The joys and travails of building a home in Baja California.

    The demand for vintage trailers-the smaller the better-has risen dramatically in recent years, with the most in-demand trailers being "teardrops," first manufactured in the 1930s and containing just indoor sleeping space and an outdoor exterior kitchen. Also profiled in the book are "canned ham" trailers, whose shape resembles the profile of a can of ham; small-size examples of America's most beloved vintage trailer, the Airstream; miniscule gypsy caravans in Europe; and fiberglass trailers made in Canada. Two hundred color photographs showcase these trailers' sleek exteriors, retro-styled interiors, and, in many cases, the restored classic cars that tow them. Teardrops and Tiny Trailers includes a resource section chock-full of places to locate vintage trailers, clubs to join, and rallies to attend.

    It was the first time brothers had battled each other in this gladiatorial and quintessentially British tradition for over a hundred years. Only one could be victorious. In this book, David and James tell their stories for the first time, giving an intimate insight into one of our least understood but best-loved national sporting occasions. James, following in his family’s footsteps, is a student at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, while David, wanting to escape his brother's shadow, joins Christ Church College at Oxford University. As the pair embark on training loads almost beyond endurance, their stories reveal the rivalries between these ancient and great institutions. Told in alternating narratives, Blood over Water is an emotional and searching joint self-portrait, and an account of a brotherly relationship tested to breaking point. David's fervent desire to beat his older brother pushes him on, but drives an impenetrable wedge between the siblings. As the race approaches they are unable even to speak to each other.It is only after the race, James wrestling with his final Cambridge exams, that they start to reconcile their shattered relationship, damaged by their pursuit of a shared dream.Not only a nail-biting drama for sports fans, Blood over Water also looks at the darker side of sibling rivalry and asks just what you would be willing to sacrifice to achieve your dreams.

    What time is the 3:00 parade? Why does a child need to be 40 inches tall to ride a roller coaster? What happens when the president of France gets lost inside Pirates of the Caribbean? A former employee, or "cast member", at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom answers these and other questions while sharing humorous stories about working inside the world's most popular theme park."Stories from a Theme Park Insider" takes you inside the park's famous tunnels and backstage for a look at how theme parks really work, and the funny moments and embarrassments that can happen when your work is someone else's vacation.

    John Branion was found guilty of murdering his wife in their posh Chicago home. After exhausting his appeals, he evaded authorities by fleeing to Africa. He was finally captured in 1983—but his case was far from over. It would take another seven years for Dr. Branion to finally win his freedom—and for those who prosecuted him to admit that he could not have committed the murder, and that they knew it all along.Acclaimed mystery writer Barbara D'Amato was drawn to this story two decades after the murder, as Dr. Branion languished in prison, ill and without hope. Her meticulous research repeatedly led her to one startling conclusion: that it was impossible for Donna Branion's murder to have unfolded the way the police alleged. In this award-winning account, D'Amato deftly explores the intriguing facts of this shocking case—from the tragic blunders made by authorities to Branion's arrest, conviction, and years practicing medicine in Africa as a fugitive from justice. The result is a damning indictment of our criminal system—and the vindication of an innocent man.The Doctor, The Murder, The Mystery by Barbara D'Amato won the Anthony and Agatha Awards for Best True Crime. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed Cat Marsala mysteries, including Hard Case and Hard Christmas. She lives in Chicago.The 1992 Anthony Award for Best True Crime and the 1993 Agatha Award for Nonfiction for The Doctor, the Murder, the Mystery

    Now, James Scurlock engages, educates, and entertains readers with the captivating story of DHL co-founder and billionaire Larry Hillblom.King Larry begins with an early biography of Larry Lee Hillblom, a mercurial young man who grew up on a peach farm outside of Fresno, California. Hillblom co-founded DHL in 1969 (three years before FedEx), and it became the fastest-growing corporation in history. Hillblom’s expatriate life began in 1981, when he retreated to a small tax haven in the Western Pacific. There he led the resistance to American meddling in the Marianas Islands. Hillblom’s voracious appetite for underage prostitutes is another facet of his unusual story. In 1995, Hillblom’s amoral, thrill-seeking nature caught up to him when his seaplane disappeared off the coast of Anatahan, leaving behind an estate worth billions. Weeks later, five impoverished women and their attorneys came forward to challenge Hillblom’s will in a legal battle for his fortunes that continues to this day. Meticulously researched and thoroughly engaging, King Larry will satisfy fans of such bestsellers as Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and The Accidental Billionaires .

    Because it was extremely difficult to verbalize the events to her own children years later, her adult family knew very little of the details until 30 years after her passing in 1967. That is when her granddaughter discovered her writings and promised to tell the story of what she endured.

    

    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.

    For many years, Nick and Lesley Albert had shared a dream of living far away from the stress of modern life, and when the opportunity arose, they jumped in with both feet. Almost overnight, they decided to move to beautiful County Clare, in the west of Ireland – a Country they had never before visited. With little experience or money they set about renovating a derelict farmhouse and building a new life together - hindered only by their lack of skill, twenty-two chickens ,two ducks and several unruly dogs. Bursting with comical anecdotes and witty observations, blended with occasional moments of exquisite sadness, this is a delightful true story of an English couple searching for a new life in the quiet solitude of rural Ireland."Marley and Me" meets "Round Ireland with a Fridge." If you love dogs, Ireland and life, then you will adore “An Irish Tail”.

