He hung grisly souvenirs on nails in his junkyard.La Costra NostraCharles Carneglia was a stone-cold killer who fell in with the bloodthirsty John Gotti crew. As the infamous crime family rose to power with their murderous trail of sex, jealousy, greed, and revenge, Carneglia rose with them.Mafia, Madness And MurderThis is the horrifying story of a misfit who fit perfectly into the New York mafia. In a harrowing journey inside a ruthless criminal underworld, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Anthony M. DeStefano chronicles one man s life in a world of depraved acts of violence and the horrors that went with being a member of the Gambino family."Thrilling American crime writing. -Jimmy Breslin on "King of the Godfathers"Includes 16 Pages of Shocking Photos"

    In Adventurer at Heart he shares his life story, and provides a compelling and unique insight into this remarkable pursuit.It takes a Tour de France cyclist about 90 hours of cycling, spread over three weeks with rest days, to complete the race. An adventure race, however, can take up to 160 hours of non-stop racing over as much as six days, with virtually no sleep or rest. To excel at this sport requires an elite level of skill in mountain running, mountain biking, kayaking, rafting and navigation but, above all, an almost superhuman capacity to endure suffering and pain.Part-Samoan, Nathan was raised in Nelson, and it was as a wayward adolescent that he discovered outdoor adventure. Since then he has never looked back, and has been a full-time adventurer working as an outdoor educator, the owner of multiple adventure-based businesses, and a professional athlete.Nathan’s career has taken him all over the world, and he has raced in the deserts of Africa, Mexico and the Emirates, the plains of Tibet and China, and the peaks and valleys of Nepal, Ecuador, Brazil, Patagonia, Russia, the European Alps, and New Zealand.Adventurer at Heart is a story of courage and perseverance, and of overcoming tremendous challenges. Nathan Fa’avae is an outstanding New Zealander, and this book is an inspiring account of what it takes to become a world champion.

    Young Kyle struggles to make it through the school day without being noticed, but others intend to make him the center of attention.

    The next morning, things take a sharp turn as she’s led from work to the emergency room. By the end of the week, a neurologist delivers a devastating prognosis: Sarah suffered a traumatic brain injury that has caused her IQ to plummet, with no hope of recovery. Her brain has irrevocably changed.Afraid of judgment and deemed no longer fit for work, Sarah isolates herself from the outside world. She spends months at home, with her dogs as her only source of companionship, battling a personality she no longer recognizes and her shock and rage over losing simple functions she’d taken for granted. Her life is consumed by fear and shame until a chance encounter gives Sarah hope that her brain can heal. That conversation lights a small flame of determination, and Sarah begins to push back, painstakingly reteaching herself to read and write, and eventually reentering the workforce and a new, if unpredictable, life.In this highly intimate account of devastation and renewal, Sarah pulls back the curtain on life with traumatic brain injury, an affliction where the wounds are invisible and the lasting effects are often misunderstood. Over years of frustrating setbacks and uncertain triumphs, Sarah comes to terms with her disability and finds love with a woman who helps her embrace a new, accepting sense of self.

    Even though she believes true love will never find her, Jenna vows to help other women find their own true loves by opening a dating service. If she can’t find love for herself, she’s determined to find love for her hopelessly inept clients. Through messy mash-ups and zany adventures, Jenna and her best friend and business partner, Dale, help a Turret’s juggler lose her balls, an Elizabeth Taylor impersonator drop her White Diamonds, and a woman with multiple personalities find a girlfriend that adores all of her. Along the way, Jenna discovers that just because she’s given up on love, that doesn’t mean love has given up on her.

    The highly acclaimed movie Shine tells David's extraordinary story from child musical prodigy, through tormenting mental breakdown, to triumphant recovery. This book, written by David's wife, Gillian, is the equally extraordinary story of their lives since the couple's fateful meeting in 1983, and David's own account and analysis of his life prior to that meeting. The book charts David's struggles to escape the legacy of his troubled childhood and how, with the help of his wife and friends, he forms a new sense of self without losing his magical quirkiness and childlike sense of wonder. When David achieves his dream of once again performing Rakhmaninov's Third Concerto in 1995, it is a moment of overwhelming personal affirmation, and the culmination of Gillian's unswerving belief in his brilliance.

    but this is NOT a typical blah-blah-blah memoirPlanning is for sissies. A solo bike ride across the country will be filled with sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and 80 degree temps every day, right? Not so much. The Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, an alkaline desert, and the Sierra Nevadas lay miles and days ahead. Disappointment with unrealized potential, and the thirst for what’s next drew farther away in the rotating wide-angle shockproof convex rear-view mirror.I will ride my bike down a never-ending ribbon of asphalt wearing a backpack.Cory Mortensen began his bike ride across the United States from Chaska, Minnesota, to Truckee, California, without a route, a timeline, or proper equipment. Along the way, he gained more than technical skills required for a ride that would test every fiber of his physical being and mental toughness. Ride along as he meets “unusual” characters, dangerous animals, and sweet little old ladies with a serious vendetta for strangers in their town.Humor ■ Insight ■ Adventure ■ Gratitude ■ PeaceFrom long stretches of road ending in a vanishing point at the distant horizon, to stunning vistas, terrifying close calls, grueling conditions, failed equipment, and joyous milestones he stayed the course and gained an appreciation for the beauty of the land, the genius of engineering and marvel of nature.

