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If you're an active bookternet-keteer, it has probably not escaped your notice that Book Expo America is this week. But what is this mysterious gathering of the publishers that everyone's been talking, tweeting, and tumbling about? Never fear! With this little beginner's guide, I will be the Virgil to your Dante and lower you into the seven circles of the book biz.

(Note: accuracy not guarnateed; I was writing most of this from memory). ONWARD!

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.

But if every hoopy hitchhiker is carrying a towel, how can you tell which is yours? Well, aspiring froods, by embroidering it yourself! Here’s our Towel Day guide to embroidering your massively useful towel with any of these Guide-themed designs made especially for you.

Memorial Day is upon us and patriotism is in the air, especially here in Philadelphia. The Benjamin Franklin impersonators have that summery spring in their step as they wander Independence Hall, recounting tales of the Revolution; the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Washington crossing the Delaware, the Boston Tea Party.

In fact, Boston wasn’t the only historical Tea Party revolt as Quirk author Joseph Cummins explores in his book “Ten Tea Parties” (now only $3.99 on Nook until 5/26). From York, Maine to right here in Philadelphia, each tea party had it’s own style, it’s own flavor. While all those tea parties might have been necessary back in the day, this Memorial Day we’ve matched each historical Tea-Tipping with a flavor of our favorite actual tea. Drink up!  

In 1978, a young woman by the name of Sally Ride joined NASA. On June 18^th of 1983, she became the first American woman in space. Her trip on the space shuttle Challenger also made her the first woman ever to operate a robotic arm in space and retrieve a satellite. In 2012, Ride passed away from pancreatic cancer. On May 26^th, America will celebrate Ride’s impressive achievements. To honor Sally in typical Quirk fashion, we put together a list of some of the best women in space from the world of comics.  

SCIENCE! Where would superheroes be without it? If not for the admittedly shaky principles of comic book super-physics and four-color chemistry, we’d live in a world without Iron Man or The Flash, sans the Atom or Ant-Man; even the Hulk and Captain America would be absent from our cultural landscape. But in writing The League of Regrettable Superheroes, I was frequently reminded that not all super-scientists have their thinking caps on straight, even by comic book standards. Here’s a selection of five mental giants whose questionable choices and often-terrifying inventions will never get them on the good side of the Nobel Prize committee.

There are a plethora of self-help titles floating around the ‘verse. So many in fact, trying to find the right one for you can be a lot like Harry Potter trying to track down horcruxes, or the crew of Battlestar Galactica attempting to find Earth in the vast expanses of space… only you don’t have any Sacred Scrolls or magic powers to guide you on your quest. Until now, that is. We collected the best advice we could find from our very own Fandom-tastic titles. (Two of which are only $3.99 until the end of the month: Geek Wisdom and Geek's Guide to Dating, just sayin'!) Just don’t let the cylons and muggles know.