    The Magic Bus is becoming a national shrine, a holy pilgrim site, a modern-day Mecca. And I was determined to see it, too." So writes author and adventurer Ken Ilgunas, who, in the summer of 2011, moved up to Alaska and, like thousands before him, embarked on pilgrimage to explore the storied bus of the Stampede Trail, the very bus in which Chris McCandless of "Into the Wild" died twenty years before. What was supposed to be little more than a "literary tour" to a bus from a book that Ilgunas had "merely enjoyed" would become a humorous, enthralling, and, at times, treacherous journey, leading him to the very heart of Alaska.

    . .Their bestselling memoir, Come Back, moved and inspired readers with the story of Mia Fontaine's harrowing drug addiction and her mother, Claire's, desperate and ultimately successful attempts to save her. Now it's a decade later and Claire and Mia each face a defining moment in her life, and a mother-daughter relationship that has frayed around the edges. At fifty-one, Claire's shed her identity as Mia's savior but realizes that, oops, she forgot to plan for life after motherhood; Mia, twenty-five and eager to step outside her role as recovery's poster child, finds adult life isn't all it's cracked up to be. Determined to transform themselves and their relationship once again, the pair sets off on a five-month around-the-world adventure.What awaits them is an extraordinary, often hilarious journey through twenty cities and twelve countries—one that includes mishaps, mayhem, and unexpected joys, from a passport-eating elephant to a calamitous camel ride around the Pyramids—and finally making peace with their tumultuous past in the lavender fields of France, where they live for the last four months of the trip. Seeing how self-possessed and community-minded twentysomethings are in other countries broadens Mia's perspective, helping her grow, and grow up. Claire uses the trip to examine her broken relationship with her own mother, a Holocaust survivor, and to create a vision for her second act. Watching her mom assess half a century of life, Mia comes to know her as Claire has always known Mia—as all mothers know their daughters—better than anyone else, and often better than themselves.Wiser for what they've learned from women in other cultures, and from each other, they return with a deepened sense of who they are and where they want to go—and with each embracing the mature friendship they've discovered and the profound love they share.Alternating between Claire and Mia's compelling and distinct voices, Have Mother, Will Travel is a testament to the power and beauty of the mother-daughter relationship, one that illuminates possibilities for our own lives.

    Its history reads like a history of pleasure itself. It is also a story of invasions and migrations, of artists and conmen, of drop-outs and love-ins. The Carthaginians established a cult to their goddess of sex there, and named the island after Bez, their god of dance. Roman centurions in need of a bit of down time between campaigns would go to Ibiza to get their kicks. And over the centuries, cultures around the Med have used the island either as a playground or a dump for the kind of people who didn't quite fit in back home, but who you'd probably quite like to meet at a party...This is the history of Ibiza, the fantasy island, framed by one long, golden summer where anything can happen - and it usually does.

    No idea they’ll encounter an undiscovered tribe, rescue a drowning actress, learn jungle survival from a commando, and attend cultural ceremonies few Westerners have seen. As they find out who hooks up, who breaks up, who cracks up, and who throws up, will they fulfil Simon’s ambition to see the queen, or will they be distracted by insomniac chickens, grunting wild piglets, and the easy-going Tongan lifestyle?

    An avid gun collector yet an anti-war activist, a popular economics professor and a wife-swapping nudist, a leftist and a lifelong fan of the British Empire who would occasionally don an authentic pith helmet and imitate Michael Caine’s performance as the heroic Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead in the bloody war film Zulu, he was a man who could knock his young son down the stairs one day and the next cry about putting the family’s aged dog to sleep. Such is the contradictory figure at the center of this astonishingly candid and shocking memoir. As a young adult, Birkenhead reacted to his volatile childhood by forgetting its worst moments. He adopted all the trappings of normalcy, threw himself into a career as an actor, landing parts in Broadway plays like Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound, both by Neil Simon, and found himself often playing characters who were angry at their fathers. Yet he discovered that he was sleepwalking through life, on occasion falling into rages that reminded him of his father. Then at thirty-one, eleven years after his parents’ divorce, Birkenhead told his mother about his recurring dream of flying down the stairs of their house as a young boy. She revealed that it wasn’t a dream, but a memory from his early childhood of being carried rapidly down the stairs by his mom after his father had pointed a gun at them. The revelation about the dream sparked the painful yet necessary process of examining his childhood and of ultimately moving beyond it, forcing Birkenhead to finally confront his father in a way that released him and his family from this complicated legacy. Combining the terror and wit of Running with Scissors, the poignancy and sense of place of The Tender Bar, with the sparkling prose of Oh the Glory of It All, Gonville is light on its feet even as it deals in the darkest of family tales. A harrowing and often humorous story of a son coming to terms with his alternately charming, cruel, generous, and violent father.