Veering from the ludicrous to the endearing and back again, Notes From a Small Island is a delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation that has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey.

This anthology -- the first general-reader collection of writing by Italian American authors -- is part manifesto, part Sunday dinner. A gathering of voices old and new, some speak in the accents of another age, some completely contemporary and assured, and all together for the first time. To stand with all the other popular media images we represent, now, at last, one exists in written form, the literature of Italian American life.Inside, there are excerpts from novels, memoirs, short stories, essays, and poems -- by the living and the dead, the famous and the obscure. The excerpts are variously moving, funny, poignant, lusty, biting, reverent, witty, loving, angry, and wise, dealing in the most profound aspects of our lives no matter who we are: home, love, sex, family, food, work, God, death.Characters range from gangsters to grandmas, lovers to fighters, thinkers to doers, sinners to saints, with special appearances by Frank Sinatra and the Virgin Mary.

By night, Brian Johnson sings in the biggest rock ’n’ roll band on the planet. But by day, AC/DC’s frontman drives balls to the wall. Cars and rock ’n’ roll—they were made for each other. When he was a young boy growing up in a working-class English town, Brian developed what would become a lifelong passion for cars, trolling junkyards and even pretending to drive the family car. From there, he steamed up the windows of his old Mini Cooper as a teenager, spent untold time in hygienically challenged tour buses with helpful signs such as No Shitting Allowed. Shagging Expected, was chauffeured in leather-trimmed limos, and raced cars to a checkered flag. Featuring guest stars Cliff Williams, Malcolm and Angus Young, and many, many others, even Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rockers and Rollers is a tribute to Brian’s obsession with four wheels. By turns surprising, poignant, funny, and maybe a little bit bawdy, these are the stories of a man who drives as hard as he rocks.

The golden age of tennis came crashing down suddenly at the 1981 U.S. Open when the stoical Swede, Bj?rn Borg, lost to his brash young rival, John McEnroe, in the final at Flushing Meadows. Through the lens of that era's final tournament, and the play of the other semifinalists, Jimmy Connors and Vitas Gerulaitis, High Strung chronicles the lives and careers of the men who made those Wild West days of tennis so memorable: "Ice Borg," who secretly harbored an inner madman; McEnroe, the tortured, bratty genius; Connors, the game's beloved blue-collar anti-hero; Ilie Nastase, the Romanian clown; Gerulaitis, the New York charmer; and Ivan Lendl, who became a harbinger of tennis's high-powered future. The struggles these men shared were as compelling off the court as they were on.

Based on previously unused French and German sources, this challenging and controversial new analysis of the war on the Western front from 1914 to 1918 reveals how and why the Germans won the major battles with one-half to one-third fewer casualties than the Allies, and how American troops in 1918 saved the Allies from defeat and a negotiated peace with the Germans.

Rand was initially puzzled as to why young spirits wanted to speak through her she had no children of her own and the responsibility of talking with people who had lost theirs seemed too great to bear. But the compelling answers came with time and patience: No one finds death more inexplicable than a grieving parent, thus no spirits are more motivated to make sense of it all for those they've left behind than young ones.These spirits clearly want to heal broken hearts and deepen our understanding of life and death, and Rand has the unique ability to help deliver their messages.Through her, young spirits talk freely about how to make sense of murder, suicide, and accidental deaths. They also discuss the different ways relationships on both sides can be mended, how the intergenerational cycle of abuse and addiction can be stopped, and how joy guides miscarried and aborted children can actually help those they've left behind move forward.The insights they share in this uniquely comforting book will surprise, inform, and inspire. What's more, their answers to our questions about death reveal many valuable tips for living a better life while on earth too.

This is a book about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is a book about what happened to Jackie, Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, and the others when their glory days were behind them. In short, it is a book about America, about fathers and sons, prejudice and courage, triumph and disaster, and told with warmth, humor, wit, candor, and love.

Blessed with an exceptional gift, New York Times bestselling author James Van Praagh has the ability to bridge the gap between this world and the next. Based on nearly thirty years of spirit communication, this renowned and beloved medium takes us on a powerful, eye-opening, and ultimately inspiring voyage. Filled with incredible and uplifting true stories and profound messages of love, this astounding look at heaven provides a remarkably detailed portrayal of the child's soul as it moves from this world to the next. Our eyes and hearts open and we experience firsthand the unbreakable bond between parent and child, all the while glimpsing a vision of heaven.Van Praagh reveals the reality that love transcends the physical and material planes of this world. Growing Up in Heaven lifts our spirits with the knowledge that our departed ones will always be with us an extraordinary gift for all of us who yearn to understand life on the other side.

