She imagined posh flights and swanky hotels. Then I said the three words every girl longs to hear: Volkswagen camper van.’This frank and funny true story of a 'family gap year' like no other shows how the passing comment of a bored 9-year-old can snowball into an absurd expedition into strange lands, financial peril and some distinctly unsavoury living arrangements. With Strawberry Fields New York in their sights, the Beatnik Beatles inadvertently gatecrash an Italian wedding, suffer brutal torture at the hands of a Turkish masseur, appear in a Bollywood film and trust their entire journey across Australia to the whim of an army of online-blog followers - and all to a Lennon & McCartney soundtrack, played badly on instruments bought on eBay.Got a taste for adventurous travel? Ever felt the peril of performing in public? Tried to entertain children on a very, very long car journey? Great! Do you want to join a band?‘It’s a dirty story of a dirty man.’Paul McCartney‘Please stop calling us.’The Times Literary Supplement‘We do not condone absenteeism on this scale.’Oxfordshire Education Authority(From Amazon.co.uk)

    He is caring, loyal and dependable - everything a woman could ask for. But she can't quite forget Harry - the one that got away - and when a snow storm drives her into his arms, the inevitable happens. Nine months later a child is born.Overcome with remorse, Bridget is determined that her husband should know the truth, but her confession can lead only to heartbreak. Although he allows his wife and her child to continue living in his home, Tom Mulligan makes it clear that their marriage is over. Lonely and afraid, Bridget finds comfort in the friendship of Fanny, a feisty young mother who knows what it is to be alone. But Bridget's life can never be complete until she has the love of the only man she ever really wanted...

    It is a story of a dying village's struggle to survive, of a dead artist whose legacy began its rebirth, and of chef Jacques Ratier and his wife, Noëlle, whose bustling restaurant—the village's sole business—has helped ensure its future. The author set out to explore the inner workings of a French restaurant kitchen but ended up stumbling onto a wider, much richer world. Whether uncovering the darker secrets of making foie gras, hearing a chef confess his doubts about the Michelin star system, or absorbing the lore of the land around a farmhouse kitchen table after a boar hunt, Michael Sanders learned that life in Les Arques was anything but sleepy. Through the eyes of the author and his family, the reader enters this world, discovers its still-vibrant traditions of food, cooking, and rural living, and comes to know the village's history, sharing along the way an American family's adventures as they find their way in a place that is sometimes lonely, often wondrous, and always fascinating.

     Dream weekends with practical itineraries in all corners of Europe   Culture, history, natural beauty, fine cuisine, artistic masterpieces, cutting-edge architecture and style—Europe overflows with so many richesthat a lifetime seems too short to appreciate them. But with the right guidance, you can go far in a single weekend. Stylishly written and carefully researched, this updated and expanded collection of the popularNew York Times 36 Hours feature offers you 125 well-crafted itineraries for quick but memorable European trips, accompanied by hundreds of color photographs to fire your imagination. Explore the expected: the Renaissance in Florence, surfing in Biarritz, flamenco in Seville. And discover the unexpected: Sicilian mummies dressed in their Sunday best, a dry-land toboggan ride on Madeira, a hotel in Tallinn with a KGB spies’ nest on the penthouse floor. World capitals, ancient nations that once ruled wide domains, tiny countries with big personalities—it’s all Europe, and all fun to read about (whether you actually go or not) in this handsomely designed and illustrated book. Features:4,500 hours worth of insightful itineraries to make the most of your stay 125 European destinations, from major cities to lesser known gems Practical recommendations for over 500 restaurants and 400 hotels Color-coded tabs and ribbons to bookmark your favorite cities in each region Nearly 800 photos Illustrations by Olimpia Zagnoli Easy-to-reference indexes Detailed city-by-city maps pinpoint every stop on your itinerary Also available:36 Hours: 150 Weekends in the USA & Canada36 Hours: USA & Canada: Northeast 36 Hours: USA & Canada: Southeast 36 Hours: USA & Canada: Midwest & Great Lakes 36 Hours: USA & Canada: Southwest & Rocky Mountains

    No other contemporary humorist knew the South so well, loved it so passionately, or wrote about it so vividly.

