Frozen in Time is a gripping true story of survival, bravery, and honor in the vast Arctic wilderness during World War II, from the author of New York Timesbestseller Lost in Shangri-La.
On November 5, 1942, a US cargo plane slammed into the Greenland Ice Cap. Four days later, the B-17 assigned to the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on board survived, and the US military launched a daring rescue operation. But after picking up one man, the Grumman Duck amphibious plane flew into a severe storm and vanished.
Frozen in Time tells the story of these crashes and the fate of the survivors, bringing vividly to life their battle to endure 148 days of the brutal Arctic winter, until an expedition headed by famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen brought them to safety. Mitchell Zuckoff takes the reader deep into the most hostile environment on earth, through hurricane-force winds, vicious blizzards, and subzero temperatures.
Moving forward to today, he recounts the efforts of the Coast Guard and North South Polar Inc. – led by indefatigable dreamer Lou Sapienza – who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck’s last flight and recover the remains of its crew.
A breathtaking blend of mystery and adventure Mitchell Zuckoff's Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II is also a poignant reminder of the sacrifices of our military personnel and a tribute to the everyday heroism of the US Coast Guard.
…it always seems that something inevitably slips through the cracks when I'm writing a book. I'd wanted to include the story of the 1976 World Series of Rock concert at Comiskey in Stars and Strikes, but somehow completely forgot about it again until it was too late. So here, then, is a little "bonus track" on the topic:
The Great Chicago Stoner Fire of 1976
Given the inherent awfulness of the team that Bill Veeck and his gaggle of investors purchased in late 1975, the likelihood of the Chicago White Sox making it to the postseason in 1976 was slimmer than a coke straw. But the World Series still made it to Comiskey Park that year - the World Series of Rock, that is.
A series of day-long outdoor concerts that had proved immensely popular in Cleveland, where they'd been held at Cleveland Stadium since 1974, the World Series of Rock branched out westward to Chicago for 1976. With the help of local FM rock station WDAI, three WSOR shows were scheduled to be held at Comiskey Park that summer; the first one, on July 10, would be headlined by Aerosmith -- whose fourth and latest LP, Rocks, was the band's most successful yet, reaching #3 on the Billboard albums chart -- with supporting performances by Jeff Beck and the Jan Hammer Group, Derringer ("featuring Rick Derringer," as the ads helpfully noted) and NYC hard rocker Stu Daye.
General admission tickets were ten bucks in advance, $12.50 on the day of the show. The White Sox, obviously, would be out of town at the time.
As with all the WSOR shows, this one offered local rock fans the opportunity to get ripped and groove together in the sunshine to some dynamite sounds, and some 62,000 kids heeded the call -- many of them packing Midwestern dirt weed, pills, powders, firecrackers, and other festive contraband. (Hey, the ad just said no coolers, cans, bottles or alcoholic beverages, right?) The summer temperatures hovered at over 100 degrees, offering a welcome excuse for those who wanted to wear as little clothing as possible, and inspiring a lengthy queue for the Veeck-installed shower in the ballpark's centerfield bleachers. Despite the heat, the drugs, and the crush of people on the field, the afternoon proceeded without major incident -- at least until the middle of Jeff Beck's set, when black clouds of smoke began billowing up from the upper grandstand along the third base line. Shocked murmurs began to spread throughout the dazed and confused crowd: Comiskey was on fire!
The fans in the stands near the blaze began to slowly make their way to safety; many of those on the field tried to put as much distance between them and the conflagration as possible, but their progress was impeded by others who were pushing towards it in order to get a better look. "Everybody remain calm," implored a voice over the ballpark's P.A. system, while Jeff Beck and his band rocked on, oblivious to the chaos unfolding in front of them. "Please move from the area!"
Beck eventually noticed the black clouds hovering ominously over the field, and brought his set to a halt; for a few awkward moments, he and his fellow musicians seemed unsure whether or not to keep playing. Finally, after a spirited exchange with some fans at the front of the stage, Beck announced, "Fuck the fire!" and cranked up his guitar again -- only to be informed minutes later by ballpark security that he and his band had to leave the stage for "safety reasons".
The Chicago Fire Department moved in to battle the flames -- it turned out that there were two different fires going on simultaneously in the same seating area -- with hoses and axes. Once the fires were extinguished, they turned their hoses on the crowd below, which enthusiastically welcomed the cooling shower. Bill Veeck, who could be seen hobbling about on his peg leg as he inspected the damage, gave the go-ahead for the concert to continue, and Aerosmith took the stage about an hour later.
