In "All Balls and Glitter", Craig turns the spotlight on himself and is at his most candid yet. Craig tells his remarkable life story, beginning with his childhood in Australia, and spills the secrets of his celebrity encounters.

    Eight autobiographical essays by Brooks, on topics ranging from her childhood in Kansas and her early days as a Denishawn and Ziegfeld Follies dancer to her friendships with Martha Graham, Charles Chaplin, W. C. Fields, Humphrey Bogart, and others are collected here. Originally published: New York: Knopf, 1982.

    There's no traffic light and no mail delivery; people can vanish without a trace and funerals are a community affair. Heather Lende posts both the obituaries and the social column for her local newspaper. If anyone knows the going-on in this close-knit town—from births to weddings to funerals—she does. Whether contemplating the mysterious death of eccentric Speedy Joe, who wore nothing but a red union suit and a hat he never took off, not even for a haircut; researching the details of a one-legged lady gold miner's adventurous life; worrying about her son's first goat-hunting expedition; observing the awe-inspiring Chilkat Bald Eagle Festival; or ice skating in the shadow of glacier-studded mountains, Lende's warmhearted style brings us inside her small-town life. We meet her husband, Chip, who owns the local lumber yard; their five children; and a colorful assortment of quirky friends and neighbors, including aging hippies, salty fishermen, native Tlingit Indians, and volunteer undertakers—as well as the moose, eagles, sea lions, and bears with whom they share this wild and perilous land. Like Bailey White's tales of Southern life or Garrison Keillor's reports from the Midwest, NPR commentator Heather Lende's take on her offbeat Alaskan hometown celebrates life in a dangerous and breathtakingly beautiful place.

    It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea. A book-lover's paradise? Well, almost ... In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky. He takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books (both lost classics and new discoveries), introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the rhythms and charms of small-town life, always with a sharp and sympathetic eye.

    Now, in this uproarious collection, she sneaks her sharp wit through airport security and delivers her most absurd and hilarious stories ever.On safari in Africa, it's anyone's guess as to what's more dangerous: the wildlife or Chelsea. But whether she's fumbling the seduction of a guide by not knowing where tigers live (Asia, duh) or wearing a bathrobe into the bush because her clothes stopped fitting seven margaritas ago, she's always game for the next misadventure.The situation gets down and dirty as she defiles a kayak in the Bahamas, and outright sweaty as she escapes from a German hospital on crutches. When things get truly scary, like finding herself stuck next to a passenger with bad breath, she knows she can rely on her family to make matters even worse. Thank goodness she has the devoted Chunk by her side-except for the time she loses him in Telluride.Complete with answers to the most frequently asked traveler's questions, hot travel trips, and travel etiquette, none of which should be believed, UGANDA BE KIDDING ME has Chelsea taking on the world, one laugh-out-loud incident at a time.

    The winner of four James Beard Awards, co-owner and chef of a world-renowned restaurant, and recipient of countless Michelin stars, Ripert embodies elegance and culinary perfection. But before the accolades, before he even knew how to make a proper hollandaise sauce, Eric Ripert was a lonely young boy in the south of France whose life was falling apart.Ripert's parents divorced when he was six, separating him from the father he idolized and replacing him with a cold, bullying stepfather who insisted that Ripert be sent away to boarding school. A few years later, Ripert's father died on a hiking trip. Through these tough times, the one thing that gave Ripert comfort was food. Told that boys had no place in the kitchen, Ripert would instead watch from the doorway as his mother rolled couscous by hand or his grandmother pressed out the buttery dough for the treat he loved above all others, tarte aux pommes. When an eccentric local chef took him under his wing, an eleven-year-old Ripert realized that food was more than just an escape: It was his calling. That passion would carry him through the drudgery of culinary school and into the high-pressure world of Paris's most elite restaurants, where Ripert discovered that learning to cook was the easy part--surviving the line was the battle.Taking us from Eric Ripert's childhood in the south of France and the mountains of Andorra into the demanding kitchens of such legendary Parisian chefs as Joel Robuchon and Dominique Bouchet, until, at the age of twenty-four, Ripert made his way to the United States, 32 Yolks is the tender and richly told story of how one of our greatest living chefs found himself--and his home--in the kitchen.Praise for Eric Ripert's 32 Yolks"Passionate, poetical . . . What makes 32 Yolks compelling is the honesty and laudable humility Ripert brings to the telling."--Chicago Tribune"With a vulnerability and honesty that is breathtaking . . . Ripert takes us into the mind of a boy with thoughts so sweet they will cause you to weep. He also lets us into the mind of the man he is today, revealing all the golden cracks and chips that made him more valuable to those around him."--The Wall Street Journal"Eric Ripert makes magic with 32 Yolks."--Vanity Fair"32 Yolks may not be what you'd expect from a charming, Emmy-winning cooking show host and cookbook author. In the book, there are, of course, scenes of elaborate meals both eaten and prepared. . . . But Ripert's story is, for the most part, one of profound loss."--Los Angeles Times "This book demonstrates just how amazing Eric's life has been both inside and outside of the kitchen. It makes total sense now to see him become one of the greatest chefs in the world today. This is a portrait of a chef as a young man."--David Chang