    From the minutiae of Future World to the farthest reaches of World Showcase this guide covers it all in intimate detail. No stone is left unturned, and no legacy tile left unmocked. With a little bit of wit and a whole lot of heart you'll be led through the splendorific sprawl of the most endearing monument to humanity that has ever been created. Highlights include: A history of each pavilion and the forces that shaped its existence - or the end thereof. Insight into the inner-workings of the park. What makes it tick and why things happen the way they do. A scene-by-scene analysis of Horizons, quite possibly the most beloved attraction in the company's history and all of the World Disney World resort.

    You have arrived in the hills. In here, you are surrounded by dense, menacing forests, enveloped in a deadly silence... You never know what lurks here in the Cold, dark night. Do not walk alone after sunset in the hills. A beautiful woman in white haunts the Lonely pathways, looking to enchant and ensnare men... All the people who died in accidents here... They say you hear their screams at night. And the deserted lodges sitting amidst lush greenery and calm streams... Spirits lie in wait here, ready to prey on the living. There are sceptics who did not heed these warnings. They tried to rationalize what they saw, what they felt. But when they came face to face with the beings that they believed didn’t exist, they couldn’t run away anymore... Ghosts of the silent hills is a collection that will make your nights a little scarier, encompassing the very best spine-chilling stories based on true hauntings.About the AuthorBorn in Shimla in 1955, Anita Krishan spent the initial twenty-two years of her life in this pristine Himalayan town, earning her master’s degree in English literature from Himachal University, and moving on to a career of introducing delights of the language to her young learners. In her long tenure as an educator, she has enriched the lives of countless students with the mystery of the narrative. A versatile writer, each of her literary works appertains to a different genre... from the joys and travails of life, to terrorism that has brought the world to its tenterhooks, to now the paranormal. She has travelled extensively around the globe absorbing the diverse human ethos and cultures—the delectable food for her thoughts. Presently, she lives in Gurgaon with her family.

    If you’re looking for the outer orbits of America, come to Florida, and if you seek the Sunshine State’s funky-drumbeat fringe, you can do no better than Lynn Waddell.”—Tim Dorsey, New York Times best-selling author “Waddell takes readers to Florida’s wild side, where strippers, swingers, bikers, exotic animals, and carnies enjoy sun-kissed lives in America’s strangest state.”?Trevor Aaronson, author of The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism “Lynn Waddell’s riveting you-are-there reporting lives at the intersection where Florida’s wacky subcultures and seamy undersides meet up. When you read this book, make sure you’re standing over carpet—that way you won’t hurt your jaw from dropping it so many times.”—Craig Pittman, author of The Scent of Scandal: Greed, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Beautiful Orchid “A fast, fascinating read. Waddell delivers ten surprising subcultures you might not dare visit on your own.”?Lyn Millner, Florida Gulf Coast UniversityFlorida has a titillating underbelly that few tourists ever see. Beyond the theme parks and the beaches lies a periphery most residents know about but—out of decorum or discomfort?prefer not to discuss. In Fringe Florida, Lynn Waddell explores the exotic, sensational, and sometimes illicit worlds of the oddest state in the nation.Waddell takes the reader on a colorful journey to meet the most unconventional of Floridians in unbelievable and spectacular places. At Fetish Con, she befriends furries and pony girls. She travels to Cassadaga, the oldest active Spiritualist community in the South, where trained mediums converse with the dead, and to the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando, where one can eat a hot dog while watching a reenactment of the Crucifixion. She interviews the founder of the Leather & Lace Motorcycle Club, a Daytona Beach-area grandmother who hosts the club’s annual gathering, welcoming scores of lady bikers to camp out on the lawn of her subdivision home. At an Animal Amnesty Day outside Busch Gardens, Waddell meets exotic reptile owners who give up their beloved-but no-longer-manageable pets and others who vie to take home the cast-offs.If you’ve ever wanted to parade around on a pimped-out swamp buggy amidst a couple thousand beer-swigging mud boggers or fall asleep with a python hissing in your ear, been tempted to bring a Capuchin monkey in a stroller to a Little League game, or contemplated sitting on the beach waiting to be picked up by a UFO but couldn’t quite bring yourself to such extremes, Fringe Florida is for you.

