Larry Haun is as much a historian and philosopher as he is a 60-year veteran carpenter. Larry's memoir would be equally at home on the bookshelves of home building and architecture enthusiasts as anyone on a spiritual journey."- Brian Pontolilo, Editor, Fine Homebuilding Magazine The unforgettable memoir of a legendary builder. You don't have to be a carpenter to appreciate this fascinating book that Publishers Weekly calls, "a first person timeline of 20th century American residential architecture... combining ...two literary styles: the memoir and the how-to book." A moving story of that place we call home. An early advocate for building lean and green and an avid blogger, Larry Haun tells his unique story in terms of twelve homes - built over the last 100 years. These are homes he knows intimately, drawing the reader in with detailed descriptions and thoughtful observations. "Just like any good carpenter, Haun brings his own artistic flourishes to the job of storytelling.... But where Haun's true personality comes across is when he describes the construction process for the many houses he has lived in and built--from his parent's 1,000-sq. ft. wood-frame house and the adobe and cob structures of the Southwest to the mid-century pre-fabricated and tract houses, and the more recent Habitat for Humanity homes he has donated his time to help erect." Publishers Weekly, 6/13/2011A delight to read. A great gift. This engaging memoir will appeal to anyone who appreciates a well-told story. A Carpenter's Life As Told in Houses explores our love of home - feelings so deeply rooted that they go far beyond wood and plaster and shingles. Share the author's deep connection to the natural world, his yearning for simplicity, and respect for humanity - and see why he believes that less is more.

    Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer Prize winner and acclaimed biographer of Joe DiMaggio, decodes this oversized icon who dominated the game and finds not just a great player, but also a great man. In 1986, Richard Ben Cramer spent months on a profile of Ted Williams, and the result was the Esquire article that has been acclaimed ever since as one of the finest pieces of sports reporting ever written. Given special acknowledgment in The Best American Sportswriting of the Century and adapted for a coffee-table book called Ted Williams: The Seasons of the Kid, the original piece is now available in this special edition, with new material about Williams' later years. While his decades after Fenway Park were out of the spotlight -- the way Ted preferred it -- they were arguably his richest, as he loved and inspired his family, his fans, the players, and the game itself. This is a remembrance for the ages.

    Berra, whose "Darwin: The Man" lectures are in high demand worldwide, tells the fascinating story of the person and the idea that changed everything. Berra discusses Darwin’s revolutionary scientific work, its impact on modern-day biological science, and the influence of Darwin’s evolutionary theory on Western thought. But Berra digs deeper to reveal Darwin the man by combining anecdotes with carefully selected illustrations and photographs.This small gem of a book includes 20 color plates and 60 black-and-white illustrations, along with an annotated list of Darwin’s publications and a chronology of his life.

    Providing an intimate window into a loving Muslim home, Qureshi shares how he developed a passion for Islam before discovering, almost against his will, evidence that Jesus rose from the dead and claimed to be God. Unable to deny the arguments but not wanting to deny his family, Qureshi's inner turmoil will challenge Christians and Muslims alike. Engaging and thought-provoking, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus tells a powerful story of the clash between Islam and Christianity in one man's heart---and of the peace he eventually found in Jesus.

    Now, in his first book written for a wide audience, he offers a marvelous biography of the Prophet Muhammad, one that highlights the spiritual and ethical teachings of one of the most influential figures in human history.In the Footsteps of the Prophet is a fresh and perceptive look at Muhammad, capturing a life that was often eventful, gripping, and highly charged. Ramadan provides both an intimate portrait of a man who was shy, kind, but determined, as well as a dramatic chronicle of a leader who launched a great religion and inspired a vast empire. More important, Ramadan presents the main events of the Prophet's life in a way that highlights his spiritual and ethical teachings. The book underscores the significance of the Prophet's example for some of today's most controversial issues, such as the treatment of the poor, the role of women, Islamic criminal punishments, war, racism, and relations with other religions. Selecting those facts and stories from which we can draw a profound and vivid spiritual picture, the author asks how can the Prophet's life remain -- or become again -- an example, a model, and an inspiration? And how can Muslims move from formalism -- a fixation on ritual -- toward a committed spiritual and social presence?In this thoughtful and engaging biography, Ramadan offers Muslims a new understanding of Muhammad's life and he introduces non-Muslims not just to the story of the Prophet, but to the spiritual and ethical riches of Islam.

    Most philosophers believe that our experience is locked inside our skulls, an unreliable representation of a quite different reality outside. Colour, smell and sound, they tell us, occur only in our heads. Yet when neuroscientists look inside our brains to see what’s going on, they find only billions of neurons exchanging electrical impulses and releasing chemical substances.Out of My Head tells the gripping, highly personal, often surprisingly funny, story of Tim Parks' quest to discover more about this fascinating topic. It frames complex metaphysical considerations and technical laboratory experiments in terms we can all understand. Above all, it invites us to see space, time, colour and smell, sounds and sensations in an entirely new way. The world will feel more real after reading it.