The origins of the fires were never fully determined. Some newspaper reports claimed that some cushions had caught fire in a storage room adjacent to the area, while other eyewitnesses reported seeing concertgoers whipping lit firecrackers around before the seats went up in flames. Thirteen people, including two firefighters, were injured in the incident -- a remarkably small percentage of the estimated 5,000 people who were sitting in the vicinity of the inferno, especially considering that the ballpark's old wooden seats surely made for some very effective kindling. If anything, the crowd's collectively stoned state might have contributed to its orderly retreat. "Nobody ran. Nobody pushed," an amazed Veeck told the press afterwards. "I have been in many crowds in my time, but never one that reacted and behaved so well."
Still, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley wasn't ready to take a chance on another concert at Comiskey. The July 31 bill of KISS, Uriah Heep and Ted Nugent was cancelled -- due in part to KISS wanting to play at night so as to make full use of their explosive pyro, which Daley thought would disturb his Bridgeport community -- and the August 13 bill of Yes, Peter Frampton, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Gary Wright was relocated to the Hawthorne Racetrack in Cicero, IL.
Ironically, WDAI -- the radio station that co-sponsored the show -- would inadvertently play a role in the next rock-related fiasco at Comiskey Park. In 1978, WDAI abruptly switched to an all-disco format, outraging and alienating their hard rock base, which followed fired WDAI disc jockey Steve Dahl over to his new gig at WLUP. To get back at his former employers, Dahl soon began staging "disco demolition" events around the city of Chicago, which attracted the attention of Bill Veeck's son Mike. The younger Veeck, who by 1979 was working as the White Sox promotions director, thought a "Disco Demolition Night" promotion at Comiskey just might bring a few thousand extra fans out to the ballpark. Little did he know.
--Dan Epstein
St. Martin's Press has graciously given me two finished copies of this book for a BookSpin giveaway. If you'd like to be entered to win, tweet me your favorite baseball team and player. My twitter name is @Book_Dude. U.S. entries only please. Good luck!
With more than 17 years of demonstrated success working within Fortune 500 companies than span both coasts of the US, I know what it takes to play the game. More importantly, the school of hard knocks has helped me to discover the secrets of pursuing a rewarding and more fulfilling life. As a business leader, my goal is simple … to bring out the very best in my team. I wrote Welcome to the Big Leagues to help the Corporate Rookie of today to do just that. My focus was on building a guide to coach this young and ambitious group to thrive in both career and life.
This is not your typically business book, as the last thing I wanted to do was to publish another one of those dry and mundane manuscripts that I've become all too accustomed to reading. Instead, I wanted to produce a page turner that packed a punch. The only way to do this was by telling it like it is; an honest account of the way things happened.
The business world can be an unforgiving place but it accepts all types. It is up to each individual to be the CEO of his or her own career. In order to do this, and be successful at it, you must have a plan, a strategy, and stick to it. If not, it is highly likely that your aspirations and dreams will be lost in the maze of corporate America.
Crafting the blueprint is the easy part of the battle, maintaining the discipline and focus to follow it on a daily basis is the trying part that will test you in ways beyond imagination. Welcome to the Big Leagues prepares readers for this journey. Baseball is used as the backdrop, as many of the stories around the game and its players are relevant to the business world. From the hacks to the incredibly talented and the humble to the arrogant, you will be forced to work with all types. In baseball, players need to be both mentally and physically tough. They face their fears each game day for the world to see and judge. Baseball is a competitive environment where only the best of the best make it. Players who struggle will work feverishly to avoid the slump. Even those players who fail and strike out 70% of the time are considered to be amongst best in the game.
Starting to see the similarities?
Chapter 7 of Welcome to the Big Leagues, The Stretch, was the portion of the book that I was most proud to write because it focuses on wellbeing. I tell compelling stories to signify the importance of the Physical, Occupational, Economic, Mental and Social aspects of wellbeing. It is only by pursuing each of these areas in moderation and with discipline that our lives will come together as harmoniously as the acronym: POEMS. This chapter will relate to any reader, as it touches on areas that impact any adult who’s trying to become successful in life.
