From Oscar De La Hoya, one of the most celebrated fighters in the history of boxing, comes a frank and touching memoir about achieving the American Dream: his rise to the top, the power of a solid work ethic, his mother's painful death from cancer, the pitfalls of stardom, and a very personal take on what it means to be an American The son of Mexican-born parents, Oscar "The Golden Boy" De La Hoya has had an astonishing career. From boxing to business, from the recording industry to the charitable accomplishments of his foundation, his success is a testament to what one can achieve in the United States. But who is this man who has changed the lives of so manyWho has imprinted a positive mark upon the sport of boxing, for which many have all but given up hopeWho has become a symbol of success for an entire community, without many heroes to call their own?American Son answers these questions.Born into a boxing family, De La Hoya has defeated more than a dozen world champions and won six world titles as well as an Olympic gold medal a moment forever marked in the memory of anyone who has followed his career. Yet within the maelstrom of this success lay a man whose earnest belief in the goodness of everyone around him sometimes led him to stray far from his intended path. This book is The Golden Boy, and he bares his most heartbreaking mistakes as well as his most stunning triumphs for all of the world to see. This thrilling tale of an immigrant's son a quintessentially American story is the chronicle of an amazing journey that will provide readers with new insight into the private life of a figure who has to many reached iconic status.

I Am Not Myself These Days follows a glittering journey through Manhattan's dark underbelly -- a shocking and surreal world where alter egos reign and subsist (barely) on dark wit and chemicals...a tragic romantic comedy where one begins by rooting for the survival of the relationship and ends by hoping someone simply survives. Kilmer-Purcell is a terrifically gifted new literary voice who straddles the divide between absurdity and normalcy, and stitches them together with surprising humor and lonely poignancy. As Booklist raved "as tart and funny as a Noel Coward play, for Kilmer-Purcell is especially good at dialogue, and, as in Coward's best plays, under the comedy lies the sad truth that even at our best, we are all weak, fallible fools. Again and again in this rich, adventure-filled book, Kilmer-Purcell illustrates the truth of Blake's proverb, 'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.'"

Drowning in $20,000 of credit card debt, shopaholic Karyn Bosnak asked strangers for money online -- and it worked! What would you do if you owed $20,000Would you: A) not tell your parentsB) start your own website that asked for money without apologyor C) stop coloring your hair, getting pedicures, and buying GucciIf you were Karyn Bosnak, you'd do all three.Karyn started a funny yet honest website, www.savekaryn.com, on which she asked for donations to help her get out of debt. Karyn received e-mails from people all over the world, either confessing their own debt-ridden lives, or criticizing hers. But after four months of Internet panhandling and selling her prized possessions on eBay, her debt was gone!In Save Karyn: One Shopaholic's Journey to Debt and Back, Karyn details the bumpy road her financial -- and personal -- life has traveled to get her where she is today: happy, grateful, and completely debt-free. In this charming cautionary tale, Karyn chronicles her glamorous rise, her embarrassing fall, and how the kindness of strangers in cyberia really can make a difference.

As devoted readers of Adriana Trigiani's New York Times bestselling novels know, this "seemingly effortless storyteller" (Boston Globe) frequently draws inspiration from her own family history, in particular from the lives of her two remarkable grandmothers, who have found their way into all Trigiani's cherished novels. In Don't Sing at the Table, this much-beloved writer has gathered their estimable life lessons, revealing how her grandmothers' simple values have shaped her own life, sharing the experiences, humor, and wisdom of her beloved mentors to delight readers of all ages.Lucia Spada Bonicelli (Lucy) and Yolanda Perin Trigiani (Viola) lived through the twentieth century from beginning to end as working women who juggled careers and motherhood. From the factory line to the family table, Lucy and Viola, the very definition of modern women, cut a path for their granddaughter by demonstrating moxie and pluck in their fearless approach to life, love, and overcoming obstacles.Lucy's and Viola's traditions and spiritual fortitude will encourage you to hold on to the values that make life rich and beautiful. Their entrepreneurial spirit will inspire you to take risks and reap the rewards. And their remarkable resilience in the face of tragedy will be a source of strength and comfort. Trigiani visits the past to seek answers to the essential questions that define the challenges women face today at work and at home. This is a primer, grand-mother to granddaughter, filled with everyday wisdom and life lessons that are truly "tiramisu for the soul" (The Examiner), handed down with care and built to last. Includes an excerpt from Adriana Trigian's novel The Shoemaker's Wife.

