Nerd Do Well

From a filthy flat in Tufnell Park to the starship Enterprise, it's fair to say that Simon Pegg's career didn't go quite the way he expected. Zombies in North London, death cults in the West Country, a warp engine beyond the final frontier: Simon Pegg has been ploughing some bizarre furrows in recent times. Having blasted onto the small screens with his now legendary sitcom Spaced, his rise to the status of the nation's favourite son has been mercurial, meteoric, megatronnic, but mostly just plain great. From his childhood (and subsequently adult) obsession with Star Wars, his often passionate friendship with Nick Frost, and his forays into stand-up which began with his regular Monday morning slot in front of his 12-year-old classmates, this is a joyous tale of a homegrown superstar and a local boy made good. CONTENT WARNING: This book features discussion of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, a film which some readers may find distressing.

"I love you, Easton. You are not dumb, but frankly, I am way better than you." What is a nerd? Someone who loves books for leisure? Someone who wears oversized glasses? Someone who is a loner? Maybe... maybe not. Meet Neveah Gail Huber, proud nerd of Alger High School. Don't let her title fool you. She is fierce, bold, outspoken, and competitive AF with a whole ton of ego to spare. She is alone by choice. If you lack brains, she won't look at you. Meet Easton Eugene Dale, almighty jerk of the school and resident heartthrob. He and his jock squad rule the school corridors by day and the woods by night. Breed to be the next alpha of his werewolf pack, he gets what he wants whenever he wants. Everyone loves him, but he loves none. Neveah had it all planned out- impress the teachers with her superior intelligence, graduate on top of the class, and whip Easton and company's bums. She wants everything to be orderly and logical that way, but destiny seems to have other ideas. What will happen when the fates pair them together? Will little miss witty be as sharp when her "reality" bubble bursts, and she is thrown into the world of the unexplainable? Will this human and werewolf pair hit it off despite a not-so-good past?

An engaging study of the nerd in American popular culture and throughout history discussed in such contexts as the rise of online gaming, the science fiction club, ethnicity, Asperger's syndrome, autism, and high school and college debating.

Ambrose Bukowski is a twelve-year-old with a talent for mismatching his clothes, for saying the wrong thing at the worst possible time, and for words. In short, he’s a self-described nerd. Making friends is especially hard because he and his overprotective mother, Irene, have had to move so often. And when bullies at his latest school almost kill him by deliberately slipping a peanut into his sandwich to set off his allergy, it's his mother who has the extreme reaction. From now on, Ambrose has to be home-schooled. Then Ambrose strikes up an unlikely friendship with the landlord's son, Cosmo, an ex-con who's been in prison. They have nothing in common except for Scrabble. But a small deception grows out of control when Ambrose convinces a reluctant Cosmo to take him to a Scrabble club. Could this spell disaster for Ambrose?

Trudy Swenson, haunted by her German heritage, embarks upon a deeper investigation of her past and uncovers secrets her mother has kept hidden for five decades.

Not even an heiress is guaranteed the guy of her dreams, but do I really have to get stuck with the one I hate? My media mogul father has a mission for me--get the scoop on Alex, the private, guarded teenage running phenom...or else. He didn't actually say 'or else,' but trust me, it was implied. If my new nonprofit endeavor stands a chance of seeing the light of day, I need to keep my father happy, and that means taking this reporter gig over my high school's winter break. It shouldn't be all that hard. Make nice with the arrogant athlete, ask a few questions...get in, get answers, get out. That might've been the plan except that our first meeting was a tad...epic. It might have involved a kiss. And tears. And a little matter of mistaken identity. No big whoop. Nothing I can't handle, it's just...this interview would be so much easier to ace if my questions didn't keep ending in kisses.

Risky Business. Revenge of the Nerds. Better Off Dead. Moonlighting. Supernatural. American Dad. New Girl. What do all of these movies and television shows have in common? Curtis Armstrong. A legendary comedic second banana to a litany of major stars, Curtis is forever cemented in the public imagination as Booger from Revenge of the Nerds. A classically trained actor, Curtis began his incredible 40-year career on stage but progressed rapidly to film and television. He was typecast early and it proved to be the best thing that could have happened. But there’s more to Curtis’ story than that. Born and bred a nerd, he spent his early years between Detroit, a city so nerdy that the word was coined there in 1951, and, improbably, Geneva, Switzerland. His adolescence and early adulthood was spent primarily between the covers of a book and indulging his nerdy obsessions. It was only when he found his true calling, as an actor and unintentional nerd icon, that he found true happiness. With whip-smart, self-effacing humor, Armstrong takes us on a most unlikely journey—one nerd’s hilarious, often touching rise to the middle. He started his life as an outcast and matured into...well, an older, slightly paunchier, hopefully wiser outcast. In Hollywood, as in life, that counts as winning the game.

A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy featuring kilted musicians, Renaissance Faire tavern wenches, and an unlikely love story. LibraryReads Pick Stacey is jolted when her friends Simon and Emily get engaged. She knew she was putting her life on hold when she stayed in Willow Creek to care for her sick mother, but it's been years now, and even though Stacey loves spending her summers pouring drinks and flirting with patrons at the local Renaissance Faire, she wants more out of life. Stacey vows to have her life figured out by the time her friends get hitched at Faire next summer. Maybe she'll even find The One. When Stacey imagined "The One," it never occurred to her that her summertime Faire fling, Dex MacLean, might fit the bill. While Dex is easy on the eyes onstage with his band The Dueling Kilts, Stacey has never felt an emotional connection with him. So when she receives a tender email from the typically monosyllabic hunk, she's not sure what to make of it. Faire returns to Willow Creek, and Stacey comes face-to-face with the man with whom she’s exchanged hundreds of online messages over the past nine months. To Stacey's shock, it isn't Dex—she's been falling in love with a man she barely knows.