Drawing on her peripatetic childhood as the daughter of a travelling salesman, and her adult residence in one of Atlanta's seedier crack neighbourhoods, columnist and NPR commentator Hollis Gillespie has assembled a comic, poignant memoir about her life, starring her unusual family and her crazy friends.NPR commentator Hollis Gillespie's outrageously funny and equally heartbreaking collection of autobiographical tales chronicles her journey through self reckoning and the worst neighbourhoods in Atlanta in search of a home she can call her own. The daughter of a missile scientist and an alcoholic travelling trailer salesman, Gillespie was nine before she realized not everybody's mother made bombs, and thirty before she realized it was possible to live in one place longer than a six month lease allows. Supporting her are the social outcasts she calls her best friends: Daniel, a talented and eccentric artist; Grant, who makes his living peddling folk art by a denounced nun who paints plywood signs with twisted evangelical sayings; and Lary, who often, out of compassion, offers to shoot her like a lame horse.Hollis's friends help her battle the mess of obstacles that stand in her way including her warped childhood, in which her parents moved her and her siblings around the country like carnival barkers, chasing missile building contracts and other whimsies, such as her father's dream to patent and sell door to door the world's most wondrous key chain. A past like this will make you doubt you'll ever have a future, much less roots. Miraculously, though, Gillespie manages to plant exactly that: roots, as wrested and dubious as they are.As Gillespie says, Life is too damn short to remain trapped in your own Alcatraz. Follow her on this wickedly funny journey as she manages to escape again and again.

Why is it so difficult to remain married in thetwenty-first century, and what can you do about itWe all know that half of today's marriages end in divorce, but we tend to believe that our own marriages are safe. As psychiatrist John Jacobs explains in this fresh and impassioned book, marriages today are incredibly fragile, and unless a couple understands what is making contemporary marriage so vulnerable to dissolution, the marriage is at risk.Part of the problem is that people refuse to see how social and historical forces have changed the very meaning of marriage, causing serious interpersonal unhappiness. Because of increased longevity, married people live together longer than at any time in history. There's been an erosion of the social and cultural forces that traditionally kept marriages together. Confusion over gender-role responsibilities, increased expectations of sexual satisfaction, and intense time pressures on couples to work and be successful all create marital stress.And yet, most people don't acknowledge the problems in their marriage until it is too late. We tend to believe in the "lies of marriage" -- such concepts as soul mates, unconditional love, that children improve a relationship, that the sexual revolution has made marital sex more pleasurable, or that egalitarian marriage offers couples easy solutions -- and forget to engage in the constant hardwork required to keep our marriages alive.Dr. Jacobs believes that most marriages have significant problems at some time, but until we recognize the new realities of marriage and develop the skills required to sustain a loving, intimate relationship, marriages are at risk.Of course marriage is about love. But that's just the beginning.

The definitive guide for Main Street readers who want to make sense of what's happening on Wall Street and better understand how we got here and what we need to know to in days to come. Written by seasoned financial writer Dave Kansas this official Wall Street Journal guide will be filled with practical information revealing what the crisis means for reader's financial lives and what steps they should be taking now to inform and protect themselves.

As men, we can't help ending up in the doghouse for simply following our natural instincts.But follow the 50 tips in this book, and you'll spend less time out in the cold and more time getting scratches behind the ears and belly rubs.

When Tina Basich grabbed her rented snowboard and headed to the mountains in Lake Tahoe, snowboarding wasn't even considered a sport . . . yet. It was the beginning, and could have easily gone the way of many other sports and become dominated by male-driven competition. But not with Tina on the scene . . . Comments like "You're pretty good . . . for a girl" only pushed her harder to be the best and to prove she was more than just a token player on the slopes. Representing for women everywhere, she became a snowboarding all-star, started her own signature board and clothing lines for women, founded Boarding for Breast Cancer, and followed her heart, which led her on the adventure of a lifetime.This is her story.

