Versatile Nature: “Simple steps to enhance your health and well-being”

After years of painstaking, round-the-clock research, surviving on a mere twenty minutes of sleep a night, and collaborating with lexicographers, plumbers, and mathematicians, DeGeneres has crafted a book that is both easy to use and very funny. Along with her trademark ramblings, The Funny Thing Is...contains hundreds of succinct insights into her psyche, supplemented by easy-to-understand charts, graphs, and diagrams so that you'll never miss a joke.

Overseeing all aspects of production, DeGeneres labored over details both significant and insignificant, including typefaces, page number placement, and which of the thousands of world languages to use. Ultimately she selected English, as it's her mother tongue, but translations into Hindi and Pig Latin are already in the works.

DeGeneres takes an innovative approach to the organization of her book by utilizing a section in the beginning that includes the name of each chapter, along with a corresponding page number. She calls it the "Table of Contents," and she is confident that it will become the standard to which all books in the future will aspire.

Some of the other innovative features you'll find in this edition:

More than 50,000 simple, short words arranged in sentences that form paragraphs.

Thousands of observations on everyday life -- from terrible fashion trends to how to handle seating arrangements for a Sunday brunch with Paula Abdul, Diane Sawyer, and Eminem.

All twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

Every picture-perfect village tells a story. . . .

The Irish seaside town of Avalon is a tourist’s dream of quaint shops and welcoming cafés. Avalon House, perched at the end of Willow Street, was in Tess Power’s family for generations. Now Tess ekes out a living from her antiques shop while the crumbling mansion awaits a new owner. Her marriage and business may be floundering, but her affection for Avalon is undimmed. The same can’t be said of her glamorous sister. Suki left without a backward glance and married into an American political dynasty. Only a muckraking biographer could send her slinking back to Ireland to escape a scandal.

A marriage in name only...

To save her family home, impulsive bookstore owner, Alexa Maria McKenzie, casts a love spell. But she never planned on conjuring up her best friend’s older brother—the powerful man who once shattered her heart. Billionaire Nicholas Ryan doesn’t believe in marriage, but in order to inherit his uncle’s corporation, he needs a wife and needs one fast. When he discovers his sister’s childhood friend is in dire financial straits, he’s offers Alexa a bold proposition.