Books

Crackpots
The Sunset Merchants
Beyond Vengeance
Organ Donor
The Ninth River
The Ninth River
Quest for Tularosa
Twisted Dragons Devil's Disciples
Twisted Dragons Devil's Disciples
The Conjugal Wife
The Giant
The Giant
Diplomatic Intrigue
Sangre De Cristo
Playing Hurt
The Reluctant Cocaine Runner
Another Body In The Lake
Another Body In The Lake
Highpocket's War Stories
Highpocket's War Stories
Boston / Moscow Connection
Forgiveness of Sins
Strike at the Heart
Strike at the Heart
Curse of the Bracelet

Average customer rating:

John Waters is hilarious!
A great book by the infamous writer, director, pruducer,actor...................... John Waters.

Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters
John Waters
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Essays | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Satire, General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Direction & Production | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Essays | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Art Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Entertainment Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste
Filthy: The Weird World of John Waters
Art: A Sex Book
Divine Trash
John Waters: Unwatchable

ASIN: 0743246276

Book Description

Crackpot, originally released in 1986, is John Waters' brilliantly entertaining litany of odd and fascinationg people, places and things. From Baltimore to Los Angeles, from William Castle to Pia Zadora, from the National Enquirer to Ronald Reagan's colon, Waters explores the depths of our culture. And he dispenses useful advice along the way: how not to make a movie, how to become famous (read: infamous), and of course, how to most effectively shock and make our nation's public laugh at the same time. Loaded with bonus features, this new special edition is guaranteed to leave you totally mental.

Customer Reviews:

John Waters is hilarious!.......2007-04-17

I just finished reading Crackpot last week, and it kept me entertained from beginning to end. I'm not an avid reader, so being able to get through any book is usually impossible for me, no matter what the length. Not only was the book nice and short, but John Waters really does know how to keep your attention. His writings are a great compliment to his films and I can't wait to read Shock Value! I love you, John!

A great book by the infamous writer, director, pruducer,actor...................... John Waters........2006-08-11

A great entertaining litany of odd and fascinating people, places, and things from John Waters home in baltimore to his favorite vacation point in los angeles.

Average customer rating:

Not a Serious Bone in His Body
Playing With The Prince Of Puke
Walking on Waters
Memorabilia
John Waters Rules!

Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters
John Waters
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Essays | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Direction & Production | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Entertainment Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Reference Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste
Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste
Filthy: The Weird World of John Waters
Desperate Visions: Camp America: The Films of John Waters & George & Mike Kuchar ((Desperate Visions Ser.: the Journal of Alternative Cinema; Vol. 1))
Pink Flamingoes and Other Filth: Three Screenplays by John Waters

ASIN: 0394755340
Release Date: 1987-09-12

Book Description

This hilarious collection of essays by the offbeat writer and director is a treat for fans of the "Pope of Trash" and the perfect introduction for those who have not yet discovered his eccentric charms.

Customer Reviews:

Not a Serious Bone in His Body.......2004-05-20

First, let me say that this book should have more universal appeal than do his movies. We all know that his movies are just too gross for some people to stomach, but there's nothing here that any adult reader should find offensive. If you enjoy homorous writing, a la Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Joe Queenan, David Sedaris, etc., you should find this little volume right up your alley.

Waters displays an acerbic, eccentric, but highly insightful comic sensibility. There are fifteen short pieces here, which first appeared in various magazines during the mid '80s, primarily NATIONAL LAMPOON (When it was still funny) and AMERICAN FILM.

The book opens with a bang, in one of the funniest pieces, "John Waters tour of L.A." Needless to say, this is not the L.A Chamber of Commerce "official guide." He takes us to some of the seamier sights, including the spot on Hollywood Boulevard where you can catch "the legless, one-armed white guy who break-dances on the street for horrified families as they stroll up the Walk of Fame." He also offers some timely,timeless advice for when you're driving around L.A: "Never look at pedestrians; they're the sad faces of L.A., the ones who had their licenses revoked for driving while impaired."

There really aren't too many weak entries in the collection. He does go a bit over the top in his rhapsodizing of Pia Zadora, perhaps, in an article devoted to that queen of glitz, but one comes to expect "over the top" from Waters. Who would want it any other way? He's also very much the exaggerator when it comes to his likes, "Puff Piece (100 Things I Love)and his dislikes: "Hatchet Piece (100 Things I Hate)." Amongst the things he most admires are Supermarket Tabloids: "Then I gazed at the great LAS VEGAS SUN wire-photo of a giant ostrich, escaped from a zoo chasing a totally bewildered middle-aged woman down the street. Every time I see her horrified expression, the creative juices start to flow." Not content with this passing mention, he writes an entire article entitled WHY I LOVE THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER as a paean to that fine bastion of journalistic integrity.

