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What puts the snap in gingersnaps? How do you bake the perfect pinwheel? What’s the secret to foolproof friands? Discover these answers and more with Field Guide to Cookies, a handy pocket reference to more than 100 cookie recipes, complete with helpful baking notes and fascinating historical trivia (the first known brownie recipe was published in the 1897 Sears, Roebuck catalog!).

Field Guide to Cookies includes traditional favorites and exotic treats from all over the world—everything from spritzgebäck to madeleines. Each cookie is photographed in glorious full color, with step-by-step instructions on how to prepare, bake, serve, and store your creations. With Field Guide to Cookies in your pantry, delicious home-baked confections are just minutes away!

ANITA CHU is a graduate of Tante Marie’s Professional Pastry program and a former baker for Bittersweet Chocolate Café. She channels her love of baking, writing, and photography on her award-winning Web site, Dessert First. She lives in San Francisco.

Quirk’s popular Field Guide series has taught readers how to identify stains, gestures, fruits and vegetables, meats, and even power tools. Now it’s time to kick back and relax-with Field Guide to Cocktails.

Here are recipes for more than 200 libations, from tried-and-true classics like the Tom Collins and the Fuzzy Navel to contemporary favorites like the Caipirinha and the Añejo Highball. In addition to recipes and suggested food pairings (try extra-sharp cheddar cheese with that Gin and Tonic!), you’ll also learn the fascinating histories of your favorite cocktails (the Bellini, for instance, was created at the legendary Harry’s Bar in Venice).

Of course, no field guide would be complete without photographs-this one has more than 200 gorgeous full-color images. So whether you’re trying to identify a trendy new drink or planning a cocktail party, Field Guide to Cocktails is the only mixology book you’ll ever need. Drink up!

Writer and bartender ROB CHIRICO lives in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

What puts the crunch in buttercrunch toffee? How do you cook the perfect raspberry chocolate truffle? What’s the secret to making lollipops and lemon drops? Discover these answers and more in Field Guide to Candy, a handy pocket reference to more than 100 recipes, complete with serving suggestions and fascinating historical trivia (in the 1940s, gumdrop cakes were among the most popular desserts in America).

Field Guide to Candy includes traditional favorites and exotic treats from all over the world, everything from peanut butter cups and salt-water taffy to Pastelia (Greek honey candy) and Turkish Delight. Each candy is photographed in glorious full color, with step-by-step instructions on how to prepare, make, serve, and store your creations. Yummy homemade confections are just minutes away with Field Guide to Candy in your pantry!

ANITA CHU is a graduate of Tante Marie’s Professional Pastry program and a former baker for Bittersweet Chocolate Café. Her first book, Field Guide to Cookies, received praise from Slate, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food, the San Francisco Chronicle, chef and author Mark Bittman, and Entertainment Weekly. She lives in San Francisco.

After reading The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, did you ever wonder what it’s like to be struck by lightning? To run with the bulls in Pamplona? To ride the crushing swell of an avalanche? Extreme Encounters describes these adventures and 37 others with endlessly addictive “you-are-there” second-person narratives-so you chill to the numbing effects of frostbite, you hear the 110-decibel roar of a grizzly bear, and you feel the stomach-lurching drop of an elevator freefall.

Extreme Encounters is a moment-by-moment, blow-by-blow account of what happens to you physically, emotionally, and scientifically during life’s most perilous experiences. Like a cross between The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook and Into Thin Air, these heart-racing stories take readers where few have gone before.

GREG EMMANUEL has written for MTV, VH1, GQ, ESPN Magazine, Stuff, and Maxim. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

The Executive’s Almanac is an entertaining collection of facts and figures covering all aspects of business—from the assembly line to the bottom line; from the stock market to the supermarket.
 
A sample of what’s in store:
 
     •  The ratio of the salaries of the average worker to the average CEO is 301 to 1.
     •  As of 2004, 8.3 million people in the world have $1 million to invest, spend, or save.
     •  Blue Chip stocks got their name from poker, where blue chips are more valuable than white or red.
     •  Starbucks was named for the first mate in Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick.
     •  The New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol for Mauna Loa is NUT; Men’s Wearhouse is SUIT;
     •  Sotheby’s is BID; and Genentech is DNA.

Remember the bestselling Choose Your Own Adventure series that you read as a kid? This hilarious parody features the same format and similar illustrations-but the stories offer a whole new kind of adventure!

This hilarious sci-fi parody chronicles one man’s weekend vacation on Fire Island, where-amid all the cocktails, Speedos, and circuit parties-he’s hoping to find true love. But these amorous plans are foiled when a vat of toxic waste washes ashore-and it’s up to him to save Fire Island from a plague of zombie drag queens!

On every page, YOU have control of the story: If you ask the lifeguard to bring you to the sheriff’s office, turn to page 108. If you ask the lifeguard to warn everyone at the night club, turn to page 32. If you ask the lifeguard if he’d like to work out sometime, turn to page 140.

With more than 35 illustrations throughout-and more hot bods than a year’s subscription to Men’s Health magazine-Escape from Fire Island! is the most campy and hilarious read of the summer.

JAMES H. ENGLISH based this book on his experiences at Fire Island (except for all the zombie stuff-he made those parts up). He lives in Astoria, New York.

“Choose Your Own Adventure” is a registered trademark of Chooseco LLC, Waitsfield, Vermont.

This book is in no way sponsored by or affiliated with Bantam Books, Inc. or the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books and its owner, Chooseco Inc.