On January 14, 1993, a team of scientists descended into the crater of Galeras, a restless Andean volcano in southern Colombia, for a day of field research. As the group slowly moved across the rocky moonscape of the caldera near the heart of the volcano, Galeras erupted, its crater exploding in a barrage of burning rocks and glowing shrapnel. Nine men died instantly, their bodies torn apart by the blast.While others watched helplessly from the rim, Colombian geologist Marta Calvache raced into the rumbling crater, praying to find survivors. This was Calvache's second volcanic disaster in less than a decade. In 1985 Calvache was part of a group of Colombia's brightest young scientists that had been studying activity at Nevado del Ruiz, a volcano three hundred miles north of Galeras. They had warned of the dire consequences of an eruption for months, but their fledgling coalition lacked the resources and muscle to implement a plan of action or sway public opinion. When Nevado del Ruiz erupted suddenly in November 1985, it wiped the city of Armero off the face of the earth and killed more than twenty-three thousand people -- one of the worst natural disasters of the twentieth century.No Apparent Danger links the characters and events of these two eruptions to tell a riveting story of scientific tragedy and human heroism. In the aftermath of Nevado del Ruiz, volcanologists from all over the world came to Galeras -- some to ensure that such horrors would never be repeated, some to conduct cutting-edge research, and some for personal gain. Seismologists, gas chemists, geologists, and geophysicists hoped to combine their separate areas of expertise to better understand and predict the behavior of monumental forces at work deep within the earth.And yet, despite such expertise, experience, and training, crucial data were ignored or overlooked, essential safety precautions were bypassed, and fifteen people descended into a death trap at Galeras. Incredibly, expedition leader Stanley Williams was one of five who survived, aided bravely by Marta Calvache and her colleagues. But nine others were not so lucky.Expertly detailing the turbulent history of Colombia and the geology of its snow-peaked volcanoes, Victoria Bruce weaves together the stories of the heroes, victims, survivors, and bystanders, evoking with great sensitivity what it means to live in the shadow of a volcano, a hair's-breadth away from unthinkable natural calamity, and shows how clashing cultures and scientific arrogance resulted in tragic and unnecessary loss of life.

Jane Austen Novelist . . . gentlewoman . . .Damned, Fanged, and Dangerous to know. Aspiring writer Jane Austen knows that respectable young ladies like herself are supposed to shun the Damned the beautiful, fashionable, exquisitely seductive vampires who are all the rage in Georgian England in 1797. So when an innocent (she believes) flirtation results in her being turned by an absolute cad of a bloodsucker she acquiesces to her family's wishes and departs for Bath to take the waters, the only known cure.But what she encounters there is completely unexpected: perilous jealousies and further betrayals, a new friendship and a possible love. Yet all that must be put aside when the warring French invade unsuspecting Bath and the streets run red with good English blood. Suddenly only the staunchly British Damned can defend the nation they love . . . with Jane Austen leading the charge at the battle's forefront.

A revised edition of a landmark work of psychology; the author uses the ancient myth of Amor and Psyche as the springboard for a brilliant, perceptive exploration of how one becomes a mature and complete woman.

The year is 1985, and twenty-two-year-old Galen lives with his emotionally dependent mother in a secluded old house surrounded by a walnut orchard in a suburb of Sacramento. He doesn't know who his father is, his abusive grandfather is dead, and his grandmother, losing her memory, has been shipped off to a nursing home. Galen and his mother survive on the family's trust fund—old money that his aunt, Helen, and seventeen-year-old cousin, Jennifer, are determined to get their hands on. Galen, a New Age believer who considers himself an old soul, yearns for transformation: to free himself from the corporeal, to be as weightless as air, to walk on water. But he's powerless to stop the manic binges that overtake him, leading him to fixate on forbidden desires. A prisoner of his body, he is obsessed with thoughts of the boldly flirtatious Jennifer and dreams of shedding himself of the clinging mother whose fears and needs weigh him down. When the family takes a trip to an old cabin in the Sierras, near South Lake Tahoe, tensions crescendo. Caught in a compromising position, Galen will discover the shocking truth of just how far he will go to attain the transcendence he craves. An exhilarating portrayal of a legacy of violence and madness, Dirt is an entirely feverish read.

