We usually only read about the best - about the bravery, the courage and the sacrifice of mountaineers who risk life and limb to achieve excellence for themselves and others. But there are other mountaineers – the charlatans, the conmen, the bullies, the petty-minded and narcissistic - who prefer to sacrifice others to their obsession to reach the top of Mt. Everest. This book is about one of the worst! In 1996, the deadliest year in the history of climbing Mt. Everest, both types were on the mountain. But in a cruel twist of fate the good guys died while the bad guy not only reached the top, but lived to prosper from it. In a piece of top class investigative journalism Ken Vernon delves into the guts of one dysfunctional expedition that, despite being supported by the iconic Nelson Mandela, became an international laughing stock. Everest ‘96 also peels back the layers of deception surrounding the fantastic past of the man who became the most reviled in mountaineering lore. Ken Vernon is an Australian journalist with decades of experience covering stories ranging from the African wars of Independence to the climbing of Mt Everest.

    She was determined to find a better life for herself, away from the oppression and isolation of her Satmar upbringing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And in Exodus, Revisited she delves into what happened next--taking the reader on a journey that starts with her beginning life anew as a single mother, a religious refugee, and an independent woman in search of a place and a community where she can belong. Originally published in 2014, Deborah has now revisited and significantly expanded her story, and the result is greater insight into her quest to discover herself and the true meaning of home. Travels that start with making her way in New York expand into an exploration of America and eventually lead to trips across Europe to retrace her grandmother's life during the Holocaust, before she finds a landing place in the unlikeliest of cities. Exodus, Revisited is a deeply moving examination of the nature of memory and generational trauma, and of reconciliation with both yourself and the world.

    Featuring brand new stories and some old favorites, many of these tell-all, gritty tales were originally published on the blog Make It MAD between 2010 and 2012, and have been rereleased in their originality for this special print and digital anthology.

    Ask any woman you know to tell you a drinking story, and she’ll come up with one—in fact, she may even come up with five. With friends and with coworkers, at date night and at ladies' night, and on special occasions ranging from Valentine’s Day to the Super Bowl, we encounter alcohol—yet when it comes to discussing the nature of our relationship with drinking, few of us do so honestly and openly.In Drinking Diaries, editors Leah Odze Epstein and Caren Osten Gerszberg take women's drinking stories out of the closet and into the light. Whether it’s shame, sober sex, and relapsing, or college drinking, bonding, and comparing the benefits of pot vs. booze, no topic related to alcohol is off limits in this illuminating anthology. With contributions from celebrated writers including Jacquelyn Mitchard, Daphne Merkin, Kathryn Harrison, Ann Hood, Ann Leary, Pam Houston, Jane Friedman, Elissa Schappell, Asra Nomani, Priscilla Warner, Rita Williams, and Joyce Maynard, Drinking Diaries is a candid look at the pleasures and pains of drinking, and the many ways in which it touches women’s lives.

    The Noble Hustle is Pulitzer finalist Colson Whitehead’s hilarious memoir of his search for meaning at high stakes poker tables, which the author describes as “Eat, Pray, Love for depressed shut-ins.”  On one level, The Noble Hustle is a familiar species of participatory journalism--a longtime neighborhood poker player, Whitehead was given a $10,000 stake and an assignment from the online online magazine Grantland to see how far he could get in the World Series of Poker.  But since it stems from the astonishing mind of Colson Whitehead (MacArthur Award-endorsed!), the book is a brilliant, hilarious, weirdly profound, and ultimately moving portrayal of--yes, it sounds overblown and ridiculous, but really!--the human condition.      After weeks of preparation that included repeated bus trips to glamorous Atlantic City, and hiring a personal trainer to toughen him up for sitting at twelve hours a stretch, the author journeyed to the gaudy wonderland that is Las Vegas – the world’s greatest “Leisure Industrial Complex” -- to try his luck in the multi-million dollar tournament.   Hobbled by his mediocre playing skills and a lifelong condition known as “anhedonia” (the inability to experience pleasure) Whitehead did not – spoiler alert!   - win tens of millions of dollars.  But he did chronicle his progress, both literal and existential, in this unbelievably funny, uncannily accurate social satire whose main target is the author himself.   Whether you’ve been playing cards your whole life, or have never picked up a hand, you’re sure to agree that this book contains some of the best writing about beef jerky ever put to paper.

    The sassy and moving commentaries she recorded for National Public Radio were a large part of the original kindling for this intense interest.In Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist the spark that first attracted this audience flashes again in fifty-eight short essays drawn from those enormously successful broadcasts. To update and continue the dialogue she has always maintained with her fans, Gilchrist has added fifteen new essays.Originally published in 1987 by Little, Brown and Company, Falling Through Space provides a funny and intimate diary of a writer's self-discovery. Author of more than a dozen books and winner of the National Book Award, Gilchrist is a beloved and distinctive southern voice whose life and memories are every bit as entertaining as the wild and poignant short stories for which she is famous.The short essays that anchor this book vividly explore the Mississippi plantation life of her childhood; the books, teachers, and artists who influenced her development; and her thoughts about writing and life in general. Coupled with forty-two pictures from Gilchrist's youth and adulthood, these slices of life create a running autobiography.In new essays, originally published in such magazines as Vogue, Outside, New Woman, and the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, Gilchrist reveals her origins, influences, and the way she works when she writes. Required reading for any fan, this book is Ellen Gilchrist at her funniest and best. For her readers it confirms her spontaneity and her talent for finding life at its zaniest and brightest.

