Kirjahaku

The brilliantly funny and cringe-worthy secret blog of 14-year-old Joe Cowley (wannabe comic artist and self-confessed repeller of girls): Sunday 1st January So here's the thing. I've decided to start writing a blog. A private one. The idea is that it'll help me sort my life out, because quite frankly, it can't get much worse . . . · I gained the nickname Puke Skywalker after vomiting over Louise Bentley on the waltzer. · I am subjected to daily wedgies by my arch-enemy Gav James. · My so-called best mates are trying to get me killed in a bid to win £250 on You've Been Framed. This cannot go on. I have to do something, or I'll end up like Mad Morris down the park who thinks he's Jesus. By the end of next term, I'm going to be a completely different person. At least, that's the theory...

Hello blog! It's the start of another term and there are three things that SUCK about my life: 1. I am STILL sharing a bedroom with my step-brother Gav (AKA Shrek's stinkier twin). 2. My mum is 6 months pregnant and therefore cabbage-kickingly MENTAL. 3. I'm about to have a high speed rail line (i.e. brace) installed in my gob! The only non-sucky thing is that I've got a GIRLFRIEND! A real one! Who actually wants to SNOG me!!! The problem is her dad officially HATES MY GUTS and is determined to make my life a LIVING HELL. Oh, and this smarmy loser called Seb is trying to steal her off me with his rubbish DJ skills. There's just one thing for it - me and my best mates Harry and Ad are going to have to enter the same DJ competition as Seb and WIN! What could POSSIBLY go wrong? The hilarious sequel to The Private Blog of Joe Cowley.

You know how it is when your dad's an evil super villain? OK, so maybe you don't, but Danny does. As heir to the Dread dynasty, he's expected to carry on the family business of kidnapping world leaders, maiming innocent bystanders, and brainwashing sharks. You know, general evil stuff. The problem is, achieving world domination isn't Danny's idea of fun. In fact, he'd much rather be saving the planet than enslaving it. But when Dad Dread hatches his most diabolical scheme yet, Danny realizes that to defeat evil, he's going to have to start thinking evil . . .

Right blog. I'm back! Let's not waste time with pleasantries - there is absolutely NOTHING pleasant about my life right now. Reasons why everything is terrible: 1. The love of my life, AKA Natalie, still hates me all because of one tiny - OK, huge - mistake. 2. Natalie has now started hanging around with my so-called 'friend' Greeny. Since January, he's lost about half of his body weight and now girls actually fancy him! 3. Harry, Ad, and Greeny AKA The Sound Experience have had a top ten dance hit with a sample of my voice saying 'I'm as gay as the day is long'. Still, at least there's Buzzfest to look forward to. Who knows, once we're there, amid all the beautiful people, scenery and music, Natalie might realise I am the love of her life and return into my waiting arms. On the other hand, it could just be full of weirdos, overflowing toilets from hell, and death metal . . . Joe Cowley is back! And this time it's even more butt-clenchingly embarrassing and excrutiating than before. From a 'Grand Gesture' involving Star Trek costumes and the school boyband, to being trapped in a portaloo that's about to be pushed over. Joe's completely up to his neck in it - literally! Welcome to Cringefest . . .

My Dad - the King of Cringe! What's a boy to do when his mum disappears, his dad moves him and his sister to the middle of nowhere, and his life takes a very swift downward turn . . . secretly launch his dad on the internet as the Next Big Thing, of course! 'Hi guys! I bet every one of you knows what it's like to have an embarrassing parent - right? I bet they've done something so cringey that you wanted the ground to open up and swallow you whole. But let me tell you, my friend, NOBODY has a dad like mine. He takes embarrassing to a whole new level. If embarrassing was an Olympic sport, my dad would have, like, a gazillion gold medals.' This hilarious story will have instant appeal to a YouTube-watching generation and is told through a series of vlogs. Combining Ben Davis's brilliantly-funny voice and Mike Lowery's amazingly-amazing illustrations is sure to make this a hit with readers everywhere. After all, everyone knows what it's like to have an embarrassing parent, don't they?

