In Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, and Bull Riders, award-winning sports journalist Josh Peter takes readers along on the 2004 Professional Bull Riders (PBR) tour to witness the sport's exploding popularity--and discover why athletes in spurs, cowboy hats, and colorful chaps are hooking millions of fans across the country.The 2004 season begins like all PBR seasons, with 800 cowboys competing for a chance to be in the top 45 who ride in 29 major events during the season, with the best of the best taking home a $1 million bonus. Success is measured in seconds--managing to stay on a bull for 8 seconds without getting tossed is likely to secure a rider a big score. Most riders fail. Many get seriously injured; some die. Josh Peter captures the high drama of the sport and introduces readers to a culture that's rife with colorful characters: the courageous riders chasing their dreams, the scouts, breeders, love-struck groupies, and a few of those very angry bulls.

    The poems in this wonderful collection touch all of the events and places that meant the most to Philip Levine. There are lyrical poems about his family and childhood, the magic of nighttime and the power of dreaming; tough poems about the heavy shift work at Detroit's auto plants, the Nazis, and bosses of all kinds; telling poems about his heroes--jazz players, artists, and working people of every description, even children. Other poems celebrate places and things he loved: the gifts of winter, dawn, a wall in Naples, an English hilltop, Andalusia. And he makes peace with Detroit: "Slow learner that I am, it took me one night/to discover that rain in New York City/is just like rain in Detroit. It gets you wet." It is a peace that comes to full fruition in a moving goodbye to his home town in the final poem in the collection, "The Last Shift."

    Sitting outside the hospital after visiting one day, Natasha wondered how she would cope when her mother was gone. There started a panic and self-scrutiny. Had she been a good enough daughter? Would she have enough time to do all the things she wanted to do with her mother before she died? Natasha knew that she couldn't be the only one feeling this way. She began her research and quickly learned that other daughters had similar fears and had never spoken about them before. Love for their mothers, regret for opportunities missed, resentments and emotional complexities all bubbled to the surface. Through these conversations, a friendship blossomed with Róisín Ingle, popular columnist at the Irish Times. After a call out in Róisín's column, hundreds of responses poured in and there The Daughterhood was formed. The Daughterhood is the funny, poignant, and occasionally heart-breaking story of nine daughters coming together to talk about their mothers and the joy and despair that this relationship brings. Over a period of months they commit to completing various tasks all in the hope of improving their relationship with the most important woman in their lives - before she dies.

    Very rich and providing great sensory pleasure (Oxford English Dictionary)n. A habitual drunkard (Oxford English Dictionary)'Arms linked, just as we did when we were seventeen, we teeter our way to the club, pausing to tug Emma's stiletto out of a drain cover and sling our empty wine bottle into the bin. For the first time in a long while I feel truly happy. I want to be standing arm-in-arm with my best friend, both completely pole-axed, for the rest of my days. And then it comes to me, with a stab: this is possibly our last night out together as free women...'Gabby and Emma have been best friends since primary school in Wales. Emma has a stable job, a nice home and has just got engaged. Gabby has had a succession of disastrous one-night-stands and five awful jobs since drama school . . . and she has just been diagnosed with scurvy. She has one year until the wedding to pull herself together and prove to her friends and family that she can be a proper grown-up.Described by Caitlin Moran as 'filthy, immoral and incredibly funny', Gabrielle Fernie's blog, loveisa4letterturd.com, catalogued her life as a struggling actress with a taste for gin. Here, in her first book, she shares more of her most raucous stories with eye-watering honesty. It is a refreshing, frank and laugh-out-loud account of a young woman trying to find her place in the world; ultimately realising that it's fine to play at being an adult until she properly figures it out.

