Our Blog

Fast and Furious 6: The Fast and the Fuwious

This weekend, the long-awaited Fast and Furious 6 finally hits the screen. Fans of the franchise can expect plenty of fast-paced action, car chases, explosions, and perhaps a resolution of the sexual tension between Dominic Toretto and Luke Hobbs.

But did you know that this sequel is based on a popular children's book?

To get you pumped for an awesome, pulse-pounding 130 minutes of pure excitement, here are some samples from The Fast and Furious 6 Children's Story and Adventure Book. Because all roads lead to this! (They really don't).

Posted by Rick Chillot

The Limerick: A Brief History

 One of the first limericks known to man. Note the obscenity in line two.

Sunday, May 12, is National Limerick Day, an event traditionally celebrated by dressing like Edward Lear and rhyming things with Nantucket. But for all the hallowed tradition surrounding this beloved poetic form, most of us know precious little about the limerick and how it became such a popular from of rhymery. So this weekend, while you’re out mailing limerick cards and singing limerick carols and visiting the nuclear power plant in Limerick, PA, take a moment to ponder the storied history of this simple but profound method of expressing life’s truths.

Posted by Rick Chillot

Game-of-Thrones-ify Your Name with the Power of Palaeography!

Admit it: you wish your name were more interesting. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but a Daenerys just wouldn’t sound as awesome if she were a Dana (no offense, of course, to the Danas of the world—I’m sure you’re all lovely people).

Westerosians get names full of weird letters and strange spellings, but we normals are saddled with names that are…kinda boring. Luckily, English has a vast, rich, and totally weird history of being spelled completely differently, once upon a time. Forget your first pet’s name or the name of the street where you grew up—all you need to spiff up your moniker are a few forgotten graphemes. Swap out the appropriate sounds in your name for their ancient equivalent and you’ll be mistaken for an Enya album in no time.

Posted by Blair Thornburgh

Quirk Books Launching Normal Books, A New Imprint

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 1, 2013

QUIRK BOOKS GOES “NORMAL.”

Quirk Books, the independent publisher known for its irreverent reference guides and innovative works of fiction, has gone and done the unexpected once again. Effective immediately, the company is launching a new imprint that will give readers exactly what they expect. Book-lovers of the world, meet Normal Books.

"We think that becoming more conventional is truly the most 'strikingly unconventional' move we could make," says President and Publisher David Borgenicht. "Readers have come to expect the unexpected from us, and I'm pretty sure no one was expecting this."

The Normal Books imprint will offer a completely retooled frontlist of regular, completely straightforward books, with titles including Breakfast for Breakfast, Miss Peregrine's Home for Regular Children, and Pride and Prejudice without Zombies.

This groundbreaking, daringly creative move was engineered with readers in mind, says Associate Publisher and Creative Director Jason Rekulak. "We’re convinced there’s an audience out there that craves the same-old, same-old,” he says. “We're excited to stop pushing the envelope, and start nudging it back into the desk drawer next to the pens and rubber bands." The concept is expected to yield a more manageable workflow as well. “The sales reps have been clamoring for less buzzworthy titles,” notes Moneka Hewlett, Senior Sales Director.

Besides its new catalog of traditional print titles, Normal Books intends to release all subsequent books in eBook format: as plain text with no pictures and in a single small, non-dynamic font. Says Vice President Brett Cohen: "In the digital age, Normal Books will be square in the middle of the pack when it comes to using new, innovative technology. There’s no need to show off."

Below are the titles that Normal Books will be releasing in the coming months:

Posted by Rick Chillot

IT’S DR. SEUSS’S BIRTHDAY AND BAM! YOU’VE JUST BEEN SEUSSED!

That’s right: March 2, 1904, is the birthday of Dr. Seuss, a.k.a Theodore Seuss Geisel.

We’re lucky to live in a word that contains The Cat in the Hat, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Horton Hears a Who, and all the other frub-bubbulous books of Dr. Seuss… but have you ever wondered what it would be like in a world in which every book was written by Dr. Seuss? Probably not, because you use your brain for other things.

But in honor of the man who proved that a fox can indeed walk around in socks, we’ve used the Quirk Books Literary Atom-Smasher to bring you these well-known opening lines from a few great works of literature, as Dr. Seuss might have improved them. Enjoy!

from A Tale of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Two Cities
by Dr. Seuss

Best times,
Worst times,
Wise times,
Blurst times.

Blue times,
Light times,
Fool times,
Night times.

These peasants don’t have anything,
Those nobles have their gold and rings.
But look, here comes the guillotine.

What happens at the guillotine?
I don’t know, go ask the king.

from Green Eggs and Ham and Ulysses
By Dr. Seuss

-I am Buck.
-Buck I am.
-Stately, plump Buck Mulligan
-Do you like green eggs and ham?
-Tell me something, Mulligan,

-Won’t you make Haines go away?
Introibo ad altare Dei.
-I do not like green eggs and ham,
-I do not like them, Mulligan.

-I will not eat them while you shave,
-I will not eat them in a cave.
-I will not eat them when it rains
-I will not eat them with that Haines
-I will not eat them in a shed
-And by the way, my mom’s still dead.

from Oh, The Places Moby Dick Will Go, or Horton Hears A Whale
by Dr. Seuss

A long time ago in a New England town,
Horton the Elephant wandered around.
His mood went from glum to gloomy to worse,
He hadn’t a single coin left in his purse.
He thought that the only solution would be
To take a long voyage out on the sea.
When all of the sudden he heard a small cry
From a speck of dust spiraling down from the sky.
“How odd,” Horton said, “But I’ll answer that call,”
“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
“Who are you?” he asked it, “And where do you dwell?”
And then a voice said, “Call me Ishmael.”

from The Moof-Merkulous Metamorphosis of Bartholomew Cubbins
By Dr. Seuss

The sun has come up
But this man’s still in bed
It seems that he barely
Can lift up his head.

He tries to roll over
And onto the rug
But finds out he’s somehow
Turned into a bug.

“I’m a roach,” moans the man
“Somehow I’ve have changed.
The parts of my body
are all rearranged!”

“My legs are all wiggly,
And six is too many.
My head is now topped with
Long, pointy antennae.”

“I look like a cockroach!
I feel like a jerk!
And the worst thing of all is
I’ll be late for work!”

Posted by Rick Chillot

Horse eBooks: You’ve Followed The Twitter Account, Now Buy The Shirts

Oh, Horse_ebooks. You are easily my favorite Twitter account.

Unfamiliar with it? Horse_ebooks is a Twitter spambot designed to sell… that’s right, eBooks about horses. The account spews out a seemingly endless amount of randomly generated text and sometimes, just sometimes, an actual line from a book. The tweets are hilarious and have spawned webcomics, fan fiction, and now, thanks to some guys here in our hometown of Philadelphia, t-shirts.

Born from their mutual love for Horse_ebooks, Philadelphians Adam Teterus, Aaron Grando, and Brett Strycharz decided to pay homage to their favorite Twitter account with finely-crafted fashion tees that subtly nod to the source. The name of the product line? Horse_elooks.

Their company, What Say Co., currently has three Horse_elooks shirts up for grabs, my favorite of which is pictured above. Head over to the official What Say Co. website to scope out the rest.

Well done, gentlemen!

Posted by Eric Smith