Too old for wimpy kid? Meet Joe Cowley! Blog! You have NO IDEA how happy I am right now. I'm smiling so much, I look like The Joker in a wind tunnel. GET A LOAD OF THIS: - Harry, Ad, Greeny, and me are living in our own flat, right in the heart of the city. I know, amazing! We're city-slicking, hard-hustling, good-timing, not-even-missing-our-mummies-one-little-bit city boys. - The Sound Experience are about to sign a major recording contract and as their manager I intend to shake the music industry to its core with my unconventional approach. - AND I'm dating a cool older girl, who is totally into my sophisticated city-boy charm. Big things are happening! The Tammerstone Massive are keeping it real and living it large. Fame, fortune, and fast cars await . . . it definitely won't end in failure, fiasco, or fighting . . . The fourth book about the unstoppable, unfathomable, and unbelievable Joe Cowley, in a series being hailed as Diary of a Wimpy Kid meets The Inbetweeners. Perfect for anyone who loves to laugh at others misfortune on YouTube or Instagram and packed with masses of illustrations and doodles by top illustrator Mike Lowery.

Hey you! Yes, you! Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought Wow! My life is really rubbish? I can tell from looking at you that you probably have. But I'm here to tell you that all that is about to change. Why not climb aboard the Make Me Awesome programme and buy a one way ticket to Awesometown, calling at Successville, Dollarsdale, and Camp You're the Greatest! My name is Chuck Willard and I CAN make you AWESOME, just like me! (Well, maybe not that awesome, I'm one of a kind) When Freddie Smallhouse signs up to the Make Me Awesome programme, he's ready to turn himself from zero to hero, all with the help of his idol, Chuck Willard. Freddie embarks on various schemes to make himself awesome safe in the knowledge that Chuck is always there, at the end of an email, to give him lots of personal advice . . . isn't he? A new laugh-out-loud story, from the brilliantly funny author of the Joe Cowley series and My Embarrassing Dad's Gone Viral.

Gizmo has been my best friend since the day I was born - he's always been around. But now they're telling me he might not always be around which completely sucks. I'm determined that me and Gizmo will have lots more fun and adventures before he goes - I mean, he loves parties, deserves pampering, and needs a break by the seaside. And as for that old saying about how you can't teach an old dog new tricks - it's true, you really can't! Gizmo's bucket list is up and running - unlike Gizmo who is totally lazy and demanding to be carried . . . All the laugh-out-loud humour you'd expect from a Ben Davis book but with added heart and poignancy . . . and a four-legged character you'll fall in love with!

To aid his recovery from a life-threatening illness Jordan and his family move out of the city for a healthy new start. Jordan's getting enough funny looks as the new boy at school as it is, without his Mum giving him homemade soup every day for lunch! But when Jordan meets a homeless man called Harry, and gives him the soup, it is the start of an unlikely friendship. Soon the two of them begin giving soup to the other homeless people around town and when his sister shares their antics on Instagram the #SOUPMOVEMENT begins-they even make it on the news!

At the age of twenty-two, Ben Davis weighed over 360 pounds. Depressed, addicted to food, and morbidly obese, he thought he'd lost all hope. But after a conversation with his grandmother, Ben promised himself that he would finally take control of his life. Ben decided to "do life," and so can you. He started running. At first, he couldn't run a mile, but before long he was running five, ten, and then twenty miles at a time. His father and brother joined him, and as a team they ran a marathon and went on to complete one of the hardest physical competitions in the world, the Ironman. Throughout his journey, Ben captured his transformation in a series of YouTube videos, inspiring countless others around the world to "do life" along with him. Here, Ben shares more of his personal story and illustrates how you can use his techniques to start living your own life to the fullest. Do Life isn't just about diet or exercise, depression or addiction--it's about stepping out of your ordinary life and becoming who you want to be. It's the story of one man who decided to live life his way. And it could be your story too.

Damian's new friend wants him to be a hero. But what does that really mean? Damian's family are living under witness protection now that his dad, a once powerful gangster, has turned Queen's evidence. They've been moved to a cramped flat in a run-down council estate, and they've all had to take on new names. Then Damian - sorry, Finn - meets costumed superhero Star Kid, who wants Finn to join his mission to keep the estate safe from criminals. Soon Finn is forced to ask himself: who is he, really? A funny, heartfelt novel about friendship and family - and where the limits are for both. Ben Davis' new book, My Brilliant Plan to Fix Everything is coming June 2023 From the creator of The Soup Movement PRAISE FOR MY DAD IS DEFINITELY NOT A CRIME LORD "In a novel filled with heart and humour, told in the first person, Damian discovers what it means to be a hero. There is a depth to the story which explores themes of masculinity, family and self-awareness with a light touch." - Just Imagine "Such fun and great read. I read this book in under a day and even skipped playing Uno with my friends so that i could finish reading the book." - enelligan, age 6, TOPPSTA

A heartfelt, funny novel about a son taking over his father's postdelivery job in the hopes of bringing his family back together.

