Favre


Brett Favre - 2004
    This dazzling, New York Times bestselling tribute to the roller-coaster football life of Brett Favre is packed with personal family photos and remembrances, stunning four-color action shots, and inspiring stories of a lifelong love affair with the all-American game.

The Cabin: Inspiration for the Classic American Getaway


Dale Mulfinger - 2001
    You'll find 37 inspirational cabins from all over the country showing how people are building, reclaiming and transforming this unique American dwelling. The Cabin celebrates the appeal of this unique form or retreat, providing inspiration and practical ideas for realizing your own cabin dream.Based on design, shape, age and material, the cabins are divided into four distinct styles: rustic, traditional, modern and transformed. Whatever the style, each is a classic American getaway. The Cabin features:37 inspirational cabins from around all over the country. Nearly 250 photographs and 50 illustrations Detailed descriptions, site plans, and floor plans

The Condor Passes


Shirley Ann Grau - 1971
    Like many people in turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans, Thomas Henry Oliver came to the city to escape a dull life—in his case, a childhood in the backwoods of the Midwest. But few New Orleans immigrants find as much prosperity as Oliver does amongst the city’s lively streets. By the time he’s ninety-five, Oliver has amassed an enormous fortune built from brothels and speakeasies. But as his wealth grows, so does his family’s desire to control it. After a series of strokes, Oliver must choose an inheritor, even though his two entitled daughters and ambitious adopted son don’t always seem worthy of his legacy. The Condor Passes is a simmering dynastic saga of three generations colliding in their battle to control an empire.

The Hurricane Lover


Joni Rodgers - 2011
    As Hurricane Katrina howls toward the ill-prepared city of New Orleans, Dr. Corbin Thibodeaux, a Gulf Coast climatologist and storm risk specialist, preaches the gospel of evacuation, weighed down by the fresh public memory of a spectacularly false alarm a year earlier. Meanwhile, Shay Hoovestahl, a puff piece reporter for the local news, stumbles on the story of a con artist who uses storm-related chaos as cover for identity theft and murder. Laying a trap to expose the killer, Shay drags Corbin into her agenda, which goes horribly awry as the city's infrastructure crumbles.The Hurricane Lover is a fast-paced tale of two cities, two families, and two desperate people seeking shelter from the storm.The author, a NYT bestselling ghostwriter living on the Gulf Coast, writes knowingly about the dramatic megastorms, weaving in authentic meteorology and riveting transcripts of actual emails sent and received by FEMA director Michael Brown (later released through the Freedom of Information Act.) . . . . . . . . . . . .FROM TRISKELE BOOK BLOG"The Hurricane Lover is the story of two former lovers from polar ends of the deep political divide who collide – sexually, emotionally and in every other way – as Hurricane Katrina rolls over New Orleans and a predatory serial killer called Queen Mab takes advantage the ensuing chaos. Corbin is a meteorologist, one of the best hurricane forecasters around – a liberal, a Democrat and an alcoholic. Shay is a small-time TV presenter, fobbed off with stories about ice cream and Ziploc bags – a former beauty queen and daughter of a wealthy and influential Republican. He is on the trail of Katrina and she is on the trail of Queen Mab. I have never been to Louisiana or to Texas (where part of the action takes place), nor have I ever lived through a hurricane. But there is a filmic quality to the writing that means that the book played out in my mind in a series of vivid images. Rodgers has an ear, too, for the rich language of the Louisiana: colourful, gutsy and laced with Old French. Katrina, of course, provides a gift of a setting for any thriller. No one reading it can doubt that the jeopardy of the hurricane is real – no need here for writerly exaggeration. And Queen Mab is a frighteningly plausible killer – a modern take on an old nightmare, using the Internet to lure her victims into traps she baits with their own lusts. Shay and Corbin have a chemistry that flies off the page. They are an impossible pairing, striking sparks off each other at every encounter, yet you find yourself rooting for them to find a way past their differences and be together, because they are also perfect for each other. The book has an undoubted political edge. It’s hard to miss the deep underlying anger at the woefully inadequate response to the hurricane. It comes through in Corbin’s railing against head-in-the-sand attitude of the authorities, and also in the verbatim reproduction, as chapter headings, of published emails to and from the Head of FEMA – the organisation charged with preparing for and coping with the disaster. Yet Rodgers avoids polemic by giving the ‘opposition’ their own rounded, sympathetic characters. This is a powerful book that deserves to be read both for the yarn it spins and for the real-life story it uncovers.Highly Recommended."

Architecture Depends


Jeremy Till - 2009
    Architecture, Jeremy Till argues with conviction in this engaging, sometimes pugnacious book, cannot help itself; it is dependent for its very existence on things outside itself. Despite the claims of autonomy, purity, and control that architects like to make about their practice, architecture is buffeted by uncertainty and contingency. Circumstances invariably intervene to upset the architect's best-laid plans--at every stage in the process, from design through construction to occupancy. Architects, however, tend to deny this, fearing contingency and preferring to pursue perfection. With Architecture Depends, architect and critic Jeremy Till offers a proposal for rescuing architects from themselves: a way to bridge the gap between what architecture actually is and what architects want it to be. Mixing anecdote, design, social theory, and personal experience, Till's writing is always accessible, moving freely between high and low registers, much like his suggestions for architecture itself.