Some of Waters' images do convey a bit more of the "so banal it's hysterical" quality of his movies, as when he conjures up "a fancy Santa," in a piece called WHY I LOVE CHRISTMAS.
"Why hasn't Bloomingdales or Tiffany's tried a fancy Santa? Deathly pale, this never-too-thin-or-too-rich Kris Kringle, dressed in head-to-toe unstructured, oversize Armani, could pose on a throne, bored and elegant, and every so often deign to let a rich little brat sit NEAR his lap before dismissing his wishes with a condescending 'Oh darling, you dont REALLY want that, do you?" I mean, really, wouldn't you just love to have John Waters' private phone number and be able to shoot the breeze with him about popular culture? No!! you say? Well then this book's not for you. However, if you enjoy mordant, biting wit, and a breezy, conversational style of writing, this book is definitely for you. It was sent me by a friend. I'm going to be sending a few copies out to other friends now. Who knows, maybe we could start a John Waters cult?

BEK

Playing With The Prince Of Puke.......2001-06-06

This is the book that piqued my intrest in John Waters over ten years ago before I could even be called a teenager.

For a man with such a reputation for being "filthy, perverse, trashy, etc., etc., etc.", this book ggives the reader a delightful gllimpse into his bouyant and often child like mind. Whether raving over meeting with Pia Zadora, listing the events of a truly hellish day, or giving a guided tour of Los Angeles as only he can, he guides the reader along in a cheerful skip, full of bounce and frolick.

Even for one who's unfamiliar with his films, this book is a light, quick read sure to entertain and provide laughs, crating a vivid and lovable image of the man known to so many as "The Prince Of Puke"

Walking on Waters.......2000-11-22

I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me. Take a look at ..... site regarding the first chapter of Crackpot. It is as wild as the book. Many of the links are gone, but many are still there. Loved this book.

Memorabilia.......2000-07-09

This collection of essays is one of the most compulsively readable, and re-readable, books I have ever owned. I was drawn to it, as you might expect, by my enjoyment of Waters' camp classics. But to be honest, I enjoy Waters the essayist at least as much, if not more, than Waters the filmmaker. Waters' films, and particularly Pecker, Serial Mom, and Hairspray, set the scene for the miscellany of obsessions which animate this book. Crackpot offers a comforting way to understand Waters' recent turn to a more conventional cinematic venue: these films are *also* celebrations of his passionate likes (and dislikes).

Waters writes a witty and acerbic prose, which conveys genuine passion for his obsessions, obsessions which include trials, the National Enquirer, Woody Allen's Interiors, dangerous candy, menthol cigarettes, and Christmas. His preferred methods seem to be the catalogue and the reminiscence: Waters' list of 101 things he hates, and 101 things he loves, are obsessive ruminations on the everyday, and Waters' methodical survey of his everyday touches gives new meaning to the sublime *and* the ridiculous. Most memorable to me, perhaps, is his LA Tour, a pre-OJ intinerary of murder, mayhem, and showbiz, and his loving tribute to the Enquirer. But his celebration of William Castle, or shame-faced coming out as a fan of avant garde, his ritualistic account of Christmas and his loving descriptions of his interests, home, and personal history all make for a case study of obsession that feels both candid and arch, in Waters' inimitable, and paradoxical way. If you read it once, you're going to read it again.

John Waters Rules!.......2000-04-30

This is absolutely the funniest book that ,Baltimore Bad Boy, John Waters has ever wrote! This book made me laugh out loud several times to the point that I'm sure my significant other may have harbored thoughts about having me committed.

Crackpot: A Novel (New Canadian Library)

Average customer rating:

Okay

Crackpot: A Novel (New Canadian Library)
Adele Wiseman
Manufacturer: New Canadian Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0771098510
Release Date: 1989-03-01

Book Description

Hoda, the protagonist of Crackpot, is one of the most captivating characters in Canadian fiction. Graduating from a tumultuous childhood to a life of prostitution, she becomes a legend in her neighbourhood, a canny and ingenious woman, generous, intuitive, and exuding a wholesome lust for life.

Resonant with myth and superstition, this radiant novel is a joyous celebration of life and the mystery that is at the heart of all experience.

