Finding the perfect house is never easy. Rebuilding one from a crumbling pile to say nothing of making it into a home is even harder.With their infant son in tow, David Giffels and his wife comb the environs of Akron, Ohio, in search of just the right house for their burgeoning family. Running through David's head the whole time are the lyrics of a Replacements song, ". . . Look me in the eye, then tell me that I'm satisfied," and it gives all the more purpose to their quest. But nothing seems right . . . until they spot a beautiful, decaying Gilded Age mansion. A former rubber industry executive's domain, the once grand residence lacks functional plumbing and electricity, leaks rain like a cartoon shack, and is infested with all manner of wildlife. But for a young man at a coming-of-age crossroads "suspended between a perpetual youth and an inevitable adulthood" the challenge is exactly the allure.All the Way Home follows Giffels's funny, poignant, and confounding journey as he and his wife and a colorful collection of helpers turn a money pit into a house that will complete their family. Nothing could prepare them for a home restoration epic that includes evicting squatters (both four- and two-legged), battling an invading wisteria vine, hunting a ghost, and discovering thousands of dollars in hidden Depression-era cash. But the story's heart lies deeper, in an unexpected series of personal hardships that call into question what "home" really means, and what it means to grow up.Written with the humor and insight of Bill Bryson and John Grogan, All the Way Home is the engaging tale of a young father's struggle to restore a house and find his way . . . without losing himself.

In the Madre de Dios ("Mother of God") region of Peru, where the Amazon River begins, the cloud forests of the Andes converge with the lowland Amazon rainforest to create the most biodiverse place on the planet. In January 2006, Paul Rosolie, a restless eighteen-year-old hungry for adventure, embarked on a journey to the western Amazon that would transform his life.Venturing alone into the most inaccessible reaches of the jungle, he encountered massive snakes, isolated tribes, prowling jaguars, giant anteaters, poachers trafficking in the black market of endangered species, and much more. He even discovered a new kind of ecosystem now known as a "floating forest." Yet today the primordial depths of the Madre de Dios are in grave danger.In Mother of God, this explorer and conservationist relives his amazing odyssey to the heart of the wildest place on earth. As he delved deeper into his search for the secret Eden, spending extended periods in isolation, he found things he never imagined could exist. But as the legendary explorer Percy Fawcett warned, "The few remaining unknown places of the world exact a price for their secrets."

The Benedictine tradition and practice of divine reading made accessible for everyone.

John Leguizamo's smash–hit one–man shows have been acclaimed by critics and fans alike. In this new Harper Paperback edition, all four shows are compiled into one phenomenally entertaining volume. Mambo Mouth (1991), Leguizamo's first show, was an off Broadway sensation. Leguizamo's portrayal of seven different Latino characters earned him both Obie and Outer Critics Circle awards. His follow up, Spic–O–Rama (1993), a "dysfunctional family comedy," presents 24–hours in the life of one family. It enjoyed a sold–out run in Chicago before relocating to New York where it won its creator a Drama Desk Award. Freak (1998), Leguizamo's Broadway debut, is his own coming–of–age story. A "demi–semi–quasi–pseudo–autobiography," the show was a critical and commercial success and won an Emmy when it was shown on TV. Sexaholix: A Love Story (2001), based on the sold–out national tour of John Leguizamo Live! was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award as well as a Tony Award. Alternately hilarious and poignant, always candid and searingly intelligent, The Works of John Leguizamo is a must–have for fans of this inimitable performer.

Do you suffer from ongoing pain or other chronic medical symptoms such as fatigue, lower back pain, arthritis, acid indigestion, insomnia, or migrainesDo you feel as though your symptoms are taking over your lifeThirty percent of the population suffers from chronic debilitating illnesses and pain that respond only partially to conventional medicine, but this doesn't mean that there is no relief in sight. Dr. Arthur Barsky, psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine, has found that changing the way you think about your illness can have a remarkable effect on how you experience your symptoms. The groundbreaking program he offers in Stop Being Your Symptoms and Start Being Yourself teaches patients to master the five psychological factors that make chronic symptoms persist through hundreds of exercises, worksheets, and patient examples. You may not be able to completely eliminate your medical symptoms, but it is possible to control your symptoms rather than letting them control you and this book shows you how.

Surviving an Eating Disorder has become a classic since it was first published in 1988. It was one of the first books to offer effective support and solutions for family, friends, and all others who are the "silent sufferers" of eating disorders. This updated and revised edition provides the latest information on how parents, spouses, friends, and professionals can thoughtfully determine the right course of action in their individual situations.With its combination of information, insight, case examples, and practical strategies, Surviving an Eating Disorder opens the way to new growth and helpful solutions in your relationship with your loved one.