Deliver Me


Farrah Rochon - 2007
    The broken-hearted St. Louis native has nothing left at home any longer: her future is being an ER doctor at a New Orleans hospital. Her first day makes for a bumpy start as she continually runs into handsome but irascible Dr. Elijah Holmes—a man who could make her change her mind about finding true love.FOR NEW EXPECTATIONSFor years, Dr. Eli Holmes has been living up to his own high expectations—and is burning himself out in the process. The only time this “Super Doc” ob-gyn slows down is to notice the beautiful eyes of a newcomer, Dr. Gardner. He’s pleased to know that she’s more than just a pretty face, she’s also an ace physician. When they work together, sparks fly. But with both Monica and Eli trying to hard not to fall in love, they realize they can’t resist this affair of the heart.

Game Boys: Professional Videogaming's Rise from the Basement to the Big Time


Michael Kane - 2008
    Red Sox. Lakers vs. Celtics. And now . . . Team 3D vs. CompLexity. That would be America’s next celebrated rivalry if the men in Game Boys had their way. 3D and CompLexity are two of the top professional “e-sports” teams in the U.S. Their battle for dominance, as juicy as any feud in “real” sports, leads the action in Michael Kane’s engaging and lively chronicle of the lifestyle and business of gaming. We’ve come a long way since Pac-Man. Today’s games are more elaborate, popular, and addictive than ever. For the elite players, gaming is a full-fledged career that pays big money in prizes and corporate sponsorships. Gamers win, lose, strategize, fight, sign with rival teams, get berated by sideline-pacing coaches. Some use performance-enhancing drugs. And now they’re going on TV. Are they really the “athletes” of tomorrow? They act like they are. Game Boys is a pioneering narrative of the rivalries, quirks, and dramas of a subculture on the cusp of big things. At its most personal, it’s a classic sports tale of victory and defeat, punched up for the millennial generation. It’s also an engrossing business-meets-popculture narrative that reveals the entrepreneurial ingenuity involved in bringing gaming onto broadcast TV, in the vein of the X-Games or televised poker. Game Boys is an engrossing read for technophiles, gamers, parents, and anyone interested in the business of sports and trends in pop culture.

Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright


Brendan Gill - 1987
    His works—among them Taliesin North, Taliesin West, Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax buildings, the Guggenheim Museum—earned him a good measure of his fame, but his flamboyant personal life earned him the rest. Here Brendan Gill, a personal friend of Wright and his family, gives us not only the fullest, fairest, and most entertaining account of Wright to date, but also strips away the many masks the architect tirelessly constructed to fascinate his admirers and mislead his detractors. Enriched by hitherto unpublished letters and 300 photographs and drawings, this definitive biography makes Wright, in all his creativity, crankiness, and zest, fairly leap from its pages.

The Exiles


Gilbert Morris - 2003
    Readers follow Chantel through the streets and swamps of Louisiana as she falls in love, faces the loss of both her parents, and searches for the baby sister she thought was lost forever.The culture of the citizens of nineteenth-century New Orleans was as varied and intriguing as their complexions-French, Spanish, African, and American. As the layers of these cultures intertwine, a rich, entertaining story of love and faith emerges. It is the early 1800s, and Chantel Fountaine, has finished her education at the Ursuline Convent. But the trials and tragedies that preceded her graduation have put her Christian beliefs to the test.The authors' unique perspective and the distinctive cultural setting make this novel come alive in the minds and hearts of readers.

Clapton's Guitar: Watching Wayne Henderson Build the Perfect Instrument


Allen St. John - 2005
    Rarer than Stradivarius violins, these musical works of art are built from near-extinct Brazilian Rosewood, Appalachian spruce, black ebony, and fine mother-of-pearl. With Henderson's keen ear for the vibrations of each piece of wood he uses, each note that comes out of them has the power of a cannon and the sweetness of maple syrup.In "Clapton's Guitar," Allen St. John recounts how a perfect acoustic guitar comes into the world and how an artist gauges perfection. Wayne Henderson, master luthier and genius in blue jeans, will tell you that he simply puts penknife to wood and carves away "everything that isn't a guitar." This is the story of a master artist, set deep in the mountains of southwestern Virginia in a brick, one-story guitar shop, as busy and chaotic inside as it is simple outside. The space is well-lighted, cluttered with power tools, air hoses, and guitar bodies in various stages of completion. It is in this modest shop that Wayne Henderson crafts some of the most highly coveted acoustic guitars on earth, including one very special instrument he built for Eric Clapton.Normally, there is a ten-year wait for a Henderson guitar, and St. John finds there are no exceptions even for an iconic figure like Clapton. But seeing it as a shortcut to getting his own guitar done, St. John jump-starts the process, and then takes readers with him on a mesmerizing journey into the heart of high-end instrument making with the man "The Washington Post" calls the "Mad Scientist of Mountain Music." Henderson, a small-town wise man, is not only the star ofthis book as a master guitar maker but also is the star of any stage he sets foot on as a master guitar player, equally at home at Carnegie Hall or the local VFW hall. Around this drolly humorous man circulates a small coterie of colorful characters and inspired musicians, who welcome you for an all-too-brief visit. By book's end, you too will want to be Wayne Henderson's friend.In a rich tapestry of folklore and folksiness, St. John tells the story of building the Clapton guitar in loving detail, from the centuries-old forests where great tonewood grows, to the auction floor of Christie's where one of Clapton's guitars commands over $700,000. It's also a loving look at Wayne's corner of the world, the Blue Ridge mountain hamlets where American traditional music was born, and of Wayne's hometown of Rugby, Virginia, population 7, where the winding roads have kept progress at bay.Whether you love old-time music, unplugged rock, traditional American craftsmanship, or simply gifted storytelling, Clapton's Guitar is an engaging work that you will want to savor and share with friends.