Dr. William Glasser offers a new psychology that, if practiced, could reverse our widespread inability to get along with one another, an inability that is the source of almost all unhappiness. For progress in human relationships, he explains that we must give up the punishing, relationship destroying external control psychology. For example, if you are in an unhappy relationship right now, he proposes that one or both of you could be using external control psychology on the other. He goes further. And suggests that misery is always related to a current unsatisfying relationship. Contrary to what you may believe, your troubles are always now, never in the past. No one can change what happened yesterday.

When Pete Jordan arrives in Amsterdam to study how to make America's cities more bicycle-friendly, he immediately falls in love with the city that already lives life on two wheels. His new bride, Amy Joy, joins Pete, and despite their financial hardships and instability, she eventually finds her own new calling as a bicycle mechanic as Pete discovers the untold history of cycling in Amsterdam.From its beginnings as an elitis t pastime in the 1890s to the street-consuming craze of the 1920s, from the bicycle's role in a citywide resistance to the Nazi occupation to the White Bikes of the 1960s and the bike fishermen of today, Jordan chronicles the evolution of Amsterdam's cycling.Part personal memoir, part history of cycling, part fascinating street-level tour of Amsterdam, In the City of Bikes is the story of a man who loves bikes in a city that loves bikes.

A Curious Discovery is one of the most complete and honest accounts of entrepreneurship and the building of a giant corporation ever written. Media visionary John Hendricks takes the reader on his unforgettable journey from founding Discovery Communications over a breakfast table to establishing the organization as the world's largest provider of television content. Hendricks tells this remarkable story from the triumphs to the failures with unflinching candor. In the process, he shares what he's learned over the past three decades, from the obstacles and successes of the early years to the very real and very different challenges that exist today. The result is not only a powerful autobiography and corporate history, but also a valuable primer for all budding entrepreneurs.A Curious Discovery goes behind the scenes, telling the fascinating stories of some of the network's most popular shows: Deadliest Catch, Mythbusters, The Crocodile Hunter, Planet Earth, Dirty Jobs, and Trading Spaces. It also draws lessons from the network's setbacks, including the unsuccessful collaboration with the New York Times, and explains the company's high-profile decisions, such as Discovery's partnership with Oprah Winfrey and OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.Hendricks reveals that his achievements would not have been possible without one crucial factor that has informed his life since childhood: curiosity. Ever eager to learn, to uncover even to take enormous risks his questioning mind has guided his development and success, and continues to shape his outlook today as he works to improve education around the world.

For more than twenty years, Writing Screenplays That Sell has been hailed as the most complete guide available on the art, craft, and business of writing for movies and television. Now fully revised and updated to reflect the latest trends and *s, Hollywood story expert and * consultant Michael Hauge walks readers through every step of writing and selling successful screenplays. If you read only one book on the screenwriter's craft, this must be the one.

Arch and unrepentant, Will Leitch, founding editor of Deadspin.com, is the mouthpiece for all the frustrated fans who just want their games back from big money, bloated egos, and blathering sportscasters. Always a fan first and a sportswriter second, Leitch considers the perfection of fantasy leagues and the meaninglessness of the steroids debate as he exposes Olympic fetishes, parses Shaq's rap attack on Kobe, shares a brew with John Rocker and his surprising girlfriend, and reveals what ESPN and the beer companies really think about you. If you or a fan you love is suffering from a sense of listless dissatisfaction brought on by the leagues and networks, God Save the Fan is your new manifesto.

In this eye-opening, authoritative biography, Adam Begley offers a captivating portrait of John Updike, the author who saw himself as a literary spy in small-town and suburban America, and who dedicated himself to the task of transcribing middleness with all its grits, bumps, and anonymities. Updike explores the stages of the writer's pilgrim's progress: his beloved home turf of Berks County, Pennsylvania; his escape to Harvard; his brief, busy working life as the golden boy at The New Yorker; his family years in suburban Ipswich, Massachusetts; his extensive travel abroad; and his retreat to another Massachusetts town, Beverly Farms, where he remained until his death in 2009. Drawing on in-depth archival research as well as interviews with the writer's family, friends, and colleagues, Begley explores how Updike's fiction was shaped by his tumultuous personal life including his enduring religious faith, his two marriages, and his firsthand experience of the adulterous society he was credited with exposing in the bestselling novel Couples.With a sharp critical sensibility, Begley probes Updike's best-loved works from Pigeon Feathers to The Witches of Eastwick to the Rabbit tetralogy and reveals a surprising and deeply complex character fraught with contradictions: a kind man with a vicious wit, a gregarious charmer who was ruthlessly competitive, a private person compelled to spill his secrets on the printed page.Candid, intimate, and utterly absorbing, Updike is a masterful biography of a national treasure whose writing continues to resonate like no one else's.