    Burt Lancaster is known to audiences around the world as the electrifying performer of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, From Here to Eternity, and Birdman of Alcatraz, among many others. Kate Buford brings to life his vivid, memorable on-screen presence as well as the off-screen life he kept intensely private. The first writer to win cooperation from Lancaster's widow and close friends, Buford has written the intimate story of one of the last great unexamined Hollywood lives, capturing both the golden boy and the husband, philanderer, and sometime bisexual. Buford's portrait is compelling, comprehensive, intelligent—and definitive.

    Chandler also spoke with directors, actors, and others who knew and worked with Davis, and includes brief synopses of all of her theatrical films.Here are some more examples of Bette's wit to be found within these pages: "I'm the one who didn't get the man, which is the more interesting character on the screen, but in real life sometimes I wish I could just have been the girl who got the man, and kept him. I got four husbands and several lovers, but I didn't keep any of them. I was invited to the White House, but no man stayed to share my white cottage.""My favorite actor with whom I never played, professionally or personally, was Laurence Olivier. I admired everything about him. He was a great actor, and he was my dream man. Literally and figuratively. Larry was my fantasy lover, the perfect man, or at least I thought he would be. He was not only beautiful, but intelligent."

    By night he spent it as fast as he could, on drugs, sex, and international globe-trotting. From the binge that sank a 170-foot motor yacht and ran up a $700,000 hotel tab, to the wife and kids waiting at home, and the fast-talking, hard-partying young stockbrokers who called him king and did his bidding, here, in his own inimitable words, is the story of the ill-fated genius they called . . .THE WOLF OF WALL STREETIn the 1990s Jordan Belfort, former kingpin of the notorious investment firm Stratton Oakmont, became one of the most infamous names in American finance: a brilliant, conniving stock-chopper who led his merry mob on a wild ride out of the canyons of Wall Street and into a massive office on Long Island. Now, in this astounding and hilarious tell-all autobiography, Belfort narrates a story of greed, power, and excess that no one could invent.Reputedly the prototype for the film Boiler Room, Stratton Oakmont turned microcap investing into a wickedly lucrative game as Belfort’s hyped-up, coked-out brokers browbeat clients into stock buys that were guaranteed to earn obscene profits—for the house. But an insatiable appetite for debauchery, questionable tactics, and a fateful partnership with a breakout shoe designer named Steve Madden would land Belfort on both sides of the law and into a harrowing darkness all his own.From the stormy relationship Belfort shared with his model-wife as they ran a madcap household that included two young children, a full-time staff of twenty-two, a pair of bodyguards, and hidden cameras everywhere—even as the SEC and FBI zeroed in on them—to the unbridled hedonism of his office life, here is the extraordinary story of an ordinary guy who went from hustling Italian ices at sixteen to making hundreds of millions. Until it all came crashing down . . .

    She'd attended the same exclusive girls' school as Jackie Bouvier, now installed in the White House as the first lady. Which is also where Mimi found herself, as an 18-year-old intern. JFK's White House was a place for which she wasn't remotely prepared, dominated by the charismatic & sexually rapacious figure of the president. Within four days, they'd started a relationship. There are several extraordinary things about Mimi's story. One is that she'd evaded notice from any of the biographers of JFK & other chroniclers of the heady days & sexual shenanigans of Camelot. Only by chance did a reporter in 2006 follow up a mention of her name in a JFK book, & doorstep her--a married NY grandmother--to find out whether she was the Mimi Beardsely mentioned in a passing reference. This is all the more surprising given the length of the affair--18 months--& the fact that it was ended only by his death. Mimi Beardsley Alford has decided, after decades of silence & reflection, to tell her story. This is not just a memoir of a young woman of her generation & class coming of age in the 60s, & her relationship with JFK. She also examines the significance it had in her life & relationships since, why she chose to be silent for so long & why she feels this is the time to speak out.

