Ours were just bigger than others. "My earliest memory is of a gun." That gun was in his father's hand - and it was pointed at his mother's head. John Davis grew up in the 1970s and '80s on the rough streets of Brooklyn, a place where no one thought twice when parents smacked around their kids-or each other. At the center of the tumultuous neighborhood, and John's world, was his larger-than-life father, Roberto. The Argentinean butcher and kingpin drug dealer was a sadistic bully whose mercurial temper left a trail of tears and chaos across his family. John, in particular, seemed to bear the brunt of Roberto's wildly swinging moods. Any wrong word could cause an explosion. Every knock on the door might be one of Roberto's enemies, or the police. In his publishing debut, Davis recounts how he spent his childhood in constant terror and his teen years learning to fight back. But it was much later, as an adult, that he learned the most shocking thing of all about his father, his past, and himself. Told with raw honesty and deep emotion, My Father's Son is a memoir of fear, abuse, survival, and identity.

    Readers will marvel at the warmth, generosity and wisdom the world had to offer them on this journey of a lifetime.What began as letters to family and friends ultimately became an engaging book that chronicles the realization of a lifelong dream of the author and his wife to explore the world on a sailboat and is a powerful testament to the life and love that flourished during their five-year “world-wind” voyage. The memoir begins with a flashback sequence as the reader is catapulted into a world of high-wind hurricanes and pirate-threats with adventures from Guantanamo, Cuba to Djibouti in the horn of Africa and nearly forty countries in between. From the joy of new friendships and landscapes to a broken autopilot in the middle of the Pacific, a four-day storm heading for the Southern Cook Islands, and the despair of running Skimmer on the rocks, the seven seas were great teachers and have never been so restless—or forgiving.

    The author describes how, with no French language ability, he approached recruiters for the French Foreign Legion in Paris and the demanding selection process that followed. When he was accepted, he and other prospective legionnaires were sent to Southern France to begin the harsh recruit training course. The mix of different nationalities and backgrounds among his fellows was enormous. New members are traditionally allowed to change their identities - the author chose to alter his age becoming 28 not 38! Elite paratrooper training followed in Corsica before the author earned his 'wings'.The FFL is never far from the front line and we read of challenging active service in former French colonies in Africa as well as during the First Gulf War, evicting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and operations in Bosnia and Sarajevo.This is a completely authentic book that lifts the veil of mystery and myth and reveals much about the realities of service in the Foreign Legion. The author is not given to exaggeration - there is no need for it. A gripping read.

    With ruthless honesty and deadpan humor, the author observes the effect of weed upon every aspect of her life: marriage, motherhood, friendship, work, sport, sex. Phillip Lopate, Nonfiction Director of Columbia University's MFA Writing Program, lauds JUST SAY YES: "This funny, wry and very candid memoir purports to be a Confession of an American Pot-Smoker but is really a cultural/personal history of the past fifty years. The narrative progresses backward and not only the past but innocence itself is recaptured." John Updike wrote about Hiller's short story collection, SKIN, this is "good, brave and joyful writing." For more reviews of JUST SAY YES, please see the Kindle page and www.marijuanamemoir.com.

    And some people have no sense of direction, are terrified of pigeons, and get motion sickness from tying their shoes. These people are meant to stay home and eat nachos. Geraldine DeRuiter is the latter. But she won't let that stop her. Hilarious, irreverent, and heartfelt, All Over the Place chronicles the years Geraldine spent traveling the world after getting laid off from a job she loved. Those years taught her a great number of things, though the ability to read a map was not one of them. She has only a vague idea of where Russia is, but she now understands her Russian father better than ever before. She learned that what she thought was her mother's functional insanity was actually an equally incurable condition called "being Italian." She learned what it's like to travel the world with someone you already know and love -- how that person can help you make sense of things and make far-off places feel like home. She learned about unemployment and brain tumors, lost luggage and lost opportunities, and just getting lost in countless terminals and cabs and hotel lobbies across the globe. And she learned that sometimes you can find yourself exactly where you need to be -- even if you aren't quite sure where you are.

    When he spoke and I heard his British accent, I'm pretty sure an ovary exploded. Then he knocked on my door with a bottle of wine and two glasses in hand before inviting himself inside. After my bad breakup, I wasn't ready to date. I hadn't even looked for a rebound, but there he was, practically gift wrapped. Too bad I wanted nothing more than a second chance with my ex. Will Montana. I loved saying her name. I'd been watching her for months before she ever noticed me. She was too hung up on that cad to pay me any attention. Despite how perfect for me she seemed, I thought I might have a chance with her. After all, I had a cute accent and since we lived on the same floor, geography was on my side. A month ago, I'd actually witnessed their break up at the restaurant where I bartended. So, I bided my time and waited for her to recover. I wasn't built to be a rebound. And while I was certain her ex would come crawling back, I knew once I'd had a taste of life with her, I could never let her go.

