Live Music: The Rock Bottom Remainders

Alan Zweibel, an original writer for Saturday Night Live, has won numerous Emmy and Writers Guild of America Awards for his work in television, which includes It’s Garry Shandling’s Show (which he co-created), Late Show with David Letterman, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. He collaborated with Billy Crystal on the Tony Award-winning play 700 Sundays, and won the Thurber Prize for his novel The Other Shulman. The helpful A Field Guide to the Jewish People: Who They Are, Where They Come From, What to Feed Them…and Much More. Maybe Too Much More (Flatiron Books), written by Zwibel, Dave Barry and Adam Mansbach, addresses critical questions such as: Why do random Jewish holidays keep springing up unexpectedly? Why are yarmulkes round? Who was the first Jewish comedian? What's "Christian humor" and have you ever even heard of that phrase? Who is "the Golem" and whom do you want it to beat up? These baffling questions and many more are answered by here by a trio of enterprising writers, two-thirds of whom are Jewish. The authors dissect every holiday, rite of passage, and tradition, unravel a long and complicated history, and tackle the tough questions that have plagued Jews and non-Jews alike for centuries. Combining the sweetness of an apricot rugelach with the wisdom of a matzoh ball, this is the last book on Judaism that you will ever need. So, gather up your chosen ones, open a bottle of Manischewitz, and get ready to laugh as you finally begin to understand the inner-workings of Judaism. Kirkus Review already warned you, calling A Field Guide to the Jewish People: "An irreverent take on Jewish life, culture, and lore. No topic is off limits.... This is another zany book for Jews and those who love them."

Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of thirteen previous novels, including the best sellers Razor Girl, Bad Monkey, Star Island, Nature Girl, Skinny Dip, Sick Puppy, and Lucky You, and five best-selling children’s books, Hoot, Flush, Scat, Chomp, and Skink. His most recent work of nonfiction is Dance of the Reptiles, a collection of his columns from the Miami Herald. Snakes, grizzlies, a missing dad, a menacing drone... Carl Hiaasen delivers a wickledly funny, slightly subversive tale in his latest New York Times bestseller, Squirm (Knopf Books for Young Readers).Some facts about Billy Dickens: He once saw a biker swerve across the road in order to run over a snake.  Later, that motorcycle somehow ended up at the bottom of a canal.  Billy isn't the type to let things go. Some facts about Billy's family:  They've lived in six different Florida towns because Billy's mom insists on getting a house near a bald eagle nest.  Billy's dad left when he was four and is a total mystery.  Billy has just found his dad's address--in Montana. This summer, Billy will fly across the country, hike a mountain, float a river, dodge a grizzly bear, shoot down a spy drone, save a neighbor's cat, save an endangered panther, and then try to save his own father.

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor writer whose columns and essays have appeared in hundreds of newspapers over the past thirty-five years. He has also written a number of New York Times bestselling humor books, most recently Lessons from Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog. He is not personally Jewish, but many of his friends are. In A Field Guide to the Jewish People (Flatiron Books), written by Barry, Alan Zweibel and Adam Mansbach, the authors dissect every holiday, rite of passage, and tradition, unravel a long and complicated history, and tackle the tough questions that have plagued Jews and non-Jews alike for centuries. In Lessons from Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog (Simon & Schuster), as Dave Barry turns seventy—not happily—he realizes that his dog, Lucy, is dealing with old age far better than he is. She has more friends, fewer worries, and way more fun. So Dave decides to figure out how Lucy manages to stay so happy, to see if he can make his own life happier by doing the things she does (except for drinking from the toilet).

Gene Weingarten, the only two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, is a Washington Post journalist. He writes long-form stories as well as Below the Beltway, the weekly syndicated humor column. His previous books include I’m With Stupid: One Man. One Woman. 10,000 Years of Misunderstanding Between the Sexes Cleared Right Up (with Gina Barreca); The Hypochondriac’s Guide to Life. And Death; Old Dogs: Are the Best Dogs; and The Fiddler in the Subway, a collection of his best-known work. One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America (Blue Rider Press) is the story of Sunday, December 28, 1986, a day that was literally picked out of a hat by three strangers. With that date in hand, Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing as an ordinary day. That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, prejudice, selflessness, coincidence, and startling moments of human connection, along with evocative foreshadowing of momentous events yet to come. Lives were lost. Lives were saved. Lives were altered in overwhelming ways. Many of these events never made it into the news; they were private dramas in the lives of private people. They were utterly compelling. One Day asks and answers the question of whether there is even such a thing as “ordinary” when we are talking about how we all lurch and stumble our way through the daily, daunting challenge of being human. A starred review in Kirkus called One Day "A captivating portrait of a day in the life of the United States ... One of the finest plain-prose stylists in American journalism, Weingarten tells his elegantly structured stories without sentimentality or melodrama... A slice of American life carved out by a master of the form."

Ridley Pearson is the best-selling coauthor (with Dave Barry) of Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter and the Shadow Thieves, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, Escape from Carnivale, Cave of the Dark Wind, Blood Tide, and Science Fair. He is also the author of eighteen novels, including internationally best-selling series Kingdom Keepers, Cut and Run, and The Middle of Nowhere.  Ile Gonzalez studied fashion design in college but decided graphic storytelling was her first true love. She co-created the popular middle-grade series The Heroes Club. Super Sons is her first graphic novel. Jon Kent and Damian Wayne the sons of the World’s Greatest Heroes, Superman and Batman. With their hometown in ruins, and in the absence of their heroic fathers, Jon and Ian are on a mission to find a sample of the deadly virus that's threatening Wyndemere and Jon's mother, Lois Lane. In The Foxglove Mission (DC Zoom), Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez have created the rare sequel (of the successful The PolarShield Project) that takes everything readers love about Super Sons and raises the stakes without losing any of the charm or sense of wonder.

Scott Turow is the author of eleven bestselling works of fiction, including Identical, Innocent, Presumed Innocent, and The Burden of Proof, and two nonfiction books, including One L, about his experience as a law student. He has also frequently contributed essays and op-ed pieces to publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. From 1978 to 1986, Turow was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago, serving as lead prosecutor in several high-profile federal trials investigating corruption in the Illinois judiciary. He currently is a partner in an international law firm. In Testimony (Grand Central Publishing) Turow follows former prosecutor Bill ten Boom as he peels back the many layers in the mystery of a massacre in post-war Bosnia, and no assumption is safe — or entirely correct. In Turow’s The Last Trial (Grand Central Publishing) defense lawyer Sandy Stern, 85, takes one last case. The criminal defendant is an old friend, a former Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, now charged with insider trading, fraud and murder —and the case will question everything Stern thought he knew about his friend.