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Not in a Tuscan Villa
by John Petralia Nancy PetraliaWhat happens if you decide to make a dream come true? Newly retired and looking for more than a vacation, John and Nancy Petralia intrepidly pack a few suitcases and head to the "perfect" Italian city. Within days their dream becomes a nightmare. After residing in two Italian cities, negotiating the roads and healthcare, discovering art, friends, food, and customs, the Petralias learn more than they anticipate--about Italy, themselves, what it means to be American, and what's important in life. Part memoir, part commentary, quirky and sincere, Not in a Tuscan Villa is about having the courage to step out of your comfort zone and do something challenging in later life. The adventure recaptures the Petralias' youth, rekindles their romance--and changes their lives forever.
(Not Quite) Mastering the Art of French Living
by Mark GreensideEvery year upon arriving in Plobien, the small Breton town where he spends his summers, American writer Mark Greenside picks back up where he left off with his faux-pas–filled Francophile life. Mellowed and humbled, but not daunted (OK, slightly daunted), he faces imminent concerns: What does he cook for a French person? Who has the right-of-way when entering or exiting a roundabout? Where does he pay for a parking ticket? And most dauntingly of all, when can he touch the tomatoes? Despite the two decades that have passed since Greenside’s snap decision to buy a house in Brittany and begin a bi-continental life, the quirks of French living still manage to confound him. Continuing the journey begun in his 2009 memoir about beginning life in France, (Not Quite) Mastering the Art of French Living details Greenside’s daily adventures in his adopted French home, where the simplest tasks are never straightforward but always end in a great story. Through some hits and lots of misses, he learns the rules of engagement, how he gets what he needs—which is not necessarily what he thinks he wants—and how to be grateful and thankful when (especially when) he fails, which is more often than he can believe. Introducing the English-speaking world to the region of Brittany in the tradition of Peter Mayle’s homage to Provence, Mark Greenside’s first book, I’ll Never Be French, continues to be among the bestselling books about the region today. Experienced Francophiles and armchair travelers alike will delight in this new chapter exploring the practical and philosophical questions of French life, vividly brought to life by Greenside’s humor and affection for his community.
Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka
by Adele BarkerBarker, who received a Fulbright scholarship for a yearlong teaching job at the U. of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka in 2001-2002 and returned after the tsunami of 2004, relates her experiences living and teaching there, the devastation caused by the tsunami, and the subsequent relief efforts. She describes the history, landscape, flora, and fauna of the country; the people she met, who also describe the country's civil war; and what she saw after the tsunami. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
Not Quite Paradise
by Adele BarkerA chronicle of life on the resplendent island, combining the immediacy of memoir with the vividness of travelogue and reportage Adele Barker and her son, Noah, settled into the central highlands of Sri Lanka for an eighteen-month sojourn, immersing themselves in the customs, cultures, and landscapes of the island--its elephants, birds, and monkeys; its hot curries and sweet mangoes; the cacophony of its markets; the resonant evening chants from its temples. They hear stories of the island's colorful past and its twenty-five-year civil war between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil Tigers. When, having returned home to Tucson, Barker awakes on December 26, 2004, to see televised images of the island's southern shore disappearing into the ocean, she decides she must go back. Traveling from the southernmost coasts to the farthest outposts of the Tamil north, she witnesses the ravages of the tsunami that killed forty-eight thousand Sri Lankans in the space of twenty minutes, and reports from the ground on the triumphs and failures of relief efforts. Combining the immediacy of memoir and the vividness of travelogue with the insight of the best reportage, Not Quite Paradise chronicles life in a place few have ever visited.From the Trade Paperback edition.
The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA
by Doug MackAn eye-opening journey to the most overlooked parts of America. Everyone knows that America is 50 states and…some other stuff. Scattered shards in the Pacific and the Caribbean, the not-quite states—American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—and their 4 million people are often forgotten, even by most Americans. But they’re filled with American flags, U.S. post offices, and Little League baseball games. How did these territories come to be part of the United States? What are they like? And why aren’t they states? When Doug Mack realized just how little he knew about the territories, he set off on a globe-hopping quest covering more than 30,000 miles to see them all. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mack examines the Founding Fathers’ arguments over expansion. He explores Polynesia’s outsize influence on American culture, from tiki bars to tattoos, in American Samoa. He tours Guam with members of a military veterans’ motorcycle club, who offer personal stories about the territory’s role in World War II and its present-day importance for the American military. In the Northern Mariana Islands, he learns about star-guided seafaring from one of the ancient tradition’s last practitioners. And everywhere he goes in Puerto Rico, he listens in on the lively debate over political status—independence, statehood, or the status quo. The Not-Quite States of America is an entertaining account of the territories’ place in the USA, and it raises fascinating questions about the nature of empire. As Mack shows, the territories aren’t mere footnotes to American history; they are a crucial part of the story.
A Not So Perfect Crime
by Teresa Solana Peter BushA prominent politician's wife is suspected of infidelity. The case for our twin private investigators becomes nasty when she is found poisoned. A satire of Catalan politics and life and habits of Barcelona's inhabitants, diurnal and nocturnal.
Not Without Hope
by Nick Schuyler Jeré LongmanNick Schuyler, a twenty-four-year-old personal trainer, left for a deep-sea fishing trip with three friends: NFL players Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith, and Will Bleakley, his best friend, who once played football for the University of South Florida.
Notable Southern Californians in Black History (American Heritage)
by Robert Lee JohnsonThe contribution of Black men and women throughout the history of California is often overlooked because it doesn’t easily fit into the established narrative. In Los Angeles, over half of the original settlers were of African descent. These settlers left New Spain for the northern frontier to escape the oppression of the Spanish caste system, just as the racially oppressive Jim Crow laws propelled a similar migration from the American South 150 years later. Pioneers and politicians, as well as entrepreneurs and educators, left an indelible mark on the region’s history. Robert Lee Johnson offers the story of a few of the notable Black men and women who came to Southern California seeking opportunity and a better life for their families.
Notes from a small
by Bill BrysonVeering from the ludicrous to the endearing and back again, Notes From a Small Island is a delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation that has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey.a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain-which is to say, all of it."After nearly two decades spent on British soil, Bill Bryson-bestselling author of ,i>The Mother Tongue and Made in America-decided to return to the United States. ("I had recently read," Bryson writes, "that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, so it was clear that my people needed me.") But before departing, he set out on a grand farewell tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. Veering from the ludicrous to the endearing and back again, Notes from a Small Island is a delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation that has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey. The result is an uproarious social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain, from the satiric pen of an unapologetic Anglophile.
Notes from a Small Island
by Bill Bryson<P>A combination travel guide and loving crack at the mannered manners of Britain written by journalist and long-time resident Bryson whose whirlwind trip around the island before his return to America yielded a number of witty essays on life, love, and beer. <P>Traveling by public transit, Bryson zips from Liverpool to Stonehenge to Farleigh Wallop documenting searches for restaurants, pub discoveries, and a "litter festival" in Liverpool. Lacks an index, but a glossary is provided with such gems as the definition of berk (a jerk, though the etymology is more ribald than one would imagine). <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
Notes from The Century Before: A Journal from British Columbia
by Jon Krakauer David Quammen Edward HoaglandIn 1966, Edward Hoagland made a three-month excursion into the wild country of British Columbia and encountered a way of life that was disappearing even as he chronicled it. Showcasing Hoagland's extraordinary gifts for portraiture--his cast runs from salty prospector to trader, explorer, missionary, and indigenous guide--Notes from the Century Before is a breathtaking mix of anecdote, derring-do, and unparalleled elegy from one of the finest writers of our time.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Notes from China