    Then while living in Cambridge in her early 40s, “an age when the view from the hill can be clear and poignant both,” Caldwell adopts a rambunctious puppy named Clementine. On one of their bucolic walks, she meets Caroline and her dog, Lucille, and both women’s lives change forever.Though they are more different than alike, these two fiercely private, independent women quickly relax into a friendship more profound than either of them expected, a friendship that will thrive on their shared secrets, including parallel struggles with alcoholism and loneliness. They grow increasingly inseparable until, in 2003, Caroline is diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. Caldwell writes: “It’s an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.”     In her signature exquisite prose, Caldwell mines the deepest levels of devotion and grief in this wise and affecting account about losing her best friend. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is also a celebration of life and all the little moments worth cherishing—and affirms why Gail Caldwell is rightly praised as one of our bravest and most honest literary voices.

    I never understood that connection until I sat down to write. It was then that the magic started to flow.”Let Love Rule is a work of deep reflection. Lenny Kravitz looks back at his life with candor, self-scrutiny, and humor.“My life is all about opposites,” he writes. “Black and white. Jewish and Christian. The Jackson 5 and Led Zeppelin. I accepted my Gemini soul. I owned it. I adored it. Yins and yangs mingled in various parts of my heart and mind, giving me balance and fueling my curiosity and comfort.”Let Love Rule covers a vast canvas stretching from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, Los Angeles’s Baldwin Hills, Beverly Hills, and finally to France, England and Germany.It’s the story of a wildly creative kid who, despite tough struggles at school and extreme tension at home, finds salvation in music.We see him grow as a musician and ultimately a master songwriter, producer, and performer. We also see Lenny’s spiritual growth―and the powerful way in which spirit informs his music.The cast of characters surrounding Lenny is extraordinary: his father, Sy, a high-powered news executive; his mother, Roxie Roker, a television star; and Lisa Bonet, the young actress who becomes his muse.The central character, of course, is Lenny, who, despite his great aspirational energy, turns down record deal after record deal until he finds his true voice.The creation of that voice, the same voice that is able to declare “Let Love Rule” to an international audience, is the very heart of this story.“Whether recording, performing, or writing a book,” says Lenny, “my art is about listening to the inspiration inside and then sharing it with people. Art must bring the world closer together.”

    Army officer and his infantry unit as they fought from the invasion of Italy to the liberation of Dachau at war's end.From July 10, 1943, the date of the Allied landing in Sicily, to May 8, 1945, when victory in Europe was declared-roughly 500 days-no regiment saw more action, and no single platoon, company, or battalion endured worse, than the one commanded by Felix Sparks, a greenhorn second lieutenant when The Liberator begins. Historian Alex Kershaw vividly portrays the immense courage and stamina of Sparks and his men as they fought terrifying engagements against Hitler's finest troops in Sicily and Salerno and as they endured attack after attack on the beaches of Anzio (with Sparks miraculously emerging as his 200-man company's sole survivor). In the bloody battle for southern France, Sparks led his reconstituted unit into action against superbly equipped and trained die-hard SS troops and demonstrated how the difference between defeat and victory would be a matter of character, not tactics or hardware. Finally, he and his men were ordered to liberate Dachau, the Nazis' first concentration camp. It would be their greatest challenge, a soul-searing test of their humanity.

    It’s a delightful collection of mysteries. A mosaic. A memoir. A charming, surprising must-read.Mike Rowe’s The Way I Heard It collects thirty-five fascinating stories “for the curious mind with a short attention span.” Five-minute mysteries about people you know, filled with facts that you didn’t. Movie stars, presidents, Nazis, and bloody do-gooders—they’re all here, waiting to shake your hand, hoping you’ll remember them. Delivered with Mike’s signature blend of charm, wit, and ingenuity, their stories are part of a larger mosaic—a memoir crammed with recollections, insights, and intimate, behind-the-scenes moments drawn from Mike’s own remarkable life and career.

    Having blasted onto the small screens with his now legendary sitcom Spaced, his rise to nation's favourite son status has been mercurial, meteoric, megatronnic, but mostly just plain great.From his childhood (and subsequently adult) obsession with Star Wars, his often passionate friendship with Nick Frost, and his forays into stand-up which began with his regular Monday morning slot in front of his 12-year-old classmates, this is a joyous tale of a homegrown superstar and a local boy made good.