Calling all hipsters, logophiles, sports fans, and food/poetry/fiction lovers!

Looking to slim down and still look totally cool doing it, then check out Chubster by Martin Cizmar which includes practical advice like this:

If you’re dieting, you need to scrawl any calorie you drink—even a shot of whiskey or a warm half cup of light beer—in the tally right below wholesome consumables like oatmeal and apples. No excuses, no rationalizations, no forgetting.

That’s no reason to mope, though. You wanna party with some friends this weekend? You can totally do it, but you’re going to have to budget accordingly.

Impress friends and family…or the college admissions people with words from The American Heritage Dictionary, Fifth Edition (filled with over 2,000 pages of wordy goodness).

Horripilation:The bristling of the body hair, as from fear or cold; goose bumps.

Remember the amazing 2008 Super Bowl game between the Giants and the Patriots? No, well neither do we, but luckily Joe Garner and Bob Costas have made it easy to relive some of the best moments in football history with 100 
Yards of Glory. 

Throughout most of this Super Bowl, the Giants had played crisp, physical football. Having held New England close, they suddenly had an opportunity to win. Yet nearly every play would bring another crisis, creating a sense of drama that only enhanced the stunning conclusion.

For those with a flair for cooking or those just wanting to learn, Jacques Pepin shares some of his best recipes from his career as a master chef in Essential Pepin.

Croquembouche (can you say yum?)

From croque (“to crunch”) and bouche (“mouth”), croquembouche is a tower of cream puffs held together with caramel. In this scaled-down version, which is narrow and not too tall, the tops of light, unstuffed pastry puffs are glazed with caramel and built into a small pyramid. The inside of the pyramid is brushed with cherry jam and filled with sweetened whip cream.

Alan Shapiro’s poetry collection Night of the Republic is sure to impress.

From “Supermarket”

The one cashier is dozing—

head nodding, slack mouth open,

above the cover girl spread out before her on the counter

smiling up

with indiscriminate forgiveness

and compassion for everyone

who isn’t her.

Chilling stories abound in Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates

There were fierce hugs, kisses. Hot searing kisses of the kind to leave scars. He was in the midst of hugs, choked for breath. He was in the midst of their fierce love, observing himself from a distance of approximately fifteen feet—the far side of the room beside the Christmas tree—noting how salt tears sprang from his mangled eyes and ran down the skin grafts of his cheeks like rainwater in rivulets eroding hard-packed red earth.

A Little Quote Action From Some of Our Favorite New and Upcoming Titles!

From Chubster by Martin Cizmar

1. Chubster (noun): An overweight person who considers himself to be a hipster. Someone who is proud to be a fatty mcfatfat…They wear Old Navy Jeans because they can’t fit into anything from Urban Outfitters or from trendy thrift shops. They try to squeeze themselves into small hoodies and H&M T-shirts because slim fitting clothes look “dope” on them. They avoid being an outcast loner because they are seen as cool and desirable due to a magnetic personality and funny jokes that compensate for their perceived lack of physical attractiveness.

From 100 Yards of Glory by Joe Garner and Bob Costas, foreword by Joe Montana

That’s why I think this book will be so enjoyable to football fans. Whatever team, player, coach or particular game stands out in their minds, they are likely to find them all here and have the chance to relive their most treasured memories.

From Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates

Their voices were a single voice. She was very young then. It had to be 1974, because she was in second grade at Buhr Elementary School, which was the faded red-brick building set back from the busy street; she has forgotten the name of the street and much of her life at that time but she remembers the school, she remembers a teacher who was kind to her, she remembers Rock Basin Park where the child was smothered.

This was in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. A long time ago.

From Essential Pepin by Jacques Pepin

Like any working chef, I have always experimented with different foods and different methods. The recipes that I have created through these years are the diary of my life. I am, have been, and always will be a cook: my culinary identity defines me.

From The American Heritage Dictionary, Fifth Edition

With multiple note programs in usage, word history, synonyms, and language variation and change, the Fifth Edition offers you the opportunity to gain an in-depth appreciation of words, to see the hidden connections between words, and to develop a more robust vocabulary.

From the poetry collection Night of the Republic by Alan Shapiro

Light Switch

The bad news was the sun was mortal too.

One day it would just burn out. The good news was

We’d all be long gone by the time it happened.