So far, the tide of public opinion is still on Prince Harry’s side after he made headlines recently for nude photos taken during a Las Vegas vacation. The actual photos are of (unsurprisingly) poor quality, but no matter—you can pin Harry—along with eleven other eligible young royals—up on your wall for all of 2013 with our Hot Royals Calendar!

Last week’s edition of Live By the Book had us thinking about ice cream. Obviously. And as we thought about ice cream (a lot), we eventually thought about ice cream on wheels. And when we thought about ice cream on wheels (stay with us, here), we thought about other deliciousness on wheels. And that, naturally, made us think of The Truck Food Cookbook: 150Recipes and Ramblings from America’s Best Restaurants on Wheels by John T. Edge, this week’s style guide inspiration!

Whether truck food to you means burgers or tacos, french fries or grilled cheese, pizza or egg sandwiches, sushi or sliders, waffles or dumplings, donuts or (ahem!) ice cream! — we’ve got a little something for everyone.

As summer winds down, more and more people are heading out of the office and away from the city to get in some pre-Labor-Day vacation time. We’ve got a short list this week, which goes to show that people are out on the beach reading books rather than their emails. Good for them!

What are you reading this week?

• Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance, by Nancy Verde Barr
  
• The Feast of Love, by Charles Baxter
• Werewolves in Their Youth, by Michael Chabon
• A Wanted Man: A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child
• 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
  
• Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton
• 11/22/63, by Stephen King
• We Sinners, by Hanna Pylväine
• Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell
• The Art Forger, by B.A. Shaprio
• Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh

After reading Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter, I’m dying to have brunch at her restaurant, Prune.
—Emily P.

I’m on vacation, so I’m reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63, as is much of Cape Cod. Looking down the beach, one  saw that enormous tome in many people’s hands. That, or Fifty Shades.
—Suzie

I’m less than halfway through 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, but I’m already fairly addicted to its characters as they wade, awkwardly and enthusiastically, in alternating and parallel fashion, through issues of faith, reason, morality, and purpose. It sounds heavy, and Goldstein’s approach is dense on the intellect, but her short chapters—and irreverent academic humor—make for incredibly fun(ny) and digestible subway reading. I’m looking forward to what I expect will be a very lively book club discussion…
—Megan

I’ve finally gotten around to reading The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter, after a friend recommended it to me years ago. It’s a series of interconnected love stories played out by average, middle-class Americans in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 2007 the book was made into a movie starring Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear. Perhaps that will be next on my Netflix queue.
—Erin

I’m partway through an advance reader’s edition of the new Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child (A Wanted Man, coming next month). A sales department favorite—James has been overheard saying, “What would Reacher do?” Fast-paced,  well written, and the coolest good guy in print!
—Page

I’m reading Swamplandia! but I just got started and I’m not loving it yet.  I think once I get some solid reading time in that will change—for the better, I hope.  I do tend to read books all the way through one way or the other.
—Suzanne

As for me, I’m reading We Sinners, Hanna Pylväine’s debut novel about a Finnish-American family of 11 and their relationship with their community and church. It’s a poignant family drama with lots of intricately drawn characters.

—Avery, who wouldn’t mind taking this book to the beach

I scream, you scream, we all scream for…Ben & Jerry’s! — a name that has become virtually synonymous with that melty, cool goodness known as ice cream. This week’s Live By the Book style guide is inspired that very topic, and the book Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book. I could probably stop there, but why on earth would I do that?

Here are some of our favorite mooovers and shakers in the ice cream world, from the imminently practical (get yer paws off my pint!) to the playful, from the plush to the penguin. Here’s to chilling out max and mixing up your own signature flavors!

And while you’re making all sorts of new friends by making ice cream, you can also make fashion waves: a summer dress, a detachable Peter Pan collar, some heels that make you look like you stepped in a melting ice cream cone (much better than gum!), a nail polish set in four shades of sherbert, and an apron tie-dye for.

Speaking of ice cream duos…let’s take a magical moo-stery tour through the land of Ben & Jerry with Jimmy & Stephen (that’s Fallon, of “Late Night Snack” & Colbert, of “Americone Dream”) as they learn to be lovers-not-fighters in the ultimate late night ice-cream-flavor-off. Udderly charming, to be sure.

And if the moo-sic doesn’t rid them of their ice cream headaches, perhaps they should consider Chocolate Therapy to help them work through their issues. What’s your favorite Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor? Leave your answer in the comments and you could win a copy of the book!