    In case you need a reminder, they are four Jamaican brothers who inherit their billion-dollar empire from their father, Kymani Whyte, a former legendary drug kingpin. Their last name alone ring bells throughout the city. 'Whyte' holds so much rank and weight that it is almost a death sentence to have any beef with the Whyte Brothers. These brothers keep their circle tight and make sure not to let any snakes in. Females consider it a blessing to be affiliated with either Staxx, Rich, Paper or Dolla Whyte even if it is only for a night. Dolla Whyte, the youngest and deemed most ruthless of the four, is considered the most attractive. From the start, he warns women that there are two things he can’t give them - money and a relationship. All of that changes during a morning routine trip to Starbucks. Dream Washington's name can be found under the definition of a "go-getta". Since a pre-teen, she saved every child support check from her father so that she can attend her dream college, University of Miami, thirteen hours away from home. Now a junior in college, Dream is focusing more on obtaining her degree to live the life she wasn't given a chance to due to her parents' negligence. She also happens to be the new barista at Starbucks. When Dolla ends up in her line, their interaction doesn't go too well. Unbeknownst to her, Dolla is just naturally a "rude bwoy". That very well may be the reason Dream finds herself attracted to him. All of a sudden, Dolla finds himself breaking his own rules. Whenever Dream has a problem, Dolla runs to her rescue. Dolla doesn't know how to describe his feelings for Dream, but he dares not use the L-word. To him, love is only an emotion to describe the way he feels about his family, not a woman. Staxx is the oldest and runs the empire. There is nothing he loves more than his daughter and youngest brother. As with every man with wealth and power, women are his weakness. Self-control is something that he lacks. Staxx has been married for almost fifteen years to his daughter’s mother, but he hasn’t been faithful for over a decade. His infidelities catch up to him in a way that he never expects. Meet Shonda, the loyal, loving wife of Staxx. She has rightfully earned the huge rock on her finger after holding Staxx down since they were seventeen. Shonda hardly ever asks Staxx for anything throughout their marriage, but she wants another baby. Staxx, being heavy in the streets and sheets, doesn’t want another kid. The pressure from Shonda causes their marriage to crumble. Each brother has woman problems, which can easily be solved if the brothers weren’t so set in their ways. Running an empire is already hard, try adding needy women and greedy men to the equation. One thing is for sure, drama is bad for business. Will these Miami boys be able to protect their empire and give their hearts to the women that love them? Or will the brothers fold under pressure?

    Enormously likable and a habitual screw-up, Eric Mercer has settled into a sometimes raucous, underachieving life in his one-stoplight hometown—a life cobbled together from his part-time activities as bartender at the American Legion, assistant mortician, and father to his beloved 5-year-old daughter, Tess. Tess seems to be the main reason smart, talented, twenty-four-year-old Eric is staying in town, though her mom, a centerfold-quality beauty, would have it otherwise. When Jill, the lost love of his life, returns to Pinely in the same week that the town goes nuts in preparation for the high school football team's Big Game, life unexpectedly shifts into high gear, and Eric must blunder his way toward enlightenment—fast. Authentic and refreshingly unpredictable, Small Town Odds is written with an acute sense of place and character reminiscent of Richard Russo.

    In each case, they are met with fear. Not respect, reverence or courage, but sheer speechlessness, humility, and complete surrender. They are overcome with pure fear and many of them cry out to be destroyed.Most people today have lost this fear. We must understand that a true fear of God leads to the keeping of His commandments, leads to life, and is the beginning of wisdom.Everyone who has come face-to-face with  God falls over in fear. Do you think you'd do anything different?www.basicseries.com

    It is a method for losing weight through positive thinking and the changing of attitudes toward life and food.This, of course, is no ordinary 'diet' book...This is an extraordinary approach to weight loss--a diet of forgiveness, a fast from negative thought--and if followed one can achieve bodily perfection. The theory is simple. Though we might think it is our negative eating habits that have kept us unattractive and unhealthy, it is really our negative thoughts and feelings. It is the latter we must change for that is what is aging and killing us. If we do...we drop our fat as well, for the same mechanism that holds on to negative thoughts and feelings holds on to fat. --from the Preface

    About one-third also have varying degrees of learning difficulty. All of them have impairment of social interaction, communication and imagination - to them the world appears a bewildering and sometimes frightening place. This guide explains how people with autism experience the world and why they need an organized, structured environment. Ways of improving communication, developing abilities and enlarging social interaction are described, and advice is given on coping with stresses within the family.

