Do you crave food all the time? Do you think you might want to eat again in the future? Do you suck at cooking? Inspired by the wildly popular YouTube channel, these 60+ recipes will help you suck slightly less You already know the creator of the YouTube show You Suck at Cooking by his well-manicured hands and mysterious voice, and now you’ll know him for this equally well-manicured and mysterious tome. It contains more than sixty recipes for beginner cooks and noobs alike, in addition to hundreds of paragraphs and sentences, as well as photos and drawings. You’ll learn to cook with unintimidating ingredients in dishes like Broccoli Cheddar Quiche Cupcake Muffin-Type Things, Eddie’s Roasted Red Pepper Dip (while also learning all about Eddie’s sad, sad life), Jalapeño Chicken, and also other stuff. In addition, there are cooking tips that can be applied not only to the very recipes in this book, but also to recipes outside of this book, and to all other areas of your life (with mixed results). In the end, you just might suck slightly less at cooking.* *Results not guaranteed

Here's a book intended to challenge you. Here’s a book meant to inspire you. This book is a wake-up call to the global problems and roadblocks for you as a guitarist. This book is meant to be a reality check. Even if guitar playing is a hobby for you, your level of enjoyment and satisfaction will increase exponentially if you get better, start to like your playing and sound, and then continue to move forward. But if you aspire to be a part-time gigging and recording musician or full-time musician/guitarist, this book is filled with the ten reasons that are seriously holding you back. (It might even give you enough clues to help you teach guitar lessons for years to come!) I want you to attack any or all of these problems that apply to you, and get your momentum back as a guitarist. I’ve always believed that the expression “momentum builds motivation” is the key to developing as a musician. Once you’re truly excited about your playing, your creativity, and your growth, amazing things can happen with your music. If you’re here reading a book called “Why You Suck at Guitar” then it means that you’re finally ready to deal with those issues that plague aspiring musicians everywhere. It means that you’re brave. Brave enough to face the facts. I wrote this to help you, and not to make you feel bad — or worse — about your music. This is your wake-up call — a musician-to-musician intervention — with the goal of helping you get back on the right path. Music should be fun, and it’s always fun to get better. I wrote this to help all guitarists because I know that if we don’t like our sound, our abilities, or our playing, then music isn’t fun at all. It’s an annoying feeling. By the way, if you’re just looking for a book of guitar exercises, that’s not what you’ll find here. If you wanted to buy another book of riffs that some random musician-author thinks every guitarist in the world should know, that’s fine -- but maybe you don’t understand what being a real musician means. What you need is clear. You need a personal sound — and that takes a very personal, grounded approach. That means that you need to deal with some big, global issues in your music-making and not worry about which new lick or riff will suddenly transform your playing. On the other hand, if you’ve already totally decided what you — as a guitarist — need to do to get better, but you’re kind of pissy and stubborn about it, then may I suggest that you just go and do that thing. Don’t read this book to see if I can or will change your mind. Do what you want! Follow your musician instincts. If you pretty much know what you want as a musician, and you already have a sense about what you need to work on, seriously, just practice that! But if you do need some more input, some more ideas, some feedback, and a dose of outside inspiration, then you are my ideal reader because: 1) You want to get better now and 2) You admit that you don’t have all the answers 3) You have enough of an open mind to check out what I’m going to say and work on removing those roadblocks that apply to you.

In this emotionally powerful, funny debut, Cricket Cherpin needs to figure out what to do with his life before he turns 18. But life sucksNso why not just give up?

Discover how the freedom of sucking at something can help you build resilience, embrace imperfection, and find joy in the pursuit rather than the goal. What if the secret to resilience and joy is the one thing we’ve been taught to avoid? When was the last time you tried something new? Something that won’t make you more productive, make you more money, or check anything off your to-do list? Something you’re really, really bad at, but that brought you joy? Odds are, not recently. As a sh*tty surfer and all-around-imperfect human Karen Rinaldi explains in this eye-opening book, we live in a time of aspirational psychoses. We humblebrag about how hard we work and we prioritize productivity over play. Even kids don’t play for the sake of playing anymore: they’re building blocks to build the ideal college application. But we’re all being had. We’re told to be the best or nothing at all. We’re trapped in an epic and farcical quest for perfection. We judge others on stuff we can’t even begin to master, and it’s all making us more anxious and depressed than ever. Worse, we’re not improving on what really matters. This book provides the antidote. (It’s Great to) Suck at Something reveals that the key to a richer, more fulfilling life is finding something to suck at. Drawing on her personal experience sucking at surfing (a sport she’s dedicated nearly two decades of her life to doing without ever coming close to getting good at it) along with philosophy, literature, and the latest science, Rinaldi explores sucking as a lost art we must reclaim for our health and our sanity and helps us find the way to our own riotous suck-ability. She draws from sources as diverse as Anthony Bourdain and surfing luminary Jaimal Yogis, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Jean-Paul Sartre, among many others, and explains the marvelous things that happen to our mammalian brains when we try something new, all to discover what she’s learned firsthand: it is great to suck at something. Sucking at something rewires our brain in positive ways, helps us cultivate grit, and inspires us to find joy in the process, without obsessing about the destination. Ultimately, it gives you freedom: the freedom to suck without caring is revelatory. Coupling honest, hilarious storytelling with unexpected insights, (It’s Great to) Suck at Something is an invitation to embrace our shortcomings as the very best of who we are and to open ourselves up to adventure, where we may not find what we thought we were looking for, but something way more important.

