Book picks similar to
Overheard in New York UPDATED: Conversations from the Streets, Stores, and Subways by S. Morgan Friedman
non-fiction
young-adult
book-club
funny
Return to the Big Fancy: A Riotous Descent Into the Depths of Customer, Corporate, and Coworker Hell
Freeman Hall - 2012
But instead of fame and fortune, he found himself stuck behind a wall of script-killing rewrites, unable to make a living.In Return to the Big Fancy, Freeman shares his wildly entertaining journey back through the fiery gates of Retail Hell. He thought he had seen it all in his day, but with the bar set higher than ever before, employees are now graciously bowing before Corporate as they climb over fellow salespeople, and even friends, to earn enough transactions and commissions to actually survive. As he learns more of the wretchedness that has befallen the sales floor, he realizes that The Big Fancy has its customers and its employees on a short leash. But leave it to Freeman and the threat of disappearing commissions to rally the retail slaves and show Corporate who's really in charge!
Growing Up Between Stops on the A-train
Jennifer Y. Johnson-Garcia
By seventeen, Jennifer leaves home and supports herself through her senior year of high school, graduating on-time with her class. But she has much more to prove. Determined, Jennifer kisses Colorado goodbye and sets off on a one-way trip to New York City.In the city, Jennifer hits the ground hustling, securing a job selling beepers on the street and singing for strangers every chance she gets. Not long after, she is discovered by a music producer on the A-train, records a demo, and signs her first record deal. However, Jennifer's budding career is interrupted by an unplanned pregnancy, destroying her odds in a male-dominated and cutthroat music industry. Unyielding, Jennifer persists for several years before landing a chance audition with platinum-selling producers, Full Force, who sign her.In the blink of an eye, Jennifer skyrockets from starving artist to New York City's best kept secret, songwriting for superstars and all but sealing her fate as a future household name. However, just as she is on the brink of fame to go with the small fortune she earns from publishing deals, an unexpected turn of events sets her on the rockiest road to dreams come true.Growing Up Between Stops on the A-train is the inspirational true story about how one woman discovered the secret to success and life happiness, the hard way.GUBSOTAT will be published in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audio formats on November 7, 2019. Follow Jennifer Y. Johnson-Garcia on Facebook or @jyjohnsongarcia and @GUBSOTAT on Instagram to become an advanced reader or get a copy of the book sooner!
Walking in Light
Kelvin Cruickshank - 2009
From his early days growing up in an isolated rural environment to travelling the world as an acclaimed psychic investigator, Kelvin's life story is amazing, inspirational and at times heart-breaking. Walking In Light shares memories of his earliest psychic experiences and his struggles to accept his gift, and recalls many of the amazingly accurate communications he has shared with believers and sceptics alike.
Mary-Alice Moves In
Frankie Bow - 2016
But before Mary-Alice can even unpack her bags, a man of the cloth dies under mysterious circumstances, a device with strange powers turns up in the glove box of her Oldsmobile 88, and her new friends, Ida Belle, Gertie, and young Fortune, are behaving oddly…even for Baptists. This is the first book in a new series, the Mary-Alice files, set in the Miss Fortune world in Sinful, Louisiana. Many thanks to Jana DeLeon for letting us write in her Sinful world!
Cheat: The Not-So Subtle Art of Conning Your Way to Sporting Glory
Titus O'Reily - 2020
The Grumpy Old Git's Guide to Life
Geoff Tibballs - 2011
We all know one! They like to groan and grumble, offering their own commentary on the shortcomings of modern life. Whether it is queues at the supermarket, the state of the health system, the price of a pint these days, the hairstyles of teenagers, or the number of Maltesers you actually get in a bag, there is always something that will get their goat. 'The Grumpy Old Git's Guide to Life' is a hilarious celebration of all these grumps, how to identify one, what exactly they find so irritating and why we find their rants quite so amusing.