The definitive A to Z reference on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln The first book of its kind, The Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia is a truly indispensable guide to one of the most dramatic and fascinating events in our nation's history: the murder of the sixteenth president of the United States. Written by Edward Steers, Jr., acclaimed author of Blood on the Moon and one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, here is an exhaustive, highly readable resource that includes: All the known persons, places, events, and conspiracies connected to the tragedy More than 150 period photographs and maps, many never before published The truth behind the hoaxes, myths, and legends surrounding the assassination A comprehensive narrative and timeline of events . . . and more With a foreword by James L. Swanson, bestselling author of Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, The Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia is the perfect addition to every Lincoln library.

From his less than auspicious start in 1755 on the Caribbean Island of Nevis to his untimely death in a duel with his old enemy Aaron Burr in 1804, Alexander Hamilton, despite his short life, left a huge legacy. Orphaned at thirteen and apprenticed in a counting house, Hamilton learned principles of business that helped him create the American financial system and invent the modern corporation. But first the staunch, intrepid Hamilton served in the American Revolution, acting as General Washington's spymaster. Forging a successful legal career, Hamilton coauthored the Federalist Papers and plunged into politics. Irresistibly attractive, he was a man of many gifts, but he could be arrogant and at times a poor judge of character. In this meticulously researched, illuminating, and lively account, Willard Sterne Randall explores Hamilton’s life his illegitimate birth, little-known military activities, political and diplomatic intrigues, and scandalous affairs and its indelible impact on modern America.

In a survival situation, a wrong decision could spell the difference between life and death. No one knows this better than Les Stroud, who has survived everywhere from the sun-scorched sands of the Kalahari to the snake-infested jungles of the Amazon. In Will to Live, Les examines many incredible true life survival stories explaining what happened and why, and offering valuable perspectives on what went right, what went wrong, and what could have been done differently. The tales in Will to Live include: Chris McCandless the subject of the book and movie Into the Wild. Yossi Ghinsberg who survived alone in the Amazon for twenty-one days. Douglas Mawson the Antarctic "superman" who survived three hellish months at the bottom of the planet. Nando Parrado who was trapped for two months high in the Andes after a plane crash killed his friends and family. Plus . . . stories from Les's own experiences, along with practical sidebars with tips on how to escape quicksand, butcher a moose, cross a snow-covered crevasse, and more. Provocative and entertaining, Will to Live is a compilation of history's most intriguing survival stories from one of the world's foremost experts.

In June 1967, Israel achieved the unimaginable a decisive victory against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six-Day War. The most symbolic triumph for the young nation was the reunification of Israeli West Jerusalem and Jordanian East Jerusalem, achieved at great cost by a group of paratroopers from the 55th Paratroopers Reserve Brigade. In restoring Jewish sovereignty to the Holy City, these men fulfilled the dream of two millennia, changing the history of Israel and of the Middle East. And as veteran journalist Yossi Klein Halevi shows in Like Dreamers, they played pivotal roles in shaping Israel's destiny long after their resounding military success.A masterful storyteller, Halevi tracks down seven members of the 55th Brigade and traces their lives through the decades following the Six-Day War. But as his narrative reveals, despite the intensity of their shared experience protecting Israel, in their postwar paths they nurture drastically divergent visions for the country's future. Yoel Bin-Nun emerges at the forefront of the religious Zionist West Bank settlement movement, but Arik Achmon the chief intelligence officer of the 55th becomes a spiritual father of the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Achmon becomes a driving force in the growth of Israel's capitalist economy, whereas Avital Geva, in addition to building a reputation as a leading conceptual artist, ardently defends the socialist kibbutzim. And while Geva is among the foremost activists in Peace Now, Udi Adiv helps create an anti-Zionist terror underground in Damascus, eventually serving twelve years in an Israeli prison.Charting the ideological differences among this band of brothers, Halevi weaves a nuanced and insightful chronicle of modern Israel. His fascinating, diligently researched examination of each man's motivations and actions supported by extensive interviews with their friends, family members, and comrades-in-arms humanizes the country 's complex political landscape, facilitating a deeper understanding of the forces that influence its evolution as a state.