With August in full swing, soon it will be time for the school year, and for high schoolers, that means standardized tests!  Workman just published a new edition of Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT, the for-students, by-students strategy guide for kicking multiple choice butt.  Guest editor of the previous edition Alan Hatfield (now a Princeton student) talked to our new guest editor, JaJa Liao (soon to be a Yale freshman), about test taking tips and life after the SAT.

Alan: Congratulations on your new role as the next guest editor of Up You Score! I’m so excited to meet you and I know that you’ll do a fabulous job. I’ve been on the job for a couple years now and I’ve had a great experience, getting to do a host of promotional projects, such as a radio drive, managing the FB and Twitter pages, and making an appearance on network TV.

JaJa: First off, thanks! I’m really excited about the experience ahead of me, and hopefully I’ll do a good job. So, for the readers out there, tell us about yourself (aside from the perfect score)…

Alan: I just finished my freshman year at Princeton University, which kept me on my toes, and also gave me an amazing opportunity to meet fascinating people, most of whom have amazing SAT scores and are brilliant at at least one thing. I danced on the Bhangra team, wrote for a student magazine, and competed on the Model UN Team, all of which required a lot of time to balance with my classes and the Up Your Score stuff. Your turn!

JaJa: Congrats on finishing your freshman year while doing so many extracurricular activities. I’ll be entering Yale this fall and looking at double majoring in either Chemistry/Anthropology or Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry/Anthropology though I am open to other combinations. What’s your major and what are you up to this summer?

Alan: I’m planning on majoring in public policy with possible certificates in Near Eastern Studies, East Asian Studies, or possibly Computer Science. As for the summer, I’m going to Nanjing, China for two months to teach English.

But back to Up Your Score. I’ve had a blast working with the book and I realized that taking time to reflect on the test itself gave me some crucial insights that I think are important to focus on when helping guide people’s experience with the test. Practice is CRUCIAL. I can’t emphasize this enough. The test is constructed with a specific purpose and in a specific way, meaning that there’s a definitive structure to the questions that I think can be intuited after taking enough practice questions and practice tests.

JaJa: I totally agree with you that the SAT has a definitive structure that can be decoded once you become familiar enough with it after practicing. Adequate practice allows you to see the pattern of questions that occur on the SAT, which I find only has a few tricks up its sleeve with a few variations. Personally, I found it extremely helpful to answer questions based on the magic “if.” I thought of questions in my head like “if I were a test maker, which one of these options would I have put just to trick people?” and “if I were a test maker, what am I trying to test by asking this question?” etc. I also feel that on multiple choice tests such as the SAT, you don’t necessarily need to know the material 100% to get the question right, but you do need to have good strategies. I’d love to hear your testing philosophy.

Alan: I definitely agree with your thoughts on strategy over knowledge. The SAT isn’t a test of knowledge by any means, it’s more a pressure-under-fire type of endeavor. With enough time any student can eventually come to the correct answer on any question the SAT throws at them, the only obstacle is time. That’s why I’m a big advocate of thoughtful and deliberate first-runs through questions.

I feel like testing philosophies that advocate some kind of prioritization or “skipping” of difficult questions can sometimes be counterproductive to students, because they prompt the tendency to rush or at least only half-heartedly commit to questions that may look intimidating or difficult from the very first glance. I’m much more an advocate of a testing philosophy that focuses on self-confidence in the sense that starting from the idea that for every student taking the test the correct answer is definitely attainable, students should treat every question as do-able.

JaJa: Another tip that I think is pretty helpful is to not overthink the questions. If you think about it, the SAT’s difficulty is not high at all. This is especially true for the math section. If you ever took Algebra I and Geometry, you will know all of the concepts on the math section. A lot of people freak out when they see the math section for the first time because the ETS purposefully words questions awkwardly to make things a bit more challenging. In reality, there are only so many topics that the ETS can test you on, so what I recommend for the math part would just to go over the topics thoroughly if you find that you keep on missing the same kind of problems. For example, if you discover that you are always stumped by the probability questions, just skim through a short textbook lesson on probability instead of skipping over it. Over time, you will find that there is a kind of pattern that reoccurs. This way you will be ready next time to solve all kinds of probability problems.

Alan: That’s enough test talk for today. Nice to meet you, and good luck staving off the Evil Testing Serpent!

JaJa: Thanks, I’ll try to follow in your footsteps. Viva la Up Your Score!

