B&N Recommends

In this quick and hysterical read you will meet all of the customers that you love to hate.  It will also remind you why you love to work in retail.  Despite the crazy hours and the angry customers, working in retail is an addiction.  Freeman will make you laugh out loud and want to read passages to your coworkers.    

Freeman worked at Nordstrom's in the handbag(never the purse) department for years.  He tells you about all of his regulars- the good, the bad, and the ugly.  He recalls the people that made his job the best and worst thing that ever happened to him.  

If you like the writing that Jen Lancaster brought to the table you will love Retail Hell.

Sarcastic, witty, and fun; Jen Lancaster brings humor to the unemployment line in pearls. Never before have I read such an entertainingly playful memoir with an actual story. From the rise of the dot com era to the fall of the industry and Jen right onto her self proclaimed smart-ass, this book will have your attention. Endless e-mails, job applications, interviews, phone calls, the unemployment office, an awkward proposal, a wedding, pet adoption, not being able to make rent, and a blog; this book has it all. I've never laughed out loud so hard while reading a book in my life and with this quick and witty read, you'll be cracking up in no time.

Introducing Thursday Next, Jasper Fforde's no-nonsense, smart, funny, and loving heroine of his first series.  We meet Thursday in an alternate mid-1980s Great Britain - one still fighting in the Crimea with Russia - and she is hot on the trail of forgers, Shakespeare impersonators, and book thieves.  Everyone is mad for literature including Acheron Hades, the most wanted man in Britain, and it is Thursday's job to catch him once Jane Eyre is kidnapped from her book leaving the remaining pages of the beloved novel blank.  Fforde's first novel is laugh-out-loud funny, including obscure literary in-jokes that even the most well-read bibliophile might miss, with a drop or two of sci-fi tech, and also quite terrifying when Thursday fights for her life atop the blazing Thornfield Hall.  Fforde uses Thursday's world to comment on certain aspects of our own society including government interference by large corporations (signified by the hulking Goliath Corporation), over-commercialization, and the decline in literacy.  Fforde's books suck you in, which is great because you'll want to follow Thursday through the rest of her books: Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, Thursday Next, and one more Thursday novel due sometime in 2010 (or so Jasper says); Thursday learns about the Bookworld and Jurisfiction, apprentices with Miss Havisham, fights grammasites in the Well, tracks the Minotaur, takes the indecisive Dane of Denmark under her wing, and saves Pride and Prejudice from the degredation of reality TV (now I've really got you wondering...I guess you'll have to read all the books now ) - it's all very accessibly, absurd, and fun to read.  Once you've finished Thursday's published books, and need a tide-over until the next one, you can start on Fforde's Nursery Crime series (Big Over Easy and The Fourth Bear), following DCI Jack Spratt and his partner, Mary Mary, as they solve hard-boiled nursery rhyme crime in Reading, and his new series, Paint by Numbers, will debut in December 2008.  

Being an ardent Jane Austen enthusiast, I was nonplussed when the news hit the Internet about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, combining Jane Austen's classic novel with bone-crunching zombie mayhem! What? Did two genre's ever seem more incompatible? Even though it did not appeal to my genteel sensibilities, I was intrigued and thought it worth a look. The co-author Seth Grahame-Smith had taken about 85% of Austen's original text and interwoven a zombie subplot. I have to admit that the first line had me smiling. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." What follows is quite a surprise. He has changed feisty Elizabeth Bennet and the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy into ninja warriors, ready to spar in the ball room as well as the battlefield against the sorry stricken who they delicately call unmentionables. It appears that anyone who is not a ninja warrior is a target for zombie destruction, so if there is a character from the original plot ripe for reproach, then it is sure to happen. Brains and gore abound, so the delicately minded take heed. If you enjoy a good ribald parody, the play between the original text and the new storyline is hysterical. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is sure to please those who live  to make sport for their neighbors, and laugh at them in their turn! Read my complete review at my literary blog Austenprose.

Cheers, Laurel Ann, Austenprose

After a night of heavy drinking with some buddies, British comedian Tony Hawks awoke to find a note pinned to his shirt stating that he had accepted a bet to hitchhike the circumference of Ireland with a refrigerator in tow. Part memoir and part travel journal, Tony takes us on his adventure 'round Ireland as he and his mini-fridge attempt to win this bet. You will laugh out loud every chapter as events unfold that could only happen in Ireland and be moved as those events start to take on significant meaning in Tony's life. If you are someone who loves to laugh and values a unique perspective then I highly recommend this book for you.

Life has not gone smoothly since Sam accidentally burned down Emily Dickinson's house (oh, and killed two people in the process) ten years ago.  Now Sam is out of prison and ready to begin life anew.  He is forced to move in with his nutty parents while he looks for a job.  Sam also tries to apologize to the man who's mother he killed and the craziness continues.

When other author's homes begin to burn to the ground, Sam must discover who is out to get him and continue to try and build a life for himself in the process.  

A quick and fun book that is great for any reader.