The Apple Trees at Olema includes work from Robert Hass's first five books Field Guide, Praise, Human Wishes, Sun Under Wood, and Time and Materials as well as a substantial gathering of new poems, including a suite of elegies, a series of poems in the form of notebook musings on the nature of storytelling, a suite of summer lyrics, and two experiments in pure narrative that meditate on personal relations in a violent world and read like small, luminous novellas. From the beginning, his poems have seemed entirely his own: a complex hybrid of the lyric line, with an unwavering fidelity to human and nonhuman nature, and formal variety and surprise, and a syntax capable of thinking through difficult things in ways that are both perfectly ordinary and really unusual. Over the years, he has added to these qualities a range and a formal restlessness that seem to come from a skeptical turn of mind, an acute sense of the artifice of the poem and of the complexity of the world of lived experience that a poem tries to apprehend.Hass's work is grounded in the beauty of the physical world. His familiar landscapes San Francisco, the northern California coast, the Sierra high country are vividly alive in his work. His themes include art, the natural world, desire, family life, the life between lovers, the violence of history, and the power and inherent limitations of language. He is a poet who is trying to say, as fully as he can, what it is like to be alive in his place and time. His style formed in part by American modernism, in part by his long apprenticeship as a translator of the Japanese haiku masters and Czeslaw Milosz combines intimacy of address, a quick intelligence, a virtuosic skill with long sentences, intense sensual vividness, and a light touch. It has made him immensely readable and his work widely admired.

Seabiscuit meets Manic when Sylvia Harris, a single mother crippled by her struggles with bipolar depression, discovers the healing, calming effect of horses.Alcohol. Lithium. Buddhist chanting. To quiet the voices in her mind, Sylvia Harris tried all of the above. At times, her manic behavior led her to dress up as a cowgirl and show off her imaginary rope skills in the middle of a quaint Northern California village, or spend the night in a torpor of fear awaiting the alien invasion she knew was on the horizon. At its worst, it led her to look for love in all the wrong places and create a family she had difficulty caring for. Although she sometimes found temporary relief and brief moments of calm, darkness always followed. At the nadir of her twenty-year battle with bipolar depression, Harris found salvation in the most unlikely of places: Cardinal Farm, an equine ranch outside of Orlando, Florida.Harris had always been drawn to animals, but she had no idea of the healing power she would discover while working with horses. And though she still experienced raging highs and destabilizing lows, eventually through grooming, caring for, and, against all odds, racing horses she was able to find stability and, ultimately, joy. With an unflinching eye toward her weaknesses and the pain that her life decisions have inflicted on others, Harris examines the ravaging power of her bipolar behavior and the magical power of horses, showing us how the mythic interspecies connection between humans and these magnificent animals continues to astonish and inspire.

Ken Carey is one of the greatest living teachers Read him, and you'll have hope.'MARIANNE WILLIAMSONExploring the transformative impact of Native American spirituality on contemporary events, this is the third book in Ken Carey's be

When a holiday blizzard brings together a pair of reluctant lovers, the result threatens their reputations … and may cost them their hearts. Feisty and independent American heiress Violet Howard swears she'll never wed a crusty British aristocrat. Will, the Earl of Merlton, is determined to salvage his family's fortune without succumbing to a marriage of convenience. But when a snowstorm leaves Violet and Will stranded and alone, their sudden chemistry will challenge good intentions. Seized by a desire that burns through the night, they'll toss reservations aside in favor of the heat found in each other's arms. Will their passion survive the stormWill they realize they've found a love to last them through all seasons?

Grandmother, grandmother, who shall it be Who shall it be who will marry meDuke, Earl, a powerful marquessWhen my heart is given to Fyclan Morris… In New York Times bestselling author Cathy Maxwell's new novella, beautiful Jennifer Tarleton has no lack of noble suitors, but the only man who captures her attention is the one her father will never let her marry: Fyclan Morris. He's a brash adventurer, witty, courageous…and Irish! Even worse, her father blames her for their reversal of fortune… And it's a fortune—or rather, his grandmother the fortune teller—who foretold that Fyclan would meet "the one,", a love prophesied in the stars. He vows nothing will stand in the way of making Jennifer his bride, but is the price too highOr is a thing called love worth every challenge?

In his arms she found the greatest joy she'd ever known . . . but his heart belonged to another. Can her love make their marriage real before their time together ends forever?

As teenagers, Raine Beaumont and Joseph Colorado tasted the joys of first love, until her father's lies destroyed their fragile bond. Now, twelve years later, Raine receives news that will take her back to her hometown of Oracle, Arizona, where she will face her lost love again.Haunted by the memory of the boy she once adored, Raine was not prepared for the mysterious, seductive man before her. For deep in Joseph's eyes lies a power that binds him to his Apache heritage, a power that promises to heal all wounds and restore long lost dreams . . . and love.