Twitter is awesome: It’s a direct line to everything exciting and interesting that’s happening on the Internet—a huge portion of which is totally adorable. (Do you follow us @WorkmanPub?) This week we’re highlighting some of our favorite cute friends who tweet. (Also cute: the Twitter bird!)

It’s only August, but copies of our 2013 calendars are already rolling in! (You might not be surprised to learn that we’re never really sure exactly what year it is around here.) As a preview of the coming year, we’re pleased to present you with this picture of the 2013 Pocket Pigs calendar, featuring some of the teacup pigs of @PennywellFarm themselves! We just want to put them in our pockets and let them wee, wee, wee all the way home!!

• Speaking of cute calendars, did you know there’s not one but two Cute Overload calendars?! Stock up, people, 2013 is only 5 months away… And follow @CuteOverload to stay up-to-date with the latest adorable animals on the web.
• One of our favorite Twitter Feeds ever is @PreschoolGems, where preschool teacher Leslie McCollom collects the brilliantly hilarious things her students says (“gems”) and tweets them out for all to enjoy. A recent tweet: “When I’m a Mommy, I’m going to have a girl, a girl, a boy, and name them Peanut, Yogurt and Santa.” Too cute to handle? Just wait until you see the book, released yesterday by Penguin. And be sure to read the author’s blog post about the story behind Preschool Gems. “First I wasn’t a mermaid, then my dream came true!” Indeed.
• In a similar vein, check out @TextsFromDidi! Sarah tweets actual texts from her 9-year-old sister who lives across the country. A choice example: “Mama got me a sugar free pie and this is the worst birthday ever.” Also: ”OMG!!!! i just got a 38 inch pinata!!!!” Kids text the darnedest things.

Look at this tiny gorilla getting a check-up!!! The stethoscope is sooooooo cooooold!!! (via Wild for Wildlife and Nature)

• Did you know that when you give a lemon to a dog, this happens?!

—Avery, who believes that small versions of big animals are the best

The Olympics may be playing on every TV (and computer screen) across the globe, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have time to get in some Friday reading! Below, Workman’s Friday Reads list for this week. Happy reading! And tell us what you’re reading in the comments!

• A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez
  
• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
• In the Kingdom of Men: A Novel by Kim Barnes
• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
• The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
• A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers
• Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child by Noel Riley Fitch
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
• No Regrets by Ace Frehley
• The Magicians by Lev Grossman
• A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• Iron Man by Tony Iommi
• The Ambassadors by Henry James
• Grounded by Kate Klise
• 40 Things I Want to Tell You by Alice Kuipers
• The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour
• The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire
• Snow White and Russian Red by Dorota Masłowska
• It’s So Easy: and other lies by Duff McKagan
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
• How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• After Claude by Iris Owens
• The End of Men by Hanna Rosin
• Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed
• The Age of Miracles by Karen Walker Thompson
• Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

And in their own words:

I mainly read biographies of rock musicians. I just finished It’s So Easy: and other lies by Duff McKagan  (Guns and Roses) and Iron Man by Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath). Currently I’m reading No Regrets by Ace Frehley (Kiss).
—Anthony

I’m in the middle of Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child. 63% done, to be exact. It’s incredibly detailed! I’ll know everything there is to know about Julia and Paul Child once I’m done.
—Bintal

I’m reading The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.  It’s concisely written and complicated. Highly recommend it.
—Pat

My current subway read is The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, which is excellent—clear, efficient language and ruthless logic.
—Sarah G.

Just finished The Underwater Welder, a new graphic novel by Jeff Lemire. It was somber and haunting, two qualities I fall for every time. I’m currently reading Snow White and Russian Red by Dorota Masłowska. It’s an impressive debut novel. When it was released in 2002, Ms. Masłowska was heralded as the new face of the Polish literary world. A few pages in, it’s clear why.
—Randall

I’m reading A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge which is fabulous and weird.
—Leslie

In the Kingdom of Men: A Novel by Kim Barnes. Gorgeously written story of a small-town Oklahoma woman’s move to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1960s when her husband gets a job with an oil company there—superbly etched characters and setting. Barnes is the author of two previous novels, and two memoirs, one of which, In the Wilderness (which I edited), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Next up: something I have been pretending to have read for years—David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (after that trailer, how could I not?).
—Bruce

After falling hard and fast for Wild by Cheryl Strayed, I’m continuing the love affair with her new book Tiny Beautiful Things. It’s a collection of the advice columns Cheryl has written for the past few years as the formerly-anonymous advice giver Dear Sugar on The Rumpus. The depth of her empathy and honesty is life-affirming. To say I’m a fan is an understatement.
—Erin