Veuve Clicquot champagne epitomizes glamour, style, and luxury. In The Widow Clicquot, Tilar J. Mazzeo brings to life for the first time the fascinating woman behind the iconic yellow label: Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, who, after her husband's death, defied convention by assuming the reins of the fledgling wine business they had nurtured together. Steering the company through dizzying political and financial reversals, she became one of the world's first great businesswomen and one of the richest women of her time. As much a fascinating journey through the process of making this temperamental wine as a biography of a uniquely tempered woman, The Widow Clicquot is the captivating true story of a legend and a visionary.

Raised in small-town Arkansas, Billy Bob Thornton grew up amid a rich storytelling tradition. See, the South is just different than other places. . . . You can feel the ghosts there. As a kid, he would sit on the porch listening to his family or some old man down the road spinning yarns about colorful neighbors. These stories didn't have to be made up. The characters were already there, so the stories just came out of the characters we knew. Thus was borne his Oscar-winning masterpiece Sling Blade and now The Billy Bob Tapes a narrative based on late-night conversations with Kinky Friedman and other friends who gathered 'round to hear Billy mine a cave full of ghosts. Billy grew up shooting squirrels, playing drums in VFW clubs, and dreaming of rock 'n' roll stardom or pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals. Then at sixteen he took a drama class to meet chicks and met Mrs. Treadway, who noticed the young man's talent and encouraged him as an actor and writer. "You don't know what it's like to be a drama teacher in a small town in Arkansas where nobody really cares," she said, "but let me tell you something. You can do this." Everything I've accomplished since, I can trace back to this woman, Maudie Treadway.The colorful characters, stories, and experiences of his youth would find their way into Billy's work, in his films and music, and in his perspective and attitude. It's like the old saying goes: you can take the boy out of the hills, but you can't take the hills out of the boy. That boy did leave the hills for Hollywood Hills. A true fish out of water, he recalls stories of miserable jobs, the cheapest accommodations, and physical hunger but also a devoted writing partner Tom Epperson, a life-changing acting teacher in L.A., and a compassionate nurse who snuck him milk shakes when he was near starvation. But there was always the dream of being an actor, and his fortunes turned when he served hors d'oeuvres as a catering waiter to legendary director Billy Wilder, who advised him, "Write about your interesting life." Billy's long career in Hollywood yields stories of inspired collaborations and failed ones, true friendships with other actors and musicians, and good friends gone too soon. In The Billy Bob Tapes, he reflects on the critics, the culture around fame, and the challenges of conveying an artistic vision in film. Most striking is Billy's clear-eyed perspective about the magic of entertainment, and how we perceive it in a rapidly changing world. With passion, unvarnished honesty, wry humor, and a little help from friends Angelina Jolie, Robert Duvall, Dwight Yoakam, Tom Epperson, and Daniel Lanois, Billy Bob finally talks.

In 1945, a doctor with the Soviet Red Army found a school notebook buried near the crematoria of the newly liberated Auschwitz concentration camp. Thinking the notebook looked interesting, she brought it home to Russia, where it languished for decades. After the doctor's death, her granddaughter, who had emigrated to the United States, discovered the book and brought it to the attention of Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco, where the diary was first recognized for the extraordinary artifact that it is. Handwritten between October 1943 and April 1944, the work proved to be the diary of a young girl who had lived in the Polish ghetto of Lodz under Nazi rule and who had been transported to Auschwitz. What had become of the girl was a mystery. Elegantly translated from Polish into English seventy years later, Rywka's Diary is at once an astonishing historical document and a moving tribute to the many ordinary people whose lives were forever altered by the Holocaust. At its heart is the story of Rywka Lipszyc, a girl in the Lodz ghetto, the second largest in Poland, who detailed the brutal conditions that she and other Jews living under the Nazis had to endure: poverty, hunger and malnutrition, religious oppression, and the death of close family members.Rywka's Diary is a deeply felt coming-of-age story in which a young woman expresses curiosity about her place in the world and reflects on her relationship with God a remarkable affirmation of her commitment to Judaism and her faith in humanity. Interwoven into this carefully translated diary are photographs, news clippings, maps, and commentary from Holocaust scholars and the girl's surviving relatives, which provide an in-depth picture of both the circumstances of Rywka's life and the mysterious end to her diary.Moving and illuminating, told by a brave young girl whose strong and charismatic voice speaks for millions, Rywka's Diary is an extraordinary addition to the history of the Holocaust and World War II.