"I'm exactly as I appear," he once said of himself. "There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water." Michael Mewshaw's Sympathy for the Devil, a memoir of his friendship with the stubbornly iconoclastic public intellectual, is a welcome corrective to this tired received wisdom. A complex, nuanced portrait emerges in these pages—and while "Gore" can indeed be brusque, standoffish, even cruel, Mewshaw also catches him in more vulnerable moments. The Gore Vidal the reader comes to know here is generous and supportive to younger, less successful writers; he is also, especially toward the end of his life, disappointed, even lonely. Sparkling, often hilarious, and filled with spicy anecdotes about expat life in Italy, Sympathy for the Devil is an irresistible inside account of a man who was himself—faults and all—impossible to resist. As enlightening as it is entertaining, it offers a unique look at a figure many only think they know.

    This blow-by-blow account charts how five of America’s six largest publishers, afraid that bookselling powerhouse Amazon's $9.99 price for Kindle e-books would undermine the industry, spent a few frantic weeks in early 2010 deep in negotiations with Apple to introduce a new business model for e-books, just in time for the launch of the iPad and the iBookstore. The catch is, it all may have been illegal.From Publishers Weekly senior writer Andrew Richard Albanese comes the story of how the e-book business changed in a heartbeat. Based on voluminous evidence gathered for Apple's trial, it is the story of how corporate titans fought it out behind the scenes and why the case matters to anyone who has ever bought an e-book.

    Our “digital convention” features such major bestselling authors as Ken Follett, Matt Haig, Jonathan Lethem, and Sue Miller. Other sure-to-be popular titles are by Rumaan Alam, J’nell Ciesielski, Vendela Vida, and Bryan Washington. At the end of most excerpts, you will find a link to the full galley on NetGalley!Buzz Books has had a particularly stellar track record with highlighting the most talented, exciting debut authors. Simon Stephenson’s novel about a humanlike bot has already been optioned for film, while Finnish sensation Max Seeck’s thriller is due out as a television series. Robert Jones Jr.’s The Prophets and Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club were both sold at auction.Our nonfiction selections include an inspirational World War II story, Three Ordinary Girls: The Remarkable Story Of Hannie Schaft And The Oversteegen Sisters: Teenaged Saboteurs and Nazi Assassins by Tim Brady, a true crime read; We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper; and the incisive Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation by BuzzFeed columnist Anne Helen Petersen.

    Written for Americans, but equally amusing to anyone visiting the shores of the Great Southern Land, this book examines the relationship between Australia and the U.S., including how Australians view their American cousins. The author has plenty of experience of working and dealing with Americans. He is married to an American nurse and has lived his life within the massive cultural influence that America has shared with Australia since the Second World War. The author’s stories are brimming with empathy and jokes for his American audience. The book is written from the opinion of an Aussie Bloke and the easy-to-digest chapters are just long enough to leave the reader smiling and well informed.Topics include Blokes and Sheilas, Bloody Foster’s, Dangerous Creatures, Talking to Dogs, The GAFA, Speaking Strail-yun and Working for the Queen. Confused? You won’t be after reading this book!

     Built on top of the old city cemetery, Denver Botanic Gardens sits upon thousands of unrecovered human remains. Small wonder, then, that visitors and staff alike have reported all manner of ghostly activity, ranging from disembodied voices, cold spots, and phantom footsteps, to shadow figures and full-bodied apparitions. Are the spirits of the restless dead making their presence known to the living? Join paranormal investigator Richard Estep, of TV's 'Haunted Case Files,' 'Haunted Hospitals,' and 'Paranormal 911,' as he and a small team of dedicated researchers are locked down inside Denver Botanic Gardens in an attempt to uncover the truth for themselves.

    While other books may claim to tell you how to take down the Thought Police, only one book is taking the fight right to the top. Yes, from the mind that brought you the popular blog feature Sad Puppies Review Books comes this definitive takedown of the internet's culture of Social Justice as embodied by the man who controls it all: JOHN SCALZI. Read this book to learn everything you need to know about Social Justice Warriors, their tactics, their treachery, their perfidious entryism. Topics include: * John Scalzi's blog is not that interesting and no one reads it. * John Scalzi does not understand satire as much as I, Theophilus Pratt, understand satire. * John Scalzi did not get me, Theophilus Pratt, kicked out of the SFWA. * John Scalzi's deal with Tor was not a very good deal. And more!

