New Releases by Patricia Marx

The perfect Valentine’s Day or anniversary gift: An illustrated collection of love and relationship advice from New Yorker writer Patricia Marx, with illustrations from New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast. Everyone’s heard the old advice for a healthy relationship: Never go to bed angry. Play hard to get. Sexual favors in exchange for cleaning up the cat vomit is a good and fair trade. Okay, not that last one. It’s one of the tips in You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time: Rules for Couples by the authors of Why Don’t You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It: A Mother’s Suggestions. This guide will make you laugh, remind you why your relationship is better than everyone else’s, and solve all your problems. Nuggets of advice include: If you must breathe, don’t breathe so loudly. It is easier to stay inside and wait for the snow to melt than to fight about who should shovel. Queen-sized beds, king-sized blankets. Why not give this book to your significant or insignificant other, your anti-Valentine’s Day crusader pal, or anyone who can’t live with or without love?

The perfect Mother''s Day gift: A collection of witty one-line advice New Yorker writer Patricia Marx heard from her mother, accompanied by full-color illustrations by New Yorker staff cartoonist Roz Chast. Every mother knows best, but New Yorker writer Patty Marx''s knows better. Patty has never been able to shake her mother''s one-line witticisms from her brain, so she''s collected them into a book, accompanied by full color illustrations by New Yorker staff cartoonist Roz Chast. These snappy maternal cautions include: If you feel guilty about throwing away leftovers, put them in the back of your refrigerator for five days and then throw them out. If you run out of food at your dinner party, the world will end. When traveling, call the hotel from the airport to say there aren''t enough towels in your room and, by the way, you''d like a room with a better view. Why don''t you write my eulogy now so I can correct it? Every child will want to buy this for mom on Mother''s Day!

Former SNL writer and The New Yorker staffer Patty Marx employs the weapon she wields best--not that weapon; Patty believes in gun control. Instead, she uses her sharp-edged humor to tackle the most difficult facet of aging: the mind''s decline. From forgetting her brother-in-law''s name while he was wearing a nametag to hanging up the phone to look for her phone, Marx confesses to her failures, and not only to make you feel better about yourself. In Let''s Be Less Stupid Patty addresses troubling conundrums, such as: If there are more neural connections in your brain than stars in the Milky Way, why did you put the butter dish in your nightstand drawer? Patty''s quest to get smarter includes just about everything: learning Cherokee, popping pills (not the good kind), and listening to--who''s the guy who didn''t write dum de de dum but the other one?

While waiting in line for apple pie at a party, Imogene Gilfeather, a lingerie designer who does not understand the reason for romance, meets Wally Yez, a scientist whose business card says “An Answer for Everything.” Imogene is told that Wally is the perfect guy. (“Perfect,” she replies, “is not my type.”) He is told that her company, Featherware, manufactures intimates (that gets his attention). Unfazed by Imogene’s indifference (who needs love when you have a career, friends, and an undemanding affair with a married man?), Wally resolves to win her over. E-mails turn into late-night phone calls; one date turns into two and then into more. Thus begins the most absurd and amusingly unbalanced relationship to grace the pages of a novel. Wally is certain he and Imogene are meant for each other (They both use mechanical pencils! Neither has had mumps! They are so alike!), but convincing his beloved is another matter. (“Do you know why it is I don’t have pierced ears?” she asks. “Because it’s too permanent.”) In defiance of the odds, or the gods, or perhaps just Imogene’s qualms, Wally and Imogene become a pair. They celebrate their anniversaries—the first time they touched each other on purpose, took public transportation together, saw the other with wet hair. But can they possibly end as happily as they’ve begun? (“Does he really have a cowlick? If yes, no bed will ever be big enough.”) Made up of hundreds of chaplettes, clever illustrations, and darkly funny commentary on getting together and staying the course, Starting from Happy is a cunning and sophisticated send-up of coupledom that showcases one of the finest comic writers of our time.

"This funny, inspiring, and uplifting collection reminds us that most of the best things in life are still free."--Back.

He may be huge and she may be tiny, but Dot and Larry are destined to become best friends. Dot, a teeny tiny little gal who’s no bigger than a dust mite, is very lonely and would love to find a friend. Larry, a guy who’s so big his head is always in the clouds, doesn’t think anyone understands him. But a chance meeting at a diner (just after Larry’s fifteenth burger) leads Dot right to the most humongous man in the world, and they discover that their differences actually make them pretty similar. Featuring Roz Chast’s distinctive and hilarious illustrations, Dot in Larryland will have readers looking very high (and very low) for their next best friend.

A neurotic Cambridge graduate student struggles to cover up her dysfunctional relationship with a narcissistic young man and engages in increasingly absurd lies and acts of self-deception.

Three witty and wise women--Birnbach, Ann Hodgman, and Patricia Marx--deliver yet another hysterical list of 1,003 great things. Each writer has a unique and much appreciated take on being a modern-day woman.

Are you almost over the hill? Know someone who is? Getting older is no fun, but it sure can be funny. How do you know when you’re approaching the big 4-0? Here are a few clues: * Comb-overs are starting to make a certain kind of sense. * A kid you once babysat for is now your lawyer. * At your checkups, the doctor has begun to ask if you’re still sexually active. * Midnight seems awfully late. * You’re more interested in websites that will calculate your Body Mass Index than in Internet porn. * You receive two phone calls in a single week from people who want to sell you life insurance. Whether you’ve just found your first gray hair or you’re peering around the corner to your mid-life crisis, You Know You’re 40 When… will tickle your funny bone (while you can still remember where to find it).

Teachers are simply the best. They''re the special breed of people who strive to infuse us with an appreciation for the miraculous world in which we live and a sincere passion for learning. What better way to sing their praises than by declaring more than a thousand great things about them? That''s what the successful author trio of Birnbach, Hodgman, and Marx does in this fourth book of their highly successful 1,003 Great Things series. This wonderfully humorous book features entries such as: o They are as happy about Friday as you are. o They tend to have highly legible handwriting. o Who else knows how important it is to be line leader? o They are excellent spellers. o Teachers know about Roman numerals. o They are more afraid of the principal than you are. o They lend you milk money when you forget yours. o They''re not in it for the money.

The author''s of the highly successful 1,003 Great Things About Getting Older which has sold over 50,000 copies, while the calendar shipped almost 30,000 copies, now turn their sights on the great things about kids.

Former Saturday Night Live writers Patricia Marx and Douglas G. McGrath take aim at Hollywood in this wicked, satirical novel about the making of the flop of flops. Through the 1930s and 40s, X. Y. Schwerdloff brought us the best: the best comedies (Let''s Play Golf), the best dramas (Surprise Witness), the best musicals (Sing-a-ling), even the best World War II propaganda (Tokyo, Kansas). But by the 60s, the legendary Schwerdloff studio had fallen on hard times. To get out of accepting an assignment at the studio, many actors served in Vietnam. Fugitives liked to appear in a Schwerdloff film because they would be safe from being seen. Now, it is up to Bucky Schwerdloff to save his father''s studio. He must produce a blockbuster. To do so, he hires the most successful director in Hollywood, Ferris Keneally, whose last film, The Blinkies, broke box office records. Bucky promises Keneally that he can make whatever film he wants. Thus begins the hilarious drama of the most breathtaking flop in Hollywood history. There has never been a film to match Keneally''s version of The Pilgrim''s Progress, about which one film critic wrote: "You are mesmerized by it . . . the same way you can''t take your eyes away from a bad car accident." "One of the most original and witty takeoffs on Hollywood . . . a delicious read."--Judith Crist