Do Not Pass Go: From the Old Kent Road to Mayfair


Tim Moore - 2002
    In the wonderful world of Monopoly it still only cost £50 to buy a house in Islington, you can move around London with the shake of a dice and even park your car for free. The author visits all these places and charts his erratic progress around those streets, stations and utilities, in a well-researched history of London's wayward progress in the 66 years since the launch of the world's most popular board game

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay: An Unforgettable Comic Chronicle of Innocents Abroad in the 1920s


Cornelia Otis Skinner - 1942
    Some of the more amusing anecdotes involve a pair of rabbit-skin capes that begin shedding at the most inopportune moments and an episode in which the girls are stranded atop Notre Dame cathedral at midnight. And, of course, there's romance, in the form of handsome young doctor Tom Newhall and college "Lothario" Avery Moore.

Why Mummy Drinks


Gill Sims - 2017
    She is staring down the barrel at a future of people asking if she wants to come to their yoga class, and book clubs, where everyone is wearing statement scarves and they are all ‘tiddly’ after a glass of Pinot Grigio. But Mummy does not want to go quietly into that good night of women with sensible haircuts who ‘live for their children’, boasting about Boy Child and Girl Child’s achievements. Instead, she clutches a large glass of wine, muttering FML over and over, and then remembers the gem of an idea she’s had…

Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other


Sam Heughan - 2020
    One Country. And a lot of whisky.As stars of "Outlander", Sam and Graham eat, sleep and breathe the Highlands on this epic road trip around their homeland. They discover that the real thing is even greater than fiction."Clanlands" is the story of their journey. Armed with their trusty campervan and a sturdy friendship, these two Scotsmen are on the adventure of a lifetime to explore the majesty of Scotland. A wild ride by boat, kayak, bicycle and motorbike, they travel from coast to loch and peak to valley and delve into Scotland's history and culture, from timeless poetry to bloody warfare.With near-death experiences, many weeks in a confined space together, and a cast of unforgettable characters, Graham and Sam's friendship matures like a fine Scotch. They reflect on their acting careers in film and theatre, find a new awestruck respect for their native country and, as with any good road trip, they even find themselves.Hold onto your kilts ... this is Scotland as you've never seen it before.

Getting Over It


Anna Maxted - 2000
    She's a lowly assistant editor at GirlTime magazine, she drives an ancient Toyota, and she has a history of choosing men who fall several thousand feet below acceptable boyfriend standard. Not to mention that she shares an apartment with a scruffy , tactless roommate, her best girlfriends are a little too perfect, and the most affectionate male in her life—her cat, Fatboy—occasionally pees in her underwear draw.Then Helen gets the telephone call she least expects: Her father has had a massive heart attack. Initially brushing off his death as merely an interruption in her already chaotic life (they were never very close, after all), Helen is surprised to find everything else starting to crumble around her. Her pushy mother is coming apart at the seams, a close friend might be heading toward tragedy, and, after the tequila incident, it looks as though Tom the vet will be sticking with Dalmatians. Turns out getting over it isn't going to be quite as easy as she thought.

Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years


Michael Palin - 2006
    This volume of his diaries reveals how Python emerged and triumphed, how he, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, the two Terrys---Jones and Gilliam---and Eric Idle came together and changed the face of British comedy.But this is but only part of Palin's story. Here is his growing family, his home in a north London Victorian terrace, which grows as he buys the house next door and then a second at the bottom of the garden; here, too, is his solo effort---as an actor, in Three Men in a Boat, his writing endeavours (often in partnership with Terry Jones) that produces Ripping Yarns and even a pantomime.Meanwhile Monty Python refuses to go away: the hugely successful movies that follow the TV (his account of the making of both The Holy Grail and the Life of Brian movies are page-turners), the at times extraordinary goings-on of the many powerful personalities who coalesced to form the Python team, the fight to prevent an American TV network from bleeping out the best jokes on U.S. transmission, and much more---all this makes for funny and riveting reading.The birth and childhood of his three children, his father's growing disability, learning to cope as a young man with celebrity, his friendship with George Harrison, and all the trials of a peripatetic life are also essential ingredients of these diaries. A perceptive and funny chronicle, the diaries are a rich portrait of a fascinating period.

Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour


Rachel Shukert - 2010
    She chronicles her youthful navigation through the haphazard fun and debauchery of new freedoms, and the growing pains that ultimately accompany “adulthood.” Fans of Sloane Crosley and David Sedaris are going to love Shulkert’s story, and her sharp, smart humor.

True Porn Clerk Stories


Ali Davis - 2009
    You'll cry. You'll wash your hands.No rewinding required!

Everything is Perfect When You're a Liar


Kelly Oxford - 2012
    From her beginnings as a wunderkind producer of pirated stage productions for six-year-olds, through her spirited adventures watching self-satisfying monkeys, throwing up on Chinese food deliverymen, and stalking Leo DiCaprio, here are the goofy highs and horrifying lows of life as Kelly Oxford.

The Man Who Forgot His Wife


John O'Farrell - 2012
    Her name,her face, their history together, everything she has ever told him, everything he has said to her - it has all gone, mysteriously wiped in one catastrophic moment of memory loss. And now he has rediscovered her - only to find out that they are getting divorced. The Man Who Forgot His Wife is the funny, moving and poignant story of a man who has done just that. And who will try anything to turn back the clock and have one last chance to reclaim his life.