"Of all the people who have affected by my life and influence the choices I've made, none has been more important than my father." So begins the autobiography of legendary boxing trainer and commentator Teddy Atlas, who grew from the rebellious son of a doctor to a man who embraces, and lives by, his father's values and code.In this gritty, spellbinding tale, Atlas recounts his fascinating life -- as a juvenile delinquent on the streets of Staten Island; as a boxer and Golden Gloves champion under the tutelage of famed trainer Cus D'Amato; as a companion to the dangerous, unpredictable Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, up until the day Gravano turned rat and brought down crime boss John Gotti; and as a trainer of champions and contenders, among them fourteen-year-old Mike Tyson and heavyweight Michael Moorer, whom he led to the crown with a win over Evander Holyfield.Equally engrossing are Teddy Atlas's accounts of training dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp for her successful comeback at age forty-two; his work with actor Willem Dafoe, preparing him for his role as a concentration camp boxer in the film Triumph of the Spirit; his journey to Poland to choreograph the film's boxing scenes; and his own performance in movies such as Play It to the Bone. In sharing his stories, Atlas reveals the philosophy by which he lives.Like Teddy Atlas -- inimitable, tough, honest, and wise -- this book inspires. It is about so much more than boxing. It is a story of overcoming hardships, of compassion for those in need, of tremendous personal integrity, and of personal and professional triumph.

When Warren Zevon died in 2003, he left behind a rich catalog of dark, witty rock 'n' roll classics, including "Lawyers, Guns and Money," "Excitable Boy," and the immortal "Werewolves of London." He also left behind a fanatical cult following and veritable rock opera of drugs, women, celebrity, genius, and epic bad behavior. As Warren once said, "I got to be Jim Morrison a lot longer than he did."Narrated by his former wife and longtime co-conspirator, Crystal Zevon, this intimate and unusual oral history draws on interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Stephen King, Bonnie Raitt, and numerous others who fell under Warren's mischievous spell. Told in the words and images of the friends, lovers, and legends who knew him best, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead captures Warren Zevon in all his turbulent glory.

Popular blogger Karen Alpert shares her hysterical take on the many "joys" of parenting I Heart My Little A-Holes is full of hilarious stories, lists, thoughts and pictures that will make you laugh so hard you'll wish you were wearing a diaper.

Winner of three Oscars and the highest-grossing film of its time, Jaws was a phenomenon, and this is the only book on how twenty-six-year-old Steven Spielberg transformed Peter Benchley's number-one bestselling novel into the classic film it became.Hired by Spielberg as a screenwriter to work with him on the set while the movie was being made, Carl Gottlieb, an actor and writer, was there throughout the production that starred Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss. After filming was over, with Spielberg's cooperation, Gottlieb chronicled the extraordinary yearlong adventure in The Jaws Log, which was first published in 1975 and has sold more than two million copies. This expanded edition includes a photo section, an introduction by Benchley, and an afterword by Gottlieb that gives updates about the people and events involved in the film, ultimately providing a singular portrait of a famous movie and inspired moviemaking.

Kennedy Odede found his first grey hair at six. Named after John F. Kennedy, he grew up as the eldest of eight children in Kibera, a teeming Kenyan slum without sewage systems, roads, running water, or access to basic needs, like health care and education. At ten, he was alone on the streets. Homeless and in despair at sixteen, Kennedy was given a book of Martin Luther King's speeches. Inspired, he bought a twenty-cent soccer ball and started a youth group, determined to bring the hope he'd found into the lives of his fellow citizens. He called it Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO). Several years later, Jessica Posner, an irrepressible Wesleyan student, went abroad to work with SHOFCO and, despite Kennedy's incredulous objections, moved into his tiny house. They fell in love. When Kennedy was threatened by political violence, Jessica helped him win a full scholarship to Wesleyan and brought him to America. Torn between his lifelong wish for an education and an abiding loyalty to his community, Kennedy, with Jessica at his side, decided to start a school for Kibera's most vulnerable population: girls. The alchemy of their remarkable union and the small, joyful world their brilliant collaboration has made in Kibera have drawn the support of community members and celebrities alike. With this support, Jessica and Kennedy have been able to provide water, health care, and entrepreneurial programs, which now serve more than seventy-six thousand people, and have replicated this model in Mathare, another Kenyan slum. Because of their efforts, hundreds of young girls have the potential to become Kenya's future leaders, and tens of thousands of people living in poverty have access to clean water, health care, and economic empowerment programs. Their girls attend school every day in crisp blue uniforms and red sweaters. Filled with hope and ambition for the future, they adhere to a rigorous curriculum and outperform students from the most expensive schools in Kenya. By elevating these girls, Jessica and Kennedy have started a subtle yet powerful revolution in each community, and have dedicated themselves to bringing the same resolve and enthusiasm to urban slums beyond Kibera and Mathare. Jessica and Kennedy's story is many things: a tender love story, a tale of how true leaders are made, and an account of the successful melding of the best in two cultures. Few have fought as tenaciously and ingeniously against poverty and hopelessness as these two young people. Their story vividly illustrates the power of young, hopeful people to have an impact on the world, and stands as a testament to the transformations made possible by true love.