He would take her as his bride...but could she give her heart in return?When Egan MacBain takes beautiful Glenda MacKay as his bride, it appears that he's done so for the noblest of reasons. In truth, he has vowed at last to claim the woman he's always loved--yet once lost--to another man. But the rugged Highlander is determined to keep his passion hidden while he woos her with his gentle caress and wicked kisses. For he will not have an unwilling wife and will only show his tenderness once she is tamed.Although Glenda has agreed to the marriage, she's only done so to gain the protection of Egan's name. Yet this young widow of the once-powerful clan MacKay never expected that vows of love would leave her lips again, nor did she believe she'd ever hold any man so dear. But suddenly she finds herself succumbing to the strong, silent warrior who fills her with trepidations and a fevered, forbidden yearning to fulfill his wicked promise of the love--and the child--she aches for in the depths of the soul.

Bright, attractive, and both from good families, University of Texas college student Colton Pitonyak and vibrant redhead Jennifer Cave had the world at their beckoning. Cave, an ex-cheerleader, had just landed an exciting new job, while a big-money scholarship to UT's prestigious business school lured Pitonyak to Austin. Yet the former altar boy had a dark, unpredictable streak, one that ensnared him in the perilous underworld of drugs and guns. When Jennifer failed to show up for work on August 18, 2005, her mother became frightened. Sharon Cave's search led to Colton's West Campus apartment, where Jennifer's family discovered a scene worthy of the grisliest horror movie. Meanwhile, Colton Pitonyak was nowhere to be found.A Descent Into Hell is the gripping true story of one of the most brutal slayings in UT history and the wild "Bonnie and Clyde-like" flight from justice of a cold-blooded young killer and his would-be girlfriend, who claimed that her unquestioning allegiance to Pitonyak was "just the way I roll."

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.

In his groundbreaking book, Marc Hauser puts forth a revolutionary new theory: that humans have evolved a universal moral instinct, unconsciously propelling us to deliver judgments of right and wrong independent of gender, education, and religion. Combining his cutting-edge research with the latest findings in cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, economics, and anthropology, Hauser explores the startling implications of his provocative theory vis-à-vis contemporary bioethics, religion, the law, and our everyday lives.

On February 13, 2003, a plane carrying three American civilian contractors Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Tom Howes crash-landed in the mountainous jungle of Colombia. Dazed and shaken, they emerged from the plane bloodied and injured as gunfire rained down around them. As of that moment they were prisoners of the FARC, a Colombian terrorist and Marxist rebel organization. In an instant they had become American captives in Colombia's volatile and ongoing conflict, which has lasted for almost fifty years.In Out of Captivity, Gonsalves, Stansell, and Howes recount for the first time their amazing tale of survival, friendship, and, ultimately, rescue, tracing their five and a half years as hostages of the FARC. Their story takes you inside one of the world's most notorious terrorist organizations, going behind enemy lines with vivid and haunting imagery. Their words conjure a reality that few people have ever encountered from sleeping on beds literally carved out of the jungle to escaping Colombian military air strikes under the cover of darkness to being bound with steel chains by their captors. Describing backbreaking starvation marches and forced isolation, the authors chronicle their confrontations and interactions with the FARC guerrilla soldiers a motley crew of brainwashed, idealistic teenagers and seasoned vet-erans who've been around long enough to realize that the only way out of the FARC is in a body bag.Though the physical punishments their bodies endured were unrelenting, the psychological battles they waged were the ultimate test of their resolve. With candid detail, Gonsalves, Stansell, and Howes relate the perilous mental struggles they each experienced, as they grappled with feelings of guilt, fear, and anxiety for the families and lives they'd left behind. Exposing the transformative power of captivity, they show how they turned these fears into strengths, using their memories and their families, their pasts and their futures, to motivate them in their quest for survival. Despite the odds and the conditions, despite the chains and the silence, and despite the often tense relationships they experienced with their fellow Colombian hostages, they had one another, forging a bond that allowed them to cope with the horrific conditions of their confinement. This brotherhood enabled them to persevere through the worst that the FARC threw at them while always reminding them of their ultimate goal: freedom.A harrowing account of one of the longest civilian hostage crises in United States history, Out of Captivity is a remarkable and compelling exploration of how far three Americans were willing to go as they fought to stay alive for themselves, their families, and one another.

