Are you ready for something Absolutely Absurd? The tenth book in Ripley’s wildly successful Curioddities series offers more than 1,200 incredible stories of the hard to believe, the hard to swallow, and the hard to miss! From Romeo, a Bengal cat who rides a skateboard, to musician Oz Bayldon’s super-cool gig at the 21,825-foot summit of Mera Peak in the Himalayas, you won’t believe the jaw-dropping facts, stories, and photos contained in every one of this book’s 384 full-color pages. From cover to cover, Absolutely Absurd! is filled to the brim with Ripley’s fun for all ages. Welcome to Ripley’s world of the Absolutely Absurd! This brand-new installment in the bestselling Curioddities series features even more of the amazing stories, astounding full-color photos, and incredible facts Ripley’s is famous for. Is pop culture your thing? Discover Lord of the Rings fan Jeremy Telford’s very own Hobbit Hole—which he built out of 2,600 balloons! Love animals? Meet Buddy, the five legged and five-pawed dog! From food to sports and everything in between, you’ll find something to amaze and astound you on every one of this book’s 384 pages. A must-have for Ripley fans and perfect for reluctant readers of all ages, you won’t believe what you’ll find in Absolutely Absurd!

There's a new rumor in town. Someone has discovered an item that proves life on other planets exists, and they've been hiding it on a base called Zone 91, the most secret place on Earth. Cassie and the other Animorphs already know about life on other planets. Too well. Their enemies the Yeerks will try to access Zone 91, to find out if what's there will threaten their mission to conquer to the planet. So the Animorphs decide to pay Zone 91 and the Yeerks a little visit. But what they discover is not at all what they expect.

Frankie Vane was a hand-me-down kid. After both his parents skipped out on him, he was shuffled off to one unwanting relative to the next until he ran out of relatives at age seventeen and had to spend one year in an orphanage. At age eighteen, he began to have some success until the draft and World War II interfered and cost him three years fighting the Germans. After the war, he resumed his career only to have it end when someone murders him. He comes back from the dead to find out who and why and even manages to find love, which he never had before, along the way.

Following three teenagers who chose to spend one school year living in Finland, South Korea, and Poland, a literary journalist recounts how attitudes, parenting, and rigorous teaching have revolutionized these countries' education results.

Alien and Philosophy: I Infest, Therefore I Am presents a philosophical exploration of the world of Alien, the simultaneously horrifying and thought-provoking sci-fi horror masterpiece, and the film franchise it spawned. The first book dedicated to exploring the philosophy raised by one of the most successful and influential sci-fi franchises of modern times Features contributions from an acclaimed team of scholars of philosophy and pop culture, led by highly experienced volume editors Explores a huge range of topics that include the philosophy of fear, Just Wars, bio-weaponry, feminism and matriarchs, perfect killers, contagion, violation, employee rights and Artificial Intelligence Includes coverage of H.R. Giger’s aesthetics, the literary influences of H.P. Lovecraft, sci-fi and the legacy of Vietnam, and much more!

This volume attempts to throw fresh light on two areas of Benjamin Franklin’s intellectual world, namely: his self-fashioning and his political thought. It is an odd thing that for all of Franklin’s voluminous writings—a fantastically well-documented correspondence over many years, scientific treatises that made his name amongst the brightest minds of Europe, newspaper articles, satires, and of course his signature on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution—and yet scholars debate how to get at his political thought, indeed, if he had any political philosophy at all. It could be argued, that he is perhaps the American Founder most closely associated with the Enlightenment. Similarly, for a man who left so much evidence about his life as a printer, bookseller, postmaster, inventor, diplomat, politician, scientist, among other professions, one who wrote an autobiography that has become a piece of American national literature and, indeed, a contribution to world culture, the question of who Ben Franklin continues to engage scholars and those who read about his life. His identity seems so stable that we associate it with certain virtues that apply to the way we live our lives, time management, for example. The image of the stable figure of Franklin is applied to create a sense of trust in everything from financial institutions to plumbers. His constant drive to improve and fashion himself reveal, however, a man whose identity was not static and fixed, but was focused on growth, on bettering his understanding of himself and the world he lived in and attempted to influence and improve.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2015 'Unsettling, deeply moving and very, very readable. I loved it' NATHAN FILER, The Shock of the Fall 'A striking and highly enjoyable debut' SOPHIE HANNAH Yasmin would give anything to have a friend . . . And do anything to keep one. The first time I saw you, you were standing at the far end of the playing field. You were looking down at your brown straggly dog, but then you looked up, your mouth going slack as your eyes clocked her. Alice Taylor. I was no different. I used to catch myself gazing at the back of her head in class, at her silky fair hair swaying between her shoulder blades. If you'd glanced just once across the field you'd have seen me standing in the middle on my own, looking straight at you, and you'd have gone back through the trees to the path quick, tugging your dog after you. You'd have known you'd given yourself away, even if only to me. But you didn't. You only had eyes for Alice.