"The Bible and the social and moral consequences that derive from its interpretation are all too important to be left in the hands of the pious or the experts, and too significant to be ignored and trivialized by the uninformed and indifferent.

There's no place like home! And that's why we're back. Dare to Repair, Replace Renovate is the sequel to Dare to Repair, the national bestselling home repair book for women. In our first book, we taught you how to fix a leaky faucet. In this book, we teach you how to replace it. In our first book, we showed you how to change the direction of ceiling fan blades. In this book, we show you how to install a new fan. We've gone from basic repairs to easy projects that can make your home more comfortable, more beautiful, and more valuable. We will show you how to: Put up a tile backsplash Install a closet system Install a deadbolt lock Replace a medicine cabinet Mount blinds, shades, and shutters Install landscape lighting And we provide easy, step-by-step instructions so you can get rid of the things in your home that are making you crazy: Ugly chandelierGone. Outdated vanityOut of there. Broken garbage disposalHistory. Torn wallpaperBuh-bye. Incorporating detailed illustrations with witty and encouraging instructions, Dare to Repair, Replace & Renovate will allow you to turn your project wish list into a can-do list.

Washington, D.C., is home to the most influential power brokers in the world. But how did we come to call D.C. a place once described as a mere swamp "producing nothing except myriads of toads and frogs (of enormous size)," and which was strategically indefensible, captive to the politics of slavery, and the target of unbridled land speculation our nation's capitalIn Washington, acclaimed, award-winning author Fergus M. Bordewich turns to the backroom deal-making and shifting alliances among our Founding Fathers to find out, and in doing so pulls back the curtain on the lives of the slaves who actually built the city. The answers revealed in this eye-opening book are not only surprising but also illuminate a story of unexpected triumph over a multitude of political and financial obstacles, including fraudulent real estate deals, overextended financiers, and management more apt for a banana republic than an emerging world power.In a page-turning work that reveals the hidden and unsavory side to the nation's beginnings, Bordewich once again brings his novelist's eye to a little-known chapter of American history.

Her canvases were the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; the Great Terror; America at the time of Washington and Jefferson; Paris under the Directoire and then under Napoleon; Regency London; the battle of Waterloo; and, for the last years of her life, the Italian ducal courts. Like Saint-Simon at Versailles, Samuel Pepys during the Great Fire of London, or the Goncourt brothers in nineteenth-century France, Lucie Dillon a daughter of French and British nobility known in France by her married name, Lucie de la Tour du Pin was the chronicler of her age.La Rochefoucauld called her "a cultural jewel." The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire favored her for his dinner companion in Paris. Napoleon requested she attend Josephine. Her friends included Talleyrand, Madame de Stal, Chateaubriand, Lafayette, and the Duke of Wellington, with whom she played as a child. She witnessed firsthand the demise of the French monarchy, the wave of Revolution and the Reign of Terror, and the precipitous rise and fall of Napoleon. She spent two years as an migr in the newly independent United States (on a farm in Albany) but was also a familiar of Regency London. A shrewd, determined woman in a turbulent age of men, Lucie de la Tour du Pin watched, listened, reflected and wrote it all down, mixing politics and court intrigue, social observation and the realities of everyday existence, to offer a fascinating chronicle of her era.In this compelling biography, Caroline Moorehead illuminates the extraordinary life and remarkable achievements of this strong, witty, elegant, opinionated, and dynamic woman who survived personal tragedy, including the loss of six children, and periods of extreme danger, exile, poverty, and illness. Meticulously researched, brilliantly written, and vastly entertaining, Moorehead's chronicle of Lucie's life is an incomparable social history of her times.