by Barbara W. TuchmanA journalistic tour de force, this wide-ranging collection by the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography Stilwell and the American Experience in China is a classic in its own right. During the summer of 1972—a few short months after Nixon’s legendary visit to China—master historian Barbara W. Tuchman made her own trip to that country, spending six weeks in eleven cities and a variety of rural settlements. The resulting reportage was one of the first evenhanded portrayals of Chinese culture that Americans had ever read. Tuchman’s observations capture the people as they lived, from workers in the city and provincial party bosses to farmers, scientists, and educators. She demonstrates the breadth and scope of her expertise in discussing the alleviation of famine, misery, and exploitation; the distortion of cultural and historical inheritances into ubiquitous slogans; news media, schools, housing, and transportation; and Chairman Mao’s techniques for reasserting the Revolution. This edition also includes Tuchman’s “fascinating” (The New York Review of Books) essay, “If Mao Had Come to Washington in 1945”—a tantalizing piece of speculation on a proposed meeting between Mao and Roosevelt that would have changed the course of postwar history. “Shrewdly observed . . . Tuchman enters another plea for coolness, intelligence and rationality in American Asian policies. One can hardly disagree.”—The New York Times Book Review
Notes from My Travels
by Angelina JolieThree years ago, award-winning actress Angelina Jolie took on a radically different role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Here are her memoirs from her journeys to Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Ecuador, where she lived and worked and gave her heart to those who suffer the world's most shattering violence and victimization. Here are her revelations of joy and warmth amid utter destitution...compelling snapshots of courageous and inspiring people for whom survival is their daily workŠand candid notes from a unique pilgrimage that completely changed the actress's worldview -- and the world within herself.
Notes from the Century Before: A Journal from British Columbia
by Edward Coolbaugh HoaglandShowcasing Hoagland's extraordinary gifts for portraiture --- his cast runs from salty prospector to trader, explorer, missionary, and indigenous guide --- "Notes from the Century Before" is a breathtaking mix of anecdote and unparalleled elegy from one of the finest writers of our time.
Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo
by William Makepeace ThackerayFrom this scene we rushed off somewhat discomposed to make a breakfast off red mullets and grapes, melons, pomegranates, and Smyrna wine, at a dirty little comfortable inn, to which we were recommended: and from the windows of which we had a fine cheerful view of the gulf and its busy craft, and the loungers and merchants along the shore. There were camels unloading at one wharf, and piles of melons much bigger than the Gibraltar cannon-balls at another.
Nothing By Chance: A Gypsy Pilot's Adventures in Modern America
by Richard BachSetting out to explore his beliefs in the environment of a simpler time, Richard Bach shares the adventure of one magical summer he spent as an old-fashioned barnstormer flying an antique biplane. The journey is another soaring personal adventure of wonder and insight from the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Nothing Sacred: Selected Writings (Virago Modern Classics #74)
by Angela CarterIn the pursuit of magnificence, nothing is sacred,' says Angela Carter, and magnificence is indeed her own achievement. One of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation, her work as a journalist and critic was no less original. Long autobiographical pieces on her life in South Yorkshire and South London are followed by highly individual inspections of 'abroad'. Some of her most brilliant writing is devoted to Japan - exotically and erotically described here - so perfectly suited to the Carter pen. Domestically, Angela Carter used her mordant wit and accurate eye to inspect England and Englishness as it manifested itself throughout the land. Then she turns to her own craft, and her extraordinarily wide-ranging book reviews are masterpieces.
Nothing Sacred: Selected Writings
by Angela CarterIn the pursuit of magnificence, nothing is sacred,' says Angela Carter, and magnificence is indeed her own achievement. One of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation, her work as a journalist and critic was no less original. Long autobiographical pieces on her life in South Yorkshire and South London are followed by highly individual inspections of 'abroad'. Some of her most brilliant writing is devoted to Japan - exotically and erotically described here - so perfectly suited to the Carter pen. Domestically, Angela Carter used her mordant wit and accurate eye to inspect England and Englishness as it manifested itself throughout the land. Then she turns to her own craft, and her extraordinarily wide-ranging book reviews are masterpieces.
