In 2003, at the prestigious Brookfield Conservatory in Boston, a chance encounter sparks an inimitable friendship between driven pianist and singer Anna Buckley and composer wunderkind Will Pendleton. As they strive toward careers as professional musicians, their bond deepens both from shared skill and the inexplicable sense that they’re kindred souls. But soon after graduation, one night forever alters the trajectory of their lives, destroying their relationship in the process.
Twenty years later in New York, sixteen-year-old piano virtuoso Lottie Thomas is grappling with the rigors of her elite prep school and the confounding disappearance of the woman who gave her up at birth. When Lottie suddenly discovers the startling truth of her identity, the revelation catalyzes a chain of events that not only reunites Lottie with her birth parents, but forces them together on a rock tour-bus for a careening cross-country journey. It is there, trapped in these tight confines, that the three must finally reconcile with irrevocable choices from the past.
During the first hundred years of Chinese immigration—from 1848 to 1943—San Francisco was home to a shockingly extensive underground slave trade in Asian women, who were exploited as prostitutes and indentured servants. In this gripping, necessary book, bestselling author Julia Flynn Siler shines a light on this little-known chapter in our history—and gives us a vivid portrait of the safe house to which enslaved women escaped. The Occidental Mission Home, situated on the edge of Chinatown, served as a gateway to freedom for thousands. Run by a courageous group of female Christian abolitionists, it survived earthquakes, fire, bubonic plague, and violent attacks.
We meet Dolly Cameron, who ran the home from 1899 to 1934, and Tien Fuh Wu, who arrived at the house as a young child after her abuse as a household slave drew the attention of authorities. Wu would grow up to become Cameron’s translator, deputy director, and steadfast friend. Siler shows how Dolly and her colleagues defied convention and even law—physically rescuing young girls from brothels, snatching them from their smugglers—and how they helped bring the exploiters to justice. Riveting and revelatory, The White Devil’s Daughters is a timely, extraordinary account of oppression, resistance, and hope.
The inspiring true story of writer Margie Goldsmith and her solutions for anyone who has ever felt “less than.”
Margie Goldsmith is a role model for generations of women to live fearlessly. Having survived a dysfunctional childhood, Goldsmith fled to Paris after college, living a glamorous life and marrying a blacklisted film director. Returning to the US, she divorced and established a successful film/video production company and married a NYC lawyer to celebrities. Tiring of her corporate wife role, she divorced, rediscovered her twin passions of travel and fitness, and became a sought-after writer.
Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the peak of her career, followed by lung cancer and more complications, she continued to write, travel, and challenge herself to do scary things, including learning blues harmonica and playing on stage. Her book is a riveting read for anyone who has ever felt “less than” and wished for a different existence. You can change your life.
This literary memoir takes the reader from the poignant coming-of-age of a girl grappling with her mother’s enigmatic death to the introspective life of a woman navigating middle age with her mother’s lessons. It explores how societal perceptions of suicide have evolved from secrecy and shame to compassionate understanding since the mid-20th century, and the profound effects on those left behind.
A remarkable story of the scientists behind a long-forgotten and life-saving cure: the healing viruses that can conquer antibiotic resistant bacterial infections.
Filled with adventure, human ambition, tragedy, technology, irrepressible scientists and the excitement of their innovation, The Living Medicine offers a vision of how our future may be saved by knowledge from the past and why we should know about it for our own health choices.
When Marina’s father summons her to their Croatian island from New York—and away from her evaporating marriage—to help him save his failing cheese factory, she must face her rocky past and an uncertain future.
Asking questions central to identity and the meaning of home, this richly drawn story reckons with how we survive inherited and personal traumas, and what it means to heal and reinvent oneself in the face of life’s challenges.
This upbeat story stars Bella, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, who has happily leaned for hundreds of years... until she overhears some unkind words on the piazza and changes in a way that has friends and visitors worried their treasured landmark will never be the same again!
The uplifting rhyming tale is splashed with joyful art, sparks of wanderlust, fun-to-say Italian words and phrases, and lessons on the importance of being kind to others, and yourself. Available at online retailers like Amazon and Bookshop.org, and can be requested at your favorite local bookstore.