It was an inconceivable deception: over $65 billion stolen in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Including new and revealing interviews with those who worked closest to himand his family, Betrayal is an in-depth, penetrating look at the man who perpetrated history's most notorious financial crime. To the people who knew him, Bernie Madoff was a kind and honorable person; a loving father and husband; generous to his employees and charitable even to strangers. On Wall Street, he was known as a wise elder statesman, wildly successful in his investments but never too risky with people's money. He was so revered and trusted that thousands placed their life savings with him, and he in turn provided them with early retirements and affluent lifestyles.But on December 11, 2008, Madoff confessed that he'd lied to them all. The monthly financial statements he'd sent customers for decades were all works of fiction. Their money was gone.Despite the crush of media attention on Madoff's scam, little is known about Madoff himself. What could lead a seemingly good man to ruin the lives of everyone who ever cared about himWhat caused Bernie Madoff to commit an unspeakable act of betrayal, bankrupting his family, his friends, his mentors, and thousands of investors who depended upon him for their livelihoodsBetrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff is about the man who realized that he could have everything he wanted if he simply lied to the people who trusted him the most. Author Andrew Kirtzman tracked down more than a hundred people from Madoff's past, from the first girl he ever kissed to family members who played in his house as children; from his secretaries to his drivers; from traders at his company to his inner circle of friends. He pored through thousands of pages of court records; private e-mails; phone-conversation tran*s; and census, military, and immigration records. The result is a fascinating story about the rise of a deeply immoral man.Kirtzman describes Madoff's feelings of inferiority and humiliation as a child, and his obsession with making money to prove himself worthy as he grew older. He reveals Madoff's construction of a criminal enterprise at a young age, long before he's ever claimed it began. He paints a picture of a loving yet strange family that ran a multibillion-dollar corporation like a small family restaurant. He offers an inside look at life within the company and the characters who worked on the infamous seventeenth floor. He reveals the details of an underground flow of cash that no one has known about until now. And he chronicles the desperate moments leading up to Madoff's fall, from the perspective of the people who spent the last hours with him before his house of cards collapsed.

Millions have visited the museums that bear her name, yet few know much about Madame Tussaud. A celebrated artist, she had both a ringside seat at and a cameo role in the French Revolution. A victim and survivor of one of the most tumultuous times in history, this intelligent, pragmatic businesswoman has also had an indelible impact on contemporary culture, planting the seed of our obsession with celebrity. In Madame Tussaud, Kate Berridge tells this fascinating woman's complete story for the first time, drawing upon a wealth of sources, including Tussaud's memoirs and historical archives. It is a grand-scale success story, revealing how with sheer graft and grit a woman born in 1761 to an eighteen-year-old cook overcame extraordinary reversals of fortune to build the first and most enduring worldwide brand identified simply by reference to its founder's name: Madame Tussaud's.

When Muhammad Ali met Joe Frazier in Manila for their third fight, their rivalry had spun out of control. The Ali-Frazier matchup had become a madness, inflamed by the media and the politics of race. When the "Thrilla in Manila" was over, one man was left with a ruin of a life; the other was battered to his soul. Mark Kram covered that fight for Sports Illustrated in an award-winning article. Now his riveting book reappraises the boxers -- who they are and who they were. And in a voice as powerful as a heavyweight punch, Kram explodes the myths surrounding each fighter, particularly Ali. A controversial, no-holds-barred account, Ghosts of Manila ranks with the finest boxing books ever written.

There is one card game that towers above all others as the most intelligent, intricate, and psychologically absorbing ever to be invented. It has a rich history. It's played and loved by some of the world's most famous and influential people. And it's not the one that's currently on television twenty-four hours a day.In 1925 Harold Stirling Vanderbilt invented modern bridge, and a national craze was born. In the 1930s, bridge was even bigger than baseball. Its devotees would eventually include the Marx Brothers, George Burns, Wilt Chamberlain, Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who played to unwind before the Normandy invasion. Today bridge players number about twenty-five million in the U.S. alone; current celebrity addicts include Warren Buffett (who goes by the online handle "T-Bone"), Bill Gates, Hugh Hefner, Sting, a sitting Supreme Court justice, and the guys from Radiohead.In this spirited homage, Edward McPherson recounts the history of the game while attempting to master its deep mysteries in time to compete at the North American Bridge Championships in Chicago. Barely able to shuffle cards let alone play bridge, he sets out to discover why the game became and remains such a popular pastime, stopping in Dallas, Kansas City, Gatlinburg, Gettysburg, Las Vegas, and London. He focuses on a handful of professionals and eager but fumbling amateurs, and the characters he meets convince him that in a game that pits mind against mind, close attention to the cards often reveals much about those sitting at the table. He attempts to learn from bridge's devoted fans from white-haired grannies and international playboys to teenage pros and billionaires how its legacy can be preserved for future generations. And along the way, he picks up a playing partner of his own: Tina, a New York octogenarian with sharp card skills and energy to burn.Insightful, funny, and steeped in respect for bridge, The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats is an affectionate view of a grand game by an outsider trying to make his way into the inner circle.