Giving Birth
Catherine Taylor - 2002
This is the perfect companion for parents-to-be and all professionals who are engaged in and witness to the miracle of birth. "One of the most important books on childbirth...A colorful, anecdotal, and research-supported journey from both the mothers' and midwives' perspectives...A classic." (Pam England, nurse-midwife and author of Birthing from Within: An Extra-Ordinary Guide to Childbirth Preparation)
The Girl in building C
Mary Krugerud - 2018
She entered Ah-gwah-ching State Sanatorium at Walker, Minnesota, for what she thought would be a short stay. In January, her tuberculosis spread, and she nearly died. Her recovery required many months of bed rest and medical care.Marilyn loved to write, and the story of her three-year residency at the sanatorium is preserved in hundreds of letters that she mailed back home to her parents, who could visit her only occasionally and whom she missed terribly. The letters functioned as a diary in which Marilyn articulately and candidly recorded her reactions to roommates, medical treatments, Native American nurses, and boredom. She also offers readers the singular perspective of a bed-bound teenager, gossiping about boys, requesting pretty new pajamas, and enjoying Friday evening popcorn parties with other patients.Selections from this cache of letters are woven into an informative narrative that explores the practices and culture of a midcentury tuberculosis sanatorium and fills in long-forgotten details gleaned from recent conversations with Marilyn, who "graduated" from the sanatorium and went on to lead a full, productive life.
The Finishing Touches
Hester Browne - 2009
Out with white gloves and flower arranging, in with managing mortgagesand do-it-yourself manicures! Behind this remarkable transformation is business-savvy Betsy Phillimore, with her own unique connection to London's esteemed Phillimore Academy for Young Ladies....Twenty-seven years ago, an infant turned up on the Academy's doorstep, with a note tacked to her blanket by an elegant golden brooch -- "Please take care of my baby. I want her to grow up to be a proper lady." Loved by Lady Frances Phillimore and her kindhearted staff, Betsy grew up aspiring to be an Academy girl. But when Franny and her husband, Lord Phillimore, advise Betsy to instead hone her considerable math skills at college, she brokenheartedly leaves behind the only family she's known.Now, on the sad occasion of Lady Frances's memorial service, Betsy comes back to find the school in disrepair, the enrollment down, and Lord P. desperate to save his legacy. Enter Betsy, the numbers genius, and her business plan -- to replace dusty protocol with the essentials girls need today: "cell phone etiquette, eating sushi properly, handling credit cards, choosing the perfect little black dress, negotiating a pre-nup, " and other lessons in independent living.But Betsy may have bitten off more than she can chew. Can she win over the school's snobby headmistress and its handsome but risk-averse treasurer? Returning to London also means facing her own unfinished business, as she crosses paths with her sexy girlhood crush...and blowing the dust off clues to a lifelong mystery: who were her parents, and why did they abandon her? If knowledge is power, Betsy is on the brink of truly becoming her own woman, and embracing the one thing she's wanted all along: a place to call home.A bittersweet journey of laughter and tears, "The Finishing Touches" will have you gleefully turning pages through dinner with elbows on the table -- bad manners, perhaps, but excusable for one utterly irresistible read.
Twisted Head: An Italian American Memoir
Carl Capotorto - 2008
The literal translation from Italian to English of Capotorto is "twisted head." This is no accident. Carl grew up in the Bronx in the 1960s and ’70s with the Mangialardis ("eat fat") and Mrs. Sabella ("so beautiful"), incessant fryers and a dolled-up glamour queen. Carl's father, Philip Vito Capotorto, was the obsessive, tyrannical head of the family--"I'm not your friend, I'm the father" was a common refrain in their household. The father ran Cappi's Pizza and Sangwheech Shoppe, whose motto was "We Don't Spel Good, Just Cook Nice." It was a time of great upheaval in the Bronx, and Carl's father was right in the middle of it, if not the cause of it, much to the chagrin of his long-suffering mother.Twisted Head is the comedic story of a hardscrabble, working-class family's life that represents the real legacy of Italian-Americans--labor, not crime. It is also the poignant memoir of the author's struggle to become himself in a world that demanded he act like someone else. Tragic and funny in equal measure, Carl's story is propelled by a cast of only-in-New-York characters: customers at the family pizza shop, public school teachers, nuns and priests at church, shop owners and merchants--all wildly entertaining and sometimes frightening. Somewhere in all the rage and madness that surrounded Carl in his youth, he found the bottom line: he loved his family, but he had to let them go. Twisted Head is an exorcism of sorts. With plenty of laughs.
