Games & Activities

How does a group of young underdogs with big dreams but little experience transform a culture and industry? In the case of the $75 billion video game business, it helps if the outfit is run by a brash iconoclast with the vision of an outlaw and the work ethic of a Puritan—and grew up madly in love with gangster movies, video games, and rap music. It also helps if the company makes the most revolutionary, controversial, and successful video game franchise ever—Grand Theft Auto.

In Jacked, acclaimed author and journalist David Kushner takes you on an unauthorized joyride through the high-risk, high-profit, and fast-moving world of the biggest players in the game industry—and the haters out to get them. He reveals the untold story behind the people who created the product that defined one generation and infuriated another.

Drawing on more than a decade of his own reporting, game playing, and interviewing, Kushner goes deep inside the making of Grand Theft Auto (GTA), long veiled in secrecy, rumor, and myth. He also examines the cultural and political backlash that sent sales soaring, even as it threatened the game's continued existence.

This is a pop culture story for the ages. It begins in the back alleys of Dundee, Scotland, where the geeky geniuses at DMA Design invented GTA. Fledgling marketer and rebellious gamer Sam Houser saw GTA's enormous potential and pushed DMA to make it bolder, wilder, and funnier, and let players freely explore the game's gritty cities, wreaking havoc whenever they pleased. With its groundbreaking innovations and cinematic flair, GTA quickly became the centerpiece of Houser's new company, Rockstar Games, and the hottest title on the planet. But one of America's most notorious culture warriors, Jack Thompson, had his own mission—to ensure that GTA was banned from store shelves for corrupting youth and to bring Rockstar to their knees—even as the gamers of the world rallied against him.

With its incredible artistry, arch satire, and massive press coverage, GTA earned critical and commercial acclaim around the world, breaking the Guinness record for most successful entertainment product launch of all time. But deep within its urban wasteland lurked a nasty little secret—the now-famous sex mini-game, "Hot Coffee." It would mean big trouble for Rockstar Games and bring Houser and his rival, Thompson, to the brink.

Whichever side you're on, Jacked gives you a new understanding of this breakout industry, and the game that defined it.

How does a group of young underdogs with big dreams but little experience transform a culture and industry? In the case of the $75 billion video game business, it helps if the outfit is run by a brash iconoclast with the vision of an outlaw and the work ethic of a Puritan—and grew up madly in love with gangster movies, video games, and rap music. It also helps if the company makes the most revolutionary, controversial, and successful video game franchise ever—Grand Theft Auto.

In Jacked, acclaimed author and journalist David Kushner takes you on an unauthorized joyride through the high-risk, high-profit, and fast-moving world of the biggest players in the game industry—and the haters out to get them. He reveals the untold story behind the people who created the product that defined one generation and infuriated another.

Drawing on more than a decade of his own reporting, game playing, and interviewing, Kushner goes deep inside the making of Grand Theft Auto (GTA), long veiled in secrecy, rumor, and myth. He also examines the cultural and political backlash that sent sales soaring, even as it threatened the game's continued existence.

This is a pop culture story for the ages. It begins in the back alleys of Dundee, Scotland, where the geeky geniuses at DMA Design invented GTA. Fledgling marketer and rebellious gamer Sam Houser saw GTA's enormous potential and pushed DMA to make it bolder, wilder, and funnier, and let players freely explore the game's gritty cities, wreaking havoc whenever they pleased. With its groundbreaking innovations and cinematic flair, GTA quickly became the centerpiece of Houser's new company, Rockstar Games, and the hottest title on the planet. But one of America's most notorious culture warriors, Jack Thompson, had his own mission—to ensure that GTA was banned from store shelves for corrupting youth and to bring Rockstar to their knees—even as the gamers of the world rallied against him.

With its incredible artistry, arch satire, and massive press coverage, GTA earned critical and commercial acclaim around the world, breaking the Guinness record for most successful entertainment product launch of all time. But deep within its urban wasteland lurked a nasty little secret—the now-famous sex mini-game, "Hot Coffee." It would mean big trouble for Rockstar Games and bring Houser and his rival, Thompson, to the brink.

Whichever side you're on, Jacked gives you a new understanding of this breakout industry, and the game that defined it.

Baseball Facts and MLB Trivia for the Ultimate Baseball Fan

In this third title published by National Baseball Hall of Fame Books, test your knowledge of baseball trivia against the experts—the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

The history of baseball is etched in its trivia. No American sport is chronicled through its trivia and statistics more than baseball. Now, the National Baseball Hall of Fame presents the ultimate baseball trivia book, So You Think You Know Baseball. 