When I think of Welcome to the Big Leagues as a whole, I am reminded of the piece on New Coke that Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book, Blink. He tells about how the new formula dominated in all taste tests against both traditional Coke and Pepsi. The results were just incredible! However, when New Coke launched, it failed miserably. The reason being was that it was too sweet and consumers could not endure an entire can. Drinkers were throwing it away at the midpoint. When I think of my book, I think the opposite is true. There's not one Chapter that's the best ever written. However, when you endure the entire book, you leave with something extremely valuable.
Testimonials:
"Finally a ‘manual’ for true professionalism in today’s corporate workplace. From my seat, I have witnessed far too many times a recurring theme: Rookies, newcomers, young employees all looking to go from A to Z without any stops in between. This book should be a mandatory read for all job applicants and veterans like us who could surely use a refresher. Carmine Del Sordi knocks it out of the park."
-Todd Kauffmann, Senior VP, UBS Financial Services, Inc.
“In the business world, greatness only comes to those who consistently perform at peak levels and work hard to raise the bar from there. Welcome to the Big Leagues is a profound guide; packed with essential tips and powerful stories to coach rookies on how to achieve all-star performance, while getting the most out of career and life.”
-Luigi Sciabarrasi, Senior VP, DTZ
“Welcome to the Big Leagues is a very enjoyable read that’s packed with useful insights for success in the corporate world and life in general. I strongly recommend it for all new college graduates who are now ready to up their game.”
-Andrew Del Matto, CFO, Fortinet
“Carmine identifies the critical components that are necessary to live, survive and succeed in the corporate world. He does so in a manner that parallels the world of baseball and adds a dash of humor along the way. He is right on the mark and hits home as I relate back to the early part of my career. The corporate world is a very competitive environment that can be loaded with stress, ill feelings towards others as well as being a very unhealthy place to be. It is only those who understand how to identify roadblocks and how to handle them who thrive in such settings. In his book, Carmine has done an excellent job in highlighting all of this and giving some great advice to the corporate rookie, but I will also say that it is a refreshing read for us veterans that have been through it. I found that I was very entertained and recommend it to all.”
-Peter Gebert, VP Finance, Mannkind Corporation
“As a manager and mentor of recent college graduates throughout my whole career, I have finally found a guide book to recommend to those that want to succeed. Welcome to the Big Leagues gives straight-forward advice to new entrants to the maze that is corporate America. Passionate, practical and with a purpose!”
-Jeanne Phares, VP, Group Controller, Macerich
“The corporate rookie of today could benefit from additional support, as the demanding and competitive business landscape has become less forgiving of mistakes and poor decisions. Welcome to the Big Leagues emphasizes the importance of actively managing a host of critical success factors like the ability to drive results, strong collaboration and fiscal responsibility. It provides readers with the much needed edge on how to succeed.”
For many years, television comedy was an exclusive all boys’ club—until a brilliant comedian named Carol Leifer came along, blazing a trail for funny women everywhere. From Late Night with David Letterman and SaturdayNight Live to Seinfeld, The Ellen Show, and ModernFamily, Carol has written for and/or performed on some of the best TV comedies of all time.
This hilarious collection of essays charts her extraordinary three-decade journey through show business, illuminating her many triumphs and some missteps along the way—and offering valuable lessons for women and men in any profession. Part memoir, part guide to life, and all incredibly funny,How to Succeed in Businesswithout Really Crying offers tips and tricks for getting ahead, finding your way, and opening locked doors—even if you have to use a sledgehammer.
Dee Williams’s life changed in an instant, with a near-death experience in the aisle of her local grocery store. Diagnosed with a heart condition at age forty-one, she was all too suddenly reminded that life is short, time is precious, and she wanted to be spending hers with the people and things she truly loved. That included the beautiful sprawling house in the Pacific Northwest she had painstakingly restored—but, increasingly, it did not include the mortgage payments, constant repairs, and general time-suck of home ownership. A new sense of clarity began to take hold: Just what was all this stuff for? Multiple extra rooms, a kitchen stocked with rarely used appliances, were things that couldn’t compare with the financial freedom and the ultimate luxury—time—that would come with downsizing.
Deciding to build an eighty-four-square-foot house—on her own, from the ground up—was just the beginning of building a new life. Williams can now list everything she owns on one sheet of paper, her monthly housekeeping bills amount to about eight dollars, and it takes her approximately ten minutes to clean the entire house. It’s left her with more time to spend with family and friends, and given her freedom to head out for adventure at a moment’s notice, or watch the clouds and sunset while drinking a beer on her (yes, tiny) front porch.