Slow travel is the secret to opening doors, meeting people, participating in surprising events, experiencing joy, and making each trip—no matter how short or long—deeper, richer, and an adventure that is uniquely yours.
Award-winning travel journalists and Santa Fe residents Judith Fein and Paul J. Ross crisscross New Mexico, finding unforgettable adventures readers can personally experience such as painting with an abstract artist on the Navajo Reservation, visiting a wolf refuge, cruising in a lowrider, hiking in a volcano, gourmet dining at Zuni Pueblo, seeing a ghost, tracking the true Billy the Kid... and so much more.
“A child’s suicide pitches you into a hellish place of fragmentary images, the deepest depression imaginable, efforts to destroy yourself, and an almost complete break with what’s happening in the world around you. That was my experience. I wish it upon no one.”
The essays of The Loneliest Places began as a chronicle of Rachel Dickinson’s life after her son’s suicide. The pieces became much more. Dickinson writes the unimaginable and terrifying facts of heartbreaking loss. She tells stories from her months on the run, fleeing her grief and herself, as she escapes to Iceland and the Falkland Islands—as far as possible from the memories of her dead son, Jack. She frankly relates the paralyzing emotion that sometimes left her trapped in her home, confined to a single chair, helplessly isolated.
The tales from these years are bleak and Dickinson’s journey home, back to her changed self and fractured family, is lonely. Conjuring Emily Dickinson, however, she describes how hope was sighted, allowed to perch, and then, remarkably, made actual.
Conde Nast Traveler featured BRAVE-ish as one of “10 New Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Fall.” Forbes said Best New NonFiction. Read her essay in Travel & Leisure called: “How Travel Healed Me After Divorce — and Made Me Fearless in My 50s.” Bloomberg Pursuits interviewed her for Distinguished Travel Hacker in a story called, “To Stay in Shape on the Road, One Travel Expert Packs a Hula Hoop.” Writer and podcast host Lisa Niver has visited more than 100 countries. See all these press links and more at lisaniver.com/press.
Masters of the Harmonica: 30 Masters of the Harmonica Share Their Craft includes revealing interviews with such consummate performers as Kim Wilson, Charlie McCoy, and Delbert McClinton.
“Masters of the Harmonica is a must-have for harmonica players of every level.” —Gerhard Mueller, Product Manager, Hohner Harmonicas
“A five-star book for anyone looking to get a look into how the harmonica has had such an impact in the music world.” —Ronnie Shellist, Professional Harmonica Player
“A very important book for anyone who wants the inside story from some great players. This is a happy thing for the harp world.” —Jon Gindick, Professional Harmonica Player
Interviews with biographies of wildly creative people.
“Shapiro’s finely tuned, informed and intimate interviews strike to the heart of the matter.” —Tim Cahill, author of Hold the Enlightenment
“Michael Shapiro is a genius at doing interviews, not just writing them but getting all of the famous people to talk to him.” —Elaine Petrocelli, owner, Book Passage
“Questions are knowledgeable, probing, thoughtful. … The artists’ discussions are organic and sometimes amusing, and their inclusion is guided by Shapiro’s admiration of his subjects.” —Foreword Reviews
National Bestseller — The dramatic, untold true story of the extraordinary women recruited by Britain’s elite spy agency to help pave the way for Allied victory in World War II.
“Gripping. Spies, romance, Gestapo thugs, blown-up trains, courage, and treachery (lots of treachery)—and all of it true.” —Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake
Bornstein wrote May This Be the Best Year of Your Life to serve as a resource and guide to help others overcome the challenges of living outside their comfort zone. When her husband accepted a job that required extensive international travel, the author was living her version of the American dream in Colorado, never imagining she would be faced with several dilemmas that left her feeling uncertain.
This compelling, honest, and edifying memoir shares what she learned about perseverance, travel, education, faith, and family. Had Sandra never resided in India, she would have missed out on an experience that ultimately enhanced her resiliency, confidence, and passion for life. Bornstein’s memoir was a finalist in the Travel/Travel Guide category of the 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the 2013 International Book Awards, and the 2013 National Indie Book Excellence Awards, received an Honorable Mention in the Multicultural Non-Fiction category of the 2013 Global ebook Awards, and earned a 4-star rating from Indie Reader Discovery Awards.
Ireland today is a food-lover’s choice. Ten of the finest chefs in Ireland—Darina Allen, Martin Bealin, Derry Clarke, Ultan Cooke, Kevin Dundon, Catherine Fulvio, Neven Maguire, Noel McMeel, Ian Orr, and Tim O’Sullivan—represent the new Irish food culture, dispelling the myth that Irish cooking is limited to corned beef and cabbage. These chefs favor fresh, local, seasonal ingredients to create mouthwatering and sophisticated meals that satisfy with a refreshingly light treatment of fine ingredients.
Every one of the outstanding chefs selected from all four provinces of Ireland offers an imaginative style of food preparation, demonstrating a respect for the old while adding their own contemporary creativity to the process. Each of these chefs connects with the environment; they are masters at using local ingredients from the miles of farmland and surrounding sea, lakes, and rivers carving through the land. More than 80 recipes, from simple lunches to imaginative 3-course dinners, are accompanied by 175 full-color photographs of food and landscape, including sidebars on artisanal food producers.
When people talk about great food cities, San Francisco rises to the top of the list thanks to its 49 square miles of mouthwatering ways to whet your appetite. Unique Eats & Eateries of San Francisco invites the city’s nearly 25 million annual visitors—and its food-obsessed residents—to discover the stories and histories that simmer behind some of San Francisco’s iconic dishes, historic restaurants, and artisanal shops.
Want to know why a 12-time World Pizza Champion only makes 73 of his prize-winning pies per day? Eat your homework at the city’s only cheese school? Attend a dinner party with 40 strangers? Learn the origin of Hangtown Fry? Dumpling dine in the country’s oldest dim sum restaurant? Or find out how fortune cookies came to San Francisco? Pull up a chair and crack open this tasty guide, seasoned with all you need for an off-the-eaten-path exploration of one of the world’s most food-savvy cities.
The story of how a Brooklyn-born poetry Ph.D. moved west and found her mojo, Edie Jarolim’s wickedly funny memoir spares no one she encounters, least of all herself. Jarolim tells tales from both sides of the travel editor’s desk: as an in-house guidebook editor in New York (Simon & Schuster/Frommer’s and Random House/Fodor’s) and London (Rough Guides), and as the freelance author of three guidebooks and hundreds of travel articles, many for national publications.
But the author isn’t a typical travel journalist. She has no sense of direction, is afraid of heights, and is a klutz. She also had a phobia of driving, which she overcame.
Wolfdale’s Cuisine Unique is a memoir of Chef Douglas Dale’s accomplishments and teachings as an apprentice rising to an acclaimed chef-owner at one of Northern California’s finest restaurants, Wolfdale’s Cuisine Unique. One of the first chefs in America to gain national attention for creatively combining East-West flavors with locally sourced ingredients and fresh California Coast seafood, Dale shares tales and flavors spanning his career.
For thirty years, Diane Covington-Carter dreamed of living in France and immersing herself in the country and language that spoke to her heart and soul. At age fifty, she set off to fulfill that yearning. Journey along with her as she discovers missing pieces of her own personal puzzle that could only emerge in French, in France.
In 1990 some critics believe that America’s most celebrated chef, Joseph Soderini di Avenzano, sold his soul to the Devil to achieve culinary greatness. Whether he is actually Bocuse or Beelzebub, Avenzano is approaching the 25th anniversary of his glittering Palm Beach restaurant, Chateau de la Mer, patterned after the Michelin-starred palaces of Europe.
In Sport Fishing in British Columbia, author Mary L. Peachin calls upon her expertise and forty years of angling experience to provide a practical guide for salt and fly fishing anglers exploring BC. The well-organized guide highlights the province’s finest resources, and triggers serious motivation for new and seasoned anglers to start looking for the perfect match.
Garlic weaves a colorful, engaging story about one of the world’s timeless ingredients—perfect for food lovers, devoted eaters, and readers of culinary narrative. While this book does not claim that garlic saved civilization (though it might cure whatever ails you), it does take us on a grand tour of its fascinating role in history, medicine, literature, and art; its controversial role in bigotry, mythology, and superstition; and its indispensable contribution to the great cuisines of the world. And just to make sure your appetite isn’t slighted, Garlic offers over 100 recipes featuring the beloved ingredient.
The Meyer Farms of New Springville, Staten Island, New York, 1903–late 1950s shows the transformation of land from agrarian to suburban in the least populated New York City borough, and is a microcosm of what was happening across the country. After twenty years of farming various lots in Jersey City, New Jersey, the prescient Henry H. Meyer bought over two hundred acres of farmland in the middle of Staten Island, and, with his sons, ran one of the three largest agricultural enterprises on the Island.
Sea and Smoke is a travelogue chronicling the plucky ambition of a young chef determined to create a world class dining destination in an unlikely place. A native of the Pacific Northwest, two-time James Beard winning chef Blaine Wetzel saw Lummi Island, with fewer than 1,000 residents, as the perfect vehicle for his brand of hyperlocalism: a culinary celebration of what is good and nearby and flavorful.
Island light is magical. And none more so than Ireland’s. A long-term fascination with Ireland’s “island light”—light that lures our senses with a restless presence—became the inspiration, the heart, for this book, leading book producer Leslie Conron Carola on a search for photographs that captured the natural play of the motion-filled light and shadow so evident across the landscape of this jewel of an island—this Emerald Isle.
In 2011, Philadelphia natives Larissa and Michael Milne quit their jobs, sold their house and gave away their possessions to travel around the world for a year with a Rocky statue. After learning to live more simply, they are still on the road as full-time global nomads. During their travels they stopped back in Philadelphia to write Philadelphia Liberty Trail: Trace the Path of America’s Heritage.
Join the author as she tracks lions without a gun in Botswana, studies French kissing in Paris, attempts to eat a horse in southern Italy, marries a Maasai warrior in Kenya, and samples the world’s most expensive coffee—brewed from the excrement of a small Balinese mammal. This collection of 23 true stories delivers a unique sense of locale along with insight, humor, and surprise.
Diane Covington-Carter’s memoir, Reunion, La Réunion, Finding Gilbert, chronicles how her father’s stories of his time in France during World War II influenced and shaped her life. One of the stories concerned Gilbert, a French orphan her father took under his wing and tried unsuccessfully to adopt and bring home to America.
The award-winning travel journalist’s life turned into a crazy, funny, sad detective story as she set out to solve the mystery of where she came from, who came before her, and whom she loved.
The Dog Lover’s Guide to Travel begins with basic advice for pet parents looking to take a vacation with Fido: how to determine if your dog is ready for a trip; how to select the right carrier and appropriate travel gear; what to know before booking a flight with your pup. Carter also shares her knowledge of what travelers and their pets can expect at hotels, airports, the beach, on the trail and more.
Conaway pens a lighthearted novel centering on oenophiles cavorting in a lush, grape-growing California valley. The catalyst for James Conaway’s wine-country appreciation is an unlabeled bottle of Cabernet. Like blending Merlot-Malbec grapes for the perfect Bordeaux, Conaway uses this cast, and an assortment of quirky supporting players, to weave multiple narratives into a cozy, no-murder and not-quite mystery, all set in motion after CJ accidentally dies when he becomes stuck in a giant metal tank of wine.
In The World Was Our Stage, producer/director Doug Wilson recounts his incredible fifty-year journey with ABC Sports and its beloved sports anthology program ABC’s Wide World of Sports. His natural storytelling style and entertaining anecdotes capture not only “the human drama of athletic competition”—the hallmark of ABC’s coverage—but also the unforgettable golden era of sports television.
A celebration of independent travel, Matt Gross’s The Turk Who Loved Apples collects never-before-published essays spanning his many journeys. Throughout, Gross invites readers into the wild adventures and somber realities of a life in motion, taking us from Third World countries to rich European ports.
With a motto of “We have more fun than anyone,” Sisters on the Fly member Irene Rawlings introduces readers to the culinary comfort of cooking with cast iron. Harkening back to the days of car travel before the interstate highway system made it easy to get to today’s popular camping spots, Irene offers heirloom and contemporary recipes presented alongside engaging stories.
Bismarck, North Dakota’s town baseball team developed into a regional powerhouse during the Depression by luring players from the Negro Leagues, most notably legendary pitcher Satchel Paige. This was more than a decade before the integration of the Major Leagues. Color Blind is a mix of sports, gambling, moonshine, pioneer history and racial discrimination... with cameo appearances by Sitting Bull, Franklin Roosevelt and others.
When journalist Meg Lukens Noonan learned of an unthinkably expensive, entirely handcrafted overcoat that a fourth-generation tailor had made for one of his longtime clients, she set off on an adventure to understand its provenance, and from that impulse unspooled rich and colorful stories about its components, the centuries-old bespoke industry and its traditions, and the master craftsmen whose trade is an art form.
In the rugged High Sierra at the north end of Lake Tahoe, California, two adjacent valleys lie protected by high peaks to the west and separated by a massive ridge. The story of how these two remote valleys became two (now one) of the best-known ski areas in North America begins with their discoveries by two visionaries: Wayne Poulsen, a young ski competitor from Reno, who first saw the potential in Squaw Valley while fishing there as a boy in 1931, and John Reily, a Los Angeles businessman, who came to Squaw Valley in 1955, and looked down from the top of the KT22 ski lift into a pristine valley to the south.
Covington-Carter didn’t “fall in love” in the traditional way. But through a commitment to telling the truth and staying present with each other, they discovered a path to freedom and connection using their relationship as the vehicle. They also found more joy, love, and ecstasy than they thought was possible and hope that by reading their story, you can too.
How I Became a Human Being is Mark O’Brien’s account of his struggles to lead an independent life despite a lifelong disability. In 1955 he contracted polio and became permanently paralyzed from the neck down. O’Brien describes growing up without the use of his limbs, his adolescence struggling with physical rehabilitation and suffering the bureaucracy of hospitals and institutions, and his adult life as an independent student and writer. Despite his physical limitations, O’Brien crafts a narrative that is as rich and vivid as the life he led.
When Ken Budd’s father suddenly collapsed in 2007, he was one year into his retirement, seemingly healthy, and just finishing eighteen holes of golf. Then in a matter of seconds he was gone. Seeing the legions of family, friends and coworkers paying tribute at his father’s funeral, Ken began to reflect on the achievements of his dad, a man who rose from poverty, who never attended college yet climbed to upper management in a variety of high-tech companies, and who supported the financial demands of a household and still made time for his family. Ken began thinking about his own life...
An Elegant Wilderness provides a unique, evocative view of the private retreats of the Gilded Age industrial rich who traveled to the North Woods to experience the wilderness. Transported in private Pullman cars, wealthy urbanites arrived with French chefs, retinues of servants, tennis and singing coaches, chauffeurs, secretaries, and famous houseguests. Light-years away from other upscale resorts, the Adirondacks was a place where social proprieties relaxed...
Dana Micucci’s memoir, Sojourns of the Soul: One Woman’s Journey around the World and into Her Truth, chronicles seven trips that span 14 years of Micucci’s life as she explores the connection of inner growth to world travel that eventually leads to her own self-actualization.
What has gone wrong for America and what can we do about it? Americans have begun to wonder whether our best days are ahead of us or are now past. Yet at a time of clear urgency and grave need, the nation’s politicians seem increasingly unable to get beyond ideological battles and provide genuine leadership. Is this any way to run a great country?
“For generations, fathers and sons have trudged emerald fairways together in a lacerating enterprise called golf. Steve Friedman does a marvelous job writing about one such improbable outing, in which nine holes of spirited hacking bridged an aching gap between him and his dad. Driving Lessons is a good read about a good walk, unspoiled.” —Carl Hiaasen, author of The Downhill Lie: A Hacker’s Return to a Ruinous Sport
Just as life at its best is a journey toward meaning and truth, Still Life with Sierra recounts one family’s quest to find where they belong, how they fit in after the tragic death of the author’s young daughter rocked their perception of what life should be. Seeking a fresh start, the author, her husband, and their young sons relocated to the Netherlands. “We moved our lives, our belongings, our coffee mugs across the Atlantic, hoping to find a place that felt like home,” the author said. Instead, they found something unexpected: that the home they were seeking didn’t exist.
“Life is a Trip is about transformative travel. In it, I take the reader with me on 14 exotic adventures. Each time, I learn a new and different approach to some life issue like family conflict, success, healing, overcoming trauma, death, forgiveness, faith in the face of adversity. The book is highly informative, I’ll stick my head in the microwave if it’s not entertaining, and it appeals both to those who love to travel and those who love to read about it in the comfort of their homes.”
The Sisters on the Fly have more fun than anyone. They buy and restore vintage trailers and take them fly fishing to some of the most beautiful places in the country. The book is organized around fishing, food, friendship, love and loss. And, of course, around beautiful vintage trailers that have been lovingly restored from “trashed to treasured.”
From Books Quarterly: “Enter Robert Fortune, botanist and plant-hunter extraordinaire—as diligent, daring and enterprising a Victorian hero as one could wish for. Sarah Rose tells a stirring tale of individual derring-do and the fate of nations.”
From Publisher’s Weekly: “Levine’s first book is a formidable resource for negotiating the ending of women’s friendships. The author, a journalist, psychologist and professor at NYU Medical School, affirms that the grief of ending a close friendship can be as potent as that of a dying romantic relationship. But the former rarely garners the same social support as a divorce or romantic breakup....”
Kimberley Lovato’s first book, Walnut Wine and Truffle Groves, is a culinary travel book that invites readers to pull up a chair and visit the Dordogne the way it should be visited... one bite at a time.
Seafood alla Siciliana was named Food & Wine magazine’s “Best of the Best” 2009 Cookbooks Recipe Collection and led the list of best new Italian cookbooks in Cucina Italiana magazine.
Carolyn Bánfalvi’s culinary guide to Budapest, Food Wine Budapest, was the first in the Little Bookroom’s Terroir Guide series, and it was nominated for a 2009 IACP book award. Bánfalvi is also the author of The Food and Wine Lover’s Guide to Hungary: with Budapest Restaurants and Trips to the Wine Country (Park Kiadó). She also leads food, wine, and market tours in Budapest and Hungary.
Experience California as seen through the eyes of forty-one writers spanning two centuries—from early adventurers to contemporary poets—in this long-awaited anthology. Edited by Sunset Magazine’s Peter Fish, California’s Best: Two Centuries of Great Writing from the Golden State features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
“There are only two kinds of people in the world. The Irish—and those who wish they were!” Readers are highly likely to agree with this old adage as author and acclaimed travel writer David Yeadon takes them on a fascinating journey in the Emerald Isle. Yeadon shares a delightful account of his travels through one of the country’s lesser-known areas.
Lanee Lee and Lindsay Taub launched Voyage Vixens™ out of a love for travel and in hopes of empowering women to pursue their own passion—be it motherhood or motorcar racing. The blog garnered two bronze awards: a Lowell Thomas award for Best Travel Blog 2014 and a NATJA Best Independent Travel Blog 2014.
A humor travel blog about strange towns, great meals, long nights and hilarious near catastrophes.
A blog reflecting the outdoors passions of award-winning writer and photographer Amanda Castleman. Despite Amanda’s yoga-and-yogurt tendencies, she’s a former wilderness guide and scuba aficionado. Her published articles deal with travel, adventure, pop culture and the environment. Amanda’s Honduras scuba article won a Lowell Thomas award (travel writing’s ersatz Pulitzer).
A blog as lively as its creator, Echo Garrett, TV and radio personality and contributor to over 100 media outlets. Her award-winning books and articles have earned her a spot on shows from Good Morning America to CNBC.
San Diego-based food, drink, travel and design writer Jackie Bryant covers the restaurant and bar scene in San Diego, wine in Mexico, mezcal bars in Guatemala, black market cheese in Spain, cannabis in California, and many other delicious, concerning, fun and offbeat subjects.
Judith Fein and Paul Ross live to leave. They’ve garnered multiple awards for their travel articles and have contributed stories and photos to more than 105 magazines, newspapers, blogs and websites.
Wesaidgotravel.com is a top 100 travel blog that is read by more than 300,000 people per year and has published over 2,000 writers from 75 countries, ranging from well traveled amateurs to experienced travel experts.