. .Springtime in glorious Southern Italy can go to your head. Especially if you are escaping an overbearing husband, the embarrassingly public loss of your company, an interfering mother who still tries to run your life or the pain of a husband's affair with a girl young enough to be his daughter.As the Italian sun ripens the lemons in the groves that tumble down the hillsides and the Mediterranean dazzles beneath them, assertive Angela, extrovert Sylvie, unconfident Claire and mousy Monica find burgeoning friendship and begin to blossom in quite unexpected ways. Packed with memorable characters – from the acid-tongued Grand Old Man of Modern Art who lives next door – to the aspiring gigolo who thinks nothing of a forty year age gap, Maeve Haran's An Italian Holiday is a witty and entertaining reminder of why going a little mad in the sun can sometimes be exactly what you need.

    Enough of the half-truths demanded by magazine editors, enough of the endlessly recycled clichés regarded as good travel writing, and enough of the ugly secrets fiercely guarded by the travel industry. But mostly, he's had enough of returning home from assignments and leaving the most interesting stories and the most provocative insights on the editing-room floor. From getting swindled in Thailand to running afoul of customs inspectors in Belarus, from defusing hostile Swedish rockers backstage in Germany to a closed-door meeting with travel execs telling him why he's about to be fired once again, Thompson's no-holds-barred style is refreshing, invigorating, and all those other adjectives travel writers use to describe spa vacations where the main attraction is a daily colonic.Smile When You're Lying takes readers on an irresistible series of adventures in Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and beyond; details the effects of globalization on the casual traveler and ponders the future of travel as we know it; and offers up a treasure trove of travel-industry secrets collected throughout a decidedly speckled career.

    In Another Quiet American, he takes you through the corridors of power and the living rooms of the poor in Laos. You'll meet his boss, a wealthy general whose power and reputation scares his countrymen; a prince with connections to the French colonial past; an American pilot who left home for Indochina during the war and never returned; and, rich Lao twenty-somethings who have all the money they could want, but no happiness. Dakin provides a sympathetic yet irreverent glimpse into life in one of the world's few remaining communist nations, questioning the US's influence on the country and embarking on the soul-searching identity quest of an American abroad.

    Florida is bad for her head and her hair. She dreams of a dancing career on Broadway and moves to New York, but after a string of failures and mishaps, she realizes that she needs to rethink her grand plan. Finding herself spending way too much time in the comedy club where her future ex-boyfriend works, she nervously goes up onstage one night. People laugh. Not in the places where Mindy thought they'd laugh, but hey, it's a start. Mindy and her friend Ursula Duran, a man-magnet model-slash-actress-slash-deeply troubled woman, soon embark on a wild ride that ricochets from New York's East Side Hotel for Women to the comedy circuit, auditions, photo shoots, film premieres, cable TV specials, Hollywood studios, late-night TV talk shows, and beyond. Surrounded by sleazy agents, sleazier lovers, and Ursula's even sleazier mother, the two find that life writes a few punch lines they weren't expecting...but through it all, they somehow manage to have the last laugh. Rita Rudner has crafted a debut novel that is not just funny, but moving and insightful. With its insider's viewpoint of the world of stand-up comedy, Tickled Pink is also, at its core, a touching tale of love, loss, female friendship, and forgiveness.

    The last thing she wants is to have her globe-trotting ways curtailed by a messy emotional entanglement. As far as she's concerned, chocolate is just as satisfying as true love--and a lot less complicated.So how, in the name of all that is romantic, has she managed to get involved with a dangerously charming Frenchman named Sébastien? And only weeks before she's scheduled to leave Paris for good?Everyone knows that Frenchmen are chain-smoking, manic-depressive, faithless, male chauvinistic, perfectionist snobs. What's worse, they live in France.The cultural differences alone are enough to kill any relationship, even if Laura wanted one. She's from small-town Georgia. He's a sophisticated Parisian. They go together like grits and escargot.But Sébastien isn't just any Frenchman. He's a gorgeous, sweet, sexy, graphic artist who seems to find Laura adorable for reasons she can't begin to comprehend. As the days slip by, she's finding it harder and harder to say adieu.Unless she comes to her senses soon, she could end up ruining her life with a beautiful romance. . . .

    Must be cheerful, enthusiastic and selfless--bordering on masochistic. Must relish sixteen-hour shifts with a deliberately nap-deprived preschooler. Must love getting thrown up on, literally and figuratively, by everyone in his family. Must enjoy the delicious anticipation of ridiculously erratic pay. Mostly, must love being treated like fungus found growing out of employers Hermès bag. Those who take it personally need not apply. Who wouldn't want this job? Struggling to graduate from NYU and afford her microscopic studio apartment, Nanny takes a position caring for the only son of the wealthy X family. She rapidly learns the insane amount of juggling involved to ensure that a Park Avenue wife who doesn't work, cook, clean, or raise her own child has a smooth day. When the X's' marriage begins to disintegrate, Nanny ends up involved way beyond the bounds of human decency or good taste. Her tenure with the X family becomes a nearly impossible mission to maintain the mental health of their four-year-old, her own integrity and, most importantly, her sense of humor. Over nine tense months, Mrs. X and Nanny perform the age-old dance of decorum and power as they test the limits of modern-day servitude. Written by two former nannies, The Nanny Diaries deftly punctures the glamour of Manhattan's upper class.

