until he started a new job and a new life at a high school in downtown Tokyo. Here he discovered the real Japan, not the version sold to tourists, and realized that it was far more thrilling, heartbreaking, and beautiful than anything he had ever experienced. Over the course of one year in Tokyo, Garett navigates the perilous waters of 21st-century Japan, where love and laughter are as common as violence and tragedy. From love hotels to sumo, yakuza gangs to hostess bars, and a Shinto wedding to a KFC Christmas, discover what Tokyo is really like for its 38 million inhabitants. A travel book, a tale of sex and romance, and a love letter to a maddening, wonderful place, Lost in Tokyo provides a new perspective on living, working and playing in the world's most vibrant city.

    Molly wanted nothing more than to bask in that glow a little herself, so she pushed herself too—as a student, as an athlete. She was successful but felt like she was always coming from behind. She wanted to break free, to find a life without rules and limits, a life where she didn't have to measure up to anyone or anything—where she could become whatever she wanted.Molly wanted more, and she got more than she could have ever bargained for.In Molly's Game, Molly Bloom takes the reader through her adventures running an exclusive high-stakes private poker game. Her clients ranged from iconic stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck to politicians and financial titans so powerful they moved markets and changed the course of history. With rich detail, Molly describes a world that until now has been shrouded in glamour, privilege, and secrecy, one where she fearlessly took on the Russian and Italian mobs—until she met the one adversary she could not outsmart, even though she had justice on her side: the United States government.Molly's Game is an incredible coming-of-age story about a young girl who rejected convention in pursuit of her version of the American dream. It's the story of how she gained—and then lost—her place at the table, and of everything she learned about poker, love, and life in the process.

    Alma was born in 1910 in lower Davidson County, North Carolina—as she says, "fifteen miles south of Lexington, off number 8 Highway, between Newsom and High Rock, near Jackson Hill and Bald Mountain, in the backwoods of nowhere." The fifth of nine children, she lived with her mama and daddy, who were poor sharecroppers, in a small shack-like house on the edge of the large Reid farm that lay between Cabin Creek and Lick Creek on the Yadkin River. In her own words, Alma resurrects now forgotten times and places as she shares with us the everyday life of sharecroppers of the early 1900s. Through vivid descriptions she leads us through their daily customs, folklores and hardships. She speaks of how they had to make do with what they had and how the little that they had was treasured. At age twelve Alma's family left the sharecropping way of life and moved twenty miles north of the backwoods to Lexington, the county seat. In Lexington her life changed dramatically. First, her one room school was replaced with modern schools. Then, at a young age she entered the work place. The biggest change came in her late teens when she met and married Odell Henderson Owen, and in the years that followed, became the mother of eleven children. During the chaotic years of raising eleven children she never forgot her upbringing, how her mama and daddy had instilled in her the importance of family, church and community. Like her daddy, she worked hard, always putting her family's needs first. And in times of personal need, she sought strength through the church . The beauty of this book is in the voice of the book—Alma's voice. Alma tells her story with a warmth that leaves you laughing at times and at other times holding a tissue to your eyes.

    With three friends she starts the Vulture Club for aspiring groupies – and so begins a festival of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.As Nikki gets older, her conquests get bigger and the stakes get higher. From Australian Crawl to INXS, Pseudo Echo to Duran Duran, she is living her teenage dream – but is the groupie life all it’s cracked up to be?One Way or Another is an irresistible romp through a world of pub rock, big hair, wild nights and mornings after. With irrepressible humour and a bulging little black book, Nikki McWatters recalls an age when everything seemed possible – even if everything wasn’t such a good idea.

    A self-confessed workaholic, she regularly put 'knife before life', knowing it was all going to be worth it because it would lead to her longed-for career.But if the punishing hours in surgery weren't hard enough, she also faced challenges as a young female surgeon navigating a male-dominated specialty. She was regularly left to carry out complex procedures without senior surgeons' oversight; she was called all sorts of things, from 'emotional' to 'too confident'; and she was expected to work a relentless on-call roster - sometimes seventy hours a week or more - to prove herself.Eventually it was too much and Yumiko quit.Emotional Female is her account of what it was like to train in the Australian public hospital system, and what made her walk away.Yumiko Kadota is a voice for her generation when it comes to burnout and finding the resilience to rebuild after suffering a physical, emotional and existential breakdown. This is a brave, honest and unflinching work from a major new talent.

     From her exploits at Miss Sheila's Fancy-pants School of Dance and her efforts to secure a solo at the end-of-year performance, to embracing the spotlight as an Australian Idol contestant and her deep and abiding love for John Farnham, Em Rusciano is a self-confessed hobbit with a taste for glitter. And behind the stage makeup Em is an overachiever of epic proportions – an elite athlete, the hardest working mum you’ll ever meet, and the best friend The Gays could ever have. She also has a heart bigger than Phar Lap’s, tells the best dirty jokes, and loves those closest to her ferociously. When the chips are down, you definitely want her on your side. This all-singing, all-dancing, all-emoting, leopard-print clad warrior is fierce, fabulous and pants-wettingly funny. Try Hard is her story. Because she is. And she does.