    

     Investigative reporter Claire Weatherly assigned to write the in-depth article on Elise and Forest Ridge faces her own challenges. Her mother, a resident at Forest Ridge, is about to participate in a new clinical trial. As the interview gets underway, Claire’s partner, Detective Megan Wolfe, is injured in the line of duty. Elise rushes Claire to the hospital where she finds another woman has already arrived at Megan’s bedside. As Elise and Claire navigate the professional and personal challenges in their lives will they be able to forget the painful memories of their failed relationships and move forward to find love again?

    Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open is the first biography to assess Freud's work and life, showing how the two converge.   In Hoban's dramatic and fast-paced narrative, we follow Freud from his birthplace in Berlin to London, where he fled with his family in the 1930s, and then to Paris, where he mixed with Picasso and Giacometti. He led a dissolute life in Soho after the war, gambling and womanizing with fierce energy. He painted his wives nude, his children nude, himself nude. He married twice, had an uncountable number of children, and kept working through it all, painting everyone from close friend and rival Francis Bacon to Kate Moss and Queen Elizabeth. He sometimes spent years on a single painting, which could require hundreds of hours of sittings. However various his subjects, his intent was always the same: to find and reveal the character hidden within by means of his intense visual imagination.   Along with its startling biographical revelations, the great thrill of Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open is the way Hoban deconstructs the art itself—its influences, models, and technique—to show how Freud reproduced reality on the canvas while breaking down the illusion that what we see is real.

    For months now, Monique doesn’t know who she is anymore.Monique is living under a false identity in German-occupied Paris. No one knows that she is Jewish.Since last summer, Monique has been involved with a Nazi officer, and she knows that she will pay with her life if anyone discovers her secret, but she has no other choice.In the days leading to Christmas, Monique and Herr Ernest, the German officer she lives with, are preparing for a German officers’ reception which they plan to attend. Monique ardently continues to hide her secret. Still, she can’t ignore the signs of her past, and as the evening of the reception progresses, Monique finds it increasingly difficult to keep her true identity a secret, fearing that some may suspect her of hiding something.Monique must keep her secret, but can she continue to deny her identity and heritage?With the backdrop of illuminated Christmas trees and Hanukkah candles, Alex Amit’s short story illuminates the simple and extraordinary acts of courage by a young woman, fighting for her life and identity during those dark and dreadful days, and continuing to believe that next year will bring with it winds of change and hope.

    Dominic is probably dying in Los Angeles. Jasper, older by almost a generation, was for many years Timothy's lover. Among Jasper's infidelities was a brisk fling with Dominic. Timothy and Dominic are having dinner in Los Angeles after viewing Dominic's taped appearance on a nationally televised quiz show. They have maintained their ambivalent friendship for twenty years. Tonight their conversation is lively but guarded. Timothy has not told Dominic of Jasper's death; Dominic doesn't inquire into Timothy's own state, and this is a question Timothy is in no hurry to answer. Through Timothy's eyes, we see that though AIDS can be deadly, it can also be taken, as Timothy chooses to, as a challenge to live. His thoughts are filled by memories of Jasper, and he takes the reader on a vivid tour of male sex at its most untamed - as it was in the seventies and the eighties - when the explosion of AIDS forced thousands of men to take a new direction. We feel the press of bodies along the waterfront of Manhattan, in the boites, and even the streets of Paris. It is possible Timothy will even come away from this dinner with a heightened understanding of Jasper, and of their long and lost romance. It is certain that the reader will be rewarded by the deeper insights of this harrowing (and often hilarious) account of love between men in such times.

    He's set to wrestle and study creative writing at Columbia University in New York. These poems are a look into his early experiences with love and loss, an introspective coming of age tale told in verse.

    A land of technological marvels swallowed up by the ocean. Experts argue over whether it ever existed as more than a thought experiment. Were there real events behind the story? Explorers searched for it, but never found convincing evidence. Most thought Atlantis was just than a legend…Until it came back.

    A woman learning to claim her own desires and adventures, Suzanne Roberts encounters lightning and landslides, sharks and piranha-infested waters, a nightclub drugging, burning bodies, and brief affairs as she searches for the love of her life and finally herself. Throughout her travels Roberts tries hard not to be a bad tourist, but owing to her cultural blind spots, things don’t always go as planned. Fearlessly confessional, shamelessly funny, and wholly unapologetic, Roberts offers a refreshingly honest account of the joys and absurdities of confronting new landscapes and cultures, as well as new versions of herself. Raw, bawdy, and self-effacing, Bad Tourist is a journey packed with delights and surprises—both of the greater world and of the mysterious workings of the heart.