Shore’s unwavering determination to fit into life in a quaint village, despite having smoke repeatedly blown in face, saw him eventually embraced within the local culture --- at least by a few of his leery French neighbours. Uncorked celebrates the “uncorking” of a few tightly held traditions that are near and dear to hearts of the locals of the Cote d’Azur and Provence – being taught to play pétanque (boules) under the clandestine cover of darkness; learning vernissage etiquette; drinking pastis before noon; navigating narrow village roads at top driving speed. Shore also “uncorks” personal awakenings about the value of following roads-less-travelled and making time to smell-the-roses, as we cultivate friendships and traditions. And, through exposure to the life of artist Marc Chagall, Shore reflects on the challenges that all newcomers face to gain acceptance in a foreign land. Shore’s humorous and heart-felt accounts of his year living in Provence will touch and amuse, and evoke fond memories of travel to fascinating places --- and they might even trigger reflection on the importance of being afforded new chances in life.TREAT YOURSELF TODAY to some belly laughter and fond reminiscing about past travels!Praise for Uncorked:"Like a wry cross between Bill Bryson and Dave Bidini, Paul Shore’s funny, self-deprecating and wholesome recounting of a year spent in Provence is one part travelogue, one part self-help guide, and one part memoir. Uncorked is just like a good French wine: light, delicious, and full of flavour."--- Grant Lawrence, CBC broadcaster and author of Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound“A computer geek in the South of France? What could go wrong? With remarkable storytelling skill, Shore brings to life a time and place where community, simplicity and a slower pace were revered — a younger generation's A Year in Provence.”--- Sarah Bancroft, co-author of Vancouver: The Unknown City and writer of the blog A Year in Paris“Shore’s light-hearted story takes you to a place where the simple joys in life are what matters. During my Man in Motion World Tour 30 years ago, I wish I could have slowed down as Paul did.”--- Rick Hansen, founder and CEO of the Rick Hansen Foundation“Many dream of relocating to France at some time in their lives. Like Peter Mayle (A Year in Provence) before him, Paul Shore made the leap and found a cornucopia of delights in his new home.”--- Stephen Hui, hiking writer and former Georgia Straight web and technology editor“Paul Shore’s nostalgic musings on the ancient, nuanced sport of pétanque demonstrate how to, with a dose of persistence, tap into a treasure trove of cross-cultural respect and understanding in sunny.” --- Jack Christie, writer-broadcaster, author of 52 Best Day Trips from Vancouver.   “Reminded me of my own time in Europe and how much I miss it. Thanks so much for a wonderful read and bringing back such incredible memories.”--- Stella Harvey, founder of the Whistler Writers Festival and author of The Brink of FreedomThis is an alternate-cover edition for 9780981347417.

    Jon Lee Anderson's biography traces Che's extraordinary life, from his comfortable Argentine upbringing to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution, from the halls of power in Castro's government to his failed campaign in the Congo and assassination in the Bolivian Jungle.Anderson has had unprecedented access to the personal archives maintained by Guevara's window and carefully guarded Cuban government documents. He has conducted extensive interviews with Che's comarades-some of whom speak here for the first time-and with CIA men and Bolivian officers who hunted him down. Anderson broke the story of where Guevara's body was buried, which led to the exhumation and stat burial of the bones. Many of the details of Che's life have long been cloaked in secrecy and intrigue. Meticulously researched and full of exclusive information, Che Guevara illuminates as never before this mythic figure who embodied the high-water mark of revolutionary communism as a force in history."

    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

    Via Colombre, the main street in a village just outside Verona, offers an exemplary hodgepodge of all that is new and old in the bel paese, a point of collision between invading suburbia and diehard peasant tradition in a sometimes madcap, sometimes romantic always mixed-up world of creeping vines, stuccoed walls, shotguns, security cameras, hypochondria, and expensive sports cars.Tim Parks is anything but a gentleman in Verona. With an Italian wife, an Italian made family, and a whole Italian condominium bubbling around him, he collects a gallery full of splendid characters who initiate us into all the foibles and delights of life in provincial Italy.More than a travel book, Italian Neighbors is a sparkling, witty, beautifully observed tale of how the most curious people and places gradually assume the familiarity of home. Italian Neighbors is a rare work that manages to be both a portrait and an invitation for everyone who has ever dreamed about Italy.

    Fiction. Translated from the French by Victor Llona. DOWN BELOW is an account of Leonora Carrington's travels to Spain after having been declared "incurably insane." Carrington wrote and painted as a defender of the Surrealist movement into the twentieth century. DOWN BELOW was first published in 1944. This recent publication includes new collages by Debra Taub.