Alicia Black Sullivan swore to never repeat the mistakes of her father, the Reverend Curtis Black: she would never tell lies, she would never break any promises. And most important of all, when she got married, it would be for good. Alicia really does love her husband, Phillip, the assistant pastor of her father's church. She just happens to love money—and the things it can buy—as well. Alicia was born to the good life, she's entitled to the best, and she'll do anything to get it. Even if it means piling up thousands of dollars in debt. Even if it means denying to everyone—even herself—that her love of shopping has gotten way out of control. Even if, deep down, she knows a whopper of an emotional bill is coming due. And all the regrets in the world won't change the fact that she may be more like her infamous father than she could have imagined—or feared.

Dear person holding Fat Girl WalkingFirst of all, thanks for picking up this copy of my first book. I hope you buy it and not just because each purchase gets me one step closer to buying the leather pants of my dreams.I hope you buy Fat Girl Walking because I want to start a conversation. Or continue a conversation, one I inadvertently started a while ago when I took my clothes off on a stage in front of 700 people. A lot of people thought I was awesome for doing that. A lot of others thought a size 18 woman had absolutely no business showing off her body. Unfortunately for them, I've made it my personal mission on my blog, in social media, on television, and now in this amazing book you're holding, to destroy the ridiculous myth that every woman who is overweight hates her body and herself. I, Brittany Gibbons, and the Curvy Girls I speak to every day on the internet, beg to differ. We love our bodies. We love fashion. We are in loving relationships, having lots of sex. We aren't just a fetish, we're normal women. Sure, sometimes we doubt ourselves, we're not robots, but not anymore than EVERY OTHER WOMAN ON THE PLANET. See, Fat Girls aren't freaks of nature. We're just like you. Maybe we are you.Fat Girl Walking is a collection of stories from my life, my thoughts about the issues that I have faced as a woman, wife, mom, daughter, daughter-in-law, and internet personality in regards to my weight. I have tried to be as honest as I possibly could apologies in advance to my husband and parents, but hopefully any discomfort you feel is quickly replaced by laughter. The insecure texts to my husband and summer camp hijinks are hilarious if I do say so myself. And I also ask some tough questions, things like What if my husband weighs less than I do and Is my body hate ruining my daughter's lifeRead Fat Girl Walking and let's start having these conversations. No pressure, but we may just save all of womankind.Love,Brittany

Was the financial collapse caused by free-market capitalism and deregulation run amok, as liberals claimNot on your life, says Peter Schweizer. What we are really witnessing is a massive failure of social engineering by liberals. Architects of Ruin, bestselling author Peter Schweizer describes in riveting detail how a coalition of left-wing activists, liberal politicians, and "do-good capitalists" on Wall Street leveraged government power to achieve their goal of broadening homeownership among minorities and the poor. The results were not only devastating to the economy, but hurt the very people they were supposedly trying to help.The story begins in the 1960s with Saul Alinsky, the legendary Chicago rabble-rouser who trained his acolytes in highly aggressive techniques of community activism. Alinsky's disciples along with race-baiting activists like Jesse Jackson seized on the "redlining" controversy of those years to argue that banks were guilty of racial discrimination. In the 1970s, with the help of liberal senators like Ted Kennedy and William Proxmire, legislation was passed that put bankers under the thumb of local activists. In the Clinton years, a new generation of liberal technocrats came to power in Washington and on Wall Street. Schweizer describes how a powerful phalanx of elite liberals, including Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, Andrew Cuomo, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Janet Reno, Deval Patrick, Henry Cisneros, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Charles Schumer, and many others, aggressively pushed banks to make trillions of dollars in loans to individuals who should never have received them. Meanwhile, Clinton forged a new form of state capitalism in which the big Wall Street financial companies were repeatedly bailed out with their profits intact from a series of costly errors, leading them to take ever larger risks. Both financial policies had profoundly distorting effects. The result was the bursting of twin bubbles in mortgages and mortgage-backed derivatives, in turn leading to a global economic collapse. This tale of liberal "Robin Hood capitalism run wild" has never been told. But more than just a story about the past, it is also an urgent warning about the future. For today, the very same people who planted the seeds of the collapse are back in Washington, tasked with cleaning up the mess and determined to use the crisis they caused as cover for a massive overhaul of the American economic system. These people have learned nothing from their past mistakes and are busy applying the same methods to other sectors of the economy health care, the auto industry, real estate (again!), and above all the promotion of "green" technologies inflating bubbles that are sure to bring about another crisis. Ordinary Americans who foot the bill for the last state-capitalist bubble have reason to be afraid very afraid of the inevitable result.

