NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • In this virtuosic, career-spanning collection, Martin Amis, "one of the most gifted novelists of his generation” (TIME), takes on James Joyce and Elvis Presley, Nabokov and English football, Jane Austen and Penthouse Forum, William Burroughs and Hillary Clinton, and more.

"[Written] with intelligence and ardor and panache.... Speaks not just to a lifetime of reading...

Discover the true meanings behind some of the world's strangest idioms, such as "Hold your horses."

Discover the true meanings behind some of the world's strangest idioms, such as "That's the last straw."

"Dog Days of Summer: Fun with Clichés! is a laugh-out-loud children's book by journalist Jayne A. Pearl, based on common clichés about animals. It is beautifully and hilariously illustrated by artist Mat Bevilacqua, who makes the animals and phrases come to life by imagining a literal interpretation. This kids' book will amuse and inform both adult and child. The back pages, "Prompts and Circumstances, provide questions adults can ask children to...

From the author of Buzzy the Bumblebee comes a child's hilarious visual interpretation of such parental idioms and witticisms as 'Hold your horses;' 'Money doesn't grow on trees;' and 'I have eyes in the back of my head.' 'Cat got your toungue?' My momma likes to say. I'm not sure what she means but I like it anyway. My cat has never tried to take my tongue away. But if he did, he'd find that it can stretch a long, long way.

A dictionary of clichés with their meanings and history.

"Wretched writing is the lowest of the low; it is a felonious assault on the English language. Exuberantly excessive, it is a sin committed often by amateurs and all-too-frequently by gifted writers having an off day. In short, it's very bad writing. Truly bad. Appallingly bad. It's also very funny. A celebration of the worst writing imaginable, Wretched Writing includes inadvertently filthy book titles, ridiculously overwrought passages from novels,...