In this new collection of essays, a treat for dedicated fans and new readers alike, Winik explores how she — and other women — face midlife and aging without getting tangled up in the past or the future, all with her trademark humor and insistence on the truth-the good, the bad, and the ugly.The collection is divided into five sections: "Back," about her family and her past; "Underfoot," about being a mom; "In the Mirror," about growing older; "Above us Only Sky," about a key turning point in her life, and "Ahead," about facing the future.

    Henry Awards, the Commonwealth Gold Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, Wallace Stegner was a literary giant. In Marking the Sparrow's Fall, the first collection of Stegner's work published since his death, Stegner's son Page has collected, annotated, and edited fifteen essays that have never before been published in any edition, as well as a little-known novella and several of Stegner's best-known essays on the American West. Seventy-five percent of the contents of this body of work is published here for the first time.

    Spending nearly half the year in a 7' x 7' tower, 10,000 feet above sea level in remote New Mexico, his tasks were simple: keep watch over one of the most fire-prone forests in the country and sound the alarm at the first sign of smoke.Fire Season is Connors's remarkable reflection on work, our place in the wild, and the charms of solitude. The landscape over which he keeps watch is rugged and roadless — it was the first region in the world to be officially placed off limits to industrial machines — and it typically gets hit by lightning more than 30,000 times per year. Connors recounts his days and nights in this forbidding land, untethered from the comforts of modern life: the eerie pleasure of being alone in his glass-walled perch with only his dog Alice for company; occasional visits from smokejumpers and long-distance hikers; the strange dance of communion and wariness with bears, elk, and other wild creatures; trips to visit the hidden graves of buffalo soldiers slain during the Apache wars of the nineteenth century; and always the majesty and might of lightning storms and untamed fire.Written with narrative verve and startling beauty, and filled with reflections on his literary forebears who also served as lookouts — among them Edward Abbey, Jack Kerouac, Norman Maclean, and Gary Snyder — Fire Season is a book to stand the test of time.

    A massive bestseller in Germany, this astonishing, fascinating and at times hilarious book relates a football career in which Lutz: Became the only person to have played professional football in all FIFA Confederations Was wrongly jailed for match fixing in Singapore spending 101 days in horrific conditions Signed for 25 teams (including Notts Forest, Wimbledon's Crazy Gang and Calgary) Stopped breathing three times after his heart stopped during a game Turned down mighty Bayern Munich to play in Malaysia Coached teams in such exotic locations as Norway, Namibia, Armenia and Cuba Kidnapped a Penguin! All this because he simply loved playing football and because, quite simply, goalkeepers are mad!"

    With only a folding bicycle and a towable suitcase, Australian Lynette Chiang spent three months touring Cuba, eshewing tourist hotels and typical itineraries in favor of an unpredictable day-to-day existence among ordinary citizens. She discovered a people who, despite great privation, are warm, generous, and generally happy. Her narrative covers equally well the challenges of travel on two wheels and the surprises of life in the land of Fidel.Read more about Lynette at http://www.galfromdownunder.com/cuba

    The theme is the experience of Longden watching LOST FOR WORDS become a TV drama along with a collection of observations of life at home and abroad.

    Born with achondroplasia, a condition that causes disproportionate dwarfism, Dylan Postl had endured multiple surgeries by the age of 12. And yet, he held on to the dream that he would one day become a professional wrestler. Ignoring the naysayers and against doctors' recommendations, Dylan began training in his teens, and he soon began appearing on local independent shows. Before he turned 20, he was signed by the world leader in sports-entertainment, WWE, to play the role of Irish grappler Finlay's feisty sidekick, Hornswoggle, and remained a firm fixture in the company for a full decade.While most of Dylan's adult life has been spent in the wild world of the wrestling industry, Life Is Short is more than a story of a little person's journey through a world of giants; it's a memoir of elation and anguish, triumph and disappointment, and of how an endlessly positive outlook combined with the unwavering support of family and friends helped him become a success in his industry and a loving, responsible father. It's a story about a man who still loves wrestling -- but loves his family above all else.

