Provides glimpses into the origins of Charles Simic's poetry

    When her mother's health begins to fail, Erina Bridget Ring searches for something to do during the hours she spends at her mother's bedside. What she discovers is knitting--and a group of women knitters. But as she learns to knit and at the same time cares for her ailing mother, she finds that things at the knitting group are not what they seem to be.

    For 15 years, he has steadily and skillfully guided the school into the high society of major college sports. But now Pete, fed up with politically correct campus culture and babysitting fragile egos, is retiring from the "arms race." As he waits for the university's board of trustees to act on his early retirement package, he reflects on his career, the people he's come across, and what life will be like in retirement. Pete's story is told in Jenkins's unmistakable, raucous, old-school style, and it's full of colorful, absurd, and downright crazy characters--from clueless trustees and busybody protestors to prima donna football coaches and booster club pests. Stick a Fork in Me is a rollicking, no-holds-barred tour of the world of big-time college sports. Praise for the work of Dan Jenkins: ..".the best sportswriter in America." --Larry King "Dan Jenkins is the nearest thing to Ring Lardner this generation has ever seen. No one has captured the essential lunacy of the twentieth-century sports (and TV) scene as accurately and hilariously as this." --Los Angeles Times "Dan Jenkins is a comic genius." --Don Imus "Dan Jenkins has been among America's best and funniest sportswriters for more than six decades." --The New York Times "Jenkins is hilarious, providing more laughs per page than any other writer in the 'bidness.'" --People

    Jim McCray through a single twelve-hour night shift working in the emergency room of a small Midwestern hospital. The fast-paced writing chronicles Dr. McCray’s experience with wit and candor as he manages a series of typical but poignant patient interactions. The book dives deeply into the practice of modern emergency medicine with detailed descriptions of medical care and procedures. It is based on the author’s real-life experiences as a young resident physician.

    From New York to Alaska, he tries to fend for himself without his trusty PA and life support, the unflappable Charmaine, for whom contentment lies in Jesus Christ and custard creams.With his blend of waspish wit and mischievous charm, Steward seeks out normal Americans, such as Joe le Taxi, the former NYPD officer who was one of the first on the scene at the Twin Towers and now runs an extortionate executive taxi service; Pam and Bob, a paranoid psychiatrist and a failed actor who once saw the back of Meryl Streep s head; Taylor the Alaskan bushwhacker who was raised by wolves and revels in their scat; Jeb the Yosemite inn-sitter who lives his life at the pace of a Ford Model T; Kacey Musgraves, the controversial country music star staying at the farm in Tennessee; and Sheriff Duke of Calhoun County, South Carolina, who reintroduces Steward to the long (and armed) arm of the law.For anyone at a crossroads, contemplating a temporary or permanent career break, this affectionate travel romp is essential reading. Journeying coast-to-coast across the US with Steward might just remind you that, despite the post-Trump hysteria, there are many normal and decent Americans out there

    Away from all the modern conveniences and comforts most take for granted, his tale is one of adversity, building a dream with dogged determination. Battling against considerable and powerful opposition, bureaucracy, severe lack of money, unforgiving nature, loneliness and ultimately his own ill health; only to find the dream fulfilled will almost destroy him. A sometimes spiritual and critical tale of self-discovery where ultimately his growing faith in God literally saves him from a very sorry end in the mountainous wilderness of New Zealand. A story that exposes wilderness living as it truly is, not for the faint hearted. However, Out of the Wild is more than just a candid wilderness survival tale, but includes some very interesting snippets of New Zealand's early pioneer history associated to the Fiordland National Park, the Hollyford Valley, Martins Bay, the beautiful deserted ghost town of Jamestown Bay and even the fabled "lost ruby mine" in the inaccessible Red Hills. For the outdoor and "back to basics" enthusiasts Charlie details his accounts of hunting red deer in the thick Fiordland rainforest around his wilderness home to using the old traditional methods to store his kills, through to trapping introduced predators destroying the special rainforest ecosystems of Fiordland. "Out of the Wild" is a very unique New Zealand wilderness tale which will appeal to the outdoor conservative types.

    

    This honest coming of age memoir begins in the late '60s and spans 30 years, showing how others who've experienced childhood trauma can stay true to themselves and use their pain to build a promising future.