Nothing to Declare
by Mary MorrisIn a woman's life almost every choice involves risk, and in Nothing to Declare Mary Morris gives us a stunning account of those risks in one woman's journeys through Latin America. As Morris travels south to Mexico, she leaves the old measurements behind and confronts the realities of place, of poverty, of machismo, and of her own self. It is a dangerous land, where anything can happen. From the high desert of northern Mexico to the steaming jungles of Honduras, from the seashore of the Caribbean to the exquisite highlands of Guatemala, she experiences the rawness of life as a woman south of the border. A traveler in her own space and time, Morris befriends a Mexican woman and shares the precariousness of everyday life in a Latin American culture that heightens her own sense of deprivation. Haunted by memories of family and failed love, Morris tries to make sense out of her past as the present boundaries take new form. "I listen to the ghosts and obey the gods. The ghosts whisper, the gods prod." In this beguiling travel book, Mary Morris calls upon us to listen.With Nothing to Declare, Mary Morris joins the company of Beryl Markham, Mary Kingsley, Isabella Bird, and the few women travel writers in a field long the privileged territory of men.
Notorious Kansas Bank Heists: Gunslingers to Gangsters (True Crime)
by Rod BeemerBank robbers wreaked havoc in the Sunflower State. After robbing the Chautauqua State Bank in 1911, outlaw Elmer McCurdy was killed by lawmen but wasn't buried for sixty-six years. His afterlife can be described only as bizarre. Belle Starr's nephew Henry Starr claimed to have robbed twenty-one banks. The Dalton gang failed in their attempt to rob two banks simultaneously, but others accomplished this in Waterville in 1911. Nearly four thousand known vigilantes patrolled the Sunflower State during the 1920s and 1930s to combat the criminal menace. One group even had an airplane with a .50-caliber machine gun. Join author Rod Beemer for a wild ride into Kansas's tumultuous bank heist history.
A Notorious Woman: Anne Royall in Jacksonian America
by Elizabeth J. ClappDuring her long career as a public figure in Jacksonian America, Anne Royall was called everything from an "enemy of religion" to a "Jackson man" to a "common scold. " In her search for the source of such strong reactions, Elizabeth Clapp has uncovered the story of a widely read woman of letters who asserted her right to a political voice without regard to her gender. Widowed and in need of a livelihood following a disastrous lawsuit over her husband’s will, Royall decided to earn her living through writing--first as a travel writer, journeying through America to research and sell her books, and later as a journalist and editor. Her language and forcefully expressed opinions provoked people at least as much as did her inflammatory behavior and aggressive marketing tactics. An ardent defender of American liberties, she attacked the agents of evangelical revivals, the Bank of the United States, and corruption in government. Her positions were frequently extreme, directly challenging the would-be shapers of the early republic’s religious and political culture. She made many enemies, but because she also attracted many supporters, she was not easily silenced. The definitive account of a passionate voice when America was inventing itself, A Notorious Woman re-creates a fascinating stage on which women’s roles, evangelical hegemony, and political involvement were all contested.
Nourished: A Memoir of Food, Faith & Enduring Love (with Recipes)
by Lia HuberA noted entrepreneur, food writer, and recipe developer serves up an evocative adventure story abouther quest to find healing, meaning, and a place at the table. Hunger comes to us in many forms, writes Lia Huber—we long to be satisfied not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. Nourished invites readers on Huber’s world-roaming search to find the necessary ingredients to nurture all three. She begins her quest with an Anthony Bourdain moment in a Guatemalan village: she's slipping fresh vegetables into a communal pot of soup she's cooking up for chronically undernourished children. Village grannies look on disapprovingly... until the kids come back for more. From there, Huber takes readers to the Greek island of Corfu, where she learns the joys of simple food and the power of unconditional love; to a Costa Rican jungle house (by way of an 8,000-mile road trip), where she finds hope and healing; and finally to California's wine country, where she steps into the person she was meant to be and discovers her calling to nourish others.