Previous writings about Throbbing Gristle have tended to dissolve into lurid half-truths about deviance on and offstage; their actual recordings, lyrics and images have received comparatively slim analysis. Yet their work informs a broad range of music which draws inspiration from TG's arcane, deliberately misleading example: not just 'industrial' music but also synth-pop, the lounge revival, the noise scene, techno, and the English esoteric underground - they can all trace their debts to Throbbing Gristle. Twenty Jazz Funk Greats (a deliberately 'inconsistent' album) explains why.

Drew Daniel creates an exploded view of the album's multiple agendas: a series of close readings of each song, shot through with a sequence of thematic entries on key concepts, strategies, and contexts. (For example: noise, leisure, process, the abject, information, and repetition.) The book argues that on Twenty Jazz Funk Greats, Throbbing Gristle modelled a critically new and highly promiscuous way of relating to or inhabiting musical genre - where punk rock was passionate and direct, TG were arch and mysterious, perverse and cold.

A comprehensive guidebook to urban exploration, a thrilling, mind-expanding hobby that encourages our natural instincts to explore and play in our own environment. Includes everything you need to begin exploring little-known urban spaces like abandoned buildings, rooftops, construction sites, drains, transit and utility tunnels and more. Features chapters on

* training

* recruiting

* preparation

* equipping

* social engineering

and other subjects important to the successful urban explorer.

Imagine Roger Corman and John Waters crossed with Howard Stern—and you'll have an idea of the demented genius behind Troma studios, one of the oldest (and most successful) independent film studios in the world. Lloyd Kaufman's spirited, outrageous, no-holds-barred look at low-budget, guerilla filmmaking is truly an inspiration to young filmmakers, a delight for movie buffs, and an absolute must for Toxic Avenger fans everywhere. This is the true story of the moviemaking maverick who co-founded an independent studio twenty-five years ago in a humble broom closet...who used raw hamburger, Karo syrup blood, and Bromo-Seltzer vomit to create films of questionable artistic and moral value...who is responsible for a string of cult movie hits...who was the first to reject Madonna for a part...who defied the Hollywood system and slapped the face of the industry...and who built a B-movie empire filled with Chopper Chicks, Surf Nazis, Kabuki Cops, Nymphoid Barbarians, and a lone hero known as The Toxic Avenger.

Although Colin Laney (from Gibson's earlier novel Idoru) lives in a cardboard box, he has the power to change the world. Thanks to an experimental drug that he received during his youth, Colin can see "nodal points" in the vast streams of data that make up the worldwide computer network. Nodal points are rare but significant events in history that forever change society, even though they might not be recognizable as such when they occur. Colin isn't quite sure what's going to happen when society reaches this latest nodal point, but he knows it's going to be big. And he knows it's going to occur on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, which has been home to a sort of SoHo-esque shantytown since an earthquake rendered it structurally unsound to carry traffic.

Colin sends Barry Rydell (last seen in Gibson's novel Virtual Light) to the bridge to find a mysterious killer who reveals himself only by his lack of presence on the Net. Barry is also entrusted with a strange package that seems to be the home of Rei Toi, the computer-generated "idol singer" who once tried to "marry" a human rock star (she's also from Idoru). Barry and Rei Toi are eventually joined by Barry's old girlfriend Chevette (from Virtual Light) and a young boy named Silencio who has an unnatural fascination with watches. Together this motley assortment of characters holds the key to stopping billionaire Cody Harwood from doing whatever it is that will make sure he still holds the reigns of power after the nodal point takes place.

Although All Tomorrow's Parties includes characters from two of Gibson's earlier novels, it's not a direct sequel to either. It's a stand-alone book that is possibly Gibson's best solo work since Neuromancer. In the past, Gibson has let his brilliant prose overwhelm what were often lackluster (or nonexistent) story lines, but this book has it all: a good story, electric writing, and a group of likable and believable characters who are out to save the world ... kind of. The ending is not quite as supercharged as the rest of the novel and so comes off a bit flat, but overall this is definitely a winner. —Craig E. Engler

"I think cooking is a lot of fun and I hate to see people not having fun doing it just because they don't have the right tools—which is not to say they need the prettiest, best, most expensive tools. They just need the tools that are right for them." Such is the organizing principle of Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen by the selfsame Alton Brown, star of Food Network's Good Eats as well as award-winning author of I'm Just Here for the Food. It's an interesting, effective principle. It comes from a guy who serves pie with a four-dollar mortar trowel he picked up at the hardware store.

Brown's opening challenge is a 60-day, four phase process of ridding your kitchen of all things unused and insignificant—easy on the surface, but tough in the doing. That leaves room for essential gear. And to help make those choices, Brown looks at pots and pans, sharp things (not just knives, but graters, mandolins, and cheese slicers, too), small things with plugs (as in small appliances—from food processors to coffee makers to deep fat fryers), kitchen tools unplugged (those items that fill drawers), storage and containment, and safety and sanitation.

If this were just an encyclopedia, what an unwholesome bore it would be. But Brown turns this relevant information into a romp. He's talking about the tools he uses, after all, and has no fear of naming likes and dislikes—based on his own experience. He also includes unending side chatter about cutting corners, saving money, and actually putting good tools to work. You'll find recipes throughout, and techniques, too. Like, how to bake a chicken in a flower pot. If you wonder why you would even want to attempt it in the first place, Brown clues you in. Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen is about as guilt free as pleasure will ever get. —Schuyler Ingle

Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable—yet strangely inverted—world.

Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside "saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside—the Extramuros—for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.

Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent's gates—at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious "extras" in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn't seen since he was "collected." But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.

Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros—a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose—as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world—as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.

In this long-awaited cookbook, Anthony Bourdain reveals the hearty, delicious recipes of Les Halles and the provocative tricks of the trade that have made him a celebrated name across the globe.

Before stunning the world with his bestselling Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour, Anthony Bourdain spent years serving some of the best French brasserie food in New York. With its no-nonsense, down-to-earth atmosphere, Les Halles matches Bourdain's style perfectly: a restaurant where you can dress down, talk loudly, drink a little too much wine, and have a good time with friends. Now, Bourdain gives us his Les Halles Cookbook, a cookbook like no other: candid, funny, audacious, full of his signature charm and bravado.

So bring a sharp knife, a big appetite, and a willingness to learn, as Bourdain teaches you everything you need to know to prepare classic French bistro fare. While you're being guided, in simple steps, through recipes like roasted veal short ribs and steak frites, escargots aux noix, and foie gras aux pruneaux, you'll feel like he's in the kitchen beside you-reeling off a few insults when you've scorched the sauce, and then patting you on the back for finally getting the steak tartare right.

As practical as it is entertaining, Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook is a can't-miss treat for cookbook lovers, aspiring chefs, and Bourdain fans everywhere.

The perfect book for computer hobbyists, Apple I Replica Creation: Back to the Garage is sure to equally appeal both to kids with gift certificates looking for fun on a snowy January day as well as to adults eager to learn the basics of simple microcomputer design. The book will begin by teaching readers the basics of computer processing by discussing the functionality of the 9 chip on the Apple I motherboard. From there, readers will be taught the basics of memory access and video input and output. Readers then learn how to assemble the various hardware components into a fully functioning Apple I replica. Finally, readers will learn how to write their own applications to take run on their new/old computer.

*Written by the webmaster of AppleFritter.com, which is the most popular Mac hobbyist Web site on the internet with over 10,000 visitors a day.

*Interest in vintage Apple I Computers is extremely high, with original machines selling for as much as $50,000.

*The only modern-day book to address general microcomputer design from a hobbyist perspective

For over twenty-five years, David Byrne has focused his unique genius upon forms as diverse as disco, architectural photography, and PowerPoint. Now he presents what may be his most personal work to date, a collection of drawings and diagrams mapping the strange corners of his mental landscape. It’s an eclectic blend of faux science, automatic writing, satire, and an attempt to find connections where none were thought to exist — a sort of self-therapy, allowing the hand to say what the voice cannot. Irrational logic, it’s sometimes called. It's the application of logical scientific rigor and form to basically irrational premises. To proceed, carefully and deliberately, from nonsense, with a straight face, often arriving at a new kind of sense. The world keeps opening up, unfolding, and just when we expect it to be closed — to be a sealed, sensible box — it shows us something completely surprising.

Byrne’s enigmatic, enchanting collection teaches us that there is absolutely no reason to discount anything, of any type, anywhere.

Sometimes evil has a familiar face . . .

Paul Artisan, P.I. is a new version of an old breed — a righter of wrongs, someone driven to get to the bottom of things. Too bad his usual cases are of the boring malpractice and fraud variety. Until now.

His new gig turns on the disappearance of one of a pair of twins, adult scions of a rich but tragedy-prone family. The missing twin — a charismatic poster-boy for irresponsibility — has spent his life daring people to hate him, punishing himself endlessly for his screw-ups and misdeeds. The other twin — Artisan's client — is dutiful and resentful in equal measure, bewildered that his "other half" could have turned out so badly, and wracked by guilt at his inability to reform him. He has a more practical reason, as well, for wanting his brother found: their crazy father, in failing health and with guilty secrets of his own, will not divide the family fortune until both siblings are accounted for.

But it isn't just a fortune that's at stake here. Truth itself is up for grabs, as the detective's discoveries seem to challenge everything we think we know about identity, and human nature, and family. As Artisan journeys across the globe to track down the bad twin, he seems to have moved into a mirror-world where friends and enemies have a way of looking very much alike. The P.I. may have his long-awaited chance to put his courage and ideals to the test, but if he doesn't get to the bottom of this case soon, it could very well cost him his life.

Troup's long-awaited Bad Twin is a suspenseful novel that touches on many powerful themes, including the consequence of vengeance, the power of redemption, and where to turn when all seems lost.

Bad Twin is a work of fiction and all names, characters and incidents are used fictitiously; the author himself is a fictional character.

A judge hands down a stretch in a local, state, or federal prison. It's time for some serious life lessons. With the crime rates soaring in the United States and the prison population growing faster than at any time in American history, staying alive and well — both mentally and physically — is tougher than ever.

Discover why every kitchen worth its salt has a flour-dusted, bouillon-stained, batter-encrusted and whisk-maimed copy.

Each week thousands of viewers tune in to watch Billy roar around the kitchen in his black T-shirt and shades, tossing peppers over his shoulder and lobbing eggshells toward the trash. In his first book, Billy invites you to climb aboard for a culinary road trip as he gets the lead out with a sizzling collection of recipes for every meal of the day. These quick, full-flavored recipes are loaded with "fire" (a code word for some of the hottest peppers available), but Biker Billy's cuisne is not about torturing the tongue — instead he creates snappy, memorable dishes, such as Lucifer's Angel Pasta, Spanokopita Diablo, Stuffed Shells from Hell, Blender Blaster Pie, and others that provide a real adventure for the taste buds. Rounding out this unique cookbook is a liberal sprinkling of biker banter, motorcycle tips, and ultra photographs that bring the joy and gusto of the open road into yoiur kitchen.