When her once-glamorous and witty novelist-mother got Alzheimer's, Eleanor Cooney moved her from her beloved Connecticut home to California in order to care for her. In tense, searing prose, punctuated with the blackest of humor, Cooney documents the slow erosion of her mother's mind, the powerful bond the two shared, and her own descent into drink and despair.But the coping mechanism that finally serves this eloquent writer best is writing, the ability to bring to vivid life the memories her mother is losing. As her mother gropes in the gathering darkness for a grip on the world she once loved, succeeding only in conjuring sad fantasies of places and times with her late husband, Cooney revisits their true past. Death in Slow Motion becomes the mesmerizing story of Eleanor's actual childhood, straight out of the pages of John Cheever; the daring and vibrant mother she remembers; and a time that no longer exists for either of them.

When legendary Negro League player Buck O'Neil asked Joe Posnanski how he fell in love with baseball, the renowned sports columnist was inspired by the question. He decided to spend the 2005 baseball season touring the country with the ninety-four-year-old O'Neil in hopes of rediscovering the love that first drew them to the game.The Soul of Baseball is as much the story of Buck O'Neil as it is the story of baseball. Driven by a relentless optimism and his two great passions for America's pastime and for jazz, America's music O'Neil played solely for love. In an era when greedy, steroid-enhanced athletes have come to characterize professional ball, Posnanski offers a salve for the damaged spirit: the uplifting life lessons of a truly extraordinary man who never missed an opportunity to enjoy and love life.

More than ever, America needs fresh ideas and bold solutions. Now, Ralph Nader perhaps our last great civic idealist offers seventeen ideas to rescue our country from corruption, complacency, and corporate domination.America is in crisis. After enduring two decade-long wars and a devastating financial meltdown, We the People have been abandoned by the leaders we elected to serve our interests. Now, in response to our desperate times, pioneering reformer Ralph Nader offers a new program of seventeen ambitious but common-sense solutions to our chronic economic and social problems. Among them: Reforming the tax system Making our communities more self-reliant Reclaiming science and technology for the people Protecting the family Getting corporations off welfare Creating national charters for corporations Reducing our bloated military budget Organizing congressional watchdog groups Enlisting the enlightened super-richNader offers a stark assessment of our shared straits, but his solutions constitute an eye-opening plan to save America before it's too late.

Kingsley Amis described Paul Johnson's Intellectuals as a valuable and entertaining Rogues' Gallery of Adventures of the Mind. Now the celebrated journalist and historian offers Creators, a companion volume of essays that examines a host of outstanding and prolific creative spirits. Here are Disney, Picasso, Bach, and Shakespeare; Austen, Twain, and T. S. Eliot; and Drer, Hokusai, Pugin, and Viollet-le-Duc, among many others.Paul Johnson believes that creation cannot be satisfactorily analyzed, but it can be illustrated to bring out its salient characteristics. That is the purpose of this instructive and witty book.