Sandra Day O'Connor, America's first woman justice, became the axis on which the Supreme Court turned. She was called the most powerful woman in America, and it was often said that to gauge the direction of American law, one need look only to O'Connor's vote. Then, just one year short of a quarter century on the bench, she surprised her colleagues and the nation by announcing her retirement.Drawing on information from once-private papers of the justices, hundreds of interviews with legal and political insiders, and the insight gained from nearly two decades of covering the Supreme Court, Joan Biskupic examines O'Connor's remarkable career, providing an in-depth account of her transformation from tentative jurist to confident architect of American law. The portrait that emerges is of a complex and multifaceted woman: lawyer, politician, legislator, and justice, as well as wife, mother, A-list society hostess, and competitive athlete. To all appearances, she was the polite lady in pearls, handbag on her arm. But in the back rooms of politics and the law, she was a determined, focused strategist. O'Connor was the feminist who, rather than rebel against the male-dominated system, worked from within -- and succeeded.As Biskupic demonstrates, Justice O'Connor became much more than a "first." During her twenty-four-year tenure, she wrote the decisions on some of the most controversial social battles of our time. O'Connor's tie-breaking opinions on issues such as abortion rights, affirmative action, the death penalty, and religious freedom will have a lasting effect far into the future. O'Connor also cast one of the five votes that cut off the Florida recounts and allowed George W. Bush to take the White House in the 2000 contested presidential election. With an eye to the American people and a keen sense of public attitudes, she worked behind the scenes to shape the law and transform the legal standards by which future cases will be decided.From O'Connor's isolated upbringing on the Lazy B ranch in Arizona through her time as a state legislator to her rise as a justice -- along the way confronting her own personal challenges and crises, including breast cancer -- Biskupic presents a vivid, astute depiction of the justice -- and of the woman beneath the black robe. In so doing, Sandra Day O'Connor also provides an unprecedented look inside the exclusive, famously secretive High Court.

Within is a masterful assembly of the most personal details and gorgeous minutiae of Frank Sinatra's way of living--matters of the heart and heartbreak, friendship and leadership, drinking and cavorting, brawling and wooing, tuxedos and snap-brims--all crafted from rare interviews with Sinatra himself as well as many other intimates, including Tony Bennett, Don Rickles, Angie Dickinson, Tony Curtis, and Robert Wagner, in addition to daughters Nancy and Tina Sinatra. Illustrated with scores of photos, The Way You Wear Your Hat captures the timeless romance and classic style of the fifties and the loose sixties and is a stunning exploration of the Sinatra mystique.

What is it like to be America's First FamilyIn this wonderfully engaging book, Bonnie Angelo, Time correspondent and acclaimed author of First Mothers, probes two hundred years of American history to tell the story of real life within the White House walls how presidents, their wives, children, and extended families worked to create a home in an imposing national monument while attempting to keep their private lives from the public domain.First Families chronicles exhilarating moments as well as dark days at the nation's most famous address, with fascinating, behind-the-headline accounts of picture-book weddings, gossipy love affairs, rollicking children, domestic squabbles, and tragic deaths. From activist wives Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton to reluctant occupants Bess Truman and Jacqueline Kennedy, to those such as Mary Todd Lincoln, Dolley Madison, and madcap debutante Alice Roosevelt, who embraced their new address and status, here is an unforgettable human portrait of our First Families and how they coped, stumbled, or thrived in the national spotlight.

"Remember, it's not just about the food—it has to be an experience." Thirty-one-year-old Jesse Schenker has rocketed to the top of the culinary world. An Iron Chef winner and a James Beard nominee, he was voted Best New Chef by New York magazine, and his acclaimed Recette was named Best New Restaurant by the New York Times. Manhattan magazine has called him "a boy wonder . . . young, hungry, and talented," while Zagat has hailed him as a "wunderkind." But Jesse's epic rise masks a little-known past filled with demons and obsession, genius and mania. "For as long as I can remember, I've had this unquenchable thirst to keep moving, going, and doing. I've never felt comfortable in my own skin and have always needed an outlet for that uneasiness." Jesse first found that outlet in the South Florida kitchens where he showed great promise as a teenager, but it was in those same kitchens that he was introduced to the world of hard drugs. He was fourteen when he first got arrested and seventeen when he became physically addicted to Oxycontin. Becoming a high school dropout addicted to heroin and crack, alienated from his family and wanted by the cops, by the age of twenty-one Jesse had overdosed and nearly been beaten to death while robbing, cheating, and lying to everyone in his life. After getting arrested and going to jail, Jesse got clean and slowly put back together the pieces of his fractured life, ultimately channeling the same energy that had earlier fueled his addiction into making a name for himself in the fast-paced, competitive New York restaurant scene. In this startling and down-to-earth memoir, he lays it all on the table for the first time, coming clean about his insatiable appetite for the extreme—which has led to his biggest triumphs and failures—and shares the shocking story of his turbulent life. All or Nothing is a candid exploration of the manic culture of some of the world's most celebrated kitchens. A drug-fueled, anxiety-ridden epic, it reads like a rollicking rock-and-roll memoir—with amazing food.