The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked
David Benjamin - 2002
Whether he’s stalking frogs through the bogs of Tomah, Wisconsin, playing four-kid baseball with his bothersome little brother and two favorite cousins, or sneaking into the theater to watch Saturday-afternoon Westerns, Benjamin is the kind of little kid who would have fallen in eagerly with the redoubtable Tom Sawyer.Traversing the nooks and crannies of kidhood, from ballfields to swimming holes, The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked captures a time and a place in twentieth-century American life and celebrates the adventures and wanderlust that once made childhood such an exhilarating enterprise.
My Father's Island: A Memoir
Adam Dudding - 2016
At his peak he published the country’s finest literary journal on the smell of an oily rag from a falling-down house overflowing with books, long-haired children and chickens – an island of nonconformity in the heart of 1970s Auckland suburbia. Yet when Robin’s uncompromising integrity tipped into something much more self-destructive, a dark shadow fell over his career and personal life.In My Father’s Island, Adam Dudding writes frankly about the rise and fall of an unconventional cultural figure. But this is also a moving, funny and deeply personal story of a family, of a marriage, of feuds and secret loves – and of a son’s dawning understanding of his father.
Ruminations on Twentysomething Life
Aaron Karo - 2005
With hilarious anecdotes and irreverent observations, Karo captures the twentysomething experience like never before and answers the question, "Is there life after college?" Featuring the very best of his world-renowned email column as well as brand-new material published here for the first time, Ruminations on Twentysomething Life details Karo's evolution from frat boy to manhood and explores the frenzied lives of a generation living in the strange and unique gap between college and marriage. With his trademark acerbic wit, Karo ruminates on everything from your first day on the job to the last call at the bar. Perfect for students about to get their first dose of reality, twentysomethings procrastinating at work, or anyone who wants to relive their glory days, this book is sure to have readers laughing out loud and nodding their heads in agreement that there is indeed life after college.
Mine on Christmas
Sarah J. Brooks - 2018
I’ve got three words for her. Bah freaking humbug. I hate Christmas. For the last 10 years, I’ve hated everything. Except for my girls. Perfect twins with their mother’s eyes. They want me to move on, but I’m too damaged to listen. Until Niki. Her sass makes my temper rise along with my mammoth… ego. And when I see her delicious curves under that dress, I want to bend her over her party plans and show her what’s waiting in her stocking this year. But giving her what she wants means letting go of the past, And I’m not ready to forget. I’ve got billions to keep me warm, I don’t need Niki too. Except I can’t imagine life without her. Time to turn my bah humbugs into Christmas kisses. Even bums like me need someone to love. I just hope I’m not too late... "Mine on Christmas" is a full length standalone romance with no cheating and no cliffhangers, but with plenty of steam and a HEA. I've also included a preview of my billionaire romance "Accidentally His" for you! - Sarah J. Brooks (USA Today Bestselling Author)
Redemption: From Iron Bars to Ironman
John McAvoy - 2016
Born into a notorious London crime family, his uncle Micky was one of the key players in the legendary Brink's-Mat gold bullion caper. John bought his first gun at 16 and carved out a lucrative career in armed robbery. At one point he was one of Britain's most-wanted men. It took two spells in prison and the death of a friend on a botched heist to change his path. During his second stint in jail he discovered a miraculous natural talent while serving life in the Belmarsh high security unit - where fellow inmates included Abu Hamza, the hook-handed extremist cleric, and the 7/7 bombers. John broke three world rowing records while still an inmate and since his release has become one of the UK's leading Ironman competitors. He aims to turn pro in 2016 after competing in the European championships in Frankfurt. Redemption is the ultimate story of sporting salvation.