The Hollywood image of Dean Martin with a martini in one hand and a woman in the other continues to dominate public perception. Now, Dean's son Ricci reveals the husband and father few people knew, a man who hated parties, adored his mother-in-law, and found utter contentment in a slice of buttered bread. In That's Amore: A Son Remembers Dean Martin, Ricci Martin takes readers on a tour through his childhood, from the star-studded parties to the exploration of "three marriages, eight kids, one family," to the treasured one-on-one time he shared with his father. He also discusses Dean's first meeting with Jerry Lewis and divulges his father's version of the Martin and Lewis breakup. Ricci Martin addresses the key relationships in his father's life, allowing readers to view the Rat Pack years, "The Dean Martin Show," and Dean's divorce from Jeanne through a son's eyes. That's Amore reveals the triumphs, tragedies, and escapades that colored Ricci's childhood, including his brother Dean Paul's death. More than 100 photos from the private Martin family album enhance Ricci Martin's portrait of his father, creating a complete, honest picture of the Rat Pack legend.

    Choices were made without thinking. Young lives came together and would never be the same again. Years on, as Ursula confronts decisions that are not so easy to make, revelations collide with memories of Candelo - and some breathtaking secrets come to light.

    Though she lives with her aunt, she feels alone and uprooted.Until she meets Sani, a boy who is also searching for his roots. If he knows more about where he comes from, maybe he’ll be able to understand his ongoing depression. And if Moth can help him feel grounded, then perhaps she too will discover the history she carries in her bones.Moth and Sani take a road trip that has them chasing ghosts and searching for ancestors. The way each moves forward is surprising, powerful, and unforgettable.Here is an exquisite and uplifting novel about identity, first love, and the ways that our memories and our roots steer us through the universe.

    But she has never told the story of her life before fame. Until now.In Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie takes her readers on a warm, moving, and often humorous journey from a difficult upbringing in war-torn Britain to the brink of international stardom in America. Her memoir begins in 1935, when Julie was born to an aspiring vaudevillian mother and a teacher father, and takes readers to 1962, when Walt Disney himself saw her on Broadway and cast her as the world's most famous nanny.Along the way, she weathered the London Blitz of World War II; her parents' painful divorce; her mother's turbulent second marriage to Canadian tenor Ted Andrews, and a childhood spent on radio, in music halls, and giving concert performances all over England. Julie's professional career began at the age of twelve, and in 1948 she became the youngest solo performer ever to participate in a Royal Command Performance before the Queen. When only eighteen, she left home for the United States to make her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend, and thus began her meteoric rise to stardom.Home is filled with numerous anecdotes, including stories of performing in My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison on Broadway and in the West End, and in Camelot with Richard Burton on Broadway; her first marriage to famed set and costume designer Tony Walton, culminating with the birth of their daughter, Emma; and the call from Hollywood and what lay beyond.Julie Andrews' career has flourished over seven decades. From her legendary Broadway performances, to her roles in such iconic films as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, 10, and The Princess Diaries, to her award-winning television appearances, multiple album releases, concert tours, international humanitarian work, best-selling children's books, and championship of literacy, Julie's influence spans generations. Today, she lives with her husband of thirty-eight years, the acclaimed writer/director Blake Edwards; they have five children and seven grandchildren.

    This first year without their father and husband has been trying. Money is tight, but it's the emotional strain that threatens to snap under the weight of grief. Just as Emma and the children begin to sink beneath the surface, a mysterious package arrives on the doorstep. An ornate wax seal beckons them to open the accompanying note and start on a journey through Christmas. The note is signed simply, Santa, and each day a package arrives to remind them of the true meaning of Christmas - love, family, memories, and, most important of all, Christ.

    Failing out of school, picking up shifts at Margo’s diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows” her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be. This lyrical, unflinching tale is for anyone who has ever yearned for the fierce power of found family or to grasp the profound beauty of choosing to belong.

    "They become home to us, tell us who we are, who we want to be. Over the years, they take on more and more embellishments and adornments until they eclipse the actual memory. They become our past just as a snapshot will, at first, enhance a memory, then replace it."As she remembers it now, Goldman's was an idyllic childhood, charmed even, filled with parental love and sisterly confidences. Growing up in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Judy and her older sister, Brenda, did everything together. Though it was clear from an early age that their personalities were very different (Judy was the "sweet" one, Brenda, the "strong" one), they continued to be fairly inseparable into adulthood.But the love between sisters is complex. Though Judy and Brenda remained close, Goldman recalls struggling to break free of her prescribed role as the agreeable little sister and to assert herself even as she built her own life and started a family.The sisters' relationship became further strained by the illnesses and deaths of their parents, and later, by the discovery that each had tumors in their breasts Judy's benign, Brenda's malignant. The two sisters came back together shortly before the possibility of permanent loss became very real. In her uniquely lyrical and poignant style, Goldman deftly navigates past events and present emotions, drawing readers in as she explores the joys and sorrows of family, friendship, and sisterhood.

    While Jake, Mattie’s husband, gravitates between understanding and frustration, and their two small children try to make sense of the separation, Mattie begins a physical and emotional journey that will ultimately see her committing the unthinkable.

