Being a teenager is never easy. There are those turbulent hormones, the pressure to fit in, societal expectations, and, of course, never enough sleep. Add all of that to a new friend who threatens to overwhelm the tenuous balance. Brian Landis and his friends Harry, Kathryn, and Melinda are about to become sophomores at Afton High School when Jimmy Rosen and his family move to town from Ohio. Jimmy is really skinny. Hes a sickly kid who cant play sports like the other students. Jimmy likes playing cards and games and listening to classical music. Hes funny, hes witty, and he knows how to say things that make people laugh. Harry, Brian, and the gang befriend Jimmy but there are others at the high school who cant accept Jimmy. Theres a lot of bullying and meanness, and by the end of the year, things just explode. Jimmy the Geek, a novel for teens, calls attention to the subjects of discrimination and its effects on kids. It shares a story of friendships, loyalty, betrayal, homophobia, bullying, and bigotry.
Recipes from Feast of Fiction, the innovative YouTube show featuring fantastical and fictional recipes inspired by books, movies, comics, video games, and more. Fans of Feast of Fiction have been clamoring for a cookbook since the channel debuted in 2011. Now it’s here! Just as they do on the small screen, hosts Jimmy Wong and Ashley Adams whip up their real-life interpretation of fictional dishes to pay homage in a genuine, geeky, and lively way. Jimmy brings a wealth of gamer and nerd cred to the table, and baker extraordinaire Ashley provides the culinary wisdom. The quirky duo offer an array of creative and simple recipes, featuring dishes inspired by favorites such as Star Trek and Adventure Time, as well as Butterbeer (Harry Potter), A Hobbit’s Second Breakfast, Mini “Dehydrated” Pizzas (Back to the Future), Sansa’s Lemon Cakes (Game of Thrones), and dishes from the niches of gaming, comics, and animation such as Fire Flakes (Avatar), Poke Puffs (Pokemon), and Heart Potions (The Legend of Zelda). With 55 unique and awesome dishes, this long-awaited cookbook will help inspire a pop culture dinner party, a fun night at home with family and friends, or an evening on the couch thinking about what you could be cooking!
Things aren't always what they seem. Devani Daniels learned that lesson the second a mysterious envelope was placed in her hands at a local blood drive. Little did she know that this seemingly innocent gesture would not only lead her into a whole new world, but to a reunion with Roman, a special friend from her past. However, the discovery that Roman is Sanguine tests Devani's long standing fears and faith in her own beliefs. For the daughter of a former leader of the extremist group that opposes Sanguines, being with Roman violates the Legacy Act and threatens to separate the two of them forever. Is love strong enough for Devani to risk the only life she's ever known, for an uncertain and potentially dangerous future? *** "Legacy" by Melissa R. Smith is a well-written tale that takes a reader into the dark world of the Sanguines. With its seductive atmosphere, this book weaves romance and danger on every page. The bond between Devani and Roman is unique. I especially liked the compromise between the conflicting worlds of human and vampire. Devani and Roman's need for one another is sweet and tender. Yet Devani holds fast to her moral ambition even though her heart is pushed to the breaking point. -Tamera L. at Readers Favorite
The Crude Killer: A Spike Eastman Novel By: Mick Burkard Spike Eastman is former Air Force finance and intelligence officer and CIA operative for the early years of the war on terror in Afghanistan. Spike now has a comfortable life with his wife Shauntel, a successful entrepreneur in her own right, as an executive at an international construction materials company. Their idyllic life of ten years is about to be tossed into the fray as a new and deadly virus emerges shortly after the defeat of COVID-19, the Mega-Acute Respiratory Virus, or MARV, which claims the life of his mother. The sudden onset of MARV and loss of his mother drives Spike to investigate the origin of the virus. Through the assistance of an old classmate who works with the CDC, Spike learns of some unsettling anomalies, leading him to call in the aid of Shauntel and Jimmy Celestini, a successful hacker. They discover a Russian oil oligarch, Boris Fedderov, is responsible for MARV’s creation and spread. Tim Blust, Spike’s former recruiter from the CIA, attempts to recruit Spike for a special mission to track down Fedderov. However, Spike decides this is a mission he needs to complete on his own and sets off for Russia to find Fedderov and bring him to justice.
