Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in “hospitality” for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He’s checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&M's out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know. Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who’s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department’s dirty little secrets—not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it’s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge.Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you’ll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly.

    Their initial optimism is short-lived, however, as the ice field slowly thickens, encasing the ship Endurance in a death-grip, crushing their craft, and marooning 28 men on a polar ice floe.In an epic struggle of man versus the elements, Shackleton leads his team on a harrowing quest for survival over some of the most unforgiving terrain in the world. Icy, tempestuous seas full of gargantuan waves, mountainous glaciers and icebergs, unending brutal cold, and ever-looming starvation are their mortal foes as Shackleton and his men struggle to stay alive.What happened to those brave men forever stands as a testament to their strength of will and the power of human endurance.This is their story, as told by the man who led them.

    A South Indian Journey is a magical mixture of history and travelogue, and an unforgettable portrait of India - past, present and future.'A wonderful introduction to the history and culture of the south, and a work of love' William Dalrymple'A supremely well-informed and affectionate portrait of Tamil Nadu and its people...One of the most enlightening books on South India ever written' Rough Guide to IndiaMichael Wood was born and educated in Manchester. He was an open scholar in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford, where he held a Bishop Fraser scholarship in Medieval History as a postgraduate. He has made a number of internationally successful tv series, including In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great, and four of his books have been UK non-

    There she meets its founder, who once modeled with a pelican on his arm for a Dewar’s Scotch campaign but has since declined into a pit of fraud and madness. He becomes our embezzling protagonist whose tales about the birds he “rescues” never quite add up. Gerard’s personal stories are no less eerie or poignant: An essay that begins as a look at Gerard’s first relationship becomes a heart-wrenching exploration of acquaintance rape and consent. An account of intimate female friendship pivots midway through, morphing into a meditation on jealousy and class.Sunshine State offers a unique look at Florida, a state whose economically and environmentally imperiled culture serves as a lens through which we can examine some of the most pressing issues haunting our nation.BFF --Mother-father God --Going diamond --Records --The mayor of Williams Park --Sunshine state --Rabbit --Before: an inventory

    A love note to the Cotswolds.See Benedict Cumberbatch's (Sherlock) Mother's quote about COTSWOLDS MEMOIR:...as delightful as Bill Bryson's NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND -Wanda Ventham- Cotswolds Resident/Actress, Sherlock, Dr. Who, Midsomer Murders.After British-born, comedy actress Diz White found herself craving Yorkshire Pudding at every meal she knew her roots were pulling her back from America to her homeland.It was time to buy a Cotswolds Cottage!Her roller-coaster, often laugh-out-loud, search doubles as a travel-tour (travel guide included) that takes in every delight of the Cotswolds: historic sites, hog roasts, hiking the Cotswolds Way and pubwalks with her husband, often bagging the walk in favour of a slightly boozy lunch. There were highs, heartbreaks and cliff-hangers as she was charged by a bull named Chasin’ Mason, auditioned for the hind end of a horse and was trampled by thirty children while wearing a bear suit, but the fondness she developed for this region and its vivid inhabitants gave her a feeling of community missing from her busy urban existence. Will this author‘s dream become a reality? Find out in this witty love note to the Cotswolds.‘Extremely entertaining, funny and beautifully written.’ Katie Jarvis Cotswold Life Magazine‘As enchanting as Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Small Island. This is the ultimate, laugh-out-loud, foodie, good life, house-hunting, travel-tour, meet the locals, fun read. A love note to the Cotswolds.’ Wanda Ventham Actress and Cotswold resident, Midsomer Murders,The Lotus Eaters, Dr. Who ‘I fell about laughing at Diz White’s book, her hilarious showbiz stories woven into her hunt for a cottage are a hoot…. her writing allows you to not only imagine you are there but to feel you have embraced the heart of the Cotswolds. A great holiday read or a great read anytime.’ Debbie McGee BBC Radio Berkshire‘It’s enchanting….very funny. Diz White paints a nostalgic and affectionate canvas.’ Steven Leigh Morris, Critic-at-Large L.A. Weekly ‘More entertaining than Under the Tuscan Sun.’ William Greenleaf, Greenleaf Literary‘Cotswolds Memoir will hook you from the very first page. It’s well researched with good information – it has a great travel guide at the end – but is also filled with entertaining anecdotes. If you haven’t visited the Cotswolds – or even if you have - you’ll want to pack your bags and go!’Monica B. Morris Goodnight Children Everywhere (The History Press)‘Wakes you up to the joys on your doorstep.’ Sue Bradley, Gloucester Echo

    Recording the events and observations of a journey across the length and breadth of the country that he loves dearly, this travelogue brings Portugal to life as only a writer of Saramago's brilliance can. Forfeiting sources of information such as tourist guides and road maps, he scours the country with the eyes and ears of an observer fascinated by the ancient myths and history of his people. Whether an inaccessible medieval fortress set on a cliff, a wayside chapel thick with cobwebs, or a grand mansion in the city, the extraordinary places of this land come alive with the kings, warriors, painters, explorers, writers, saints, and sinners who have fed its rich store of myth and history. Always meticulously attentive to those elements of ancient Portugal that persist today, he examines the country in its current period of rapid transition and growth.Infused with the tenderness and intelligence that have become familiar to his readers, Saramago's Journey to Portugal is an ode of love for a country and its rich traditions.About the AuthorJosé Saramago was born in Portugal in 1922. His work includes plays, poetry, short stories, nonfiction, and seven novels, including Baltasar and Blimunda and The History of the Seige of Lisbon. In 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.Amanda Hopkinson translates contemporary literature, mainly from Latin America, and reviews for leading British newspapers.Nick Caistor, journalist and producer of BBC programs, has translated the work of several authors including Eduardo Mendoza and Juan Carlos Onetti.

