Eric B. Is Recommending:

For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.

In her bestselling memoir You Had Me at Woof, Julie Klam shared the secrets of happiness she learned as an occasionally frazzled but always devoted owner of Boston terriers. Now, with the same enchanting humor and poignancy that won the hearts of readers across the country, she returns with real-life stories about how in rescuing troubled dogs we can end up saving ourselves.

With wit and warmth, Julie Klam chronicles her adventures in finding a home for the world’s sweetest pit bull, fostering a photogenic special-needs terrier, and diving under a train to save an injured stray in New Orleans. Along the way, she finds that helping dogs in their fight to survive puts our own problems in perspective, and shows that caring for others, be they canine or human, can sometimes be the best way to care for ourselves. A hilarious and moving testament to the powerful bond between people and dogs, this is a book for anyone whose life has been changed—for the better—by an animal.

Brad Shade has been just about everywhere hockey is played. He has ridden the buses in the minors, shared dressing rooms with the legends of the game, closed bars with guys destined for the Hall of Fame, and dropped the gloves with journeymen like himself who’ll never get near it. Now that he’s retired after fourteen years of bouncing around the league, he’s living out of a suitcase and scouting for Los Angeles, where someone in management owes him a favour from his playing days.

But when the brutally murdered body of coaching legend Red Hanratty turns up in the parking lot after an old-timers charity game, Shade’s job of scouting the local phenomenon starts to overlap with investigating the killing of the kid’s grizzled old coach.

From small-town rinks to the draft tables in the big league, G.B. Joyce introduces us to a character with a self-deprecating sense of humour and an oversized will to win—and weaves a story out of strands of resentment, greed, and fear that span generations and build to a surprising, thrilling conclusion.

John Hodgman-bestselling author, The Daily Show's "Resident Expert", minor television celebrity, and deranged millionaire-brings us the third and final installment in his trilogy of Complete World Knowledge.

In 2005, Dutton published The Areas of My Expertise, a handy little book of Complete World Knowledge, marked by the distinction that all of the fascinating trivia and amazing true facts were completely made up by its author, John Hodgman. At the time, Hodgman was merely a former literary agent and occasional scribbler of fake trivia. In short: a nobody.

But during an interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, an incredible transformation occurred. He became a famous minor television personality. You may ask: During his whirlwind tornado ride through the high ether of minor fame and outrageous fortune, did John Hodgman forget how to write books of fake trivia? The answer is: Yes. Briefly. But soon, he remembered!

And so he returned, crashing his Kansas farmhouse down upon the wicked witch of ignorance with More Information Than You Require, a New York Times bestseller containing even more mesmerizing and essential fake trivia, including seven hundred mole-man names (and their occupations).

And now, John Hodgman completes his vision with That Is All, the last book in a trilogy of Complete World Knowledge. Like its predecessors, That Is All compiles incredibly handy made-up facts into brief articles, overlong lists, and beguiling narratives on new and familiar themes. It picks up exactly where More Information left off-specifically, at page 596-and finally completes COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE, just in time for the return of Quetzalcoatl and the end of human history in 2012.