The first in a high-energy, hilarious and highly-illustrated young-fiction series from award-winning author – and everyday postman – Ben Davis. Postman Planet has a big secret. ?LOOK AWAY NOW IF YOU CAN’T KEEP SECRETS. ? Although he PRETENDS to be the best postman in the Universe, he’s actually only nine. Anyway, he's on a mission to make an essential delivery to the Planet of Fluffy Unicorns: an inflatable planet that is, as we speak, deflating. It’s up to Postman Planet and his ANNOYING new assistant Stamp, who is part-robot part-dog, to save the day. ? ?

New York's repertory movie houses specialized in presenting films ignored by mainstream and art house audiences. Curating vintage and undistributed movies from various countries, they educated the public about the art of film at a time when the cinema had begun to be respected as an art form. Operating on shoestring budgets in funky settings, each repertory house had its own personality, reflecting the preferences of the (often eccentric) proprietor. While a few theaters existed in other cities, New York offered the greatest number and variety. Focusing on the active years from 1960 through 1994, this book documents the repertory movement in the context of economics and film culture.

Ben Davis is the editor of Artinfo, one of the world's most popular resources for information and discussion on arts and culture. As a critic, he has become painfully aware of the role that class plays in art. 9.5 Theses on Art and Class seeks to show how a clear understanding of class makes sense of what is at stake in a broad number of contemporary art's most persistent debates, from definitions of political art, to the troubled status of outsider' and street art, to the question of how we maintain faith in art itself in a dysfunctional world.'

"This kaleidoscopic collection will help you see and comprehend the world anew-which is, in my book, what good art should do." -Astra Taylor It is a scary and disorienting time for art, as it is a scary and disorienting time in general. Aesthetic experience is both overshadowed by the spectacle of current events and pressed into new connection with them. The self-image of art as a social good is collapsing under the weight of capitalism's dysfunction. In these incisive essays, art critic Ben Davis makes sense of our extreme present as an emerging "after-culture"-a culture whose forms and functions are being radically reshaped by cataclysmic events. In the face of catastrophe, he holds out hope that reckoning with the new realities of art, technology, activism, and the media, can help us weather the super-storms of the future.

“This kaleidoscopic collection will help you see and comprehend the world anew—which is, in my book, what good art should do.” —Astra Taylor It is a scary and disorienting time for art, as it is a scary and disorienting time in general. Aesthetic experience is both overshadowed by the spectacle of current events and pressed into new connection with them. The self-image of art as a social good is collapsing under the weight of capitalism’s dysfunction. In these incisive essays, art critic Ben Davis makes sense of our extreme present as an emerging "after-culture"—a culture whose forms and functions are being radically reshaped by cataclysmic events. In the face of catastrophe, he holds out hope that reckoning with the new realities of art, technology, activism, and the media, can help us weather the super-storms of the future.

"Astounding... extraordinary... Jumping between highlighting his indie cult status as an artist and the mindset behind the abstraction of some of comics most beloved characters, the collection ultimately acts as a stunning visual love letter to one of comics most revered artists." — Comics Beat Bill Sienkiewicz (pronounced sin-KEV-itch) is an Eisner-winning, Emmy-nominated artist best known for revolutionizing the way comic books are drawn and made. His work has graced the National Museum of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; art galleries in Paris, Barcelona, and Tuscany; and advertising campaigns for Nike, MTV, Nissan, the 2006 Winter Olympics, and dozens of Hollywood movies. Sienkiewicz is a classically trained painter whose artworks incorporate abstract and expressionist influences and combine oil painting, acrylics, watercolor, mixed media, collage, and mimeograph. Bill Sienkiewicz: Revolution is the first time the artist’s work and career have been taken out of the context of comic books and evaluated as fine art. Ben Davis, award-winning Senior Writer for Artnet News, considers Sienkiewicz’s process and places him within the context of art and popular culture. Edited by Sal Abbinanti, Sienkiewicz’s representative and colleague for 12 years, Bill Sienkiewicz: Revolution features an introduction by Neil Gaiman, who collaborated with Sienkiewicz on the New York Times bestseller The Sandman, and an interview in which the artist explains his influences and techniques and offers his view on the future of comic book art. The book is covered in luxurious 100% cloth fabric, with two embossed, tipped-in images on the front and back cover.