    Life was tough at times, living in a cramped one-roomed trailer, but, unbound by strict routines, Violet spent her days learning to keep home, playing and roaming the fields with a sense of freedom long lost to the rest of modern society. Immersed in the Gypsy way of life, her childhood set her apart from other children. Bullied by classmates, and segregated from 'gorgia' kids (all non-Gypsies), Violet eventually left school at the age of nine to live a life of travel, play and learning under generations-old Gypsy rules on the fringes of society. With traditional values at the heart of her childhood, the pressure of conforming and marrying young was intense. Violet was duty-bound to find a husband, but would her marriage lead to the 'happy ever after' she grew up believing in as a Gypsy girl? Gypsy Princess is a searingly honest account of what life is really like for travelling communities, for girls in particular, and captures a way of life that is slowly fading away.

    Eve Brown always thought she would join the Peace Corps someday, although she secretly worried about life without sushi, frothy coffee drinks and air conditioning.  But with college diploma in hand, it was time to put up or shut up. So with some ambivalence she arrives at the Peace Corps office–sporting her best safari chic attire –to casually look into the steps one might take if one were to become a global humanitarian, a la Angelina Jolie.  But when Eve meets John, her dashing young Peace Corps recruiter, all her ambivalence flies out the window. She absolutely must join the Peace Corps - and win John's heart in the process. Off to Ecuador she goes and - after a year in the jungle - back to the States she runs, vowing to stay within easy reach of a decaf cappuccino for the rest of her days. But life had other plans.  Just as she's getting reacquainted with the joys of toilet paper, John gets a job with CARE and Eve must decide if she’s up for life in another third world outpost. Before you can say, "pass the malaria prophylaxis," the couple heads off to Uganda, and the fun really begins--if one can call having rats in your toilet fun. Fortunately, in Eve’s case one certainly can, because to her, every experience is an adventure to be embraced and these pages come alive with all of the alternatively poignant and uproarious details. With wit and candor, First Comes Love, then Comes Malaria chronicles Eve’s misadventures as an aspiring do-gooder. From intestinal parasites to getting caught in a civil war, culture clashes to unexpected friendships, here is an honest and laugh-out-loud funny look at the search for love and purpose—from a woman who finds both in the last place she expected.AUTHOR BIO EVE BROWN-WAITE was a finalist for Iowa Review, Glimmer Train, and New Millennium Writings Awards for stories she wrote about her time abroad. She lives with her husband and two children in Massachusetts.

    Then she decided to make it a challenge. Over the next few months, with a little math and a lot of determination, she saved up enough to buy two years of freedom in Europe.But she had only been in Paris for a few days when she met a handsome butcher (with a striking resemblance to Daniel Craig)—and never went home again.A love story in the vein of Almost French and Lunch in Paris, Paris Letters (February 4) is a joyful romp through the City of Light, and an inspiring look at what can happen when we dare to create the life we want.Realizing that her Parisian love affair would be forever, MacLeod began her own business on Etsy, creating beautifully-illustrated letters from Paris inspired by artists like Percy Kelly and Beatrix Potter. She now paints and writes full-time, bringing beautiful things to subscribers around the world and reviving the lost art of letter-writing.

    Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland with no design, yet heeding signs–including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding and sparring like the Cheshire Cat. In February, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. In a stranger’s words, “Anything is possible: after all, it’s the Year of the Monkey.” For Smith–inveterately curious, always exploring, tracking thoughts, writing–the year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life’s gyre: with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America. Smith melds the western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us from California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places, this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment set in. But as Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope for a better world. Riveting, elegant, often humorous, illustrated by Smith’s signature Polaroids, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times.

    A gripping story of adventure and a modern-day Walden, this contemporary classic established Fromm as one of the West's premier voices.

     From the author of the sensational bestseller I Was Told There'd Be Cake comes a new book of personal essays brimming with all the charm and wit that have earned Sloane Crosley widespread acclaim, award nominations, and an ever-growing cadre of loyal fans. In Cake readers were introduced to the foibles of Crosley's life in New York City-always teetering between the glamour of Manhattan parties, the indignity of entry-level work, and the special joy of suburban nostalgia-and to a literary voice that mixed Dorothy Parker with David Sedaris and became something all its own.Crosley still lives and works in New York City, but she's no longer the newcomer for whom a trip beyond the Upper West Side is a big adventure. She can pack up her sensibility and take us with her to Paris, to Portugal (having picked it by spinning a globe and putting down her finger, and finally falling in with a group of Portuguese clowns), and even to Alaska, where the "bear bells" on her fellow bridesmaids' ponytails seemed silly until a grizzly cub dramatically intrudes. Meanwhile, back in New York, where new apartments beckon and taxi rides go awry, her sense of the city has become more layered, her relationships with friends and family more complicated.As always, Crosley's voice is fueled by the perfect witticism, buoyant optimism, flair for drama, and easy charm in the face of minor suffering or potential drudgery. But in How Did You Get This Number it has also become increasingly sophisticated, quicker and sharper to the point, more complex and lasting in the emotions it explores. And yet, Crosley remains the unfailingly hilarious young Every woman, healthily equipped with intelligence and poise to fend off any potential mundanity in maturity.Show me the doll --Lost in space --Take a stab at it --It's always home you'll miss --Light pollution --If you sprinkle --An abbreviated catalog of tongues --Le Paris! --Off the back of a truck