This collection of six fly-fishing tales, from the best fly-fishing writer in the Pacific Northwest, includes: The Bonefisherman’s Dilemma: Freddie Woodson planned to write a story about his trip to Sugar Cay Bonefish Resort, sell it to a fishing magazine and use the money to help pay trip expenses. But he didn’t count on drinking too much rum, falling asleep in a hot tub, meeting a cute native girl or losing the only bonefish he managed to hook, so there was no story and no money. Now he’s engaged in an increasing-ly acrimonious debate with his tax accountant. Freddie maintains the expenses for his trip should be tax-deductible even without income; his accountant disagrees. With the tax deadline rapidly approaching, Freddie hatches a legally questionable but highly innovative way of deriving some income from the trip. Don’t try this on your tax return. . 2. Welcome to the Stub Mountain Fly Shop: Vicki Brightman has inherited her father’s financially struggling fly shop, now her sole means of support. Searching desperately for a way to restore the shop’s financial health, she eventually decides that what works on fish—catching them on artificial flies—also might work on fishermen. With that in mind she concocts a longshot scheme that even she realizes has little chance of working, but with nothing else to do she goes ahead anyway—and the scheme succeeds beyond her wildest dreams. That is, as long as she doesn’t dream about ethics. 3. The Fishlexic: World-renowned geneticist Timothy Hardhorn dreams of having a son who will grow up to become his lifelong fly-fishing partner, so when his wife becomes pregnant he manipulates the genes in the embryo to assure just such an outcome. When his son, Rodney, is born he soon surpasses his father’s greatest expectations, but as the boy grows older Timothy notices some things about him that aren’t, well, quite normal. Eventually he concludes that because of his genetic tinkering, his son has a peculiar form of dyslexia that afflicts only male fly fishers: He believes all the fish he catches are much bigger than they really are. 4. Diary of an Unknown Angler: Andrew Royster, dealer in rare and classic angling books, discovers an old diary containing the answer to one of fly fishing’s greatest mysteries: the lost identity of the young woman fishing companion of Theodore Gordon, regarded by many as the patron saint of American fly fishing. Was there something besides fishing going on between those two? Royster can’t wait to publish the answer, hoping that by doing so he might obtain his own small slice of angling immortality. Then he discovers that once history is made and literature is written, it’s very hard to change either. 5. The Man in Black Waders (novella): Clint Steele, the world’s most famous fly fisher, is about to go on trial. He’s being sued for plagiarism by Mickey Cutter, obscure author of a single angling book, who alleges Steele stole his words and used them in a book of his own. For Steele, the stakes couldn’t be higher; he could lose lots of money, his reputation, maybe even his livelihood. When the jury returns its verdict Steele does something highly unexpected, apparently uphold-ing the jury’s verdict. 6. The First Words Ever Written about Fly Fishing: “I have heard of a Macedonian way of catching fish and it is this.” Those words, attributed to the Roman scribe Claudius Aelianus, are believed the first ever written about fly fishing. But where did Aelianus hear about the Macedonian way of fishing? Where else but at a meeting of his local fishing club? OK, so it probably didn’t really happen that way, but who knows? Maybe it did.
Julia and her family may have escaped the rent trap... but curiosity has drawn a predator home. @When Julia Henry@s former neighbour plunges eight stories to her death in the snow, she@s convinced her previous landlords harassed the woman to suicide. But when she investigates, another dead girl turns up. @The half-empty building is hemorrhaging tenants, the girl@s boyfriend comes complete with a wife and daughter, and the best friend overdosed days after giving police their only description of a serial rapist. @Now it seems someone wants Julia buried under the heaviest blizzard in thirty years. But when one of her daughters narrowly escapes a brutal rape steps from home, two nightmares converge and Julia goes from shaken to livid. @The only way she can protect her girls and still live to see the snow melt is to expose the wrenching truth behind the rapes, the deaths, and the strangest absentee landlord ever.
Jimmy is a stereotypical geek who works at the library in Oakland, California, and is trapped in his own torpidity. Sara is his best friend, but she wants to get a life (translation: an apartment in Brooklyn and a publishing internship). When Sara moves to New York City, Jimmy is rattled. Then lonely. Then desperate. He screws up his courage, writes Sara a letter about his true feelings, and asks her to meet him at the top of the Empire State Building (a nod to their ongoing debate about Sleepless in Seattle). Jimmy's cross-country bus trip to Manhattan is as hapless and funny as Jimmy himself. When he arrives in the city he's thought of as "a festering hellhole," he's surprised by how exciting he finds New York, and how heartbreaking—he discovers Sara has a boyfriend! Jason Shiga's bold visual storytelling, sly pokes at popular culture, and subtle text work together seamlessly in Empire State, creating a quirky graphic novel comedy about the vagaries of love and friendship. Praise for Empire State: "He [Shiga] displays a wicked sense of comic timing." -Publishers Weekly "Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not) is funny, sweet, geeky and affecting, and definitely worth a read." -Wired.com "Shiga's illustrations . . . are unique and endearing, and his images of NYC are instantly recognizable." -am New York "If Woody Allen grew up in Oakland rather than Manhattan, he'd most likely see the world, and especially New York City, as Jason Shiga does in Empire State." -Big Think.com
The essential companion for the geek era: a fusion of inspirational quotes, philosophy, and pop culture drawn from the entire cult-classic canon of film, TV, books, comics, and science. Celebrate nerd culture by taking a page out of your all-time favorites, like Star Wars and Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings and Dune—and much more! Computer nerds are our titans of industry; comic-book superheroes are our Hollywood idols; the Internet is our night on the town. Clearly, geeks know something about life in the 21st century that other folks don’t—something we all can learn from. Geek Wisdom takes as gospel some 200 of the most powerful and oft-cited quotes from movies (“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads”), television (“Now we know—and knowing is half the battle”), literature (“All that is gold does not glitter”), games, science, the Internet, and more. Now these beloved pearls of modern-day culture have been painstakingly interpreted by a diverse team of hardcore nerds with their imaginations turned up to 11. Yes, this collection of mini-essays is by, for, and about geeks—but it’s just so surprisingly profound, the rest of us would have to be dorks not to read it. So say we all.