In the tradition of Annie Dillard and Natalie Goldberg, this resource for writers and non-writers alike shows the act of writing to be a dynamic means of knowing, healing, and creating the body, mind, and spirit.

No one in history had a more eventful career in matrimony than Henry VIII. His marriages were daring and tumultuous, and made instant legends of six very different women. In this remarkable study, David Starkey argues that the king was not a depraved philanderer but someone seeking happiness -- and a son. Knowingly or not, he elevateda group of women to extraordinary heights and changed the way a nation was governed.Six Wives is a masterful work of history that intimately examines the rituals of diplomacy, marriage, pregnancy, and religion that were part of daily life for women at the Tudor Court. Weaving new facts and fresh interpretations into a spellbinding account of the emotional drama surrounding Henry's six marriages, David Starkey reveals the central role that the queens played in determining policy. With an equally keen eye for romantic and political intrigue, he brilliantly recaptures the story of Henry's wives and the England they ruled.

Golda Meir was the first female head of state in the Western world and one of the most influential women in modern history. A blend of Emma Goldman and Martin Luther King Jr. in the guise of a cookie-serving grandmother, her uncompromising devotion to shaping and defending a Jewish homeland against dogged enemies and skittish allies stunned political contemporaries and transformed Middle Eastern politics for decades to follow. She outmaneuvered Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger at their own game of Realpolitik, and led Israel through a bloody war even as she eloquently pleaded for peace, carrying her nation through its most perilous hours while she herself battled cancer. In this masterful biography, critically acclaimed author Elinor Burkett paints a vivid portrait of a legendary woman defined by contradictions: an iron resolve coupled with magnetic charm, a kindly demeanor that disguised a stunning hard-heartedness, and a complete dedication to her country that often overwhelmed her personal relationships.

Truth be told, they were mostly in it for the money On February 13, 2003, a plane carrying three American military contractors on a recon patrol crash-landed in the jungle-covered mountains of Colombia. Within minutes, FARC guerrillas swarmed the wreckage and killed the American pilot and a Colombian crew member as they tried to escape. The survivors Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Thomas Howes were marched at gunpoint into the rain forest. They would live in constant darkness under the jungle canopy as they faced starvation, fights with fellow hostages, and threats of execution often with their necks shackled together.The Colombian government sent 147 soldiers to rescue the Americans. Led by a bold yet corpulent lieutenant, the troops spent weeks subsisting on monkey meat and Amazon rodents as they chased the guerrillas deeper into the jungle. But then a soldier on a bathroom break stuck his machete into the ground and pulled out 20 million pesos, equaling $7,000. Pretty soon, the young, poor, and exhausted troops realized they had stumbled upon a buried rebel cache of $20 million. Within three days, the GIs burned through their newfound fortune, splurging on booze, sex, and flat-screen televisions. And though the money brought pleasure, for many of the soldiers it would end in criminal prosecution or even death by FARC hit men.Law of the Jungle places the Colombian hostage story in its full context by exploring the inner workings of the FARC, the U.S.-backed war on drugs, and Colombia's efforts to free the rebel-held prisoners. John Otis, a veteran journalist on the Latin American beat, spins an edge-of-your-seat adventure narrative that offers a shocking cautionary tale about the pursuit of fortune in one of the world's most dangerous places.

Professional blackjack player Kevin Blackwood shares his million-dollar winning strategies for mastering the odds and consistently beating the house at their own game. Play Blackjack Like the Pros is the requisite introduction to the modern game of blackjack, including high and low stakes casino, shoe games (several decks shuffled together), online, and tournaments. Blackwood begins with the basic rules of play and then moves on to teach his proven card-counting method, broken-down into three levels: novice, recreational, and professional. He also covers camouflaging techniques (it's perfectly legal to count cards, but if the house catches you they will kick you out), money management, and team play. Blackwood includes many stories of his and other professionals' triumphs at the tables and keeps the highly technical language that bogs down most gaming books to an absolute minimum. Play Blackjack Like the Pros is written in the style of Phil Hellmuth's Play Poker Like the Pros using easy-to-understand lessons that all levels of players can quickly benefit from. Blackwood is one of the world's top card counters. He began with only a few hundred dollars and has won over a million playing blackjack. In Play Blackjack Like the Pros he demonstrates how to earn over $10,000 a month from just a few days work. Blackjack is set to balloon in popularity. Ben Mezrich's book on the MIT card counting team Bringing Down the House was on the New York Times bestseller list for weeks and is being made into a movie staring Kevin Spacey. Blackjack Tournaments are growing in popularity with many of the top casinos offering large prize pools. Online Blackjack is currently a multi-million dollar industry. Blackwood keeps the highly technical language that bogs down most gaming books to an absolute minimum. Foreword by Stanford , author of Professional Blackjack and the master of modern card counting.