    In this book he is back at his adventurous best tie-ing in with a major BBC TV series. The book/series will travel through many countries little known to the West, providing opportunities for Palinesque adventures to please the large and loyal audience who followed 80 Days, Pole to Pole and Full Circle.

    . .A city girl with a morbid fear of deep water, Torre DeRoche is not someone you would ordinarily find adrift in the middle of the stormy Pacific aboard a leaky sailboat – total crew of two – struggling to keep an old boat, a new relationship and her floundering sanity afloat.But when she meets Ivan, a handsome Argentinean man with a humble sailboat and a dream to set off exploring the world, Torre has to face a hard decision: watch the man she's in love with sail away forever, or head off on the watery journey with him. Suddenly the choice seems simple. She gives up her sophisticated city life, faces her fear of water (and tendency towards seasickness) and joins her lover on a year-long voyage across the Pacific. Set against a backdrop of the world's most beautiful and remote destinations, Love with a Chance of Drowning is a sometimes hilarious, often moving and always breathtakingly brave memoir that proves there are some risks worth taking.

    But, as Bob Greene writes, “just when in our lives we give up on capturing the freedom and bright mornings of our world when it was new, sometimes something happens to keep the sun high in the sky a while longer. Sometimes we find something we weren’t even aware we were looking for."For fifteen years beginning in the 1990s, Greene stepped into a universe that, out in the country every summer night, is hiding in plain sight: the touring world of the great early rock bands who gave America the car-radio and jukebox music it still loves best. Singing backup with the legendary Jan and Dean as they endlessly crisscross the nation, Greene takes us to football stadiums and minor-league ballparks, to no-name ice cream stands and midnight diners, to back roads and carnival midways as he tells a riveting story of great fame and lingering sorrow, of unexpected friendship and lasting dreams, of the things that keep us going in the face of all the things that threaten to stop us.Striking chords of recognition and yearning, When We Get to Surf City glistens with cameos by the men and women with whom Greene traveled the United States on his deliriously unlikely journey, including Chuck Berry, Martha and the Vandellas, the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beach Boys, the Monkees, the Kingsmen, James Brown, Lesley Gore, the Drifters, Little Eva, and the Coasters.All of them—not just the people on the stage, but the people in the audiences, too—are seeking their private versions of the mythical destination Jan and Dean came up with all those years ago: Surf City as the perfect, cloudless place we all believe is out there, if only we can find it.Hilarious and heartbreaking, moving and brilliant, this is the trip of a lifetime, a travelogue of the heart, accompanied by a thundering guitar chorus of Fender Stratocasters. It is a story destined to touch readers not just today, but for generations to come, as long as the music itself echoes.

    Madame Chic took the casual California teenager under her wing, revealing the secrets of how the French elevate the little things in life to the art of living. Each chapter of Lessons from Madame Chic reveals a valuable secret Jennifer learned while under Madame Chic's tutelage: tips you can incorporate into your own life, no matter where you live or the size of your budget. Embracing the classically French aesthetic of quality over quantity, aspiring Parisiennes will learn to master the art of eating (deprive yourself not), dressing (the ten-item wardrobe), grooming (le no-makeup look), and living à la française. From entertaining with easy flair and formality to cultivating allure while living an active, modern life, Lessons from Madame Chic is the essential handbook for anyone wanting to incorporate that Parisian je ne sais quoi into her daily life.

    They filled them with a deep longing to see the world and little else.It began in 1983, a time before the Internet, Instagram or Skyscanner. It was a journey of connections with people and situations that stretched the limits of their patience and perseverance. It was often hard and sometimes dangerous. But it was a journey of self-discovery, to places where simple choices led to profound transformation, where anything was possible if you just believed in yourself and the power in your hands and heart.Grab your copy today and follow the path of this young woman who set out to find herself in the world and find answers to the eternal questions who am I and why am I here?

    With Arbitron ratings clocking over 3+ million listeners a week and simulcast daily in 37 million homes on Free Speech TV, where she is also the number one show, her strongest numbers are in the grand prize demographic of highly educated males 25-54, despite, or maybe because of , her status as an out gay woman. It probably explains the sublime effectiveness of her national billboard slogan: "Stephanie Miller...making men rise in the morning". Stephanie also headlined the country’s number one comedy tour, “Stephanie Miller’s Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour", as well as the number one comedy album, "Stephanie Miller's Sexy Liberal Comedy Album". She has recently had her second #1 comedy album in the country with her "Stephanie Miller's Happy Hour, Volume One". She frequents the Holy Trinity of cable news: CNN, MSNBC, and FOX, where she bursts the infallibility balloons of right wingers, often with one well-aimed pinpoint punchline. Here is SEXY LIBERAL!, which you can see as Al Franken rewritten by Sarah Silverman, Chelsea Handler horizontal on the desk of The Daily Show. Steph is the youngest child of Congressman William Miller of NY, Barry Goldwater’s running mate in 1964. We all know how that turned out. Though Steph was only 3, she shows here how that defeat affected her as much as it changed the Republican Party. It made her who she is. SEXY LIBERAL! is the book her 3,000,000 fans have been begging her to write. it’s both deeply personal and hilariously political. But most of all it is Stephanie’s unique voice, her jokes, her happy clappy optimism, and her truth that they tune in to day after day, that they download as a subscription podcast, that they buy tickets for, to see her unbleeped and in person. That’s what SEXY LIBERAL! delivers. Like an uncensored comedy drone right to your door!“Stephanie Miller is like ice cream for breakfast, or box-wine through a Krazy Straw: pure pleasure that some people say is bad for you, but you know better. Sexy Liberal! is deeply, deeply profane, big-hearted, surprising, and it might make you pee your pants a little. Just what you need! Read this book. Stephanie Miller for Everything, 2016!”--Rachel Maddow, host of The Rachel Maddow and author of Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power “Sexy Liberal! is a great book with mind-expanding astuteness and side-splitting humor. Stephanie Miller is so wondrously witty and wise you will want to quote her. But, first, you must read her. Buy this book and help Amazon at last turn a profit. --Lily Tomlin “Sexy Liberal! is inspired reading. It is laugh-enhancing and beyond thought-provoking! A must read. --Jane Wagner Reading Stephanie's book is like being on the best kind of dinner date. The conversation is smart, funny and politically insightful. And Stephanie's contribution bad either. Seriously, what a fun read. Stephanie, in her wonderfully self-deprecating way, lets you into her brilliant mind, her no BS take on the political scene, and life itself. Enter at your own risk.--Rob Reiner

    Then he meets up with thuggish ‘Spud’ who is so good at scaring people, notably the Petrovs, two encroaching Russian gangsters, that he hires him on the spot as his business partner. It’s a deal with the Devil. Spud is a loose cannon, liable to blow up at any moment. The two travel to India to become the largest wholesaler of hippy-Hindi glad rags in the UK, and to fulfill their dream of becoming rupee millionaires. Along the way, they pick up a motley crew of kooky characters––Ram, a lovable, crutch-bound Rajasthani, George, an irascible American, Nick and Anna, a quirky Canadian couple, Susie, a Dagenham girl gone ‘native’, and Rose, the secret love of Ram’s life. These become the ‘Pushkar Posse’, a group of oddball traveller-entrepreneurs who meet once a year to have fun and make money in equal measure. Join Frank on this wild rite of passage through India.

    Through friends and neighbours like these, Loomis learns that delicious, even decadent meals don't have to be complicated.Are French cooks better organized when planning and shopping? Do they have a greater ability to improvise with whatever they have on hand when unexpected guests arrive? The answer to both is: Yes. But they also have an innate understanding of food and cooking, are instinctively knowledgeable about seasonal produce, and understand what combination of simple ingredients will bring out the best of their gardens or local markets.Thankfully for everyone In a French Kitchen shares the everyday French tips, secrets and recipes that allow them to turn every meal into a sumptious occasion.

    If they had, we wouldn't hear the delicious details of how horribly wrong it all went. Like Marrit Ingman's disastrous honeymoon in Maui—and the repercussions of societal pressure for the perfect love escape in paradise. Or of how the entire kitchen of C. Lill Ahrens's new Seoul apartment is literally lost in translation. Or why Ayun Halliday would attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, when her training consisted of drinking beer and rolling her own cigarettes, and her gear cost $14.99 at Sportmart. From Kandahar to Baja to Moscow, these wry, amusing stories capture the comic essence of bad travel, and of the female experience on the road.Roughly translated / C. Lill Ahrens --Kilimanjaro / Ayun Halliday --Hamil's house of fun / Kay Sexton --I could do this in my sleep / Karin Palmquist --Adventure Pete / L.A. Miller --Constipated in Palinuro / Judith Levin --The trail / Erica J. Green --How to travel with a man / Kate Chynoweth --A useful and comprehensive travel dictionary for girls / Buzzy Jackson --Tri training in Russia / Mara Vorhees --Worry warts / Lisa Taggart --In search of Sami / Ann Lombardi --Bigger than France / Spike Gillespie --Souvenirs from Ecuador / Bethany Gumper --Heading South / Samantha Schoech --Knocked off my high horse in New Zealand / Catherine Giayvia --The lion sleeps tonight / Sarah Franklin --No strings attached / Paige Porter --Y2K in Kandahar / Hannah Bloch --Prada on the Plaka / Michele Peterson --Honeymoon in Hell / Marrit Ingman --The occidental tourist / Judy Wolf