Customer Reviews:

Okay.......2007-05-13

I really didn't like this story. I grew bored with the story

Average customer rating:

Sara - Please write another book for us !
this book was crazy
Incredible!
innovative and fun
so worthwhile I read it twice

Crackpots: A Novel
Sara Pritchard
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Divorce | Women's Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Lately
Christine Falls: A Novel
Alright, Still
The Post-Birthday World
On Chesil Beach: A Novel

ASIN: 061830245X

Book Description

When we first meet Ruby Reese she's a spunky kid in a cowgirl hat, tap dancing her way through a slightly off-kilter 1950s childhood. With an insomniac mother and a demolitions-expert father, her entire family is what the residents of her small town would call "a bunch of crackpots." Despite the dramas of her upbringing, Ruby matures into a creative, introspective, and wholly beguiling woman. But her adulthood is marked by complex relationships and romantic missteps -- three unsuitable marriages, dramatic crushes, the complicated love between siblings. As Sara Pritchard deftly guides us through Ruby's story, from the present to the past and back again, a portrait of a remarkably resilient woman emerges. Suffused with humor and melancholy, imagination and insight, Crackpots heralds the debut of a skilled and sensitive storyteller.

Customer Reviews:

Sara - Please write another book for us !.......2006-03-27

This book was impossible to put down. I was sad when it ended - I knew I'd miss Ruby terribly. I had the good fortune to take it with me on vacation and enjoy it non-stop......however, I begrudged the time when I had to put it down and watch Old Faithful! Please Sara, write another book......I can't wait to read your next book!

this book was crazy.......2005-10-30

I liked and didnt like this book.
Its about Ruby, a woman who goes through a bad childhood, and an abusive marriage, and then gets married again.
It was really sad that she had all these dysfunctional adults in her life when she was little, and I think the author kept the story going with her dysfunctional adulthood.
I liked it all in all because it switches through her life sporatically so you have to keep reading to put all the parts together.

Incredible!.......2004-10-05

Sara Pritchard writes the words that you think but don't always record or say while you're experiencing your life. She still sees a five- or six-year-old's simple (and sometimes erroneous) comprehension of things adults don't explain to children, and brings Ruby into adulthood and midlife with the same complex thoughts we all have during the harsh realities of life. I found this book to be simultaneously provoking and enlightening, and couldn't put it down until I finished reading it.

innovative and fun.......2004-05-11

Sara Pritchard's Crackpots reminds me of a line from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five: "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." Ruby Reese, too, has come unstuck. Crackpots is a novel about her life, that starts at her birth in 1950 and ends on December 31, 1999. The path between is anything but straight. The novel jumps from memories of Ruby's childhood to her marriage to an abusive man, back to childhood, forward to a second marriage. Ruby, Pritchard's fictionalized version of herself, has lead a full life by the time she is fifty: she loses most of her family to either death or addiction, gets married three times, gets divorced three times, and owns at least three people's share of pets. As the time shifts, so too the narrative technique as Pritchard alternately employs first, second, and third person narration as Ruby matures. These innovations are interesting and, for the most part, work well, the one exeption being mild annoyance at reading "you walk down the hall," or "you see your mother." This book is funny, and a good fast read. It is a solid debut novel, and I truly hope Ms. Pritchard can avoid the autobiographical writers trap: a lack of subject for a second book after they've written out their lives.

so worthwhile I read it twice.......2004-05-02

Sara Pritchard's skill in linking words is so excellent it's almost distracting. Because of this, I immediately turned to page one and started reading the book again once I read the last page. I enjoyed it possibly even more the second time.

It's not a fast read, which is fine, because it gives you time to savour her words, sentences, and stories.

Average customer rating:

Publisher notes:
Entertaining Read

Crackpot Manifesto
Michael Roger Rogers
Manufacturer: War's Over Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 097002441X

Book Description

A guide to intelligent insanity. (taking into consideration the consequences of being sane)

Customer Reviews:

Publisher notes:.......2006-10-22

In this new book from Michael Roger Rogers conducts a very personal tour through the philosophic foundations of human life and the physical realities of our time. In chapters that cover the gamut of human experience -- from art to science, politics to diet, travel to the extremes of the imagination -- Crackpot Manifesto sticks a rapier tongue into swollen cheek of our preconceptions and winks in the direction of the herd of sacred cows we call "conventional wisdom."

Entertaining Read.......2004-12-23

I'll tell you what. This book is an enthralling read, a smorgasbord of ideas and thoughtbombs that will wrap you up in sheer absurdity as well as strange plausibility. Read this if you wan't your worldview tilted about seven degrees on it's axis.