    Gunn's father, Bill, was a special agent who served as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's ghostwriter and lived his life according to a set of unbending routines. When Bill Gunn was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, his rigid habits seemingly preserved his sanity while alienating Tim and the rest of his family. Shaken, Not Stirred offers an intimate and heartfelt look into the life of one of fashion's most beloved icons.

    Snugly interwoven with a warmly personal and anecdotal history of the author, this wise and witty book offers an ironic take on nearly everything. Drawing from her experiences as a woman, mother, daughter, wife and writer, Anita Nair marks over a decade of her literary career with deliciously amusing quotes, mostly unnecessary and unabashed trivia, footnotes and other erudite diversions. This is the perfect book to keep by your bedside, to dip and delve into anytime.

    From punk to mod to New Romantic, and eventually to acclaimed poet, Simon Armitage writes about a life where music and poetry have been core.

    His brilliant and provocative essays made him the literary voice of the Civil Rights Era, and they continue to speak with powerful urgency to us today, whether in the swirling debate over the Black Lives Matter movement or in the words of Raoul Peck’s documentary “I Am Not Your Negro.” Edited by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, the Library of America’s Collected Essays is the most comprehensive gathering of Baldwin’s nonfiction ever published.With burning passion and jabbing, epigrammatic wit, Baldwin fearlessly articulated issues of race and democracy and American identity in such famous essays as “The Harlem Ghetto,” “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” “Many Thousands Gone,” and “Stranger in the Village.”Here are the complete texts of his early landmark collections, Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name (1961), which established him as an essential intellectual voice of his time, fusing in unique fashion the personal, the literary, and the political. “One writes,” he stated, “out of one thing only—one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give.” With singular eloquence and unblinking sharpness of observation he lived up to his credo: “I want to be an honest man and a good writer.”The classic The Fire Next Time (1963), perhaps the most influential of his writings, is his most penetrating analysis of America’s racial divide and an impassioned call to “end the racial nightmare…and change the history of the world.” The later volumes No Name in the Street (1972) and The Devil Finds Work (1976) chart his continuing response to the social and political turbulence of his era and include his remarkable works of film criticism. A further 36 essays—nine of them previously uncollected—include some of Baldwin’s earliest published writings, as well as revealing later insights into the language of Shakespeare, the poetry of Langston Hughes, and the music of Earl Hines.

    When you think about the kind of guy you are going to marry, a Romany living in an old caravan does not normally come to mind! Can't think why, can you?! So, there I was. 19 years old and fed up with 'normal' guys who only wanted one thing. Yep you guessed it! But then.... along comes this guy, tall, skinny, bad hair, ugly/handsome..... did I say bad hair? Oh yes! And that was just the beginning! But little did I know that he was a gypsy! Oh boy! Gypsies and gorgi's don't mix.....do they? I was about to find out! Honest, raw, colourful, and downright hilarious! Based on the true story of Nell Rose Loveridge and Jake her gypsy rover!

    The story of High-Ranking Mormon leader Hans Mattsson seeking sincere answers from his church but instead finding contempt, fear, doubt...and eventually peace

    The tech entrepreneur made a fortune from the antivirus software that bears his name, but he also spent years as a cocaine addict, spiritual guru and yoga expert. In 2009, after losing millions in the stock market crash, he decided to retire to the tiny Central American nation of Belize. That's when things really got weird. He started hanging out with killers, prostitutes, and pimps. He fell in love with a 17-year-old and surrounded his tropical compound with armed guards. In November 2012 his neighbor was found murdered. McAfee, who professed his innocence, fled the police and went into hiding.WIRED's Joshua Davis had months of exclusive access to McAfee before his disappearance and was virtually the only journalist McAfee had contact with when he went on the lam. In this fascinating profile, Davis takes readers into McAfee's heart of darkness, a harrowing and jaw-dropping tale of ambition, paranoia, sex, and madness.From:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A...

    As you might imagine, he gets a lot of letters in response to his often iconoclastic views. As you might not expect, he writes a lot of letters, too. Now Rooney has collected the funniest, wisest, and most interesting of his letters, spanning several decades and addressing issues both momentous and trivial. He responds to complaints from viewers; he corresponds with old friends; and he writes to his children about the things he cares about most. Variously caustic, hilarious, and sage, these unfailingly entertaining letters reveal not only Rooney the iconoclast but Rooney the American Everyman. Sincerely, Andy Rooney is Andy Rooney at his best-and a wonderful gift book that will make readers chuckle and think twice.

    He marvels at government regulations that require paint cans to bear a label reading "Do not drink paint." He reminisces about a White House that once welcomed casual picnickers on its lawn. He observes that "if we can put a man on the moon, we could put Congress in orbit." He skewers lawyers, bureaucrats, Washington insiders, hypocrites of all stripes. He commemorates absurdity--and hence suffers fools gladly. This collection is Brinkley at his unbeatable best.