Best-selling author and speaker Barbara Johnson is famous for seeing and celebrating the bright side of life's ups-and-downs. Now, in her first-ever devotional, she dares you to lighten up and enjoy life to the hilt. As Barbara says, "You've got to hone your ability to fling a smile a mile. Sure as anything, it'll boomerang right back to you, more accurately each time you toss it out." Barbara knows life is far too serious not to laugh. In 60 wise, witty devotions--salted with humor and peppered with the madcap illustrations of syndicated cartoonist John McPherson--she helps you perfect the...

Only in the world of Close to Home can you find hospitals staffed with hypochondriac-sniffing dogs, Yellowstone employees who secretly spike Old Faithful with gallons of Mr. Bubble, and telephones equipped with Caller I.Q. Of course, for the creator of the screamingly successful Close to Home, it's just another no-holds-barred day at the drawing board.

Specializing in humor in everyday situations, John McPherson lampoons the worlds of parenting, marriage, school, health care, work, and leisure in ways that get readers to laugh at themselves.

Ferociously Close to Home delivers McPherson's trademark take on the absurdities of everyday life. To say that his solutions to these perplexing situations is 'out there' is an understatement. Consider Gina, who decides a branding iron will be the ideal memory aid for her birthday date-challenged husband. And poor Lanny, whose treadmill session is interrupted when he inadvertently triggers the health club's offensive odor alarm.

McPherson has long walked the line between grotesque and goofy. But somehow, his figures with big noses and bulging eyes connect with readers with...

Some call it weird. Others, eclectic, creative, hilarious, laugh-out-loud funny, and good old-fashioned snort-milk-out-your-nose humor. Whatever adjective you apply to Close to Home, it has become one of the most popular comic panels in the funny pages today.

Close to Home has devout fans that range from elementary students to octogenarians. As one fan put it, "I feel like you have been looking in my window and are drawing my life " Though by no means a Peeping Tom, John McPherson does have the unique skill of being able to take those idiosyncrasies of daily life...

Is your face suffering from a lack of exercise? Readers rely on John McPherson's Close to Home cartoon to contort their facial muscles into an unstoppable grin each day. Not even Botox can stop you from smiling at this latest collection of Close to Home.

How do you measure a cartoon's popularity? The true measure of a comic panel's popularity is how often it is posted on a refrigerator, cubicle, break room bulletin board, or office door. By that standard, Close to Home wins the comic panel popularity contest hands down.

Close to Home...

EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT SURVIVING IN THE WILD

"During my first years of learning survival I took a course in survival and primitive earth skills taught by John and Geri McPherson. I was excited by their unbelievable passion and their intrinsic understanding of survival. Their teachings took me from understanding basic skills to a full-blown love for the ancient technologies that humans developed to survive. John and Geri are the real deal. They don't just teach this stuff, they live it. I loved the experience with them so much I came back a second time a few...