The Shepherd The Angel And Walter The Christmas Miracle Dog

One of the warmest, funniest, and most delightful Christmas stories ever—from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dave Barry. With fond nostalgia, Dave Barry takes readers back to a simpler time: The year is 1960, and young Doug Barnes is playing a shepherd in the Christmas pageant at St. John’s Episcopal Church—which is a very big deal. But there are problems everywhere. His fellow shepherds are misbehaving, which makes their director, Mrs. Elkins, yell at all of them; the girl he likes is playing Mary opposite a Joseph who is depressingly smart, athletic, and cute; the family dog is doing very poorly, and they have no idea what they’re going to tell Doug’s little sister, Becky, who’s playing one of the Host of Angels and who loves the dog more than anything; and his dad’s just gotten a flat tire, which means they might not even get to the pageant after all. But Christmas is a time of miracles. And for Doug and his family, this will be the most miraculous Christmas of all.

Marianne Wallace is focused on two things this holiday season: planning the greatest family Christmas ever and cheering on her youngest son’s team in their bid for the state championship. Disaster strikes when the team loses their mascot—the Trout. Is it going too far to ask her to don the costume? So what if her husband has also volunteered her to organize the church Christmas tea. When football playoffs start ramping up, the Christmas tea starts falling apart. Then, one by one her children tell her they can’t come home for Christmas. As life starts to unravel, will Marianne remember the true meaning of the holidays?

Provides support and practical techniques for overcoming worries, as 'told' by a fretful soft-coated wheaten terrier dog, Casey B. Worrywart, Dogtor of Philosophy, to his human mom, a psychiatrist.

A brilliantly funny look at the tumultuous recent past from the Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist. Remember when everything was going to go to hell when Y2K struck? That didn't happen. Right? But what did happen? To provide a little perspective on a really messed-up millennium (so far), the one and only Dave Barry slips into his historian's robe (it's plush terrycloth) and revisits the defining moments in our country's recent history, from the Bush years to-jeez, it's still the Bush years! As an added bonus, Barry quickly "we're busy here" tosses in the complete history of the last millennium, covering crucial turning points such as the invention of the pizza by Leonardo da Vinci and the computer by Charles Babbage (who died in 1871 still waiting to talk to tech support). Fellow Americans, the time has come to bone up with Barry as he puts the hysterical in history.

Seth Weinstein always knew Tina was way, way, way out of his league. Which is why he’s still astonished that he’s on a plane heading for their wedding in Florida. The Groom Posse has already pulled an airport prank on him—and he’s survived! It should be easy going from now on. But Seth has absolutely no idea what he’s about to get into. A simple drink or two with the boys sparks a series of events that will pit Seth and his friends against everything and everyone imaginable, from his very powerful, very disapproving soon-to-be father-in-law to the federal government to a love-struck orangutan. Seth’s hope for smooth sailing is turning into a trip on the Titanic. And the water is getting deeper by the minute…

Dave Barry makes his fiction debut with a ferociously funny novel of love and mayhem in south Florida. In the city of Coconut Grove, Florida, these things happen: A struggling adman named Eliot Arnold drives home from a meeting with the Client From Hell. His teenage son, Matt, fills a Squirtmaster 9000 for his turn at a high school game called Killer. Matt's intended victim, Jenny Herk, sits down in front of the TV with her mom for what she hopes will be a peaceful evening for once. Jenny's alcoholic and secretly embezzling stepfather, Arthur, emerges from the maid's room, angry at being rebuffed. Henry and Leonard, two hit men from New Jersey, pull up to the Herks' house for a real game of Killer, Arthur's embezzlement apparently not having been quite so secret to his employers after all. And a homeless man named Puggy settles down for the night in a treehouse just inside the Herks' yard. In a few minutes, a chain of events that will change the lives of each and every one of them will begin, and will leave some of them wiser, some of them deader, and some of them definitely looking for a new line of work. With a wicked wit, razor-sharp observations, rich characters, and a plot with more twists than the Inland Waterway, Dave Barry makes his debut a complete and utter triumph.

A brilliantly funny exploration of the Sunshine State from the man who knows it best: Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times–bestselling author Dave Barry. We never know what will happen next in Florida. We know only that, any minute now, something will. Every few months, Dave Barry gets a call from some media person wanting to know, “What the hell is wrong with Florida?” Somehow, the state’s acquired an image as a subtropical festival of stupid, and as a loyal Floridian, Dave begs to differ. Sure, there was the 2000 election. And people seem to take their pants off for no good reason. And it has flying insects the size of LeBron James. But it is a great state, and Dave is going to tell you why. Join him as he celebrates Florida from Key West at the bottom to whatever it is that’s at the top, from the Sunshine State’s earliest history to the fun-fair of weirdness that it is today. It’s the most hilarious book yet from “the funniest damn writer in the whole country” (Carl Hiaasen, and he should know). By the end, you’ll have to admit that whatever else you might think about Florida—you can never say it’s boring.

Philip Horkman is a happy man, the owner of a pet store called The Wine Shop, and on Sundays a referee for a local kids’ soccer league. Jeffrey Peckerman is the proud and loving father of a star athlete in the girls’ ten-and-under soccer league, and he’s not exactly happy with the ref. The two of them are about to collide in a swiftly escalating series of events that will send them running for their lives, pursued by the police, soldiers, subversives, bears, revolutionaries, pirates, and a black ops team that does not exist. Where all that takes them you can’t even begin to guess, but the literary journey there is a masterpiece of inspiration, chaos, and unadulterated, well, lunacy. And they might even learn a lesson or two along the way.