    Born to teenage parents in Mississippi, Starla is being raised by a strict paternal grandmother, Mamie, whose worst fear is that Starla will turn out like her mother. Starla hasn’t seen her momma since she was three, but is convinced that her mother will keep her promise to take Starla and her daddy to Nashville, where her mother hopes to become a famous singer—and that one day her family will be whole and perfect.When Starla is grounded on the Fourth of July, she sneaks out to see the parade. After getting caught, Starla’s fear that Mamie will make good on her threats and send her to reform school cause her to panic and run away from home. Once out in the country, Starla is offered a ride by a black woman, Eula, who is traveling with a white baby. She happily accepts a ride, with the ultimate goal of reaching her mother in Nashville.As the two unlikely companions make their long and sometimes dangerous journey, Starla’s eyes are opened to the harsh realities of 1963 southern segregation. Through talks with Eula, reconnecting with her parents, and encountering a series of surprising misadventures, Starla learns to let go of long-held dreams and realizes family is forged from those who will sacrifice all for you, no matter if bound by blood or by the heart.

    With school over and the locked world of their fathers before them, they rush towards the climax of their youth: a magical weekend in Manchester, the epicentre of everything that inspires them in working-class Britain. There, against the greatest soundtrack ever recorded, a vow is made: to go at life differently. Thirty years on, half a life away, the phone rings. Tully has news.Mayflies is a memorial to youth's euphorias and to everyday tragedy. A tender goodbye to an old union, it discovers the joy and the costs of love.

    Foreword by Neil Peart. Talent, energy, dedication, discipline, passion, innovation, education, drive, mind, body, spirit, vision, honor, truth, and drums make the man: Kenny Aronoff. Voted by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the greatest drummers of all time, Aronoff is arguably the most sought-after recording and touring beat master ever. Ignited by the Beatles' appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, Aronoff's passion for drumming fervently grew and carried him from the kit in his childhood living room in the Berkshires to Bernstein at Tanglewood to Mellencamp, Etheridge, Fogerty, Smashing Pumpkins, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles his heroes and beyond. But none of this would have been possible without his fierce work ethic and unique approach to drumming an integration of all parts of his being, along with meticulous attention to note-for-note detail, feel, and what the song needs . Both a leader and a team player in the mission to realize a greater good an unforgettable recording, a riveting show Aronoff brings it every time. Through any setbacks heartaches, failures, injuries, or plain fatigue from the rigors of the biz Aronoff has stayed the arduous and wild rock 'n' roll course. His tale of what is possible with unrelenting dedication to one's bliss is an inspiration to all. Sex, Drums, Rock 'n' Roll! details Aronoff's youth in the Berkshires and the Midwest, from his early inspirations to his serious classical and jazz study, which gave him the foundation to be able to play anything. The failure of a first rock band in his early twenties had a silver lining: it freed him up for an audition that would change his life John Mellencamp. His work with Mellencamp catapulted Aronoff to the top of the charts with such hits as "Hurt So Good," "Little Pink Houses," and "Jack and Diane" and paved the way for session and recording work with droves of remarkable artists: Melissa Etheridge, John Fogerty, Bon Jovi, Stevie Nicks, Smashing Pumpkins, the BoDeans, Paul Westerberg, Celine Dion, Iggy Pop, Elton John, Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Brian Wilson, Meat Loaf, Joe Cocker, and countless others. In addition to his work as a world-famous recording and touring drummer, Aronoff finds time to be a dedicated teacher and has shared his expertise with students all over the world, teaching clinics for Tama and Zildjian. Heading into his fourth decade of rocking hard, Aronoff shows no signs of slowing down. Featuring rare photos, testimonials from major artists and from those who know him best, a chronology of live performances, a discography, and a foreword by Neil Peart, this book is the story of one of the greatest musicians of all time.

    The Liverpool band’s first three singles shot to the top of the UK charts and spawned a multi-million selling album in the mid-eighties. It was a thrilling rock’n’roll ride for ‘Nasher’, a lad from a council house barely out of his teens. But the dream didn’t last. Aged just 27, he found himself near homeless and on the dole. One of ‘The Lads’ no more.Now, 30 years on from the band’s formation, Nasher takes us back on a colourful journey to Hollywood and beyond. What price fame? It’s time to tell the real story.

    . . . Amy Curry is having a terrible year. Her mother has decided to move across the country and needs Amy to get their car from California to Connecticut. There's just one small problem: Since her father died this past spring, Amy hasn't been able to get behind the wheel. Enter Roger, the nineteen-year-old son of an old family friend, who turns out to be unexpectedly cute ... and dealing with some baggage of his own. Meeting new people and coming to terms with her father's death were not what Amy had planned on this trip. And traveling the Loneliest Road in America, seeing the Colorado mountains, crossing the Kansas plains, and visiting diners, dingy motels, and Graceland were definitely not on the itinerary. But as they drive, Amy finds that the people you least expected are the ones you may need the most—and that sometimes you have to get lost in order to find your way home.

    and Mrs. Nie. As a token of gratitude, Mrs. Nie gives Jenny a crystal angel -- her most prized possession. But the greatest gift comes after Jenny's family is struck by tragedy, and Mrs. Nie provides a miraculous Christmas Eve gift -- on the wings of an angel -- that heals their hearts...

    Knowing her own involvement in his misdeeds decades earlier, Gloria realizes she could be the next arrest and must flee. But first, she needs to make sure her nieces are protected from any fallout.The sisters, though in their thirties, are still constantly at odds with each other. Willow, struggling to live up to their mother’s fame as a singer-songwriter, is recovering from a failed album and yet another heartbreak, while Sam is desperate to revive her floundering video game company.When circumstances out of their control bring the three women back together, they will each have to reckon with and reconcile their interwoven traumas, past loves, and the looming consequences that could either destroy their futures or bring them closer than ever.