Candid and unforgettable, a daughter's story of family, devotion, and growing up with the greatest hitter who ever livedClaudia Williams first heard the crowds of Fenway Park scream her father's name two decades after he retired from the game. The world knew him as Ted Williams, The Kid, and Teddy Ballgame; at age ten, Claudia only knew him as Dad. Their life together had little to do with Triple Crowns and batting titles instead their world consisted of casting fishing lines in New Brunswick, cross-country road trips, and squabbling at "feeding time."Now, in this tender and surprising memoir, Claudia, Ted Williams's last surviving child, recounts her time with one of baseball's brightest stars, offering a rare glimpse inside the Hall of Famer's life after he hung up his spikes. With a fresh insight, she presents an unexpected portrait of Ted Williams as more than the greatest hitter to ever live, but also as a flawed man with a kind heart. Having the larger-than-life and often intimidating "Kid" as a father was tumultuous, but never boring, and along with her older brother, John-Henry, Claudia learned to navigate their father's hot temper and eccentricities to get to know the great man beneath. Though Claudia grew up in her brother's shadow, she proved herself as an athlete and a daughter, ultimately becoming her father's caretaker and confidante. Their relationship evolved throughout her life, but they eventually formed a bond built on love, respect, and loyalty that both she and her brother shared. Opening up for the first time about the rumors that her family faced during Ted Williams's final years as well as his controversial choice to be cryogenically preserved after his death, Claudia details the full story behind her father's decision, showing that, rather than an impulsive act in his last days, it was the product of extensive family discussion that addressed his doubts about organized religion and his struggle with the end of life.Filled with personal stories of his strengths and weaknesses, accomplishments and regrets, Claudia's poignant account tells the story of a complicated man and the family he loved. Complete with sixteen pages of photos, Ted Williams, My Father is a love letter to Claudia's lost dynasty and her greatest hero, Ted Williams.

Alligators, Old Mink New Money is a celebration of the clothes that capture our memories and imaginations, that leave their indelible stamp on each of our lives. Alison Houtte a former fashion model who runs the beloved Brooklyn, New York, boutique Hooti Couture knows that every article of vintage clothing has a story behind it, and she uses these items as a springboard to explore such universal topics as relationships, self-image, the bond between mothers and daughters, and that elusive thing called style.Whether you're a flea market veteran who savors the thrill of the hunt, a couture shopper with a Vogue budget, or are simply drawn to the de rigueur world of vintage, Alligators, Old Mink New Money offers a shopping adventure through auctions, estate sales, flea markets, and clothing racks all over the world to be savored, and inspired by!

From the author of the internationally bestselling Kosher Sex. A wake-up call about the growing trend of misogyny in our culture-as evidenced by the flood of reality TV shows, ads, and lyrics that portray women as brainless bimbos, or worse Shmuley Boteach, the social commentator and outspoken relationship guru, shares his grave concerns about our society's growing contempt for women. Turn on the television: Reality TV shows such as The Bachelor, For Love or Money, and Average Joe boost their ratings by showing attractive women in competition for one man, one man's money, or both. On a "quest for true love," these women quickly devolve into a pit of vipers-and millions of Americans tune in each week for more. During commercial breaks, women are objectified to sell beer, cars, and every other product under the sun. Flip on the radio: Women are bitches, hos, and gold diggers, at least if you listen to the rap lyrics pumping out into our mass consciousness. And female pop stars like Britney and Madonna, says Boteach, have pushed the envelope past provocative and into the downright pornographic. 'Tween girls across the country follow their lead, and standards for how women should be treated plummet.Perhaps one of the most troubling aspects of this trend, he says, is women's complicity in their own degradation. Either they've become resigned to base stereotypes, or worse, they've bought into these mass market values (hence the deluge of shows like The Swan and Extreme Makeover, on which female contestants insist they need a new nose, teeth, or boobs to feel a positive sense of self-esteem). "There are strong consequences," writes Boteach, "in a world where men have no respect for women and women have no respect for themselves." Greedy gold diggers, brainless bimbos, publicity prostitutes, and backstabbing bitches-are these the stereotypes we want our sons and daughters bombarded by as they grow upHating Women offers a vision of how we can correct this downward spiral-along with a strong argument for why we absolutely must.

