This is an adventure story about a voyage from one life chapter to another that involves a too-big sailboat, a narrow and unknown sea, and an appetite to witness a mythical blonde bear that inhabits a remote rainforest.Kim Brown Seely and her husband had been damn good parents for more than 20 years. That was coming to an end as their youngest son was about to move across the country. The economy was in freefall and their jobs stagnant, so they impulsively decided to buy a big broken sailboat, learn how to sail it, and head up through the Salish Sea and the Inside Passage to an expanse of untamed wilderness in search of the elusive blonde Kermode bear that only lives in a secluded Northwest forest. Theirs was a voyage of discovery into who they were as individuals and as a couple at an axial moment in their lives. Wise and lyrical, this heartfelt memoir unfolds amid the stunningly wild archipelago on the far edge of the continent.

    In addition, he acknowledges Yellowstone's history as ground zero for the conflicts between preservation and development.

    It left little bits of brain and heart matter all over the walls, and the certain, irrevocable knowledge that my life had just radically changed shape forever. I’d been unceremoniously dumped out onto the road of a new journey. I expected it to be dusty and hard and short on food and water, a gut-wrenching endurance test that would take a long time to wind its way to ease and peace and a modicum of happiness. That’s not what happened at all. There have been hard days and dusty ones, and I do my best, in this missive from the road, to speak the truth of those moments. But the words clamoring at my door weren’t the dusty ones - they were the ones full of surprised pride in the journey that has actually happened instead. The ones full of abundance and purpose and happiness and the wild, bubbling need to dance. Yeah. Not what I expected from my post-marriage apocalypse either. Welcome to Sleeping Solo, my anthem song from the road. It's 17,000 words, or about 60 pages, and every one of them comes straight from my heart.

    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.

    In this collection of essays, Knapp intentionally flies away from the flock, reveling in insights gleaned from birds, his students, and the wide-eyed wonder his children experience.The Delightful Horror of Family Birding navigates the world in hopes that appreciation of nature will burn intensely for generations to come, not peter out in merely a flicker. Whether traveling solo or with his students or children, Knapp levels his gaze on the birds that share our skies, showing that birds can be a portal to deeper relationships, ecological understanding, and newfound joy.

    Hey Natalie Jean is a terrific read for anyone who wants to make her life more beautiful.” – Gretchen Rubin                          The blog Hey Natalie Jean has won a cult following with writer Natalie Holbrook’s honest, inspiring, and often witty posts on topics like marriage, babies, nesting, and style. Natalie’s first book, Hey Natalie Jean is one part manifesto and three parts ideas, projects, and advice. Beautifully illustrated and whimsically designed, the book offers twenty-five essays and how-tos that serve as a guide to life: making date-night magic in the middle of the mundane, successfully exploring the city with a three-year-old, and creating a satisfying daily routine that still leaves room for little adventures and lots of magic.                                                         Natalie’s optimism, creativity, keen eye, and zeal for life are palpable, and she encourages others to make their lives beautiful with ease. This heartfelt, personal collection of essays and photographs shows Natalie’s ability to identify and describe life’s lovely incidentals in the everyday routine of errands, play dates, and naps. Inspiring, moving, and whip-smart, Hey Natalie Jean is an honest look at the hard work and courage that go into creating a beautiful life.

    Each essay gives an unfiltered look at the ups and downs of family life and a remarkable window into the challenges of modern motherhood. Topics range from babysitter woes to family visits to coping with a child's burgeoning independence. These collected writings represent nine years' worth of stories about the greatest adventure of Maynard's life, or, as she writes, "the difficult, exhausting, humbling, and endlessly gratifying business of raising children, of ensuring the health of both body and soul." This ebook features an illustrated biography of Joyce Maynard including rare photos from the author's personal collection.

    It is a remoteness that both perplexes and enthralls him.    Through dazzling sleight of hand in which the public becomes private and the private becomes public, the entire book—clicking from confession to family-album photograph to family chronicle to sexual fantasy to pseudo-scholarly footnote to reportage to personal essay to stand-up comedy to cultural criticism to literary criticism to film criticism to prose-poem to litany to outtake —becomes both an anatomy of American culture and a searing self-portrait.    David Shields reads his own life—reads our life—as if it were an allegory about remoteness and finds persuasive, hilarious, heartbreaking evidence wherever he goes.Winner of the PEN / Revson Award?

