In the follow-up to his debut book, Chutin' the Bull, Mark George returns with a new collection of short pieces which some say strain the definition of humor. "Why do you keep putting out this drivel?" asked one critic. Is snoring legitimate as grounds for divorce? What if the offending party is a super-model? What do you mean her looks don't matter? What will Batman do when Gotham enacts strict gun-control measures? How do teacher and parents work together to stop their teenage son who self-identifies as a ninja warrior, internet-trained and fully armed? For answers to these penetrating questions join Mark George in his noble quest to understand human and animal behavior, tilting at windmills as only he can.

A lively study of the story behind the creation of the classic tale of Don Quixote follows the trials and tribulations of Cervantes just as he begins to enjoy success with his comic masterpiece, as he discovers that his fictional hero has an all-too-real counterpart, a rival poet plots to humiliate him, and he falls in love with an unattainable duchess. A first novel. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Columns the author wrote for Comics Retailer magazine.

This lyrical debut novel celebrates the joys and tears of love lost and found, and of a life renewed--in a most unexpected place. . . At thirty-four, Brian Duncan has it all. A trendy Manhattan life, a high-powered PR job, and a gorgeous fiancée with an exciting future of her own. Then, in a single moment of deception, Brian's world crumbles. Bitterly betrayed, he decides to toss away all he has worked for. Irresistibly drawn to the road, he leaves the city's busy streets behind. . . On a hillside along New York's Hudson River Valley, Brian is transfixed by the beauty of an enormous windmill. Running toward it is a lovely little girl and her alluring mother, Annie Sullivan, who owns the windmill. The two strike a chord in Brian's heart and soon he discovers the small-town charms of Linden Corners--and of Annie, whose elusive quality matches his own questions about life. And as their relationship deepens into passion, through the force of nature and the hand of fate, Brian will learn that love comes in unexpected ways. Pittman's debut novel is a feel-good fantasy. . . a nice feel for pace and place."--Publishers Weekly

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An epic Don Quixote for the modern age, “a brilliant, funny, world-encompassing wonder” (Time) from internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE • “Lovely, unsentimental, heart-affirming . . . a remembrance of what holds our human lives in some equilibrium—a way of feeling and a way of telling. Love and language.”—Jeanette Winterson, The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME AND NPR Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, a courtly, addled salesman obsessed with television who falls in impossible love with a TV star. Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand, gallantly braving the tragicomic perils of an age where “Anything-Can-Happen.” Meanwhile, his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own. Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirize the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of Rushdie’s work, the fully realized lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction. Praise for Quichotte “Brilliant . . . a perfect fit for a moment of transcontinental derangement.”—Financial Times “Quichotte is one of the cleverest, most enjoyable metafictional capers this side of postmodernism. . . . The narration is fleet of foot, always one step ahead of the reader—somewhere between a pinball machine and a three-dimensional game of snakes and ladders. . . . This novel can fly, it can float, it’s anecdotal, effervescent, charming, and a jolly good story to boot.”—The Sunday Times “Quichotte [is] an updating of Cervantes’s story that proves to be an equally complicated literary encounter, jumbling together a chivalric quest, a satire on Trump’s America and a whole lot of postmodern playfulness in a novel that is as sharp as a flick-knife and as clever as a barrel of monkeys. . . . This is a novel that feeds the heart while it fills the mind.”—The Times (UK)

These essays are gleaned from articles published in Wichita Falls Medicine, the Wichita Falls Times Record News, Private Practice, and one from the unlikely pages of the Archives of Internal Medicine. I threw out some I thought were awful. Other than that exercise in self-protection, they flew from the computer in no particular order. I chose them if they made me smile.

Andy Miller is a sports atheist. The beautiful game, the roar of the crowd, winning, losing, taking part - these mean nothing to him. But at thirty he is worried. He thinks he's turning into a bit of a crank. So Andy decides that he must try to love sport - and just maybe it will love him back. He shivers for a season in the stands at QPR, braves the queues at Wimbledon, stays (reasonably) sober at the Boat Race, gets his money's worth at a WWF event. But to really show his commitment, he takes up the one sport now dear to his heart - crazy golf. Dreaming of putting glory, he heads for Europe and the International circuit. No one can accuse him of being a crank now . . .

"This book presents a composite picture of the richness of proverbs as significant expressions of folk wisdom as is manifest from their appearance in art, culture, folklore, history, literature, and the mass media. The book draws attention to the fact that proverbs as metaphorical signs continue to play an important role in oral and written communication. Proverbs as so-called monumenta humana are omnipresent in all facets of life, and while they are neither sacrosanct nor saccharine, they usually offer much common sense or wisdom based on recurrent experiences and observations."--BOOK JACKET.

A self-proclaimed knight Señor Quexada has read so many books about knights in shining armor that he thinks he is one. He gives himself a name more fitting for a knight -- Don Quixote -- and sets off one evening with his squire. At dawn they come across what Don Quixote recognizes as an army of monstrous giants. "Master!" cries Sancho Panza. "They are only windmills!" But Don Quixote knows what he has to do . . . Don Quixote is the creation of the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Eric A. Kimmel skillfully and cleverly crystallizes the character, and with his powerful line and vibrant color Leonard Everett Fisher completes the funny, loving portrait.