The lessons Williams learned from her “aha” moment post-trauma apply to all of us, every day, regardless of whether or not we decide to discard all our worldly belongings. Part how-to, part personal memoir, The Big Tiny is an utterly seductive meditation on the benefits of slowing down, scaling back, and appreciating the truly important things in life.
Lisa Robinson has interviewed the biggest names in music--including Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Patti Smith, U2, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Jay Z and Kanye West. She visited the teenage Michael Jackson many times at his Encino home. She spent hours talking to John Lennon at his Dakota apartment--and in recording studios just weeks before his murder. She introduced David Bowie to Lou Reed at a private dinner in a Manhattan restaurant, helped the Clash and Elvis Costello get their record deals, was with the Rolling Stones on their jet during a frightening storm, and was mid-flight with Led Zeppelin when their tour manager pulled out a gun. A pioneering female journalist in an exclusive boys' club, Lisa Robinson is a preeminent authority on the personalities and influences that have shaped the music world; she has been recognized as rock jounralism's ultimate insider.
A keenly observed and lovingly recounted look back on years spent with countless musicians backstage, after hours and on the road, There Goes Gravity documents a lifetime of riveting stories, told together here for the first time.
As a child in small-town Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren yearned to go to college and then become an elementary school teacher—an ambitious goal, given her family’s modest means. Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but fifteen years later she was a distinguished law professor with a deep understanding of why people go bankrupt. Then came the phone call that changed her life: could she come to Washington DC to help advise Congress on rewriting the bankruptcy laws?
Thus began an impolite education into the bare-knuckled, often dysfunctional ways of Washington. She fought for better bankruptcy laws for ten years and lost. She tried to hold the federal government accountable during the financial crisis but became a target of the big banks. She came up with the idea for a new agency designed to protect consumers from predatory bankers and was denied the opportunity to run it. Finally, at age 62, she decided to run for elective office and won the most competitive—and watched—Senate race in the country.
In this passionate, funny, rabble-rousing book, Warren shows why she has chosen to fight tooth and nail for the middle class—and why she has become a hero to all those who believe that America’s government can and must do better for working families.
I first heard of Todd Snider when I managed a music store (remember those?) and received a promotional copy of his first CD, "Songs For the Daily Planet." The cd quickly became a favorite of mine due to the combination of quirky yet poignant songs it contains. The "big hit" is actually a hidden track (remember those?). Who does that?
Years later, I met Todd Snider in a Books-A-Million in Nashville. He was there with his lovely wife buying drinks at the coffee shop inside. I introduced myself and shook his hand. As he was leaving, he looked back, made eye contact, and gave a big wave on the way out.
I'm a huge fan. If you like quirky singer-songwriters and can handle a little twang with your music, give him a listen.
As far as this book goes, I loved it! If you are already a Todd Snider fan you are required to own it; I'm willing to bet that there are many things you'll learn about Todd inside. If you are a newcomer to Todd, understand that he is well-known for his penchant for telling long but funny stories in between songs. This book contains many of those stories, often embellished, but always funny.
From the book jacket:
For years, Todd Snider has been one of the most beloved country-folk singers in the United States, compared to Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, John Prine, and dozens of others. He's become not only a new-century Dylan but a modern-day Will Rogers, an everyman whose intelligence, self-deprecation, experience, and sense of humor make him a uniquely American character. In live performance, Snider's monologues are cheered as much as his songs. But never before has he told the whole story. Running the gamut from personal memoir to shaggy-dog comedy to rueful memories of his troubles and triumphs with drugs and alcohol to sharp-eyed observations from years on the road, I Never Met a Story I Didn't Like is for fans of Snider's music, but also for fans of America itself: the broad, wild country that has produced figures of folk wisdom like Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Tonya Harding, Garrison Keillor, and more. There are storytellers and there are performers and there are stand-up comedians. And then there's Todd Snider, who is all three in one, and something else entirely.