Have you ever wondered: Why Asians love "Hello Kitty"What the tattooed Chinese characters really sayHow to achieve feng shui for optimum make-out sessionsWhere Asian cuties meet the white guys who love them?Then you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll realize this book is better than a Broadway production of Cats when you read scenes that include: twenty-something Lindsey Owyang mastering the intricacies of office voicemail and fax dialing an authentic Chinese banquet where Number One Son shows off his language skills by speaking "Chinglish" dating disasters with grandsons of Grandma's mahjong partners the discovery that the real China looks nothing like the pavilion at Disney World karaokeAnd all the while Lindsey is falling in lust with the "white devil" in her politically correct office. But will Grandma's stinky Chinese ointments send him runningOr will Lindsey realize that the path to true love lies somewhere between the dim sum and the pepperoni pizza?

Want to learn a thing or two about a young Chinese-Americanwoman with a penchant for Hello Kitty toys, who could be found squeezing into jeans at Old Navy while being asked for detailed explanations of Yo-Yo Ma's success?Then get ready for:WHOLindsey Owyang, raised on Spaghetti-O'sand Aaron Spelling productionsWHATHer Secret Asian Man finally proposes!WHERESpringtime in San Francisco and it's raining stone cold foxesHOWLindsey wants to make her peace with Chinatown & country,but will a crotchety Chinese grandmother stand in her way?WHYBecause she never expected her hottie crush fromsixth grade to show up now ...As Lindsey continues her quest for identity, family secrets, and true love, will she find double happiness, or will she be tempted by one last lion dance with a strangerUltimately, Lindsey realizes that Chinese girls really wanna have chow fun.

First published in 1942 at the height of her popularity, Dust Tracks on a Road is Zora Neale Hurston's candid, funny, bold, and poignant autobiography, an imaginative and exuberant account of her rise from childhood poverty in the rural South to a prominent place among the leading artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. As compelling as her acclaimed fiction, Hurston's very personal literary self-portrait offers a revealing, often audacious glimpse into the life -- public and private -- of an extraordinary artist, anthropologist, chronicler, and champion of the black experience in America. Full of the wit and wisdom of a proud, spirited woman who started off low and climbed high, Dust Tracks on a Road is a rare treasure from one of literature's most cherished voices.

Paris in the 1860s: a magnificent time of expression, where brilliant young artists rebel against the stodginess of the past to freely explore new styles of creating—and bold new ways of living. Passionate, beautiful, and utterly devoted to her art, Berthe Morisot is determined to be recognized as an important painter. But as a woman, she finds herself sometimes overlooked in favor of her male counterparts—Monet, Pissarro, Degas. And there is one great artist among them who captivates young Berthe like none other: the celebrated genius ?douard Manet. A mesmerizing, breathtaking rogue—a shameless roué, undeterred and irresistible—his life is a wildly overgrown garden of scandal. He becomes Berthe's mentor, her teacher...her lover, despite his curiously devoted marriage to his frumpy, unappealing wife, Suzanne, and his many rumored dalliances with his own models. For a headstrong young woman from a respectable family, an affair with such an intoxicating scoundrel can only spell heartbreak and ruin.But Berthe refuses to resign herself to the life of quiet submission that Society has dictated for her. Undiscouraged, she will create her own destiny...and confront life—and love—on her own terms.

An ancient race of lycanthropes has survived to the present day, and its numbers are growing as the initiated convince L.A.'s down and out to join their pack. Paying no heed to moons, full or otherwise, they change from human to canine at will—and they're bent on domination at any cost.Caught in the middle are Anthony, a kind-hearted, besotted dogcatcher, and the girl he loves, a female werewolf who has abandoned her pack. Anthony has no idea that she's more than she seems, and she wants to keep it that way. But her efforts to protect her secret lead to murderous results.Blending dark humor and epic themes with card-playing dogs, crystal meth labs, surfing, and carne asada tacos, Sharp Teeth captures the pace and feel of a graphic novel while remaining "as ambitious as any literary novel, because underneath all that fur, it's about identity, community, love, death, and all the things we want our books to be about" [Nick Hornby, The Believer].

In the title story from Kevin Moffett's dazzling new collection, Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events, a young, struggling writer discovers that his father has begun to publish short stories—good ones, too—under the son's own name. The result is a brilliant and occasionally hilarious look at the meeting point of creative anxiety and the combustible father-son relationship.