Left to run wild with his sister, his father off in some parallel universe of his own invention, Everett's upbringing was 'ridiculous, sometimes tragic and always unsteady'. But somehow he manages to not only survive his crazy upbringing and ensuing tragedies; he makes something of his life, striking out on a journey to find himself by channelling his experiences into his, eventually, critically acclaimed music with the Eels. But it's not an easy path. Told with surprising candour, Things The Grandchildren Should Know is an inspiring and remarkable story, full of hope, humour and wry wisdom.

    Each story details an aspect of the hobo's life - from catching a train to cadging a meal. The wealth of experiences and the necessity of having to lie for a living brought depth London's subsequent stories.

    He began his career making films for the TV series "Survival," which started wildlife film-making as we know it, and is responsible for numerous groundbreaking documentaries and natural history discoveries -- from being the first person to film hippos and crocodiles underwater and the wildebeest migrating to observing that hyenas hunt. His friends and colleagues have included George and Joy Adamson and David Attenborough; he showed Dian Fossey her first mountain gorilla. His wife and long-term collaborator was Joan Root, who was tragically murdered in 2006 in retaliation for her environmental campaigning in Kenya. In "Ivory, Apes & Peacocks," Alan tells the story of his life's work, from his arrival in Kenya as a young boy (furious at having to leave behind Britain's birds) to his game-changing films, which looked at whole ecosystems (baobab trees, termite mounds) rather than the Big Five animals. Along the way we encounter Sally the pet hippo and Emily the house-proud chimp as well leopard and snake bites, ballooning adventures and amphibious cars. In this extraordinary memoir we look at Africa's wonders through the eyes of a visionary, live through hair-raising adventure and personal tragedy and also bear witness to a natural world now largely lost from view.

    B. White Naturalist, philosopher, champion of self-reliance and moral independence, Henry David Thoreau remains not only one of our most influential writers but also one of our most contemporary. This unique and comprehensive edition gathers all of Thoreau's most significant works, including his masterpiece, Walden (reproduced in its entirety); A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; selections from Cape Cod and The Maine Woods; as well as "Walking," "Civil Disobedience," "Slavery in Massachusetts," "A Plea for Captain John Brown," and "Life Without Principle." Taken together, they reveal the astounding range, subtlety, artistry, and depth of thought of this true American original.Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide

    Combining humor, wit, poignancy, and affection, these columns provide insight into the intriguing and wonderful world we live in. Whether it be writing about animals (from dogs to elephants to geese!), powerful and moving comments about his own and other families, trenchant comments on life s foibles and farces, or his interviews and interactions with people who are memorable and unusual in their own right, John Grogan makes us laugh-he makes us cry-he makes us think.Visit www.baddogshavemorefun.comA percentage of the profits from the sale of this book will go to THE GOOD DOG FOUNDATION, where dogs help humans heal.To learn more, visit www.thegooddogfoundation.org"

    Settling in at a bonobo sanctuary in Congo's capital, Vanessa and her fiancé entered the world of a rare ape with whom we share 98.7 percent of our DNA. She soon discovered that many of the inhabitants of the sanctuary - ape and human alike - are refugees from unspeakable violence, yet bonobos live in a peaceful society in which females are in charge, war is nonexistent, and sex is as common and friendly as a handshake. A fascinating memoir of hope and adventure, Bonobo Handshake traces Vanessa's self-discovery as she finds herself falling deeply in love with her husband, the apes, and her new surroundings while probing life's greatest question: What ultimately makes us human? Courageous and extraordinary, this true story of revelation and transformation in a fragile corner of Africa is about looking past the differences between animals and ourselves, and finding in them the same extraordinary courage and will to survive. For Vanessa, it is about finding her own path as a writer and scientist, falling in love, and finding a home.

    Curator of kitsch and unabashed aficionada of pop culture, Halliday offers bemused, self-deprecating narration of events from guerrilla theater in Romania to drug-induced Apocalypse Now reenactments in Vietnam to a perhaps more surreal collagen-implant demonstration at a Paris fashion show emceed by Lauren Bacall. On layover in Amsterdam, Halliday finds unlikely trouble in the red-light districteliciting the ire of a tiny, violent madam, and is forced to explain tampons to soldiers in Kashmir"they re for ladies. Bleeding ladies"that, she admits, "might have looked like white cotton bullets lined up in their box." A self-admittedly bumbling vacationer, Halliday shareswith razor-sharp wit and to hilarious effectthe travel stories most are too self-conscious to tell. Includes line drawings by the author."

    A top-scoring striker with Paris Saint-Germain and captain of the Swedish national team, he has dominated the world’s most storied teams, including Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, and AC Milan. But his life wasn’t always so charmed. Born to Balkan immigrants who divorced when he was a toddler, Zlatan learned self-reliance from his rough-and-tumble neighborhood. While his father, a Bosnian Muslim, drank to forget the war back home, his mother’s household was engulfed in chaos. Soccer was Zlatan’s release. Mixing in street moves and trick plays, Zlatan was a wild talent who rode to practice on stolen bikes and relished showing up the rich kids—opponents and teammates alike. Goal by astonishing goal, the brash young outsider grew into an unlikely prodigy and, by his early twenties, an international phenomenon. Told as only the man himself could tell it, featuring stories of friendships and feuds with the biggest names in the sport, I Am Zlatan is a wrenching, uproarious, and ultimately redemptive tale for underdogs everywhere.