    The Roads to Sata is his wry, witty, inimitable account of that prodigious trek.Although he was a city person--he was brought up in London and spent most of his adult life in Tokyo--Booth had an extraordinary ability to capture the feel of rural Japan in his writing. Throughout his long and arduous trek, he encountered a variety of people who inhabit the Japanese countryside--from fishermen and soldiers, to bar hostesses and school teachers, to hermits, drunks, and tramps. His wonderful and often hilarious descriptions of these encounters are the highlights of these pages, painting a multifaceted picture of Japan from the perspective of an outsider, but with the knowledge of an insider.The Roads to Sata is travel writing at its best, illuminating and disarming, poignant yet hilarious, critical but respectful. Traveling across Japan with Alan Booth, readers will enjoy the wit and insight of a uniquely perceptive guide, and more importantly, they will discover a new face of an often misunderstood nation.

    It contains reminiscences of many periods of the author's life. He associated with a number of celebrities of his times, including Jean-Martin Charcot, Louis Pasteur, Henry James, and Guy de Maupassant, all of whom figure in the book. He also associated with the very poorest of people, including Italian immigrants in Paris and plague victims in Naples, as well as rural people such as the residents of Capri, and the Nordic Lapplanders. He was an unabashed animal lover, and animals figure prominently in several stories, perhaps most notably his alcoholic pet baboon, Billy.The stories cover a wide range in terms of both how serious they are and how literal. Several discussions with animals and various supernatural beings take place, and the final chapter actually takes place after Munthe has died and includes his discussions with Saint Peter at the gates of Heaven. At no point does Munthe seem to take himself particularly seriously, but some of the things he discusses are very serious, such as his descriptions of rabies research in Paris, including euthanasia of human patients, and a suicide attempt by a man convinced he had been exposed to the disease.Several of the most prominent figures in Munthe's life are not mentioned in Story of San Michele. His wife and children do not figure in the narrative; very little of his time in England is mentioned, even though he married a British woman, his children were largely raised in England, and he himself became a British citizen during the First World War. His decades-long service as personal physician and confidante to the Queen of Sweden is mentioned only in the most oblique terms; at one point, while naming her only as "she who must be mother to a whole nation", he mentions that she regularly brings flowers for the grave of one of her dogs buried at Villa San Michele, at another point, one of his servants is out walking his dogs, and encounters the Queen, who mentions having given the dog to Munthe.Munthe published a few other reminiscences and essays during the course of his life, and some of them were incorporated into The Story of San Michele, which vastly overshadows all his other writing both in length and popularity. Notably, his accounts of working with a French ambulance corps during the First World War are not included.World wide, the book was immensely successful; by 1930, there had been twelve editions of the English version alone, and Munthe added a second preface. A third preface was written in 1936 for an illustrated edition

    Cain and her mother set out for Iowa, and the site of the hippie commune where they lived nearly twenty years earlier. Dharma Girl presents an unforgettable journey about home, loss and self-discovery, and a deeply personal manifesto that sheds new light on the philosophical intersections of two of the most written-about generations of the 20th century.

    Every morning, Anjelica and her brother visited their father while he took his breakfast in bed. “What news?” he’d ask. “I’d seen him the night before,” Anjelica recalls. “There wasn’t much to report.” So she became a storyteller.In London, where she lives with her mother and brother in the early sixties when her par­ents separate, Huston encounters the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac. She understudies Marianne Faithfull in Hamlet. Seventeen, striking, precocious, but still young and vulnerable, she is devastated when her mother dies in a car crash.Months later she moves to New York, falls in love with the much older, brilliant but disturbed photographer Bob Richardson, and becomes a model. Living in the Chelsea Hotel, working with Richard Avedon and other photographers, she navigates a volatile relationship and the dynamic cultural epicenter of New York in the seventies.A Story Lately Told ends as Huston launches her Hollywood life. The second part of her story—Watch Me—opens in Los Angeles in 1973 and will be published in Fall 2014. Beguiling and beautifully written, Huston’s memoir is a treasure.