More Ketchup Than Salsa


Joe Cawley - 2006
    They’re also tired of smelling of fish.When offered the chance to escape from the dreary market stalls of England to run a bar on a sub-tropical island, they recklessly jump at the opportunity - despite their spectacular lack of experience.In Tenerife, dreams of a better life overseas are soon crushed by mini-mafias, East European prostitutes and biblical-grade cockroach infestations.Joe and Joy's foreign fantasy turns into a nightmare as they find themselves trapped with a failing bar in a foreign land, pandering to a bar full of oddball expats while trying to stop their relationship crashing into the rocks.Can they save their business, their dreams, and their relationship before it's too late...

Be Happy or I'll Scream!: My Deranged Quest for the Perfect Husband, Family, and Life


Sheri Lynch - 2006
    Instead of darling and compliant rosy-cheeked children and an adorably tolerant husband ready to go along with zany shenanigans, most women are faced with: kids who view family outings with all the enthusiasm of hardened inmates forced to bust rocks in roadside Alabama and a man who would trade every last one of her kooky ideas for a just a teeny little bit more sex and a hot meal on the table at six.Sheri Lynch, co-cost of radio's syndicated Bob & Sheri, is a superb humorist of modern marriage, mores, and motherhood. Her Hello, My Name Is Mommy decoded the pitfalls of pregnancy and trials of new motherhood. Be Happy or I'll Scream taps into the wackier, even more wonderful world of family and husband management, kid-raising, and sanity maintenance in the face of it all. Her take on what life is really like inside a marriage-as opposed to what it looks like on the holiday card version of same-will ring both wacky and true to any woman who was ever foolish enough to dream of the perfect marriage and family.

God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre


Richard Grant - 2008
    Almost 900 miles long, the range climbs to nearly 11,000 feet and boasts several canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon. The rules of law and society have never taken hold in the Sierra Madre, which is home to bandits, drug smugglers, Mormons, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, opium farmers, cowboys, and other assorted outcasts. Outsiders are not welcome; drugs are the primary source of income; murder is all but a regional pastime. The Mexican army occasionally goes in to burn marijuana and opium crops—the modern treasure of the Sierra Madre—but otherwise the government stays away. In its stead are the drug lords, who have made it one of the biggest drug-producing areas in the world. Fifteen years ago, journalist Richard Grant developed what he calls "an unfortunate fascination" with this lawless place. Locals warned that he would meet his death there, but he didn't believe them—until his last trip. During his travels Grant visited a folk healer for his insomnia and was prescribed rattlesnake pills, attended bizarre religious rituals, consorted with cocaine-snorting policemen, taught English to Guarijio Indians, and dug for buried treasure. On his last visit, his reckless adventure spiraled into his own personal heart of darkness when cocaine-fueled Mexican hillbillies hunted him through the woods all night, bent on killing him for sport. With gorgeous detail, fascinating insight, and an undercurrent of dark humor, God's Middle Finger brings to vivid life a truly unique and uncharted world.

Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town


Elyssa East - 2009
    Documenting its history and lore, East explores the possibility that certain landscapes wield their own unique power. The area known as Dogtown—an isolated colonial ruin and the surrounding 3,600-acre woodland in historic seaside Gloucester, Massachusetts—has always exerted a powerful influence over artists, writers, eccentrics, and nature lovers. But its history is woven through with tales of hallucinations, pirates, ghost sightings, witches, drifters, and violence. A 1984 murder there continues to loom large in Gloucester’s collective psyche: a mentally disturbed local man crushed the skull of a schoolteacher as she walked the woods. In alternating chapters, East interlaces the story of this murder with Dogtown’s bizarre history. The colonial settlement was a haven for former slaves, prostitutes, and witches until it was abandoned 180 years ago. Since then, Dogtown has inspired various people, including a millionaire who carved Protestant precepts into its boulders; the Modernist painter Marsden Hartley, whom Dogtown saved from a crippling depression; the drug-addled poet Charles Olson; a coven of witches that still holds ceremonies there today; and the murderer, who spent much of his life in Dogtown’s woods. The murder tapped a vein of thinking that has quietly endured in Gloucester for centuries: some people rallied around Dogtown protectively, but others blamed it for the tragedy. In luminous, insightful prose, Dogtown tells an evocative tale of a community both haunted and bound together by its love of this strange, forgotten place and its denizens.

Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog


John Grogan - 2005
    They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.Marley quickly grew into a barreling, ninety-seven-pound streamroller of a Labrador retriever, a dog like no other. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, flung drool on guests, stole women's undergarments, and ate nearly everything he could get his mouth around, including couches and fine jewelry. Obedience school did no good—Marley was expelled. Neither did the tranquilizers the veterinarian prescribed for him with the admonishment, "Don't hesitate to use these."And yet Marley's heart was pure. Just as he joyfully refused any limits on his behavior, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley shared the couple's joy at their first pregnancy, and their heartbreak over the miscarriage. He was there when babies finally arrived and when the screams of a seventeen-year-old stabbing victim pierced the night. Marley shut down a public beach and managed to land a role in a feature-length movie, always winning hearts as he made a mess of things. Through it all, he remained steadfast, a model of devotion, even when his family was at its wit's end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms.