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Coasting: A Private Voyage (Vintage Departures)
by Jonathan RabanFrom the national bestselling, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Bad Land comes &“a lively, intensely personal recounting of a voyage into a gifted writer's country and self&” (The New York Times Book Review).Put Jonathan Raban on a boat and the results will be fascinating, and never more so than when he&’s sailing around the serpentine, 2,000-mile coast of his native England. In this acutely perceived and beautifully written book, the bestselling author of Bad Land turns that voyage–which coincided with the Falklands war of 1982-into an occasion for meditations on his country, his childhood, and the elusive notion of home.Whether he&’s chatting with bored tax exiles on the Isle of Man, wrestling down a mainsail during a titanic gale, or crashing a Scottish house party where the kilted guests turn out to be Americans, Raban is alert to the slightest nuance of meaning. One can read Coasting for his precise naturalistic descriptions or his mordant comments on the new England, where the principal industry seems to be the marketing of Englishness. But one always reads it with pleasure.
Coasting: A Year By the Bay
by Susan KurosawaTired of soy milk lattes and eternal traffic snarls, journalist Susan Kurosawa and husband Graeme Blundell bought a 1920s fishing shack at Hardys Bay on the NSW Central Coast and set about transforming it into `Peacock Cottage? (named for resident bird Alfredo). This introduced them to the local coastal fraternity of builders, plumbers, painters and other amiable ferals?from Mother Mary the real estate matriarch to Adam the Gardener, who only works when the planets are properly aligned and there?s no surf. In the course of a year, Susan and Graeme go native: he buys a ute, she becomes foster mother to the local bird population and threatens to take up watercolours and pottery. Featuring black and white illustrations, snippets of local history, special recipes for local seafood and produce, as well as information on local plants and animals, COASTING is sure to appeal to everyone who dreams of acting out their own `Sea Change?.
Coasting: Running Around the Coast of Britain – Life, Love and (Very) Loose Plans
by Elise DowningElise had a new job, flat and relationship – and they were all making her utterly miserable. Then the obvious solution hit her: run 5,000 miles around the coast of Britain. Over the next 301 days, she saw Britain at its most wild and wonderful, and discovered that running away doesn’t solve your problems – but it's more fun than dealing with them.
Cobain on Cobain: Interviews and Encounters
by Nick SoulsbyThe most extensive and complete portrait of Kurt Cobain's life as it unfolded Cobain on Cobain places the reader at the key moments of Kurt Cobain's rollercoaster life, telling the tale of Nirvana entirely through his words and those of his bandmates as they unleashed the whirlwind that would consume them for the last half of their five-year career. This is the most comprehensive compendium of interviews with the band ever released and each interview is another knot in a thread running from just after the recording of their first album Bleach to the band's collapse in 1994 followed shortly by Cobain's suicide. Interviews have been selected to provide definitive coverage of the events of those five years from as close to the key moments as possible, so that the reader can experience Cobain reacting to the circumstances of each tour, each new release, each public incident, all the way to the end. Including a huge number of interviews that have never before seen print, Cobain on Cobain will long remain the definitive source for anyone searching for Kurt Cobain's version of his own story.
Cobb: A Biography
by Al StumpA New York Times Notable Book; Spitball Award for Best Baseball Book of 1994; Basis for a major Hollywood motion picture. Now in paperback, the biography that baseball fans all across the country have been talking about. Al Stump redefined America's perception of one of its most famous sports heroes with this gripping look at a man who walked the line between greatness and psychosis. Based on Stump's interviews with Ty Cobb while ghostwriting the Hall-of-Famer's 1961 autobiography, this award-winning new account of Cobb's life and times reveals both the darkness and the brilliance of the "Georgia Peach." "The most powerful baseball biography I have read."--Roger Kahn, author of THE BOYS OF SUMMER
Cobblestones, Conversations, and Corks: A Son's Discovery of His Italian Heritage
by Giovanni Ruscitti“Giovanni Ruscitti has written a wonderful book of special relevance for all North and South Americans whose ancestors have migrated from Asia, Europe, and Africa. His journey to the land of his forefathers is so meaningful not only because of the discovery of what connects us ‘Americanos’ to the rest of the world but also the journey within. A trip in which we all feel recognized. Bravo maestro!” —Hernando de Soto, finalist for Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, and author of Mystery of Capital Amazon #1 Bestseller Cobblestones, Conversations, and Corks is a passionate and deeply moving story about a father-son relationship; a culture rooted in family, food and wine; and an ancestral small town in Central Italy that was left behind after World War II. On November 11, 1943, the Nazis invaded Cansano, forcing its two thousand inhabitants to make a tough decision—fight and be killed or sent to a POW camp, stay behind as servants to the Nazis, or move into the unforgiving mountains of Abruzzo while the Nazis used their village as a home base. Giovanni Ruscitti’s family chose the latter and spent the next few months living in horrendous winter conditions in the rugged mountains. When the war ended, they returned to a village so ravaged by the Nazis that, today, the town has less than two hundred citizens and remains in a dilapidated state. In this memoir, Ruscitti visits Cansano for the first time with his family, including parents Emiliano and Maria. As he walks Cansano’s cobblestones, his father’s stories and life are illuminated by the town piazza, the steep valley, and the surrounding mountains. He relives the tales of his parents’ struggles during World War II, their extreme post-war misery and poverty, their budding romance after, and their decision to immigrate to the US in search of the American Dream. Ruscitti’s adventure is not just an exploration of his homeland but reveals what family, culture, wisdom, and love really means. And what our heritage really tells us about who we are.
Cobra: A Life of Baseball and Brotherhood
by Dave Parker Dave Jordan&“For that period of time, he was the greatest player of my generation.&”—Keith Hernandez Dave Parker was one of the biggest and most badass baseball players of the late twentieth century. He stood at six foot five and weighed 235 pounds. He was a seven-time All-Star, a two-time batting champion, a frequent Gold Glove winner, the 1978 National League MVP, and a World Series champion with both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Oakland A&’s. Here the great Dave Parker delivers his wild and long-awaited autobiography—an authoritative account of Black baseball during its heyday as seen through the eyes of none other than the Cobra. From his earliest professional days learning the game from such baseball legends as Pie Traynor and Roberto Clemente to his later years mentoring younger talents like Eric Davis and Barry Larkin, Cobra is the story of a Black athlete making his way through the game during a time of major social and cultural transformation. From the racially integrated playing fields of his high school days to the cookie-cutter cathedrals of his prime alongside all the midseason and late-night theatrics that accompany an athlete&’s life on the road–Parker offers readers a glimpse of all that and everything in between. Everything. Parker recounts the triumphant victories and the heart-breaking defeats, both on and off the field. He shares the lessons and experiences of reaching the absolute pinnacle of professional athletics, the celebrations with his sports siblings who also got a taste of the thrills, as well as his beloved baseball brothers whom the game left behind. Parker recalls the complicated politics of spring training, recounts the early stages of the free agency era, revisits the notorious 1985 drug trials, and pays tribute to the enduring power of relationships between players at the deepest and highest levels of the sport. With comments at the start of each chapter by other baseball legends such as Pete Rose, Dave Winfield, Willie Randolph, and many more, Parker tells an epic tale of friendship, success, indulgence, and redemption, but most of all, family. Cobra is the unforgettable story of a million-dollar athlete just before baseball became a billion-dollar game.
Cobwebs and Cream Teas
by Mary MackieA warm and funny account of what it is like to live in and run a National Trust house: Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk.When Mary Mackie's husband became Houseman at Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk she suddenly found herself running one of the most elegant 17th-century houses in East Anglia. During their first year living in the National Trust house she was endlessly running up and down corridors, making visitors welcome, keeping unwelcome visitors at bay, arranging concerts, dinners and vast cleaning programmes. But leavening all the hard work were the exciting discoveries - hidden staircases, treasures in the attic and an ice house in the woods. COBWEBS AND CREAM TEAS reveals the tribulations and excitement that occur in any house open to the public, and it assures us that living in a National Trust house provides only the certainty that life will never be dull, or idle, again.
Cobwebs and Cream Teas
by Mary MackieA warm and funny account of what it is like to live in and run a National Trust house: Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk.When Mary Mackie's husband became Houseman at Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk she suddenly found herself running one of the most elegant 17th-century houses in East Anglia. During their first year living in the National Trust house she was endlessly running up and down corridors, making visitors welcome, keeping unwelcome visitors at bay, arranging concerts, dinners and vast cleaning programmes. But leavening all the hard work were the exciting discoveries - hidden staircases, treasures in the attic and an ice house in the woods. COBWEBS AND CREAM TEAS reveals the tribulations and excitement that occur in any house open to the public, and it assures us that living in a National Trust house provides only the certainty that life will never be dull, or idle, again.
Cocaine Confidential
by Wensley ClarksonFrom those who grow the coca to the end dealers-the inside stories of the people involved in the world of cocaine smuggling Cocaine is the world's most notorious narcotic. It underpins a vast, multi-billion dollar underworld with a dark and deadly side. But who really are the shadowy people behind this chilling network? The cocoa farmers, the jungle sweatshop workers, the smugglers, the suppliers, and, ultimately, the dealers who provide for the world's hundreds of millions of users. This book goes inside the lives of all these characters to reveal their stories for the first time. Along the way you'll go inside a cocaine jail, meet hitmen, terror suspects, crooked politicians, bankers, coke barons, mules, hardened traffickers, and corrupt cops as the truth is unraveled in a roller coaster ride through the secret world of cocaine.
Cocaine and Rhinestones: A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette
by Tyler Mahan CoeFrom the creator of the acclaimed country music history podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones, comes the epic American saga of country music&’s legendary royal couple—George Jones and Tammy Wynette.By the early 1960s nearly everybody paying attention to country music agreed that George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After taking honky-tonk rockers like &“White Lightning&” all the way up the country charts, he revealed himself to be an unmatched virtuoso on &“She Thinks I Still Care,&” thus cementing his status as a living legend. That&’s where the trouble started. Only at this new level of fame did Jones realize he suffered from extreme stage fright. His method of dealing with that involved great quantities of alcohol, which his audience soon discovered as Jones more often than not showed up to concerts falling-down drunk or failed to show up at all. But the fans always forgave him because he just kept singing so damn good. Then he got married to Tammy Wynette right around the time she became one of the most famous women alive with the release of &“Stand by Your Man.&” Tammy Wynette grew up believing George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After deciding to become a country singer herself, she went to Nashville, got a record deal, then met and married her hero. With the pop crossover success of &“Stand by Your Man&” (and the international political drama surrounding the song&’s lyrics) came a gigantic audience, who were sold a fairy tale image of a couple soon being called The King and Queen of Country Music. Many fans still believe that fairy tale today. The behind-the-scenes truth is very different from the images shown on album covers. Illustrated throughout by singular artist Wayne White, Cocaine & Rhinestones is an unprecedented look at the lives of two indelible country icons, reframing their careers within country music as well as modern history itself.
Cocaine's Son: A Memoir
by Dave ItzkoffWith sharp wit, self-deprecating humor, and penetrating honesty, New York Times journalist Dave Itzkoff turns a keen eye on his life with the mysterious, maddening, much-loved man of whom he writes. For the first eight years of my life I seem to have believed he was the product of my imagination. Itzkoff's father was the man who lumbered home at night and spent hours murmuring to his small son about his dreams and hopes for the boy's future, and the fears and failures of his own past. He was the hard-nosed New York fur merchant with an unexpectedly emotional soul; a purveyor of well-worn anecdotes and bittersweet life lessons; a trusted ally in childhood revolts against motherly discipline and Hebrew school drudgery; a friend, advisor, and confidant. He was also a junkie. In Cocaine's Son, Itzkoff chronicles his coming of age in the disjointed shadow of his father's double life--struggling to reconcile his love for the garrulous protector and provider, and his loathing for the pitiful addict. Through his adolescent and teen years Itzkoff is haunted by the spectacle of his father's drug-fueled depressions and disappearances. In college, Itzkoff plunges into his own seemingly fated bout with substance abuse. And later, an emotional therapy session ends in the intense certainty that he will never overcome the same demons that have driven the older man. But when his father finally gets clean, a long "morning after" begins for them both. And on a road trip across the country and back into memory, in search of clues and revelations, together they discover that there may be more binding them than ever separated them. Unsparing and heartbreaking, mordantly funny and powerfully felt,Cocaine's Son clears a place for Dave Itzkoff in the forefront of contemporary memoirists.
Cochrane: The Fighting Captain
by Robert HarveyThe adventures of the daring Thomas Cochrane, called 'the sea wolf' by Napoleon, are so extraordinary that his life reads like a page-turning work of fiction. In one sense it became so, for the novelist Patrick O'Brian by his own admission used Cochrane as the basis for Jack Aubrey, hero of his much-loved series of naval novels.Cochrane became a household name when in 1800 he took command of the tiny brig, the Speedy, and created mayhem in the Mediterranean earning himself and his crew a fortune in prize money. A wildly contradictory character, never less than heroic, and this lively new account of his life has sold over 7,000 copies in hardback.
Cochrane: The Fighting Captain
by Robert HarveyThe adventures of the daring Thomas Cochrane, called 'the sea wolf' by Napoleon, are so extraordinary that his life reads like a page-turning work of fiction. In one sense it became so, for the novelist Patrick O'Brian by his own admission used Cochrane as the basis for Jack Aubrey, hero of his much-loved series of naval novels.Cochrane became a household name when in 1800 he took command of the tiny brig, the Speedy, and created mayhem in the Mediterranean earning himself and his crew a fortune in prize money. A wildly contradictory character, never less than heroic, and this lively new account of his life has sold over 7,000 copies in hardback.
Cochrane: The Real Master And Commander
by David CordinglyFrom the bestselling author of "Under the Black Flag" comes the definitive biography of Thomas Cochrane, the swashbuckling nineteenth-century maritime hero who "packed [in] enough drama and history to shame both Horatio Nelson and Sir Francis Drake" (Ken Rignle, Washington Post). In this fascinating account of Thomas Cochrane's extraordinary life, David Cordingly ("Under the Black Flag" and "The Billy Ruffian") unearths startling new details about the real-life "Master and Commander"--from his heroic battles against the French navy to his role in the liberation of Chile, Peru, and Brazil, and the stock exchange scandal that forced him out of England and almost ended his naval career. Drawing on previously unpublished papers, his own travels, wide reading, and original research, Cordingly tells the rip-roaring story of the archetypal Romantic hero who conquered the seas and, in the process, defined his era.
Cocido y violonchelo
by Mercedes CebriánUn elogio en voz alta de dos de los principales placeres que nos ayudan a sobrellevar nuestro tiempo en la tierra: la música y la comida. Mercedes Cebrián decide aprender a tocar el violonchelo a una edad a la que, al parecer, ya es tarde para ser principiante. Emprende así una curiosa aventura acarreando en la espalda un instrumento poco popular en España que la lleva desde academias de música y orquestas de aficionados hasta talleres de luthiers que huelen a cocido recién hecho. La autora indaga en la naturaleza de la música, a la par que observa con lupa y cáustico sentido del humor un pequeño mundo donde desfilan talentos en ciernes o aficionados que luchan para sacarle buen sonido a sus instrumentos. Y por el camino nos invita a pasear por una Rusia mental idealizada, con sus instrumentistas y gimnastas virtuosas, por el extraño submundo de los niños prodigio expuestos en las redes por sus madres, o por mesones castizos que sirven platos de toda la vida; desde la España postfranquista hasta la pandémica, en la que, para muchos, dedicar horas a desempolvar una vieja afición ha sido vital para mantener la cordura. Cocido y violonchelo es ese recinto amplio y cómodo donde la desmesura y la obsesión por las actividades que nos proporcionan placer son atributos de los que enorgullecerse. Este es, en definitiva, un testimonio perspicaz, erudito y ameno de las ganas irrefrenables de sacarle el jugo a la vida. La crítica ha dicho...«Detecto en pocos párrafos a los escritores que tienen buen oído y buen diente. Me tardo un poco más, páginas, en detectar el buen discernimiento y el dominio del instrumento llamado idioma castellano, pues últimamente la tontería y la incompetencia gramatical, lexical y sintáctica se esconden en frases breves, con hipo. Este libro de Mercedes Cebrián tiene todas las cualidades que me seducen en la buena escritura: buen oído, buen diente, inteligencia y dominio cómodo y natural del instrumento. Se lee como quien escucha una sonata escurrirse mientras paladea una pasta perfecta.» Héctor Abad Faciolince «Frívolo como una suite de Bach y profundo como un cocido en agosto, este tratado autobiográfico de música y gastronomía no es apto para remilgados ni puristas. Para todos los demás es un disfrute.» Sergio del Molino «En un momento de la lectura de este libro he sentido la emoción de estar inmersa en una novela de aventuras: los delicados pasos hacia el encuentro de lo que la mueve a una a existir bien. Suspendamos por un momento la literatura que se revuelca en la angustia existencial, y romanticemos en cambio esta búsqueda del placer y la caricia del alma. Cocido y violonchelo nos ofrece un mullidísimo almohadón desde el que contemplar el recorrido de una pasión y apasionarnos con él, un mueble ergonómico desde el que se escuchan dos melodías que se entrecruzan para formar una sola: las escalas interminables de un violonchelo, tocadas con gusto y empeño, y el suave sorber de una boca sobre el tuétano a la brasa.» Sabina Urraca Sobre su obra anterior se dijo: «La mirada que Mercedes Cebrián dirige al mundo en estas narraciones revela una originalidad insospechada, aquella que se deriva de saber lo que es la literatura y actuar en consecuencia. [...] Un hallazgo.» Juan Ángel Juristo, ABC «Mercedes Cebrián es como una Georges Perec con faldas, como una Rodrigo Fresán menos caudalosa, como una Felisberto Hernández igualmente interesada por lo inquietante y apenas un poco menos chiflada o como una César Aira que no hubiese renunciado a perder el control de lo que narra, pero su voz es rigurosamente personal.» Patricio Pron, Elboomeran.com
Cockeyed
by Ryan KnightonThis irreverent, tragicomic, politically incorrect, astoundingly articulate memoir about going blind?and growing up?illuminates not just the author's reality, but the reader's.
Cockeyed Happy: Ernest Hemingway's Wyoming Summers with Pauline
by Darla WordenThe story of Ernest Hemingway and Pauline Pfeiffer during six summers from 1928 through 1939—each showing Hemingway at a different place in his writing as well as a different stage of their marriage.In March 1928, after the phenomenal success of The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway returned to the United States with his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer—the stylish Vogue editor and scorned "other woman" who would give up everything to be with him and, in the end, lose it all. The couple fled Paris in the wake of the huge gossip storm about the American author's affair and abandonment of his wife and son. Escaping to Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains to write while Pauline recovered from the birth of their first child, he finished A Farewell to Arms and fell in love with the land around him. Pauline soon joined him in Yellowstone and Jackson Hole.In Cockeyed Happy Darla Worden tells the little-known story of Hemingway and Pauline during six summers from 1928 to 1939—from smitten newlywed to bored, restless husband and ultimately to philanderer as he falls in love with another woman once again.
Cockeyed: A Memoir
by Ryan KnightonThis memoir chronicles Knighton's struggle to cope with his blindness. While preferring to pretend to be sighted, he has many misadventures. Sometimes we laugh; sometimes we cry; always we cheer him on and hope that he will reach a point of acceptance and competence.
Cockpit Commander: The Autobiography of Wing Commander Bruce Gibson
by Bruce GibsonPreviously self-published by the author, this book charts the course of a dramatic career as a Wing Commander. Living through one of the most dynamic periods in military and Aviation development history, Bruce Gibson saw events play out from his elevated aerial position. His fascinating story will appeal to a wide audience, focussing as it does not only upon Aviation concerns. From life as a mischievous child living in the East End of London, to realising his true direction and joining the RAF Air Volunteer Reserves in 1937, and then the Royal Air Force, and beyond into Aviation ventures in a Civilian capacity. His amusing observations and anecdotes provide the most colourful insight into life during the monochromatic blackout years of World War II, and beyond.Many historical records and operational logs are available on the market to those looking for cold facts and statistical analyses of events; this account features the human tales, the anecdotes and spirit of camaraderie which characterised Gibson's experiences.
Cockroaches
by Jordan Stump Scholastique MukasongaImagine being born into a world where everything about you--the shape of your nose, the look of your hair, the place of your birth--designates you as an undesirable, an inferior, a menace, no better than a cockroach, something to be driven away and ultimately exterminated. Imagine being thousands of miles away while your family and friends are brutally and methodically slaughtered. Imagine being entrusted by your parents with the mission of leaving everything you know and finding some way to survive, in the name of your family and your people. Scholastique Mukasonga's Cockroaches is the story of growing up a Tutsi in Hutu-dominated Rwanda--the story of a happy child, a loving family, all wiped out in the genocide of 1994. A vivid, bitterwsweet depiction of family life and bond in a time of immense hardship, it is also a story of incredible endurance, and the duty to remember that loss and those lost while somehow carrying on. Sweet, funny, wrenching, and deeply moving, Cockroaches is a window onto an unforgettable world of love, grief, and horror.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
by Alexandra FullerSelected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year Alexandra Fuller returns to Africa and the story of her unforgettable family. In Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness Alexandra Fuller returns to Africa and to her unforgettable family. At the heart of this family, and central to the lifeblood of her latest story, is Fuller’s iconically courageous mother, Nicola (or, Nicola Fuller of Central Africa, as she sometimes prefers to be known). Born on the Scottish Isle of Skye to a warlike clan of highlanders and raised in Kenya's perfect equatorial light, Nicola holds dear the values most likely to get you hurt or killed in Africa: loyalty to blood, passion for land, and a holy belief in the restorative power of all animals. With a lifetime of admiration behind her and after years of interviews and research, Fuller has recaptured her mother's inimitable voice with remarkable precision. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is as funny, exotic, terrifying and unselfconscious as Nicola herself. We see Nicola as an irrepressible child in western Kenya, then with the man who fell in love with her, Tim Fuller. The young couple begin their life in a lavender colored honeymoon period, when east Africa lies before them with all the promise of its liquid honeyed light, even as the British empire in which they both once believed wanes. But in short order, an accumulation of mishaps and tragedies bump up against history until the Fullers find themselves in a world they hardly recognize. We follow Tim and Nicola as they hopscotch the continent, restlessly trying to establish a home, from Kenya to Rhodesia to Zambia, even returning to England briefly. War, hardship and tragedy seem to follow the family even as Nicola fights to hold onto her children, her land, her sanity. But just when it seems that Nicola has been broken by the continent she loves, it is the African earth - and Tim's acceptance of her love for this earth - that revives and nurtures her. A story of survival and war, love and madness, loyalty and forgiveness, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is an intimate exploration of the author’s family and of the price of being possessed by this uncompromising, fertile, death-dealing land. In the end we find Nicola and Tim at a table under their Tree of Forgetfulness in the Zambezi Valley on the banana and fish farm where they plan to spend their final days. In local custom, the Tree of Forgetfulness is where villagers meet to resolve disputes and it is here that the family at last find an African kind of peace. Following the ghosts and dreams of memory, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is Alexandra Fuller at her very best. .
Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
by Alexandra FullerA story of survival and war, love and madness, loyalty and forgiveness, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is an intimate exploration of Fuller's parents and of the price of being possessed by Africa's uncompromising, fertile, death-dealing land. We follow Tim and Nicola Fuller hopscotching the continent, restlessly trying to establish a home. War, hardship, and tragedy follow the family even as Nicola fights to hold on to her children, her land, her sanity. But just when it seems that Nicola has been broken by the continent she loves, it is the African earth that revives and nurtures her. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is Fuller at her very best.
Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
by Alexandra FullerCocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness tells the story of the author's mother, Nicola Fuller. Nicola Fuller and her husband were a glamorous and optimistic couple and East Africa lay before them with the promise of all its perfect light, even as the British Empire in which they both believed waned. They had everything, including two golden children - a girl and a boy. However, life became increasingly difficult and they moved to Rhodesia to work as farm managers. The previous farm manager had committed suicide. His ghost appeared at the foot of their bed and seemed to be trying to warn them of something. Shortly after this, one of their golden children died. Africa was no longer the playground of Nicola's childhood. They returned to England where the author was born before they returned to Rhodesia and to the civil war. The last part of the book sees the Fullers in their old age on a banana and fish farm in the Zambezi Valley. They had built their ramshackle dining room under the Tree of Forgetfulness. In local custom, this tree is the meeting place for villagers determined to resolve disputes. It is in the spirit of this Forgetfulness that Nicola finally forgot - but did not forgive - all her enemies including her daughter and the Apostle, a squatter who has taken up in her bananas with his seven wives and forty-nine children. Funny, tragic, terrifying, exotic and utterly unself-conscious, this is a story of survival and madness, love and war, passion and compassion.
Cocktail Time!: The Ultimate Guide to Grown-Up Fun
by Paul FeigElegant man-about-town and the director of Bridesmaids, Spy, and A Simple Favor Paul Feig serves up a beautifully designed cocktail and lifestyle guide with hilarious stories from his life.Famed TV and film writer, director, and producer Paul Feig is obsessed with cocktails and cocktail culture. It’s about having great conversations with friends. It’s about putting on your best clothes and throwing a smart gathering or heading to your favorite bar and having an interesting chat with the bartender. And it’s about staying home, mixing a drink and sipping it in a beautiful glass as you watch a great old movie by yourself.Paul has made an art and a science out of creating these elegant and festive environments and living his best life, whether at home in LA or New York or London or on location around the world, and it’s all here in Cocktail Time!—how to make the drinks, how to throw the parties, what music to play, what glassware you need and more, along with 125 cocktail recipes, each served along with funny insider stories about Paul’s Hollywood life and famous friends.Cocktail Time! covers everything, from classics (and variations on them) like martinis, negronis, and hot toddies to original concoctions such as “The Feigtini” and holiday cocktails, as well as recipes from film and TV industry friends, such as the Charlize Theron Gibson, the Very Cherry Kerry (Washington), the (Angela) Kinsey Gin Fizz, Henry (Golding)’s Honey Plum G&T, and The Five (Michelle) Yeoh-Larm Fire.Cocktail Time! is a love letter to the aesthetics and culture around cocktails. It’s guaranteed to make you want to up your party-giving game—or at least your home bar situation. And it’s an immensely charming and readable window into one man’s friendly obsession.