Went to Paris recently, and brought along The Ambassadors by Henry James. Didn’t get much into it there (spent all free reading time perusing Paris restaurant blogs…), but upon returning, well, it’s un-put-downable. Am three-quarters of the way through and can’t wait to find out what happens. Imagine that: Henry James, page-turner.
—David

A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers (hero reviewer of Just Ride).  Sad, smart, informative, short, moving, compelling. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter is next in line!
—Mary Ellen

Recently read Gone Girl (along with everyone else!) and was pretty riveted. Am currently perusing The End of Men by Hanna Rosin (fascinating and depressing and empowering all at once) and about to start The Age of Miracles by Karen Walker Thompson,  an novel told from the point of view of a young girl about what happens when the earth’s rotation slows.
—Margot

I’m reading After Claude by Iris Owens. Over the top, bizarre, and very funny. It’s refreshing to read a female protagonist who is foul-mouthed, hostile, and totally crazy.
—Maisie

The Hare with Amber Eyes—on the face of it, a true story of a collection of Japanese netsuke passed from generation to generation, but really a wonderfully absorbing social history of a fabulously wealthy Russian Jewish family and the journey of one of their descendents to unravel their personal triumphs and tragedies since 1871.  I can’t wait to finish it!
—Carol S.

Dear Parents,

Sorry to put a chink in your summer idyll–but we heard a rumor about an approaching event, and it’s spelled S-C-H-O-O-L. (Gulp.) Fear not, brave souls, for we are here to help! While we don’t have plans to operate a shuttle service, we do have a bevy of kitchen solutions for all you busy families out there.

Whether you’re a last-minute shortcut-taker, an advance-planner with hoarder tendencies, or a wistful would-be farmer’s market maven, we have a low-priced ecookbook to suit.

It’s our August Blue Plate Special, featuring six cook- and kid-friendly titles for only $2.99 each. Plus, one mystery freebie! Click here to find out more. And may the force be with you!

Best,

Workman

Olympics! Olympics Olympics Olympics!! Aaaaaahhhh London 2012!!!

If you’re anything like us, your every waking moment over the past week has been consumed by thoughts of the Olympics: the races! the medals! Her Majesty skydiving! But you might have missed this: an adorable short film by Amael Isnard and Leo Bridle in which the vermin—ahem, excuse me, urban animals of London carry their own tiny Olympic torch through the streets. It’ll make you see rats in a different light (i.e. a cute one). (Via The Mary Sue)
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/46296980[/vimeo]

• Excuse us, CNN, but why are you asking if the Olympic mascots are “cute or creepy”? Wenlock and Mandeville—yes, those are their names—were forged out of steel and rainbows. STEEL AND RAINBOWS, people! We all know the answer to their question is “absolutely adorable.” And if you don’t think a big-headed alien-type-thing can be cute, we implore you to watch E.T. immediately.
• Over at her blog, Katie Workman, author of The Mom 100 Cookbook, writes about making food for two young boys who aren’t always that easy to please (and what kids are?). But this week the tables turned, when her son Jack and his friend Aaron made breakfast for the whole family—specifically, popovers. This blog post has the double-whammy of cute kids and adorable little puffed breakfast pastries. Yum!

What with the rumor-mongering and mud-slinging that’s so prevalent in contemporary politics, we wouldn’t be surprised if all this election talk was getting you down. Luckily we have the solution: Kid President! This little POTUS knows what’s what, and he can also seriously cut a rug. Plus, he’s wise beyond his years: “If it doesn’t make the world better, don’t do it.” You’ve got our vote, Kid President!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/7bW7s98R088[/youtube]

•  On the one hand, this story about bears in Bearsville invading a home multiple times while the owners were out is scary. It’s sad that their kitchen was ransacked, although fortunately nobody was hurt. On the other hand, you adorable silly bears!! We know you probably got confused because you live in Bearsville, NY, but that’s not your house!! (Via Stephen Colbert)
• If we’re going to blog about cute things we might as well include this link to a piece on the origin of the word “cute.” It even has a totally cute graph.

We’re suckers for a cute animal video, and goats rank SUPER high on the hierarchy of animal adorability. Need proof? This tiny goat is doing parkour—off her friend’s back.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/5IuRzJRrRpQ[/youtube]

• Speaking of cute animal videos, enjoy these kittens drinking from tiny bottles. You win again, Cute Overload!!

—Avery, who’s off to practice some parkour