    

    Maybe you’re frustrated with your writing progress or overwhelmed by creative doubt, burnout, or writer’s block. Maybe you just can’t seem to sit down and write.No matter the roadblock standing between you and writing success, here’s the good news: You’re capable of becoming the writer you want to be—and that work can begin today. In this actionable and empowering guide to personal writing success, Kristen Kieffer shares 25 insightful chapters designed to help you:• Cultivate confidence in your skills and stories• Develop a personal writing habit you can actually sustain• Improve your writing ability with tools for intentional growth• Discover what you (really) want from your writing life—and how to get it! By the end of Build Your Best Writing Life, you’ll know how to harness the simple techniques that can help you win your inner creative battles, finish projects you can be proud to share with the world, and work with focus to turn your writing dreams into reality.

    They did not talk about their mom's extended absences or why their dad put Scotch tape on the backdoor frame. To cover up the chaos, they kept their clothes neat and got good grades. But when they were teenagers, an arson fire destroyed their home and killed their parents. Rumors were thick that summer that smart, angry, fourteen-year-old Lisa set the blaze. Then, adult powers they did not understand squelched the investigation. As teenagers accustomed to keeping silent, they packed up and moved on.Forty years later, Leigh, the oldest, decided it was time to find out who killed their parents. She obtained copies of the police and fire investigations and began unwrapping the past. This memoir is the story of that investigation as Leigh tried to piece together the truth, but found more lies instead. With the help of her sisters, Leigh was able to reconstruct much of what happened to them in the beach towns around Atlantic City in the early 1970s. After the fire, one sister turned to heroin and another to alcohol; Leigh became Miss Atlantic City. Then, one by one, they each moved to California and shut the door on their past, even though they privately wondered whether one of them killed Frank and Nancy Overton. It's funny. They never wondered whether one of their parents was trying to kill them.

    They cannot skin a fish, dominate a battlefield, or transform majestic creatures of the Southern Hemisphere into piano keyboards.The Heming Way demonstrates how modern eunuchs—brainwashed by PETA and Alcoholics Anonymous—can learn from Papa's unparalleled example: drunken, unshaven, meat-devouring, wife-divorcing, and gloriously self-destructive.Advice includes:How to kill enough animals to render a species endangered—just like Papa!Getting your friends to think drinking a daiquiri is manly . . . just by drinking one nine yourselfAchieving sufficiently high testosterone levels to never have to worry about the chance of having a daughter instead of a sonAnd much more!Profane, insightful, hilarious and loaded with more than 150 photos, facts and insights about Papa, The Heming Way is a difficult path, and not for the weak, but truth is manlier than fiction.

    Imagine stepping from a bush plane on to a frozen lake where the temperature is 60 degrees below zero. Three miles away sits a cabin that will be your home for the next year. Now, imagine not finding it for six bitter cold days. This is where the unforgettable true story begins for two young men in search of adventure in the Canadian wilderness. Share their struggle for survival, hunt moose for winter meat and build a cabin at Paradise Creek. Discover the joy and hardships of living for one year in a wilderness log cabin. This is a coming of age story. The range of emotions stretch from the pain of frostbite to the awesome splendor of Northern Lights. From the darkness and loneliness of a subarctic winter to the bliss of watching a sunset on a home-made swing. Journey with these two young men on an adventure you will never forget.

    

    From canoe camping next to unnamed lakes, to kayaking in Alaska’s pristine waters, she describes her many encounters with the bears, moose and other animals that make this wilderness their home. With her partner David she helped to build a cabin on a remote piece of property, off the grid and accessible only by boat. Illustrated with the photos she took along the way, her story is sometimes comic, and sometimes tragic, but throughout its pages she speaks with the voice of one who loves nature and the wilderness.

    For the Mob (as they are also known), crime was big business. Feuds between Mafia families and their associates led to Lucky Luciano, the preeminent Mob boss, creating the Commission, which to this day rules over Mob activity and disputes. Throughout the 20th century, the ruthlessness of the Mafia has been in evidence: the list of Mob victims seems endless. Mafia Hits recalls the most important executions - the rival bosses, the stool pigeons and snitches, the good cops and the dirty cops, the vicious feuds and the hit-men who lived by the gun and died by it. All are here in this fascinating tale of the American underworld.

    What made ancient India the Golden Bird in the first place? What did China, the Land of the Dragon, have in common with India, and when did these two ancient civilizations diverge on their paths to global success? Raina Singhwi Jain discusses the immediate need and measures for a quantum jump in our attitude towards development. While conventional wisdom suggests improvements in manufacturing, the ease of doing business and digital technology, Jain goes a step further, drawing surprising parallels between other areas that beg our attention—process engineering, communication design, journalism, and education. This is a work of reflection and a call to action, urging Indian denizens to act now for a revival of the genius that lies dormant within each one of us.