The New York Times bestseller One of America’s most original and biting comic satirists, Denis Leary takes on all the poseurs, politicians, and pop culture icons who have sucked in public for far too long. Sparing no one, Leary zeroes in on the ridiculous wherever he finds it—his Irish Catholic upbringing, the folly of celebrity, the pressures of family life, and the great hypocrisy of politics—with the same bright, savage, and profane insight he brought to his critically acclaimed one-man shows No Cure for CancerLock ’n Load. Proudly Irish-American, defiantly working class, with a reserve of compassion for the underdog and the overlooked, Leary delivers blistering diatribes that are both penetrating social commentary with no holds barred and laugh-out-loud funny. As always, Leary’s impassioned comic perspective in Why We Suck is right on target. Leary is the star and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated television show Rescue Me.

Warning: this book sucks! It bites, slurps, and sticks too. Dare to open these pages and you'll find ticks, mosquitos, stingrays, elephants, jellyfish, and the particularly sucky lamprey. Sixteen slurpy poems from Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple introduce a suction-filled selection of animals, and spectacularly sticky illustrations from Eugenia Nobati spotlight these stupendous suckers. Ready to find out more? Prepare to get sucked in and read on . . .

Just how do straws work? Find out how in this new, colorful, easy-to-read STEM book! “STEM” is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Though these subjects are incredibly important to both education and society as a whole, they are often overlooked, especially after primary education is complete. A goal of this book is to introduce STEM to kids and make them excited about learning these central subjects. In Why Can I Suck Through a Straw?, your child will learn all about physics and the effect of air pressure on liquids. Accomplished author and educator Vicki Cobb teaches your child all about this aspect of STEM, while still making it fun and entertaining through bright illustrations, easy-to-understand language, and experiments broken down step-by-step. Your child will be so enthralled, they won’t even realize they’re learning! Introduce your child to vital STEM subjects and encourage them to learn about the world around them with Why Can I Suck Through a Straw?!

“Friend, asshole, angel, mutant,” singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt “came along and made us gross and broken people seem . . . I dunno, cooler, I guess.” A quadriplegic who could play only simple chords on his guitar, Chesnutt recorded seventeen critically acclaimed albums before his death in 2009, including About to Choke, North Star Deserter, and At the Cut. In 2006, NPR placed him in the top five of the ten best living songwriters, along with Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Paul McCartney, and Bruce Springsteen. Chesnutt’s songs have also been covered by many prominent artists, including Madonna, the Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M., Sparklehorse, Fugazi, and Neutral Milk Hotel. Kristin Hersh toured with Chesnutt for nearly a decade and they became close friends, bonding over a love of songwriting and mutual struggles with mental health. In Don’t Suck, Don’t Die, she describes many seemingly small moments they shared, their free-ranging conversations, and his tragic death. More memoir than biography, Hersh’s book plumbs the sources of Chesnutt’s pain and creativity more deeply than any conventional account of his life and recordings ever could. Chesnutt was difficult to understand and frequently difficult to be with, but, as Hersh reveals him, he was also wickedly funny and painfully perceptive. This intimate memoir is essential reading for anyone interested in the music or the artist.

Hailed by many as the world's greatest harmonica player, John Popper has redefined the instrument. As the lead singer and principal songwriter of Blues Traveler, Popper has performed for more than 30 million people over 2,000 live dates and composed such radio staples as "Hook," "But Anyway," and "Run-Around," the longest-charting single in Billboard history. He has appeared with Eric Clapton and B. B. King at the White House, welcomed the Hungarian ambassador to the stage, and inducted Carlos Santana into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In Suck and Blow, Popper shares a candid, spirited account of his life and career. A straight-F student at Princeton High School, Popper's life changed with one serendipitous harmonica solo that captured the attention of his mercurial band teacher (the same teacher whose life was later fictionalized in the Academy Award-winning film Whiplash). After befriending three fellow musicians with whom he would form Blues Traveler, Popper's academic career nearly ended in twelfth grade, until a meeting with the Dean of the New School for Social Research in which Popper pulled out his trusty harp and played his way into college. Popper and Blues Traveler soon became enmeshed in the lower Manhattan music scene of the late 1980s, eventually becoming the house band at the fabled Wetlands Preserve and embarking on a journey that would one day land the group at Madison Square Garden on New Year's Eve. Along the way, Popper and his cohorts commanded the attention of fans and bands alike, through inspired performances and riotous debauchery. Popper's unique perspective on the music business began under the tutelage of Blues Traveler's mentor and manager Bill Graham. After the rock impresario's untimely passing, Popper applied many of Graham's lessons to the formation of the H.O.R.D.E. tour, which John co-owned and hosted over eight years, welcoming such artists as Neil Young, the Allman Brothers Band, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Ziggy Marley, and his longtime friends the Spin Doctors. Popper also shares a forthright assessment of his longstanding battle with obesity. Plagued by weight problems since childhood, a motorcycle accident a few years into his career confined him to a wheelchair for two years while his weight ballooned to 436 pounds. Angioplasty, gastric bypass surgery, and a tattoo on his chest that reads "I Want to Be Brave" when viewed in the mirror are products of Popper's struggle, compounded by codependency issues and the untimely death of founding Blues Traveler bassist Bobby Sheehan. Popper's personal identity is entwined with his political passions. A staunch supporter of gun rights, he has performed at the National Republican Convention, yet he also maintains liberal positions on social issues. He will reconcile these views and share his encounters with the Bush family, the Clintons, the Gores, and other politicos. The iconoclastic, self-described Johnny Appleharp also dishes on cutting contests, Twitter trolls, party fouls, and prostitutes. In Suck and Blow, John Popper does it all with his signature honesty, humility, and humor.