    "Highly recommended." --trailsbib.blogspot.comFrom the book: "We stood for a moment before the venerable signpost marking the summit. Scored with graffiti and the constant onslaught of weather, it stands perhaps three feet high, a wooden A-frame painted Forest Service brown with recessed white letters: KATAHDIN 5268 ft.Northern Terminus of the Appalachian TrailBelow this were a few waypoints: Thoreau Spring, 1.0, Katahdin Stream Campground, 5.2. At the bottom of the list: Springer Mountain, Georgia, 2160.2. More than two thousand miles. It was simply a number, too large and incomprehensible to have any bearing on me. The farthest I had ever walked in a day was ten miles and that was with a daypack. Now I was contemplating a journey of months, covering thousands of miles. All of a sudden, there on the summit with the clouds screaming past us, it didn't seem like such a great idea.I turned to my sister, half-expecting to see the same doubt mirrored in her face. But her eyes were shining, and she smiled with an almost feral intensity. It was a look I would come to know all too well over the next year and a half, and it meant, I am going to do this and no one had better try to stop me. 'We're really doing this, ' she shouted over the wind's howl and the lashing rain. 'We're hiking the Appalachian Trail!'"At the ages of twenty-five and twenty-one, Lucy and Susan Letcher set out to accomplish what thousands of people attempt each year: thru-hike the entire 2,175 miles of the Appalachian Trail. The difference between them and the others? They decided to hike the trail barefoot. Quickly earning themselves the moniker of the Barefoot Sisters, the two begin their journey at Mount Katahdin and spend eight months making their way to Springer Mountain in Georgia. As they hike, they write about their adventures through the 100-mile Wilderness, the rocky terrain of Pennsylvania, and snowfall in the Great Smoky Mountains--a story filled with humor and determination. It's as close as one can get to hiking the Appalachian Trail without strapping on a pack.Listen to the Barefoot Sisters read excerpts from their book here: Southbound Podcast - part 1 and here: Southbound Podcast - part 2

    When British anthropologist Nigel Barley set up home among the Dowayo people in northern Cameroon, he knew how fieldwork should be conducted. Unfortunately, nobody had told the Dowayo. His compulsive, witty account of first fieldwork offers a wonderfully inspiring introduction to the real life of a cultural anthropologist doing research in a Third World area. Both touching and hilarious, Barley's unconventional story—in which he survived boredom, hostility, disaster, and illness—addresses many critical issues in anthropology and in fieldwork.

    They set out to conquer the world. But the world had other plans for them.Bestselling author Susan Jane Gilman's new memoir is a hilarious and harrowing journey, a modern heart of darkness filled with Communist operatives, backpackers, and pancakes. In 1986, fresh out of college, Gilman and her friend Claire yearned to do something daring and original that did not involve getting a job. Inspired by a place mat at the International House of Pancakes, they decided to embark on an ambitious trip around the globe, starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent travelers for roughly ten minutes.Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche, an astrological love guide, and an arsenal of bravado, the two friends plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, they quickly found themselves in over their heads. As they ventured off the map deep into Chinese territory, they were stripped of everything familiar and forced to confront their limitations amid culture shock and government surveillance. What began as a journey full of humor, eroticism, and enlightenment grew increasingly sinister-becoming a real-life international thriller that transformed them forever.Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a flat-out page-turner, an astonishing true story of hubris and redemption told with Gilman's trademark compassion, lyricism, and wit.

    Until now.For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all, Nikki, Sami, and Tori developed a defiant bond that made them far less vulnerable than Shelly imagined. Even as others were drawn into their mother’s dark and perverse web, the sisters found the strength and courage to escape an escalating nightmare that culminated in multiple murders.

    What he discovered was overwhelming: a culture of heroes who had turned into inanimate objects and of politicians and warriors who were poets; a land of difficult, often beautiful contradictions. His perceptions always heightened by his special sensitivity to “the views from underneath,” Rushdie reveals a land resounding with the clashes between history and morality, government and individuals.

    Take your eye off it for more than a moment and you're lost.'Robert Elms has seen London change beyond all imagining: the house he grew up in is now the behemoth that is the Westway flyover, and areas once deemed murder miles have morphed into the stuff of estate agents' dreams, seemingly in a matter of months.Elms takes us back through time and place to myriad Londons. He is our guide through a place that has seen scientific experiments conducted in subterranean lairs, a small community declare itself an independent nation and animals of varying exoticism roam free through its streets; a place his great-great-grandfather made the Elms' home over a century ago and a city that has borne witness to epoch- and world-changing events.

    He not only reveals the celebrated Spain of bullfights and warror kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards; he also shares the intimate, often hidden Spain he has come to know, where toiling peasants and their honest food, the salt of the shores and the oranges of the inland fields, the congeniality of living souls and the dark weight of history conspire to create a wild, contradictory, passionately beautiful land, the mystery called Iberia."Massive, beautiful...Unquestionably some of the best writing on Spain...The best that Mr. Michener has ever done on any subject...Stunning...Memorable."THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

    In McCarthy's Bar, his journey begins in Cork and continues along the west coast to Donegal in the north. Traveling through spectacular landscapes, but at all times obeying the rule, "never pass a bar that has your name on it," he encounters McCarthy's bars up and down the land, meeting fascinating people before pleading to be let out at four o'clock in the morning.Written by someone who is at once an insider and an outside, McCarthy's Bar is a wonderfully funny and affectionate portrait of a rapidly changing country.

    Over four years, her encounters with the sea and all its weathers, the friendships she made, the wild creatures she encountered, combined to transform her life. This book is a love letter, to the beach where she swims regularly and its microcosmic world, to the ever-changing cold waters where the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean meet, and to the seals, her constant companions.