    Horne makes plain that while Paris may be many things, it is never boring.From the rise of Philippe Auguste through the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIV (who abandoned Paris for Versailles); Napoleon’s rise and fall; Baron Haussmann’s rebuilding of Paris (at the cost of much of the medieval city); the Belle Epoque and the Great War that brought it to an end; the Nazi Occupation, the Liberation, and the postwar period dominated by de Gaulle--Horne brings the city’s highs and lows, savagery and sophistication, and heroes and villains splendidly to life. With a keen eye for the telling anecdote and pivotal moment, he portrays an array of vivid incidents to show us how Paris endures through each age, is altered but always emerges more brilliant and beautiful than ever. The Seven Ages of Paris is a great historian’s tribute to a city he loves and has spent a lifetime learning to know.

    “The purpose of this book,” says Housden, “is to inspire you to lighten up and fall in love with the world and all that is in it.” Reading it is a pleasure indeed.“When you die,God and the angels will hold you accountablefor all the pleasures you were allowed in life that you denied yourself.”Roger Housden, author of the bestselling Ten Poems series, presents a joyously affirmative, warmly personal, and spiritually illuminating meditation on the virtues of opening ourselves up to pleasures like being foolish, not being perfect, and doing nothing useful, the pleasure of not knowing, and even (would you believe it?) the pleasure of being ordinary.

    But as engineer Gustave Eiffel built the now-famous landmark to be the spectacular centerpiece of the 1889 World's Fair, he stirred up a storm of vitriol from Parisian tastemakers, lawsuits, and predictions of certain structural calamity. In Eiffel's Tower, Jill Jonnes, critically acclaimed author of Conquering Gotham, presents a compelling account of the tower's creation and a superb portrait of Belle Epoque France. As Eiffel held court that summer atop his one-thousand-foot tower, a remarkable host of artists and personalities-Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Gauguin, Whistler, and Edison-traveled to Paris and the Exposition Universelle to mingle and make their mark. Like The Devil in the White City, Brunelleschi's Dome, and David McCullough's accounts of the building of the Panama Canal and the Brooklyn Bridge, Eiffel's Tower combines technological and social history and biography to create a richly textured portrayal of an age of aspiration, dreams, and progress.

    It's a how-to manual with travel literature. It will help you venture out with confidence to discover yourself as you discover the world!

    Hirsh's internationally acclaimed 1986 novel, Kabul, provides an almost miraculous window into a country and its people that now have captured the world's attention.When the last Afghan king is deposed in the summer of 1973, the family of Omar Anwari, his loyal cabinet minister, is torn apart along with their country. Over seven turbulent years while Catherine, their American mother, struggles to hold them together, Mangal, the eldest son, breaks with his father to follow his own political conscience; daughter Saira in New York is torn between two cultures; and Tor, the youngest, most passionate of the three grows up to become perhaps the bravest of them all.An epic tale of civil war, political intrigue, and family tragedy, Kabul is a moving, insightful portrayal of a proud nation brought to chaos.

    Based on Stephen Clarke's own experiences and with names changed to "avoid embarrassment, possible legal action, and to prevent the author's legs being broken by someone in a Yves Saint Laurent suit," A Year in the Merde provides perfect entertainment for Francophiles and Francophobes alike.

    The Full House: Ella Campbell is a former showgirl turned minivan driving mom who can’t quite figure out how it happened that she and her perfect husband are sleeping in separate rooms. The Ace of Clubs: Kit (just Kit) is a magician’s assistant who wishes she could make her attraction for her married boss disappear. The Straight Flush: David Shepard is a flamboyant showboy with only one thing hotter than his dancing career - his lover’s jealous temper. Four friends. Four different points of view. One story of love, loss and lust in the most decadent place on earth. The only question is, what are the odds of finding true love in the city of sin?REVIEWSAcclaim for the novels and stories of Gemma Halliday:“Stylish... nonstop action...guaranteed to keep chick lit and mystery fans happy!” - Publishers Weekly, starred review “A winner,”“fast-paced style, interesting characters and story meant for the keeper shelf. 4 1/2 stars!” - Romantic Times“A saucy combination of romance and suspense that is simply irresistible.” - The Chicago Tribune “Fresh and witty little number that will appeal if you like sparkling, good stories.” “Full marks go to Ms. Halliday on what promises to be a very successful debut to a fabulous career.” - Romance Junkies “Gemma Halliday writes like a seasoned author leaving the reader hanging on to every word.” - Once Upon A Romance “If you have not read these books, then you are really missing out on a fantastic experience, chock full of nail-biting adventure, plenty of hi-jinks, and hot, sizzling romance. Can it get any better than that?” - Romance Reviews Today