes everyone will experience the satisfaction of a properly placed comma, a precisely used semicolon, and a correctly deployed en dash. Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares shows grammar as it’s never been seen before: uncomplicated, laugh-out-loud funny, and, dare we say, a little risqué.

Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Too Late and It Ends With Us. #1 New York Times Bestseller · USA Today Bestseller · Globe and Mail Bestseller · Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

A few years ago, a magazine sponsored a contest for the comment most likely to end a conversation. The winning entry? "I teach English grammar." Just throw that line out at a party; everyone around you will clam up or start saying "whom." Why does grammar make everyone so nervous? Probably because English teachers, for decades – no, for centuries – have been making a big deal out of grammar in classrooms, diagramming sentences and drilling the parts of speech, clauses, and verbals into students until they beg for mercy. Happily, you don't have to learn all those technical terms of English grammar – and you certainly don't have to diagram sentences – in order to speak and write correct English. So rest assured – English Grammar For Dummies will probably never make your English teacher's top-ten list of must-read books, because you won't have to diagram a single sentence. What you will discover are fun and easy strategies that can help you when you're faced with such grammatical dilemmas as the choice between "I" and "me," "had gone" and "went," and "who" and "whom." With English Grammar For Dummies, you won't have to memorize a long list of meaningless rules (well, maybe a couple in the punctuation chapter!), because when you understand the reason for a particular word choice, you'll pick the correct word automatically. English Grammar For Dummies covers many other topics as well, such as the following: Verbs, adjectives, and adverbs – oh my! Preposition propositions and pronoun pronouncements Punctuation: The lowdown on periods, commas, colons, and all those other squiggly marks Possession: It's nine-tenths of grammatical law Avoiding those double negative vibes How to spice up really boring sentences (like this one) Top Ten lists on improving your proofreading skills and ways to learn better grammar Just think how improving your speaking and writing skills will help you in everyday situations, such as writing a paper for school, giving a presentation to your company's big wigs, or communicating effectively with your family. You will not only gain the confidence in knowing you're speaking or writing well, but you'll also make a good impression on those around you!