Hit it out of the park at your MLB trivia night or in an after-dinner baseball quiz with your family. Selected by the historians and curators at the Baseball Hall of Fame, over 100 years of rich baseball history is packed into this virtual reference guide of facts, figures, and fascinating tidbits about our national pastime. 

In So You Think You Know Baseball, find 450 challenging baseball trivia questions organized into nine themed chapters covering a wide range of baseball history:

• Baseball Firsts – famous firsts for almost every aspect of baseball history
• First Year Phenoms – rookie sensations and first year wonders
• Legendary Sluggers – Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Babe Ruth & more
• Historic Hurlers – celebrated pitchers and their remarkable accomplishments on the mound
• Record Breakers – notable players and teams who left their mark in the record books
• Hall of Famers – baseball’s all-time greats enshrined in Cooperstown
• Baseball in Pop Culture – discover the many ways baseball has influenced American culture
• The Postseason – highlighting the celebrated moments in World Series history
• Baseball Potpourri – unique facts about America’s Pastime

Also don’t miss other titles published by National Baseball Hall of Fame Books, Picturing America’s Pastime, Memories from the Microphone, and Baseball Memories and Dreams.

Fun Trivia Questions and Answers for Brainiacs

“A fun collection of facts that will leave you full of information you never knew you needed to know!” ―Sophie Stirling, author of We Did That?

#1 Bestseller in Reference, Puzzles, Trivia, Curiosities & Wonders, Popular Culture

The world is full of things you didn’t know, things you thought you knew, and things you never knew you never knew. From the eponymous podcast comes Your Brain on Facts.

Train your brain. So what if you picked up some historical inaccuracies (and flat-out myths) in history class. Your Brain on Facts is here to teach and reteach readers relevant trivia. It explains surprising science in simple language, gives the unexpected origins of pop culture classics, and reveals important titbits related to current issues.

A brain food boost. Get ready for trivia night done right. Inside, find true facts, strange facts, and just plain weird facts. Your Brain on Facts features fun trivia questions and answers, offering science, art, technology, medicine, music, and history trivia to brainiacs everywhere.

Inside discover weird facts and just plain useless fun facts like:

• What’s the language of the stateless nation in the Pyrenees mountains
• Where the world-changing birth control pill was tested
• Who wrote lyrics for the Star Trek theme song that were never used

If you enjoyed Interesting Stories for Curious People, Stuff You Should Know, The Book of General Ignorance, The Best Bar Trivia Book Ever, The World's Greatest Book of Useless Information, or The Book of Unusual Knowledge, you’ll have a blast with Your Brain on Facts.

#1 Amazon Best Seller! ─ Which games are worth playing?

The 50 best games: From pixelated pioneer adventures to stunning space odysseys, the boundaries of the video game world are expanding every day. Grand epics and gritty mysteries. Fierce competition and friendly cooperation. Powerful emotions and uproarious laughter. Video games are fantastically diverse and wonderfully creative, but not all games are created equal. With so many games out there on so many different consoles, computers, and devices, how do you decide which games are worth playing? Backed by years of writing about games professionally and decades spent playing them, Chris Watters lays out a list of 50 games to entertain and enlighten you. Whether you’re trying to learn more about the world of gaming or strengthening your claim to true gaming fluency, these are the games you’ll want to play, and why you’ll want to play them.

Do you know what it takes to play the game? At the poker table, just like in the ocean, baitfish get gobbled up by sharks. To help you ascend to the top of the poker food chain, Pick Up Your Poker Game answers all the game's most important questions with over 50 tips and strategies to give you the upper hand. So whether you're a seasoned pro or a bare-bones beginner, this handy, information-packed guide will take your poker game to the next level by helping you discover:

• Winning strategies when you don't have a winning hand
• Bluffing techniques and when to use them
• What players to choose or avoid as your opponent
• How to help determine your opponent's hand
• How to capitalize on your opponent's weaknesses and your strengths

Do you know what it takes to play the game? At the poker table, just like in the ocean, baitfish get gobbled up by sharks. To help you ascend to the top of the poker food chain, Pick Up Your Poker Game answers all the game's most important questions with over 50 tips and strategies to give you the upper hand. So whether you're a seasoned pro or a bare-bones beginner, this handy, information-packed guide will take your poker game to the next level by helping you discover:

• Winning strategies when you don't have a winning hand
• Bluffing techniques and when to use them
• What players to choose or avoid as your opponent
• How to help determine your opponent's hand
• How to capitalize on your opponent's weaknesses and your strengths

At the poker table, just like in the ocean, baitfish get gobbled up by sharks. To help you ascend to the top of the poker food chain, 52 Things To Pick Up Your Poker Game answers all the game’s most important questions with over 50 tips and strategies to give you the upper hand. So whether you’re a seasoned pro or a bare-bones beginner, this handy, information-packed guide will take your poker game to the next level by helping you discover:

• Bluffing techniques and when to use them—or not use them
• Winning strategies when you don’t have a winning hand
• What players to choose or avoid as your opponent
• How to help determine your opponent’s hand
• How to capitalize on your opponent’s weaknesses and your strengths

Soothe Yourself With These Creative Drawing Pages and Coloring Pages for Adults

Need some time to unwind? These mandala art activities provide a relaxing mindfulness for beginners experience for calming adult fun!

Mindfulness activities for the stressed adult. Each page has wonderful designs with relaxing patterns to boost your mindfulness throughout the day. Soothe yourself and get creative with these step by step mandala drawing pages. Part drawing book and part coloring book, this anxiety-reducing restorative art therapy experience is the perfect drawing book for adults who can’t draw!

Art therapy in a drawing book. Get relaxed and mindful with these mandala coloring pages packed with mindfulness activities for all artistic levels. Drawing and Coloring for Calm is a fun, creative, and approachable mindfulness art book for everyone. Beginners to drawing need no training or skills. The step by step process is easy and accessible to all—if you can hold a pencil, you can draw!

Inside, you’ll find:

• Step-by-step mandala drawing instructions for mandala art creations
• A design library to spark creativity in how you approach adult fun
• Cute coloring pages to encourage creativity, relaxation, and mindfulness activities

If you're looking for fun gifts for adults or enjoyed coloring books like Mandalas, or Mindful Mandalas, you’ll love Drawing and Coloring for Calm.

Celebrate Chicago and Exquisite Journaling

Nobody seems to know exactly why people started calling Chicago “The Windy City”. Maybe it was because of Chicago’s windy weather coming off of Lake Michigan or maybe it was a metaphorical jab at its supposedly boastful politicians. Whatever the origin the moniker stuck and now it’s a beautiful journal notebook.

A Windy City work of art. Whether you’re a lover of the "Windy City" or just can’t resist beautifully illustrated journals, you will enjoy having this vibrantly illustrated blank journal with Demask cover at your fingertips. Perfect for your purse, backpack, work bag, pocket, or desktop, this Anne Bentley designed work of art makes a great birthday gift, graduation gift, spontaneous gift−or gift to yourself.

Journaling in style. Well-constructed with lay flat binding, and high-quality cream lined paper, this delightfully illustrated journal is ideal for jotting thoughts, to-do lists, notes, or just personal musings.

If you are a fan of illustrated blank journals such as Lively Floral Stitched Lined Notebooks, the Botanicals Notebook Collection, or other Anne Bentley illustrated journals including Journal: Music Town, Journal: Fog City, or Journal: The Big Easy; you will love Windy City: Journal Notebook.

A Dive Into the World of Planning and Personal Growth

The complete guide for navigating the planning process, Journal Planning Magic features easy tips and visuals for effective execution and increased productivity using your journal as a tool.

Planning made simple. Journal Planning Magic is the ultimate companion for planning the different areas of our lives. No matter how organized or disorganized you might feel, this guide helps find which planning process works best for you, whether it be bullet journaling or something simpler. Filled with details and tips on drafting schedules for the day, week, month, and year—and lots of visual inspiration to get started—Journal Planning Magic encourages us to work on short term and personal goals on a regular basis.

From calendar events to personal goals. Life isn't perfect and neither are our plans. Therefore, it’s important to learn to adjust for life’s curveballs. Author Andrea Gonzalez of the Plan for Productivity platform teaches how you can stay on track, whether you are a student, recent graduate, busy parent, and beyond. Featuring advice on achieving personal goals from other experts in the field such as Ryder Carrol, Daniel Pink, Rory Vaden, and Stephen Covey—this guide has all the wisdom you need to plan effectively and get things done using just a journal.

Inside, you’ll find bonus productivity material like:

• Essential morning and evening routines and habits for personal growth
• Ways to personalize your planning system to your specific needs
• Bonus spreads, journal examples, and creativity tips to decorate your journal

If you’re into bullet, dot, or productivity journals—or simply enjoyed books like The Bullet Journal Method, Journal Me Organized, Dot Journaling, or Goal Getter (A Productivity Journal)—then you’ll love Journal Planning Magic.