Shards: A Young Vice Cop Investigates Her Darkest Case of Meth Addiction - Her Own Allison Moore with Nancy Woodruff Touchstone
Hardcover (on sale 4/22/14)
As a beautiful, ambitious, and fearless young woman, Allison Moore had everything going for her. She had been the star student of her recruit class, was quickly promoted to vice cop at the Maui Police Department, and gained the respect of her colleagues and a stellar reputation. Her Future couldn't have been brighter. But when a doomed love affair with another cop led Allison to seek escape in crystal meth, she suddenly found her whole life turned around. Using her position of authority and skill of manipulation, Allison hid her addiction to methamphetamines from her lover and her department for as long as possible. She fabricated an elaborate story that she had ovarian cancer and needed to seek treatment on the mainland, while actually escaping to get a steady supply of meth through a brutal Seattle drug dealer. Allison's friends and colleagues donated their sick leave to her and organized fundraisers for her fictitious cancer treatment. Meanwhile, Allison's dependence on meth put her at the mercy of a ruthless drug lord, who made her a virtual prisoner in his house, beating, raping, and torturing her repeatedly. Allison was able to escape with the help of her mother, but just as the nightmare seemed to be fading and she got sober in rehab, she was extradited to Maui to face twenty-five felony charges filed by her own department. After a trial, she was sentenced to and served one year in the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu. Asounding, gripping, and told firsthand in a deeply sympathetic voice, Shards spares no detail of Allison's horrific experiences and the web of addiction and betrayal that cost her everything -- a career she loved, the colleagues who adored her, and the island that was once her paradise. ----- Allison Moore is a former narcotics officer with the Maui Police Department. A native of New Mexico, she served a one-year sentence in the Federal Corrections Center in Oahu for drug-related felonies. She is currently attempting to make amends to all those she has hurt and find her way back to life. Nancy Woodruff received her MFA from Columbia University, and she has taught writing at Columbia, Purchase College, Richmond, the American International University in London, and New York University. She is author of two novels, My Wife's Affair and Someone Else's Child. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband, sons, and daughter. Shards on goodreads
Country Music Broke My Brain: A Behind-The-Microphone Peek at Nashville's Famous & Fabulous Stars Gerry House BenBella Books
Hardcover
I have one copy of this book to give away. In order to enter to win, retweet one of my tweets about the giveaway. You only have to enter once, repeat tweets do not increase your chances to win. U.S. residents only.
Nashville is filled with stars and lovers and writers and dreamers. Nashville is also teeming with lunatics and grifters and dip wads and moochers. Gerry House fits easily into at least half of those categories. Someone would probably have to be brain-damaged or really damn talented to try to entertain professional entertainers over a decades-long radio show in Music City, USA.
Fortunately, House is little of both.
Host of the nationally syndicated, top-rated morning show, “Gerry House & The Foundation” for more than 25 years, he has won virtually every broadcasting award there is including a place in the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Gerry also spent that time deep inside the songwriting and recording world in Nashville.
In Country Music Broke My Brain, Gerry tells his stories from the other side of the microphone. He reveals never-aired, never-before published conversations with country music’s biggest names—Johnny Cash, Brad Paisley, and Reba McEntire to name a few—and leaves you with his own crazy antics that will either have you laughing or shaking your head in disbelief.
With exclusive celebrity stories, humorous trivia and anecdotes, and broadcasting wisdom, this book is a treat for country music fans or for anyone who wants a good laugh.
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, “enjoyed every page” of this memoir set in the punk scene in Detroit in the ’90s.
Eighteen-year-old Sean Madigan Hoen was struggling to keep his involvement in the city’s hardcore punk scene a secret from his family. Then he learned that his father, too, had a second life—as a crack addict.
Songs Only You Know begins in the ’90s and spans a decade during which the family fights to hold itself together. Sean’s father cycles from rehab to binge, his heartsick sister spirals into depression, and his mother works to spare what can be spared. Meanwhile, Sean seeks salvation in a community of eccentrics and outsiders, making music Spin magazine once referred to as “an art-core mindfuck.” But the closer Sean comes to realizing his musical dream, the further he drifts from his family and himself.
By turns heartbreaking and mordantly funny, Songs Only You Know is a fierce, compassionate rendering of the chaos and misadventure of a young man’s life.
From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog, this “elegant and entertaining” (The Boston Globe) explanation of how humans perceive their environments “does more than open our eyes...opens our hearts and minds, too, gently awakening us to a world—in fact, many worlds—we’ve been missing” (USA TODAY).
Alexandra Horowitzshows us how to see the spectacle of the ordinary—to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, “the observation of trifles.” Structured around a series of eleven walks the author takes, mostly in her Manhattan neighborhood, On Looking features experts on a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, the well-known artist Maira Kalman, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. Horowitz also walks with a child and a dog to see the world as they perceive it. What they see, how they see it, and why most of us do not see the same things reveal the startling power of human attention and the cognitive aspects of what it means to be an expert observer.
Page by page, Horowitz shows how much more there is to see—if only we would really look. Trained as a cognitive scientist, she discovers a feast of fascinating detail, all explained with her generous humor and self-deprecating tone. So turn off the phone and other electronic devices and be in the real world—where strangers communicate by geometry as they walk toward one another, where sounds reveal shadows, where posture can display humility, and the underside of a leaf unveils a Lilliputian universe—where, indeed, there are worlds within worlds within worlds.
Over Easy is equal parts time capsule of late 1970s life in California—with its deadheads, punks, disco rollers, casual sex, and drug use—and bildungsroman of a young woman who grows from a naïve, sexually inexperienced art-school dropout into a self-aware, self-confident artist. Mimi Pond’s chatty, slyly observant anecdotes create a compelling portrait of a distinct moment in time. Over Easy is an immediate, limber, and precise semi-memoir narrated with an eye for the humor in every situation.
Sh*t Rough Drafts collects imagined misguided early drafts of classic books, screenplays, and contemporary literature, creating visions of alternate works that would exist had the authors not come to their senses. What if F. Scott Fitzgerald had gone with the title The Coolest Gatsby? How would The Hunger Games change if Peeta were armed only with blueberry muffins? If the Man of Steel’s S stood for Sexyman? MacBeth, Moby Dick, Harry Potter, Sense and Sensibility, The Lord of the Rings, and many more are each presented as if they were the actual typed or handwritten pages by the authors themselves, revealing the funny and frightful works they might have been with a little less capable judgment.
Winner of Chronicle Book’s 2013 Great Tumblr Book Search
A Gift from the Enemy:A True Story of Escape in War-Time Italy
Enrico Lamet
Excerpt from A Gift from the Enemy by Enrico Lamet
The clear stream of uninterrupted flow from the mountain, spurting from the fountain’s single lion head, sent out a tempting invitation. The water was ice cold, sparkling clear, reflecting the purity of the surrounding nature. Holding my fingers under the fast-moving stream I tasted the drippings. Anxiously I cupped my hands to taste the water and, the more I drank, the more I craved it. My thirst refused to be satisfied. To bring my mouth closer to the gush of the precious gift, I clambered up and half-sat on the edge of the narrow stone which was the fountain’s cradle. Only the arrival of a young woman, who had come to fill a large vessel, made me jump off to make room for her.
She rested the shiny copper cauldron on the steel grate. Her bowl had to be heavy, judging from the thud it created by the meeting of the two metals.
While the vessel was filling, I watched the girl as she twisted a large rag to form a ring around one hand, then position it on her head. She was slight and surely not more than three or four years older than I. How was she going to carry such a heavy container, I questioned silently, when, wonder of wonders, with surprising strength and agility, she slid the filled cauldron onto one hand, tipped it to spill off some surplus water and, with a twist of the body, lifted and positioned it on the curled rag she had placed on her head. With her legs spaced apart to gain balance, she grasped the container’s two handles and stabilized it. Then, with her back straight and a distinct rhythm, letting her bare feet absorb the full brunt of the pebbly path, she waddled down the dirt road to soon be lost in the distance down the hill.
More women came to the fountain and carried away large containers of spring water in the same way the young girl had done. However I never saw a man carry more than a small pail during the time I spent there.
As soon as the fountain became available, I gulped down a few more sips of the cold, refreshing mountain gift before setting off to explore the village.
I hopped down the steep, dusty gravel path that cut through the heart of the village. The road was narrow, just wide enough for a horse and buggy or a small passenger car. Every one of my bounces raised a puff of dust and shot the sharp feeling of each stone through my leather sandals, adding to my admiration of the skill needed by the girl I saw at the fountain to balance that heavy load barefooted.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Enrico Lamet recently released a revised and enlarged edition of A Gift from the Enemy: A True Story of Escape in War-Time Italy, a compelling childhood memoir of World War II.
Enrico was born in Vienna, and spent the first eight years of his life in a comfortable middle-class atmosphere with his Jewish mother and father in Austria. At only 8 years of age, the Nazis invaded Vienna, changing the lives of all European Jews forever. The Lamet family fled to Italy, where they spent most of the next twelve years.
Follow along as Enrico and his mother face struggles in fascist WWII Italy, attempting to forge friendships and make a new home. In a style as original as his story, the author vividly recalls a dark time yet imbues his recollections with humor, humanity, and wit. Lamet offers a rare and historically important portrait, one you will not soon forget.