    After eighteen months of trying, my mother eventually conceived and nine months later I was born. My birth was a difficult one. It was like I was never meant to be in this world.” Boy is Nigel Cooper’s memoir from the age of five to sixteen. It tells the shocking, brutal, disturbing, emotional story of his childhood spent in and out of various care homes and institutions during the 1970s and 1980s. When Nigel was just seven years old, after the untimely death of his sister and father, his mother asked social services to take him away – and then his nightmare began. For the next nine years of his life, Nigel was repeatedly rejected by his mother and spent his childhood among bullies, abusers, psychopaths and criminals. He spent time in a children’s psychiatric hospital, where they carried out unimaginable tests, pumped him full of drugs and physically abused him; care homes, where he would come face to face with rough estate kids who would beat him up, force him to steal for them and threaten his life; and barbaric assessment centres for disturbed and delinquent children, where the staff were, at times, sicker than the children.The system tried to break Nigel and it was a miracle that he survived. The British care system robbed him of his childhood. His story is truly extraordinary and will do a lot more than shed light on what it was like growing up during the Jimmy Savile years.Boy is powerfully written, edgy, gripping and beautifully crafted.

    Following in the maverick mold of Quentin Tarentino, Spike Lee, and Richard Rodriguez, Joe Queenan becomes an auteur and, in the process, funnier than ever, as he tries to master the art of writing, directing, scoring, casting, and marketing a movie--all by himself.

    Cultural Writing. Essays. A series of essays, ACADEMONIA is also an epic narrative of survival against institutional deadening and the proscriptiveness that shoots the young writer like poison darts from all sides. Here Bellamy, "explores the prickly intersection among these [institutional] spaces as it moves through institutions such as the academy, the experimental writing communities of the Bay Area, feminist and sexual identities, and group therapy. Continuing the work that she began in The Letters of Mina Harker pushing memoir and confession out of its safety zones and into its difficulties, this book provokes as it critiques and it critiques and yet at the same time manages to delight with its hope"-Juliana Spahr.

    . . the results are startling and honest" (The New York Times Book Review)Fanny Howe's richly contemplative The Winter Sun is a collection of essays on childhood, language, and meaning by one of America's most original contemporary poets.Through a collage of reflections on people, places, and times that have been part of her life, Howe shows the origins and requirements of "a vocation that has no name." She finds proof of this in the lives of others--Jacques Lusseyran, who, though blind, wrote about his inner vision, surviving inside a concentration camp during World War II; the Scottish nun Sara Grant and Abb� Dubois, both of whom lived extensively in India where their vocation led them; the English novelists Antonia White and Emily Bront�; and the fifth-century philosopher and poet Bharthari. With interludes referring to her own place and situation, Howe makes this book into a Progress rather than a memoir.The Winter Sun displays the same power as found in her highly praised collection of essays, The Wedding Dress, a book described by James Carroll as an "unflinching but exhilarating look at real religion, the American desolation, a woman's life, and, always, the redemption of literature."

    At forty-five years old, my life’s mission was complete. If I died tomorrow, I would be proud of the life I lived.” - Loving Tiara Loving Tiara is a compelling memoir that will encompass your every thought, break your heart, fill you with hope, and leave you with a sense of awe. When Tiffani married the love of her life, Lou, after graduating from college, she assumed she would continue to live the affluent life she had always known, having grown up in Newport Beach, California. She never imagined she would soon be stalked by creditors, driving a car on the repossession list and forced to worry about providing basic necessities for her family, such as buying diapers and groceries. This increasingly desperate situation forced her to decide to return home to her parents with her baby and husband. After getting their life back on track, and with Tiffani in her final year of law school, they decided to have another baby. At eight months old, however, they discovered that their new daughter Tiara had Tuberous Sclerosis, a rare genetic disorder resulting in intractable epilepsy, developmental delay, chronic hospital admissions, and uncontrollable violent behaviors. So how did Tiffani cope with her new reality? She chose to fight. She challenged the doctors, battled the insurance companies, and refused to give up caring for Tiara even when her own life was at risk. The author’s story of unconditional love, unimaginable challenges, and, ultimately, triumph, is a compelling one, which will take hold of your heart and not let go. This memoir will, hopefully, inspire you to tackle fear, encourage you never to give up, and remind you always to trust your gut instincts.

    As an undergraduate at Columbia, he organized the school's first film society. Later, he even tried his own hand at filmmaking. But it was not until his ascent as a major essayist that Lopate found his truest and most lasting contribution to the medium. And, over the past twenty-five years, tackling subjects ranging from Visconti to Jerry Lewis, from the first New York Film Festival to the thirty-second, Phillip Lopate has made film his most cherished subject. Here, in one place, are the very best of these essays, a joy for anyone who loves movies.

    Certain to keep readers laughing even as they are nodding over the truth of the portrayals, there are glimpses of oneself or someone you know around every turn.