Happy Inside: How to harness the power of home for health and happiness


Michelle Ogundehin - 2020
    Strong, clever, intelligent advice with soul.’Mary Portas‘A wonderful look at how to transform our homes to be more mindfully aligned with our true nature and a reflection of who we are.’Fearne Cotton‘A happy home is a fundamental building block of happiness, and Michelle’s book is an essential, step-by-step guide to creating a home we love.’Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global‘A must-have read for anyone looking to improve not just their home but also their quality of life within it.’Matthew Williamson Be happier, healthier and more empowered with Michelle Ogundehin’s step-by-step practical guide to creating a home that supports your well-being.Whether that home is owned or rented, small or large, and regardless of how much money you have, Happy Inside shows you how to harness its potential in pursuit of becoming your best self. If you want to feel calm, content, soothed or energized, you must begin with what surrounds you.This comprehensive guide covers everything from how to create more light and space to how to get a good night’s sleep; the path to a perfect sofa and why a dining table is your most vital piece of furniture. Plus, how to decorate to promote joy; the importance of play (and circular side tables); your definitive capsule kitchen kit; and why your hallway is where it all starts. Combining Michelle’s knowledge of Buddhist philosophy, mindfulness, colour psychology and good design, Happy Inside is your one-stop guide to living well.Welcome to the healthy home revolution!

Cabins: A Guide to Building Your Own Nature Retreat


David Stiles - 2001
    full-color photos help do-it-yourselfers realize their dreams." -- Log Homes IllustratedThe best-selling Cabins is back in print, at the same great value of its original price. This authoritative how-to title gives readers all the information they need to build their own cabin, including:A useful list of essential questions to consider during the planning process Types of cabin construction, such as pole built, stick built, post and beam, stone, cordwood, wood siding, and the advantages of each Site preparation, foundations, windows and doors, ladders and stairs, insulation, roofing, electricity, water systems and heating Essential information on log cabins Cabin designs and their advantages Furnishings and accessories Construction methods are clearly illustrated in meticulous line drawings and precise plans with measurements. Cut-away cross-sections and exploded diagrams give the builder the true perspective and detail needed to obtain the best result, allowing readers to get the most enjoyment out of their newly built wilderness retreat.

The First Tour de France: Sixty Cyclists and Nineteen Days of Daring on the Road to Paris


Peter Cossins - 2017
    Full of adventure, mishaps and audacious attempts at cheating, it was a race to be remembered. Cyclists of the time weren't enthusiastic about participating in this "heroic" race on roads more suited to hooves than wheels, with bikes weighing up to thirty-five pounds, on a single fixed gear, for three full weeks. Assembling enough riders for the race meant paying unemployed amateurs from the suburbs of Paris, including a butcher, a chimney sweep and a circus acrobat. From Maurice "The White Bulldog" Garin, an Italian-born Frenchman whose parents were said to have swapped him for a round of cheese in order to smuggle him into France as a fourteen-year-old, to Hippolyte Aucouturier, who looked like a villain from a Buster Keaton movie with his jersey of horizontal stripes and handlebar moustache, the cyclists were a remarkable bunch. Starting in the Parisian suburb of Montgeron, the route took the intrepid cyclists through Lyon, over the hills to Marseille, then on to Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Nantes, ending with great fanfare at the Parc des Princes in Paris. There was no indication that this ramshackle cycling pack would draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes. But they did; and all thanks to a marketing ruse, cycling would never be the same again.

Under a Hoodoo Moon: The Life of the Night Tripper


Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack - 1994
    In its pages, Dr. John, the alchemist of New Orleans psychedelic funk, tells his story, and what a story it is: of four decades on the road, on the charts, in and out of trouble, but always steeped in the piano-based soulful grind of New Orleans rhythmn & blues of which he is the acknolwedged high guru. From childhood as a prodigal prodigy among 1950s legends from Little Richard and Fats Domino to sesssions with the Rolling Stones and the Band; from recording studio to juke joint to penitentiary to world tours; from Mac Rebennack to Dr. John the Night Tripper, this is the testament of our funkiest rock storyteller. Full of wit and wordplay, tales of hoodoo saints and high-living sinners, Under a Hoodoo Moon casts a spell as hard to resist as Mardi Gras itself.

Why a man should be well-dressed


Adolf Loos - 2011