Insanely creative, laugh-out-loud funny, Insults May Vary is one of the finest collections of humor writing available today: a brain-on-fire romp through the craggy landscape of Western culture. Author David Ferrell combines eloquence with irreverence -- and vice versa -- as he answers questions no one has ever asked. What are the high-desert raconteurs jabbering about in Jerome, Arizona?

Who started the alleged celebrity food fight at Spago, if it happened, and what was George Clooney wearing, anyway? Why did Ernest Hemingway abandon plans for his ambitious novel sequel, For Whom the Phone Rings? Ferrell's artistic audacity takes us from the bright lights of the spoken-word circuit to the forbidden realms of America's secret societies -- including, not least of all, an inside look at The Covert Anonymous Hush-Hush League.

Ferrell's dark-comedy baseball novel, Screwball, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection optioned by Universal Pictures. The author is a multi-award-winning former staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, where he was a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning news teams. Known for his sharp, lyrical writing style, he roamed the roiling polyglot metropolis from the teeming streets of Skid Row to the palm-shrouded mansions of Beverly Hills, breathing life into tales about homelessness, wealth, jailhouse violence, and extreme sports. Ferrell's gripping account of the Badwater Ultramarathon was featured in the anthology Best American Sports Writing. He and his family live in Long Beach, California.