In the tradition of Mark Kurlansky's Cod and David Bodanis's E=MC2, The Battery is the first popular history of the technology that harnessed electricity and powered the greatest scientific and technological advances of our time. What began as a long-running dispute in biology, involving a dead frog's twitching leg, a scalpel, and a metal plate, would become an invention that transformed the history of the world: the battery. From Alessandro Volta's first copper-and-zinc model in 1800 to twenty-first-century technological breakthroughs, science journalist Henry Schlesinger traces the history of this essential power source and demonstrates its impact on our lives.Volta's first battery not only settled the frog's leg question, it also unleashed a field of scientific research that led to the discovery of new elements and new inventions, from Samuel Morse's telegraph to Alexander Graham Bell's telephone to Thomas Edison's incandescent lightbulb. And recent advances like nanotechnology are poised to create a new generation of paradigm-shifting energy sources.Schlesinger introduces the charlatans and geniuses, paupers and magnates, attracted to the power of the battery, including Michael Faraday, Guglielmo Marconi, Gaylord Wilshire, and Hugo Gernsback, the publisher and would-be inventor who coined the term "science fiction." A kaleidoscopic tour of an ingenious invention that helped usher in the modern world, The Battery is as entertaining as it is enlightening.

A Sweeping, Dramatic History of the Americans Who Chose to Side with the British in the Revolution The American Revolution was not simply a battle between independence-minded colonists and the oppressive British. As Thomas B. Allen reminds us, it was also a savage and often deeply personal civil war, in which conflicting visions of America pitted neighbor against neighbor and Patriot against Tory on the battlefield, the village green, and even in church.In this outstanding and vital history, Allen tells the complete story of these other Americans, tracing their lives and experiences throughout the revolutionary period. New York City and Philadelphia were Tory strongholds through much of the war, and at times in the Carolinas and Georgia there were more trained and armed Tories than Redcoats. The Revolution also produced one of the greatest and least known migrations in Western history. More than 80,000 Tories left America, most of them relocating to Canada.John Adams once said that he feared there would never be a good history of the American Revolution because so many documents had left the country with the Tories. Based on documents in archives from Nova Scotia to London, Tories adds a fresh perspective to our knowledge of the Revolution and sheds an important new light on the little-known figures whose lives were forever changed when they remained faithful to their mother country.

After learning to play guitar at the age of ten, Shawn Colvin was determined to make a life in music. Diamond in the Rough recounts this passionate musician's coming-of-age, from the prairies of South Dakota to dark smoky bars in Austin, Texas, to the world stage at the Grammys. With the wit, lyricism, and empathy that have characterized Colvin's performances and inspired audiences worldwide, Diamond in the Rough looks back over a rich lifetime of highs and lows with stunning insight and candor. In its pages, we witness the inspiring story of a woman honing her artistry, finding her voice, and making herself whole.

The renowned #1 New York Times bestselling authors share their advice and expertise with parents and teens in this accessible, indispensable guide to surviving adolescence.Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish transformed parenting with their breakthrough, bestselling books Siblings Without Rivalry and How to Talk So Kids Will Listen; Listen So Kids Will Talk. Now, they return with this essential guide that tackles the tough issues teens and parents face today.Filled with straightforward advice and written in their trademark, down-to-earth style sure to appeal to both parents and teens, this all-new volume offers both innovative, easy-to-implement suggestions and proven techniques to build the foundation for lasting relationships. From curfews and cliques to sex and drugs, it gives parents the tools to help their children safely navigate the often stormy years of adolescence.

Accomplished journalist Sam Weller met the Ray Bradbury while writing a cover story for the Chicago Tribune Magazine and spent hundreds of hours interviewing Bradbury, his editors, family members, and longtime friends. With unprecedented access to private archives, he uncovered never before published letters, documents, and photographs that help tell the story of this literary genius and his remarkable creative journey. The result is a richly textured, detailed biography that illuminates the origins and accomplishments of Bradbury's fascinating mind.

The Autobiography of a Boy of Summer Who Became a Man for All SeasonsBefore Barry Bonds, before Reggie Jackson, before Hank Aaron, baseball's stars had one undeniable trait in common: they were all white. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke that barrier, striking a crucial blow for racial equality and changing the world of sports forever. I Never Had It Made is Robinson's own candid, hard-hitting account of what it took to become the first black man in history to play in the major leagues.I Never Had It Made recalls Robinson's early years and influences: his time at UCLA, where he became the school's first four-letter athlete; his army stint during World War II, when he challenged Jim Crow laws and narrowly escaped court martial; his years of frustration, on and off the field, with the Negro Leagues; and finally that fateful day when Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers proposed what became known as the Noble Experiment Robinson would step up to bat to integrate and revolutionize baseball.More than a baseball story, I Never Had It Made also reveals the highs and lows of Robinson's life after baseball. He recounts his political aspirations and civil rights activism; his friendships with Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, William Buckley, Jr., and Nelson Rockefeller; and his troubled relationship with his son, Jackie, Jr.Originally published the year Robinson died, I Never Had It Made endures as an inspiring story of a man whose heroism extended well beyond the playing field.