    It was a journey that would take him from the ultimate source of the Amazon high in the Andes to its mouth on the Atlantic coast of South America - a distance of over 7000 kilometres along the length of the world's wildest river.The journey from source to sea had only ever been completed by two expeditions, both of them assisted by first-class training, state-of-the-art equipment and major budgets. Ben, the Australian on the team, Colin Angus from Canada and Scott Borthwick from South Africa - all in their mid-twenties - were attempting the epic journey with fifteen thousand Australian dollars between them, some second-hand camping gear, a grand total of five afternoons' training in whitewater rafting and a large dose of blind optimism.Five months later they arrived at the Atlantic Ocean, having survived some of the planet's most dangerous whitewater, wild storms, disgusting tropical diseases, several hundred species of venomous insects and reptiles, not to mention being pursued and shot at by guerrillas from Peru's murderous Shining Path rebel movement and mistaken by paramilitary police for drug smugglers.Three Men in a Raft is the account of their extraordinary journey. It's both a travel book and an adventure story, laced with humour, danger and vivid description - unlikely, endearing and enthralling.

    

    It is proof that, 'if you go looking for trouble, you'll probably find it'. Over nearly 40 years as a journalist and foreign correspondent, Hugh Riminton has been shot at, blown up, threatened with deportation and thrown in jail. He has reported from nearly 50 countries, witnessed massacres in Africa, wars and conflicts on four continents, and every kind of natural disaster. It has been an extraordinary life. From a small-town teenager with a drinking problem, cleaning rat cages for a living, to a multi-award-winning international journalist reporting to an audience of 300 million people, Hugh has been a frontline witness to our times. From genocide in Africa to the Indian Ocean tsunami, from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to slave-trading in Sudan, Hugh has seen the best and worst of human behaviour. In Australia, he has covered political dramas, witnessed the Port Arthur Massacre and the Thredbo disaster and broke a major national scandal. His work helped force half-a-dozen government inquiries.Entertaining, deeply personal and quietly wise, MINEFIELDS is a compelling exploration of a foreign correspondent's life. 'His story is a triumph' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

    How on earth they make horse nostrils and sawdust so damn tasty is a mystery, but hats off to Huttons. From running with a bad crowd in kindergarten to her junk food modus operandi at kids' parties and enduring a 'Yoga Guantanamo' camp, the fabulous anecdotes from Kitty Flanagan's life will take you on a hilarious trip down memory lane. Kitty's observations about relationships, whether it be travelling around South America with a dud boyfriend, her brief affair with a graveyard digger or sussing out potential new dates are highly amusing. And though not a fan of the 'it's not you, it's me' breakup line, she wasn't quite prepared for an ex-boyfriend reciting a hand-written list of her faults when he dumped her. On the career front, Kitty recalls working in a crayfish-factory where she annoyed her boss so much that one day he locked her in a freezer. And she well and truly burnt her bridges at a stand-up venue in Singapore when she responded to her employer's enquiry about her 'moustache'. Confirming her reputation as one of Australia's top comedians, Kitty Flanagan's Bridge Burning and Other Hobbies is a laugh-out loud, entertaining and endearing yarn.

    Lisa Frederic didn't set out to run the Iditarod. She just fell in love with the event and wanted to help. She ended up working as a volunteer for the Trail Committee at various checkpoints. Then she helped Iditarod champion Jeff King train his puppies. She had never mushed before. She was a rookie, but a rookie with heart and drive. She started out with short races and eventually raced the 1,049 miles from Anchorage to Nome in the Iditarod. Her story speaks to everyone who has ever followed a dream and found that the dream realized is even bigger than the imagined one.

    For anyone who ever imagined trying to make a life out of what they love.

    But when Paco was struck down by a disease that left him unable to walk, Hickam was faced with a terrible decision, let his beloved cat live in misery or put him to sleep. Before that decision could be made, the space mission Hickam was working on needed to be rescued and there was only one sure way to save it: Paco's magic meow! This is a true story of the space age that is also a delightful tale of the love between an engineer and his cat.

    documentary

    Laura Fahrenthold knew that to cope with her painful loss, she needed to do it on her own terms. So she bought an RV, took her kids and their dog, and drove across the United States and Canada in search of healing and understanding. A career in journalism fills The Pink Steering Wheel Chronicles with insight and wit as Laura shares her adventures and misadventures, her deeply-layered love story, and her hilarious slice of life dispatches during her 30,152-mile road trip.