A Reassuring and Informative Guide That Offers New Hope For Expectant Parents Along with inspiring accounts of women who have delivered healthy babies after years of heartbreak, Dr. Jonathan Scher provides the latest medical information on preventing recurrent miscarriages, including why couples with "unexplained infertility" actually may be suffering repeat pregnancy loss due to failure of the embryo to implant in the womb, important immunological and tissue tests that may explain or prevent miscarriage, emerging treatments such as heparin and I.V.I.G., updated resources, and much more.

Feeling anxious or stressedIf So, you are not alone. More people suffer from anxiety than any other mental health problem. However, few receive adequate help, and until recently the only choice for many has been to suffer in silence or take synthetic, often addictive tranquilizers and pills. Finally, there is a way to treat your anxiety that is safe, natural, and medically proven. In Healing Anxiety Naturally, leading psychiatrist and bestselling author Harold H. Bloomfield, M.D., presents a revolutionary selfhealing program using nature's own pharmacy of extraordinary herbal remedies, including: Kava a natural tranquilizer that can often replace Valium-like drugs Valerian improves sleep quality and naturally relieves insomnia Hypericum, or St.-John's-Wort the herbal remedy for depression and anxiety Ginkgo the brain booster and antidote to aging Milk Thistle the best protection for your liver These herbs are inexpensive, available without a pre*ion, and free of the side effects and addiction potential of artificial pills. Clear, informative, and based on the most up-to-date scientific findings, Healing Anxiety Naturally will help you relieve stress, promote sleep, and maximize performance. Put an end to anxiety today!

Not since the Civil War has the United States been so polarized, politically and ideologically. At the heart of this fracture is a fascinating, paradoxical marriage between our country's politics and religions.In The Holy Vote, Ray Suarez explores the advent of this polarization and how it is profoundly changing the way we live our lives. With hands-on reporting, Suarez explores the attitudes and beliefs of the people behind the voting numbers and how the political divide is manifesting itself across the country. The reader will come to a greater understanding of what Americans believe, and how this belief structure fuels the debates that dominate the issues on our evening news broadcasts.

A gripping and deeply revealing history of an infamous slave rebellion that nearly toppled New Orleans and changed the course of American history In January 1811, five hundred slaves, dressed in military uniforms and armed with guns, cane knives, and axes, rose up from the plantations around New Orleans and set out to conquer the city. Ethnically diverse, politically astute, and highly organized, this self-made army challenged not only the economic system of plantation agriculture but also American expansion. Their march represented the largest act of armed resistance against slavery in the history of the United States. American Uprising is the riveting and long-neglected story of this elaborate plot, the rebel army's dramatic march on the city, and its shocking conclusion. No North American slave uprising not Gabriel Prosser's, not Denmark Vesey's, not Nat Turner's has rivaled the scale of this rebellion either in terms of the number of the slaves involved or the number who were killed. More than one hundred slaves were slaughtered by federal troops and French planters, who then sought to write the event out of history and prevent the spread of the slaves' revolutionary philosophy. With the Haitian revolution a recent memory and the War of 1812 looming on the horizon, the revolt had epic consequences for America.Through groundbreaking original research, Daniel Rasmussen offers a window into the young, expansionist country, illuminating the early history of New Orleans and providing new insight into the path to the Civil War and the slave revolutionaries who fought and died for justice and the hope of freedom.

A haunting and inventive book length sequence of poems from the distinguished author of Study for the World's Body. The Face is both fiercely lyrical and intimately conversational. Coming to terms with the failure of a great love, the speaker descends into his own dark night of the soul. Here are poems that explore the drama of the shattered self in a variety of voices, calling on memory to speak and imagination to make beauty from the shards. Slowly, the speaker reassembles his life and again finds faith in himself and the world. These poems reveal a swirling cinematic poetry of visionary scope; meditative and confessional in some moments, ironic and playful in others. Deeply passionate and raw in its candour, The Face may be for this generation of poets what Lowell's Life Studies and Ashbery's Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror were.