    For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has "a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs" is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron's irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes. Heartburn is a sinfully delicious novel, as soul-satisfying as mashed potatoes and as airy as a perfect soufflé.

    But unlike most girls, Jerramy Fine never grew out of it. Strangely drawn to the English royal family since she was a toddler, Jerramy finds Peter Phillips (the Queen's oldest grandson) in a royal family tree when she is only six years old, and decides immediately that he will be her future husband. But growing up with hippie parents (who gave her a boy's name!) in the middle of a rodeo-loving farm town makes finding her prince a much bigger challenge than Jerramy ever bargained for. She spends her childhood writing love-letters to Peter c/o Buckingham Palace, and years later, when her sense of destiny finally brings her to London, she must navigate the murky waters of English social circles, English etiquette and English dating. Along the way, she meets Princess Anne (Peter's mother), befriends Earl Spencer, and parties with the Duchess of York. Yet life is not the Hugh Grant movie she hoped it would be. Her flatmates are lunatics, London is expensive, and English boys can be infuriating. But just when she thinks it might be time to give up and return to America, Peter magically appears in her life. "Someday My Prince Will Come" is a hilarious and heartwarming true story about following your heart and having the courage to pursue your childhood dream no matter how impossible it seems.

    Now, in this uproarious collection, she sneaks her sharp wit through airport security and delivers her most absurd and hilarious stories ever.On safari in Africa, it's anyone's guess as to what's more dangerous: the wildlife or Chelsea. But whether she's fumbling the seduction of a guide by not knowing where tigers live (Asia, duh) or wearing a bathrobe into the bush because her clothes stopped fitting seven margaritas ago, she's always game for the next misadventure.The situation gets down and dirty as she defiles a kayak in the Bahamas, and outright sweaty as she escapes from a German hospital on crutches. When things get truly scary, like finding herself stuck next to a passenger with bad breath, she knows she can rely on her family to make matters even worse. Thank goodness she has the devoted Chunk by her side-except for the time she loses him in Telluride.Complete with answers to the most frequently asked traveler's questions, hot travel trips, and travel etiquette, none of which should be believed, UGANDA BE KIDDING ME has Chelsea taking on the world, one laugh-out-loud incident at a time.

    Meet two sisters who fight rural boredom by washing Budweiser cans and cutting them into pieces to make clothing. Learn why the word snow sends any right-thinking Southerner careening to the Food Lion for extra loaves of bread and little else. Humor columnist and slightly crazed belle-by-birth Celia Rivenbark tackles these and other lard-laden subjects in Bless Your Heart, Tramp, a hilarious look at Southern---and just plain human---foibles, up-close and personal. So pour yourself a glass of sweet tea and curl up on the pie-azza with Bless Your Heart, Tramp.

    high school teacher Zadie Roberts wants nothing to do with love and romance. Still, with the help of her best buddy, Grey, she may somehow overcome the wedding that wasn't. That is, until Grey gets engaged to Zadie's prim and proper cousin Helen, and Zadie is dragged back into wedding festivity hell. The coup de grâce is Helen's bachelorette party, thrown by her clique of prissy friends and certain to be a day of torture. But when the Pinor Grigio goes down and the sweater sets come off, things get out of control. Helen turns into a girl gone wild and manages to get herself into a sticky situation that just might sink the happy couple for good. And meanwhile, Zadie's own love life takes a most unexpected turn. Karen Lutz throws one bachelorette party you won't soon forget.

    Given the common belief among single women that all the good men are either married or gay, Suzanne's predicament is hardly extraordinary, but what she does to end the streak makes for a hilarious tale. Suzanne hits bottom when her younger sister gets engaged, leaving her less than a year to find a date for the wedding. She shifts into overdrive, experimenting with Internet dating, speed dating, and other bizarre 21st century match-making rituals. But after enduring every indignity of singlehood, she ultimately learns to ask herself: Does she really need a man to find happiness?

    Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in “hospitality” for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He’s checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&M's out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know. Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who’s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department’s dirty little secrets—not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it’s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge.Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you’ll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly.

    From Australia to Zambia and everywhere in between, these true stories are full of bust-a-gut laughter. Nothing helps a travel story more than something going wrong — the frustration, embarrassment, and inconvenience provide great material for stories once the anguish has faded. The adventurers here encounter just about every unexpected mishap imaginable.

    The reality was something of a shock. Her Telegraph column was a diary of her daily screw-ups; she lived in a series of squalid shoe boxes; and her most meaningful relationship of the entire decade was with a Marlboro Light.Here in the Sunday Times bestselling THE WRONG KNICKERS Bryony busts open the glamorized myth of what it means to be a young (perpetually) single girl about London town, and shares the horrible and hilarious truth. The truth about picking up a colleague at the STI clinic; sinking into debt to fund a varied diet of wine, crisps and vodka; and how it feels when your dream man turns out to be a one night stand who hands you someone else's knickers in the morning.Bryony's wonderfully ridiculous and ultimately redemptive story is essential reading for everyone whose 'best years' weren't quite what they were expecting...