    In the 1960s, Edna Staebler moved in with an Old Order Mennonite family to absorb their oral history and learn about Mennonite culture and cooking. From this fieldwork came the cookbook Food That Really Schmecks. Originally published in 1968, Food That Really Schmecks instantly became a classic, selling tens of thousands of copies. Interspersed with practical and memorable recipes are Staebler's stories and anecdotes about cooking, life with the Mennonites, family, and the Waterloo Region. Described by Edith Fowke as folklore literature, Staebler's cookbooks have earned her national acclaim.Back in print as part of Wilfrid Laurier University Press's Life Writing series, a series devoted celebrating life writing as both genre and critical practice, the updated edition of this groundbreaking book includes a foreword by award-winning author Wayson Choy and a new introduction by well-known food writer Rose Murray.

    He would return in September. For the next ten weeks my survival would depend on foraging, hunting and fishing on an island I would share with 1,600 brown bears. This is my story of hunger and solitude, salmon fishing and stormy seas, torrential rains and mountain sunsets, giant halibut and deer hunting, campfires and killer whales. Illustrated with nearly fifty photos and a map.

    Help, Thanks, Wow ...in 30 minutes is the concise guide to quickly understanding the three simple prayers outlined in Anne Lamott's best-selling book, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. Understand the thought-provoking ideas behind Help, Thanks, Wow:* Learn what it means to pray, and the life-opening power of prayer, independent of your faith or lack thereof.* Inspirational stories convey Lamott's personal insight and exploration of faith.* Discover how the three essential prayers help us endure difficult times and continue to move ahead. In Help, Thanks, Wow, best-selling author Anne Lamott demystifies prayer, declaring that there are no rules--a higher power can be called anything, and people can believe in any religion they'd like (or none at all) and still pray.Prayer can take countless forms, but Lamott believes that it all boils down to three essential prayers: Help, Thanks, and Wow. Help is an admission of powerlessness and a plea for assistance; Thanks is a cry of gratitude; and Wow is the experience of awe.A thought-provoking spirituality guide for people of all faiths and creeds, Help, Thanks, Wow examines the importance of the three prayers vital to enduring hardship and experiencing a transformative sense of gratitude and wonder in the world.Help, Thanks, Wow ...in 30 minutesDesigned for those whose desire to enrich their faith exceeds the time they have available, Help, Thanks, Wow ...in 30 minutes enable readers to rapidly understand the essential ideas behind critically acclaimed books. With a condensed format and chapter-by-chapter synopsis that highlights key insights, this summary helps readers easily devote time to growing their faith.

    It can teach anyone to play, we promise! Includes instruction CD with 99 tracks. We guarantee this book will get you started playing bluegrass banjo.

     Leo put up a good fight, but Gina's natural submissiveness taunts his sadistic nature. Can Gina endure Leo's demanding ways or will her past destroy her and those closest to her, including newlyweds, Katherine and Isaac? ***Warning*** This story contains wickedly erotic romance.

    It's a picture of an ideal relationship for a new generation of married couples: alternately grotesque, sexy, silly, and sexually permissive, but above all, built on mutual respect and honesty: •I promise: to never comment on your bad breath, as long as you don't come near me with bad breath. •We're going to make a lot of parenting mistakes: Let's not make putting leashes on our children when we go to the mall one of them.•Your job: I know I'm the 'free spirited one', but you're not allowed to be doing something that makes you miserable. Sorry. We'll f**'in live in a box, it's fine.