On February 17, 1986, after years of addiction and self-destruction, Christopher Kennedy Lawford reached a turning point in his life, one that would mark the beginning of his long road to recovery. In his New York Times bestselling memoir, Symptoms of Withdrawal, he chronicled his deep descent into near-fatal drug and alcohol addiction, and his subsequent hard-won journey back to sobriety, which he has maintained for more than twenty years. The Before and the After. But before and after whatWhat happened at that point in time to trigger the understanding within himself that he had to changeWhat finally forces any person to choose life over death?The overwhelming response he received to his book impressed upon Lawford the number of people struggling to find their own way back from addiction and the need to share their stories. There was no easy way out for any of them. They all had to go through a moment of humility, vulnerability, and transformation and choose to take that first step of the journey. And each had their own intensely personal moment that signaled a Before and an After. The histories gathered here are the recollections of lives snatched back from the brink of a precipice so wide and deep it threatened to engulf them.Every segment of society has been touched by addiction and its aftermath. Moments of Clarity collects stories from men and women, young and old, and across all barriers of celebrity, color, and class. Represented in these pages are the singer and the actress, the writer and the anchorman, the man from the movie screen and the woman who lives down the street. A myriad of different moments but all with the common understanding of where these men and women have been and where they must go. As they bravely share their stories, they shed light not only on their own experiences but also on the journey we all take as human beings, looking to make sense of our world.

Are you ready for the inevitable day whenyou will have to act as parent to your parentsProtecting Your Parents’ Money is the essential financial handbook that will help you navigate this confusing and difficult transition, providing a game plan for tackling complex issues like estate planning, retirement income and savings, and long-term health care. Most important, it will help bridge the communication barrier between parents and adult children, which often makes the process much more difficult than it needs to be. Important topics include: ?Personal Finance 101, the Senior Years: The essential definitions and workings of the myriad investment options and financial requirements your parents will deal with in retirement. ?The Move: How to find the right nursing homes or retirement communities, comparing costs and factoring your parents’ assets into the mix. ?Understanding Medicare: What it is, how to qualify for coverage, and what it means for your parents’ finances. ?Elder Fraud: How to look for telltale signs that your parents have been victimized.

Everyone has an opinion about the Yankees. More than an opinion in most cases, but an opinion at the very least. From the IntroductionLove them or hate them, the New York Yankees have been an American institution for nearly a century. With their rich history and colorful cast of characters, the Yankees never fail to inspire or provoke. In this exciting compendium, some of today's most acclaimed writers including Pete Dexter, Colum McCann, Roy Blount Jr., Dan Barry, Jane Leavy, Charles P. Pierce, J. R. Moehringer, Daniel Okrent, Frank DeFord, Bill James, and many more step up to the plate to take their cuts. The result is a collection of original essays as idiosyncratic and expansive as the team that has inspired them: ruminations on Babe Ruth's gravestone, Derek Jeter's swing, and the upper-deck vantage of the Oldest Living Yankee; dual allegiances; mortal rivalries; and every other subject that spans from the hilarious (the Yankee wife-swap of the '70s) to the sublime (the grace of Catfish Hunter).Superbly written, deeply insightful, and full of both passion and humor, Damn Yankees is a completely fresh look at baseball's most enduring franchise by a Murderers' Row of writers as stacked as that of the 1927 Yanks.

A girl with an eating disorder grows up. And then whatIn this groundbreaking book, science journalist Trisha Gura explodes the myth that those who suffer from eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, are primarily teenage girls. In truth, twenty-five to thirty million American women twenty-five and older suffer from serious food issues, from obsessions with calorie counting to compulsions to starve then overeat. These diseases often linger from adolescence or emerge anew in the lives of adult women in ways that we are only now starting to recognize.Drawing on her own experience with anorexia, as well as the most up-to-date research and extensive interviews with clinicians and sufferers, Gura presents a startling, timely, and imperative investigation of eating disorders "all grown up," and offers hope through understanding.