     When her husband passed away after a long, trying illness, Annie Dodds was forced to sell almost everything to settle his estate. Homeless, with little money, she wondered if it might be time to pursue a decades-old dream of living a quiet, self-sufficient life alone, off-grid. One day, when her son told her he knew of an old house on fifty acres, she knew it was time. Feeling empowered and prepared by having read so much over the years, she loaded her belongings into the back of her pickup truck. But as she pulled into the driveway that first day, she could not imagine the challenges she would face, the obstacles she would overcome, the self-doubts she would master, and the soul-strengthening peace and contentment she would find living in a rundown old home on fifty acres of country heaven. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- March, 2014: Thank you to all who pointed out some embarrassing editing oversights in the book. We're pleased to report those issues have been fixed. Those readers who own copies with the errors now have collector's items, of a sort. Thanks again. ~Mason Marshall Press

    'Two Dogs and a Parrot' offers both heart-warming stories and thought-provoking reflections about sharing life with an animal companion. The relationships we form with animals—with dogs, cats, horses, birds, rabbits, and other pets—are full of joys and rewards. Our companion animals draw us out of ourselves and show us what it truly means to be alive. They teach us to accept life’s struggles and to cherish its pleasures and the importance of being able to accept ourselves and respect others. They help us to find purpose and meaning in what we do, and to overcome challenges and setbacks. In our treasured animals we observe varying degrees of excitement and play, of love and fear. And we realize their beautiful uniqueness, their sensitivities and strong sense of purpose. Whether we have an animal companion, long to have a pet or love someone who does, or cherish animals and nature, 'Two Dogs and a Parrot' will speak to us all. It illuminates the significance of sharing our lives with a pet and celebrates the great gift of animals in our world.

    A must-read about these magnificent but sometimes deadly creatures—thoroughly revised, expanded, and updated

    Down, down he leads us, in intoxicating, nearly hallucinogenic prose-past the Yaqui, the Anasazi, and other ghosts of our collective history, past the hookers, winos, and assorted have-nots outside the prosperous circle by the fire. We meet a prisoner obsessed with painting presidents, sex offenders whose desires are not as alien as we wish, a murderer whose execution does not cure what ails us. I wound up looking at a world where cannibalism is life, Bowden writes, and of course, given the diet, a life without a future. He mourns a young artist who couldn't find a reason to keep living and tends a mesquite tree that won't die. And down among its metaphoric roots, he reacquaints us with the appetites-fierce, flawed, human-that might save us too. Blues for Cannibals is scripture for an age when bushes no longer burn.

    Having found his human, Izzy wants to go with Jon wherever he may be, and jumps fences and chews through locks to do so. Jon has been through this before with his dog Orson, and isn't sure he can cope with the responsibility and potential heartache again. But Jon's motley collection of animals - from Jesus the baby donkey to Elvis the surprisingly sociable steer, as well of course as farm manager and Border collie Rose - form an ideal refuge for Izzy. And as Jon and Izzy decide they are perfect companions, Jon realises just how much life on the farm has taught him about patience, perseverance and love.Please note, Saving Izzy is the UK title for the book published in the US as Dog Days.

    But what if your canoeing partner brings along a satellite phone to use in case of an emergency? And, struck by the novelty of anywhere-on-earth communication, he proceeds to use the phone to check in with his law office, his wife, kids, sisters, father, and friends? Noted wilderness traveler and author Ted Kerasote deals with just such a situation as he journeys along the Horton River through the largest ice-free, roadless area left on Earth, a stunning wilderness of grizzly bears, caribou, and migrating birds. Between navigating rapids, slipping around musk ox and grizzlies, and being pinned down by Arctic storms, the two friends prod each other into a finer understanding of love, marriage, parenting, and the meaning of solitude in an increasingly wired world. Contrasting his own experiences with those of the regions earliest explorers--Sir John Franklin and Vilhjalmur Stefansson--Kerasote provides a compelling and humorous take on how travelers from any age adjust to being away from their civilizations and how getting "out there" has inevitably changed but has also remained the same--especially if you shut off the phone.

    Would you believe the one about the man who got stuck with half a paintbrush in a delicate area? The medical ethics of a woman using the hospital like a babysitting service? The day when two surgeons almost came to blows after a squabble over theatre space? After reading this brilliantly realised medical nonfiction collection of short stories you will no longer doubt the strange and sometimes tragic circumstances doctors face in medical diagnosis and treatment. From humourous stories about misbehaving patients to short biographies to moving medical stories with tragic ends, Dr Jay weaves a tale of over thirty years’ experience and relates some of the most interesting medical diagnosis and treatment of patients from his career. His narrative voice is rich and compelling and each of the patients’ short biographies is treated with the solid medical ethics we have come to expect from our doctors. Forthright and entertaining, this medical nonfiction collection of short stories comes directly from the horse’s mouth and includes humourous stories as well as short biographies that reveal some of the least pleasant aspects of life as a Surgeon.