    

    They announce that the logical and important places to begin to examine that history are eye witnesses. Miriam Brysk’s chronicle is among the more exceptional of these works. It reflects her own life: highly accomplished, intelligent, detailed and thoughtful. At age seven, Miriam, her mother Bronka and father, Chaim Miasnik, a renowned surgeon, escaped the Lida ghetto and joined Jewish partisans in the Lipiczany Forest. Before the end of the war, Miriam estimates that her father had saved hundreds of lives and helped build and supervise a partisan hospital in the swamps of the forest. Constantly hunted by German soldiers, she experienced childhood terror that has remained with her. She lost her innocence, her childhood, her youth as she clung to her mother and her prized possession, a pistol. Her head was shaved so she would look like a boy. Her memory of the details of that time—both in the Lida ghetto and in the forest—remains remarkably sharp and distinguishes this memoir from many others. — Sidney Bolkosky, William E. Stirton Professor in the Social Sciences, Professor of History, University of Michigan-Dearborn

    From the 1960s graffiti proclaiming 'Clapton is God', to his seminal work in supergroup Cream and his phenomenally successful solo career, Eric Clapton has achieved the status of bona fide living legend and enduring icon.Now in his sixth decade in the music business, he occupies an exulted position at the pinnacle of the rock world thanks to songs like Layla, Wonderful Tonight and Tears In Heaven, and for many is considered the greatest guitarist who ever lived.This book will chart his rise to stardom in the 60s and his unparalleled success since walking out of the Yardbirds as a 20-year-old to follow his chosen path of the blues with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and later with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in supergroup Cream, as well as his successful solo career. However, his success has come at a price. Once a happy well-adjusted boy, the young Clapton was devastated by the realisation at the age of nine that the woman he thought was his sister was in fact his mother, and that the couple he thought were his parents were his maternal grandparents. His treatment by his mother was also to shape his future turbulent relationships with the women in his life, including his failed first marriage to model Pattie Boyd, who was married to Clapton's close friend George Harrison when he fell for her. Motherless Child also chronicles his battles with the demons of drugs and alcohol, his successful journey to sobriety, and examines his legacy as one of the most influential musicans of his generation.This is essential reading for any Clapton fan.

    . . . It is to Mark Adams’s great credit that, in Mr. America, he has rescued from obscurity a man whose influence is still felt in this country more than a century after he muscled his way onto the national scene.” —Wall Street Journal“Hilarious. . . . Delightful. . . . If Macfadden hadn’t existed, we would have had to invent him.” —Washington Post Mr. America is the fascinating true story of Bernarr Macfadden, a self-made millionaire and founding father of bodybuilding, alternative medicine, and tabloid culture. Madfadden’s impact on popular American culture is everywhere, from yoga to raw food diets to US Weekly, and Mr. America vividly brings to life this charismatic and intriguing character.

    It covers his captivating adventures including his almost single-handed responsibility for establishing the first media empire, the first public library, the first fire brigade, the University of Pennsylvania, and the first book club and the first franchise.

    It was the first Brian Eno album tobe composed almost completely in the confines of a recording studio,over a scant few months in the summer of 1975. The album was a proofof concept for Eno's budding ideas of "the studio as musicalinstrument," and a signpost for a bold new way of thinking aboutmusic.In this book, Geeta Dayal unravels Another Green World's abundantmysteries, venturing into its dense thickets of sound. How was analbum this cohesive and refined formed in such a seemingly ad hoc way?How were electronics and layers of synthetic treatments used to createan album so redolent of the natural world? How did a deck of cardsfigure into all of this? Here, through interviews and archivalresearch, she unearths the strange story of how Another Green Worldformed the link to Eno's future -- foreshadowing his metamorphosisfrom unlikely glam rocker to sonic painter and producer.

    T. Barnum's career of showmanship and charlatanry was marked by a surprising undercurrent of honesty and forthrightness. His exuberant autobiography forms a happy combination of all those traits, revealing the whole story of his world-famous hoaxes and publicity stunts. Here is a pageant of nineteenth-century America's gullibility and thirst for marvels, as told by the master of revels himself.A born storyteller, Barnum recalls his association with Tom Thumb, his audience with Queen Victoria, and his trouble keeping Jenny Lind's angelic image intact during a trying tour. He tells of Jumbo, the most famous elephant in history, from the creature's heroic arrival in America to its tragic death in a railroad accident; of his attempts to transfer Shakespeare's house and Madame Tussaud's Waxworks from England to New York; and of his triumphant reentry into public life after financial failure and five disastrous fires had all but wiped him out. The true-life tale of a man of boundless imagination and indomitable energy, Barnum's autobiography embodies the spirit of America's most exciting boom years.

    His influence on 20th-century thinking and issues is arguably unparalleled, affecting attitudes on sex, religion, art, culture, and more. Written for the layperson, Freud for Beginners explains the doctor's dogma with wit and clarity, all in a contemporary context.

    As an impoverished writer in need of rejuvenation, Miller travelled to Greece at the invitation of his friend, the writer Lawrence Durrell. The text is inspired by the events that occurred. The text is ostensibly a portrait of the Greek writer George Katsimbalis, although some critics have opined that is more of a self-portrait of Miller himself.[1] Miller considered it to be his greatest work.