    Based on Crystal's one-man Broadway show of the same name, "700 Sundays"--referring sadly to the time shared by an adoring father and his devoted son--offers a heartfelt, hilarious memoir.

    In a series of sharply etched scenes, he portrays the languages and cultures of the people who fill its bazaars, cafes, and streets. The book presents vivid images of daily life: the storytellers in the Djema el Fna, the armies of beggars ready to set upon the unwary, and the rituals of Moroccan family life. This is Marrakesh -described by one of Europe’s major literary intellects in an account lauded as "cosmopolitan in the tradition of Goethe" by the New York Times. "A unique travel book," according to John Bayley of the London Review of Books.

    Kathleen Jamie, award winning poet, has an eye and an ease with the nature and landscapes of Scotland as well as an incisive sense of our domestic realities. In Findings she draws together these themes to describe travels like no other contemporary writer. Whether she is following the call of a peregrine in the hills above her home in Fife, sailing into a dark winter solstice on the Orkney islands, or pacing around the carcass of a whale on a rain-swept Hebridean beach, she creates a subtle and modern narrative, peculiarly alive to her connections and surroundings.

    It was a journey that would take him from the ultimate source of the Amazon high in the Andes to its mouth on the Atlantic coast of South America - a distance of over 7000 kilometres along the length of the world's wildest river.The journey from source to sea had only ever been completed by two expeditions, both of them assisted by first-class training, state-of-the-art equipment and major budgets. Ben, the Australian on the team, Colin Angus from Canada and Scott Borthwick from South Africa - all in their mid-twenties - were attempting the epic journey with fifteen thousand Australian dollars between them, some second-hand camping gear, a grand total of five afternoons' training in whitewater rafting and a large dose of blind optimism.Five months later they arrived at the Atlantic Ocean, having survived some of the planet's most dangerous whitewater, wild storms, disgusting tropical diseases, several hundred species of venomous insects and reptiles, not to mention being pursued and shot at by guerrillas from Peru's murderous Shining Path rebel movement and mistaken by paramilitary police for drug smugglers.Three Men in a Raft is the account of their extraordinary journey. It's both a travel book and an adventure story, laced with humour, danger and vivid description - unlikely, endearing and enthralling.

    Her father was a cruel and violent district commissioner during the last days of British colonial rule, and their family’s stiff English facade masked an unspeakable household secret. But out in the bush, the intensity of the air and the beauty of the landscape touched her with a kind of feverish grace. She would disappear for hours to watch the flat brown river with its water lilies and crocodiles; the thorn trees and the flocks of flamingos; the local women with their babies strapped to their backs. Filled with the majesty and splendor of the ever-changing desert, Before The Knife is the deeply moving story of a girl who endured and transcended her family’s violence to emerge an impassioned observer and explicator of her world.

    Born in China in 1943, she moved from Chongqing to Taiwan, Spain to Germany, the Canary Islands to Central America, and, for several years in the 1970s, to the Sahara.Stories of the Sahara invites us into Sanmao's extraordinary life in the desert: her experiences of love and loss, freedom and peril, all told with a voice as spirited as it is timeless.At a period when China was beginning to look beyond its borders, Sanmao fired the imagination of millions and inspired a new generation. With an introduction by Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti, this is an essential collection from one of the twentieth century's most iconic figures.

    And it seems as if Shatner is everywhere. Winning an Emmy for his role on Boston Legal. Doing commercials for Priceline.com. In the movie theaters. Singing with Ben Folds. He’s sitting next to Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s practically a regular on Howard Stern’s show. He was recently honored with election to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. He was a target on a Comedy Central’s Celebrity Roast entitled “The Shat Hits the Fan.” In Up Till Now, Shatner sits down with readers and offers the remarkable, full story of his life and explains how he got to be, well, everywhere. It was the original Star Trek series, and later its films, that made Shatner instantly recognizable, called by name---or at least by Captain Kirk’s name---across the globe. But Shatner neither began nor has ended his career with that role. From the very start, he took his skills as an actor and put them to use wherever he could. He straddled the classic world of the theater and the new world of television, whether stepping in for Christopher Plummer in Shakespeare’s Henry V or staring at “something on the wing” in a classic episode of The Twilight Zone. And since then, he’s gone on to star in numerous successful shows, such as T.J. Hooker, Rescue 911, and most recently Boston Legal. William Shatner has always been willing to take risks for his art. What other actor would star in history’s first---and probably only---all-Esperanto-language film? Who else would share the screen with thousands of tarantulas, release an album called Has Been, or film a racially incendiary film in the Deep South during the height of the civil rights era? And who else would willingly paramotor into a field of waiting fans armed with paintball guns, all waiting for a chance to stun Captain…er, Shatner? In this touching and very funny autobiography, William Shatner reveals the man behind these unforgettable moments, and how he’s become the worldwide star and experienced actor he is today.