Relaxing Coloring─Awakening the Knowledge Within

Janet Conner’s spiritual book Writing Down Your Soul has led to this adult coloring book and guided art journal, full of inspiring prompts and coloring pages to help you reach deep within yourself and connect to the divine. The result? You not only get to color a beautiful picture, but also create a beautiful life.

A peaceful space to reach into yourself and discover your truth. In Writing Down Your Soul, Janet Conner introduced tools to teach readers how to connect to the voice within, where soul knowledge and spiritual breakthroughs occur: "If you want to engage in a vibrant conversation with the wisdom that dwells just a hair below your conscious awareness, write. Write every day, at approximately the same time, with passion, honesty, and the intention of speaking with and listening to the voice within." As a natural extension and follow-up to Writing Down Your Soul, here is a companion coloring book and inspirational journal that offers space for the flow of creative self-exploration.

An adult coloring book full of writing prompts, coloring pages, and space for doodles. Structured around 22 key questions to ignite the imagination, such as "When I look out, what do I see?" and "If I could create the perfect gate to my extraordinary life, what would it look like?" The Soul Discovery Coloring Book invites readers to:

• Noodle: with silence, reflection, and staring off into space, allow images to come
• Doodle: not drawing to replicate, but allowing the picture to flow out of you
• Color: allowing the colors to choose you
• Scribble or soul write: scribbling and journaling because when we soul write, we write fast and messy to get ahead of our conscious mind

If you enjoy guided journals, motivational books, and inspirational books like A Book that Takes Its Time, True You, or Meera Lee Patel’s Made out of Stars, then you’ll love the Soul Discovery Coloring Book.

Decompress Your Stress

Anxious Art is for readers and doodlers seeking relief from anxiety and stress through meditative, creative processes.

What if we took our stress and used it to create art that brings us peace?

A 2016 study at Drexel university that examined the effects of creative activity on reducing levels of the stress hormone cortisol discovered that “45 minutes of art making…resulted in statistically significant lowering of cortisol levels.” We all know cortisol is the stress hormone, so grab a pen or pencil and let the meditations and writing prompts in this mindfulness journal take you on a calming journey to a healthier, happier mind.

T.S. Eliot once said, “Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity,” but if he had this creative journal during times of worry, he surely would have said creativity was the handmaiden to peace. With this friendly, calming companion, you will find that you are much more present in the here and now.

A unique guided journal that will calm and inspire: When used as self-expression, creativity can allow us to take part in what psychologists call “sublimation,” or the transformation of negative or socially unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable or even beautiful creations. Anxious Art offers inventive prompts, art projects, and affirmations to inspire artistic activities that distract from feelings of distress and anxiety. As you experience this transformative guided journal, you will work with:

• Lyrical affirmations that build self-confidence and reduce fear
• Therapeutic writing exercises that root you in the present and spark joy
• Doodling that calms your emotions
• Guided breathing exercises that bring you into the present moment

Fans of Wreck This Journal, Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal, or I Am Her Now, will love the calming benefits of Anxious Art.

For both the good days and the difficult ones, this comforting guided journal helps manage pain and overwhelming stress by utilizing hope, gratitude, joy, and mindfulness.

Based on scientific research in neuroplasticity and created from a personal place in the author’s life, Mindful Intentions is designed to address the unique needs of people living with chronic illness or with chronic pain. This book is carefully organized into ten sections to provide comfort as well as teach the tools to build resiliency—the ability to survive what seems devastating, as well as the ability to move through the challenges of daily life. Creative prompts and engaging questions provide space for private reflection, and pain-reducing activities help bring levity and kindness to your life. There are also inspirational quotes sprinkled throughout to guide your journey through the book, and included at the back is a list of helpful resources.

In both lighter moments and in more challenging circumstances, use this journal as a reminder to take a deep breath and find the strength and peace in your own life.

A celebration of Oregon’s natural beauty, recreational delights, and quirky charms showcasing thirty-two scenes from every corner of the state, this coloring book provides hours of entertainment and relaxation. Bring your creative touch to everything from bikes to bridges to Bigfoot, from forests to food trucks to flora and fauna, from Crater Lake to Cannon Beach to the Cascades, and from Powell’s Books to the Pendleton Round-Up to the Painted Hills.