    He won two stages at the Tour de France and an Olympic medal. But after years of feeling off, he was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s. The body that had been his ally was now something else: a prison. The Happiness of Pursuit is the story of how Davis sought to overcome his Parkinson’s by reaching back to what had made him so successful on the bike and adjusting his perspective on what counted as a win. The news of his diagnosis began a dark period for this vibrant athlete, but there was also light. His son Taylor’s own bike-racing career was taking off. Determined to beat the Body Snatcher, Davis underwent a procedure called deep brain stimulation. Although not cured, his symptoms abated enough for him to see Taylor compete in the Beijing Olympics. Davis Phinney had won another stage. But the joy, he discovered, was in the pursuit. With humor and grace, Phinney weaves the narrative of his battle with Parkinson’s with tales from his cycling career and from his son’s emerging career. The Happiness of Pursuit is a remarkable story of fathers and sons and bikes, of victories large and small.

    But that may be misleading; there’s more to it than that.

    As a Major League manager, he has one of the more stressful jobs imaginable. So what does he do to relax? He goes for long walks. Whenever possible, he takes long walks as a way to clear his head, calm his soul and give his body a workout. In this charming little volume, he shares his thoughts on walking in terms that can inspire everyone to get out more often for a good walk, a great way to stay fit and healthy through the forties and fifties and beyond. Along the way he provides glimpses into his life and character that will delight his many fans.

    This is an adventure story about a voyage from one life chapter to another that involves a too-big sailboat, a narrow and unknown sea, and an appetite to witness a mythical blonde bear that inhabits a remote rainforest.Kim Brown Seely and her husband had been damn good parents for more than 20 years. That was coming to an end as their youngest son was about to move across the country. The economy was in freefall and their jobs stagnant, so they impulsively decided to buy a big broken sailboat, learn how to sail it, and head up through the Salish Sea and the Inside Passage to an expanse of untamed wilderness in search of the elusive blonde Kermode bear that only lives in a secluded Northwest forest. Theirs was a voyage of discovery into who they were as individuals and as a couple at an axial moment in their lives. Wise and lyrical, this heartfelt memoir unfolds amid the stunningly wild archipelago on the far edge of the continent.

    Over one hundred years later, his spirit reaches out to help his troubled great granddaughter. A dramatic three-act tale spanning a century in the life of a vigorous Italian family.

    A coin toss determined ownership of the yet unborn foal that was to become the first Triple Crown winner in twenty-five years, breaking and still holding all three track records. The author, who was on personal terms with Secretariat's owner, trainers, grooms, and jockey and who photographed "Big Red" throughout his career, gives us this enthralling intimate portrait - the triumphs and disasters - of Secretariat's gallop to immortality. Secretariat was the best-known and most beloved race horse of the twentieth century. In 1973 his legacy as the greatest horse of all time was permanently etched into the consciousness of the world when he won the Triple Crown. Raymond G. Woolfe Jr. tells the story of Secretariat from the coin toss that sent him to Helen Chenery to his burial at Claiborne Farm. Complete with a glossary of horse-racing terms, a breakdown of Secretariat's bloodline, and a foreword by Ronald Turcotte, Secretariat's jockey during his amazing 1973 campaign, this is the definitive volume for fans of the horse and the sport of horseracing.

     The true story of how mildly successful guitarist and New York Times writer Dan Crane relinquished his instrument and became Björn Türoque (pronounced "b-yorn too-RAWK"), the second greatest air guitarist in the nation. This exploration of the international air guitar sub-culture addresses the issue of dedicating oneself to an invisible art in order to achieve the ultimate goal of "airness"-that is, when air guitar transcends the "real" art that it imitates and becomes an art form in and of itself.

    His intimate knowledge of the natural environment, by sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, has made him renowned as a detective of the outdoors. For decades he has been called upon to find missing children, escaped animals, dangerous criminals—anything that can walk, crawl, or lope through the wilderness. His hunting expertise, and his call to find harmony in nature, have been chronicled in several of his books including The Tracker and Awakening Spirits. Now, in Case Files of the Tracker, Tom Brown reveals sixteen of his adventures for the first time, including: ·         A desperate race to reach a diabetic child before he suffers from insulin shock·         The treacherous struggle to capture an armed convict that left Tom with a bullet in his back·         His Tracking Team’s pursuit of a tiger on the loose in the wilds of New Jersey