Let's Talk Flying Saucers: How Crackpot Ideas Are Blinding Us to Reality and Leading Us to Extinction

Average customer rating:

Excellent book

Let's Talk Flying Saucers: How Crackpot Ideas Are Blinding Us to Reality and Leading Us to Extinction
Peter Bros
Manufacturer: FBP
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Similar Items:

On the Trail of the Saucer Spies: Ufos And Government Surveillance
Hidden Truth: Forbidden Knowledge
Extraterrestrial Contact: The Evidence and Implications

ASIN: 1930091001

Book Description

As the stars of the galaxy sprang into light, planets orbiting tens of thousands of them evolved life, inhabitants that developed concepts of force and motion that allowed them to reach the stars, forming a galactic community. On some of the planets, however, the development of life was interrupted by catastrophes. The inhabitants of a few of those plants never quite recovered. The new concepts they evolved to deal with the physical world were rooted in fear and based on spiritual belief. Instead of going back and addressing the questions of force and motion that would allow them to reach the stars, they devised excuses to hug the planet, claiming that the most prevalent force, gravity, was a mystical property of matter like color and hardness, which no mind could comprehend and the force that caused planets to orbit and rotate was not even a current force, but an historical force that no longer existed. Refusing to confront the reality that surrounded them, the life that evolved on these backward planets was fated to die in place, sociological curiosities, short stops on the galactic tour of failed civilizations.

Flying saucers are a metaphor for the scientific prohibition against discussing the possible while the crackpot ideas refer, not to flying saucers, but to the scientific concepts that underlie the claim that they don't exist.

Let's Talk Flying Saucers systematically dissects the unfounded laws, built up over the last 400 years, that ignore the basic questions of force and motion, imprisoning gravity, the most dynamic force in the universe, as a static property of matter like color and hardness and consigning the most powerful force, the force that moves the planets, to the dustbin of history.

The reason that the scientific community refuses to talk possibilities is that flying saucers fly in the face of every concept it defends as law. If flying saucers exist, then everything science is telling us is wrong, the distance to the stars, the speed limits in space, the nature of gravity as a property of matter, the straight-line motion of the planets. If we were to start talking about the possibilities of flying saucers, then we might well start asking the scientific establishment obvious questions like, on what did Newton base his proof of gravity as a property of matter or what makes the sun come up in the morning, another way to ask what makes the planet revolve on its axis.

Let's Talk Flying Saucers examines every one of the scientific establishment's unfounded myths, the very myths that prevent flying saucers from existing, and then presents the galaxy as it probably is, with life teeming on thousands of planets exploring every aspect of the universe our scientists, with their ancient laws, their conceptual blindness and their unwillingness to examine reality, make off-limits to us because, without concepts of the possible, we cannot engineer our future.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent book.......2004-05-01

Although Bros has a somewhat boring and occasionally pedantic writing style, he is extremely bright and uses logic not so much like a scalpel as like a hammer. One of the few thinkers writing today who really has something insightful and new to offer.

Average customer rating:

Crackpot Weekly Calendar 2007
H. Hellige
Manufacturer: Gestalten Verlag
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Calendars | Formats | Books
Similar Items:

Illusive: Contemporary Illustration And Its Context

ASIN: 3899551567

Book Description

Crackpot 2007

Our original calendar returns for the fourth year with its cutting edge selection of contemporary characters and illustrations. In the now familiar format - with a different image each week - we have made a choice selection from our roster of international designers to make sure Crackpot will provide you with inspiration as it guides you through 2007.

Crackpot or Genius?: A Complete Guide to the Uncommon Art of Inventing

Average customer rating:

Worst book I've ever read!

Crackpot or Genius?: A Complete Guide to the Uncommon Art of Inventing
Francis D. Reynolds
Manufacturer: Chicago Review Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General & Reference | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books

Patents & Inventions | Engineering | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1556521936

Customer Reviews:

Worst book I've ever read!.......1999-01-02

It is a real glum book and gives a false impression of thepotential for intellectual property and inventors. He is right thatmost inventions don't make money for the inventors. But this is due to many factors --mostly business and/or marketing skills. Surprisingly, his attitude is typical of some members of inventor's groups. The type that can never get anything off the ground. Who always come up with reasons why something can't be done and if can be done it isn't practical, and it can be done and is practical it shouldn't be done. Why they become members of inventor's associations I'll never know. Perhaps it is just to rain on someone's parade. I would advise people to not waste their money on this book.

ANALOG - Science Fact and Fiction - Volume 17, number 3 - British Edition - March 1961: Occasion for Disaster; Oomphel in the Sky; The Crackpot; The Piebald Horse; Sunspot; The Dean Device

Average customer rating:

ANALOG - Science Fact and Fiction - Volume 17, number 3 - British Edition - March 1961: Occasion for Disaster; Oomphel in the Sky; The Crackpot; The Piebald Horse; Sunspot; The Dean Device
John W. (editor) (Mark Phillips; H. Beam Piper; Theodore L. Thomas; E. C. Tubb; Hal Clement) Campbell
Manufacturer: Street and Smith - Atlas Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ICHDGE

THE WORLD'S GREATEST CRANKS AND CRACKPOTS

Average customer rating:

THE WORLD'S GREATEST CRANKS AND CRACKPOTS
MARGARET NICHOLAS
Manufacturer: Unknown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000SI47QM

Books:

Books