While the story takes place in Fascist Italy during the Holocaust period, it is not a Holocaust book.
After World War II ended, Lamet settled in Naples with his family. He finished high school in that city and studied Engineering at the University of Naples.
In 1950 the family moved to the United States, where Lamet continued his engineering studies at the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, near his family's home. Deciding that business would be more in keeping with his personality, he embarked on a business career. Over the years he became involved in a variety of enterprises until his eventual retirement as a CEO in 1992.
Fluent in German, Italian, English, Spanish, and Yiddish, Lamet served as an interpreter for the U.S. State Department and taught Italian for several years. Lamet has studied piano and voice and, to this day, enjoys performing Neapolitan songs.
Enrico Lamet, together with his wife, has 5 children, 7 granddaughters and two great-granddaughters. The Lamet’s live in Pittsfield, Mass. For more information, go to http://www.ericlamet.com/
Kirkus Reviews:
Lamet offers a tender, highly observant memoir of his boyhood years in Italy during World War II.
With his Jewish mother and father, the author spent the first eight years of his life in Austria in a comfortable bourgeois atmosphere. But then the storm clouds of war forced the family to move from Vienna to Milan, Paris, Nice and San Remo, before they found the obscure sanctuary of Ospedaletto, Italy. Along the way, Lamet's father left for Poland, and therefore plays little role in the remainder of the memoir, but his mother remains a steady force throughout. As the author writes of his days with her, he brings an authentic feel of childhood to the story, and readers will likely remember their own similar, universal joys. He touches upon activities in all manner of daily life, including woodworking, hearing Jewish singers and occasionally eating in restaurants. He also writes of attending summer camp and spending another summer on a farm, and of the kindness of a newswoman who lent him the latest comic books--all while he lived as a Jew in Europe at the wrong time in history. He draws other moments with a quieter, emotional ache: His mother finding a new man ("My parents had never kissed like that in front of me"), his family's lack of food and the terrifying experience of seeing a uniformed German soldier. The book's second section comprises the author's postwar years, and although readers may enjoy finding out what happened to Lamet down the road, his life during wartime is far more gripping, whether he's dodging bombs or learning to love poetry.
An outrageous, hilarious, and touching memoir by the youngest of nine children in a hardscrabble, beyond-eccentric Maine family.
With everything happening on Helen Peppe’s backwoods Maine farm, life was wild--and not just for the animals. Sibling rivalry, rock-bottom poverty, feral male chauvinism, sex in the hayloft: everything seemed--and was--out of control. In telling her wayward family tale, Peppe manages deadpan humor, an unerring eye for the absurd, and poignant compassion for her utterly overwhelmed parents. While her feisty resilience and candor will inevitably remind readers of Jeannette Walls or Mary Karr, Peppe's wry insight and moments of tenderness with family and animals are entirely her own. As Richard Hoffman, the author of Half the House: A Memoir puts it: "Pigs Can't Swim is an unruly, joyous troublemaker of a book."
Millions of viewers know and love Bob Saget from his role as the sweetly neurotic father on the smash hit Full House, and as the charming wisecracking host ofAmerica's Funniest Home Videos. And then there are the legions of fans who can't get enough of his scatological, out-of-his-mind stand-up routines, comedy specials, and outrageously profane performances in such shows as HBO's Entourage and the hit documentary The Aristocrats. In his bold and wildly entertaining publishing debut, Bob continues to embrace his dark side and gives readers the book they have long been waiting for—hilarious and often dirty yet warm and disarmingly sincere.
Bob talks about the connection between humor and pain, offering insights into his own life, including the deaths of his beloved sisters. He pays homage to the people who shaped and inspired him: his mom, Dolly; his father, Ben (the comedy influence who instilled his love of "sick silliness"); and the teacher who told him, "You need to make people laugh," as well as legendary comedians such as Richard Pryor, David Letterman, Billy Crystal, and Robin Williams.
Bob believes there's a time and a place for filth and immature humor—and for gentle family comedy. Dirty Daddy is packed with both, from his never-before-heard stories of what really went on behind the scenes of two of the most successful family shows of all times, with costars like John Stamos, Mary-Kate Olsen, and Ashley Olsen, to his liberating The Aristocrats, his Comedy Central roast, and his role of playing an extreme version of himself onEntourage. Bob opens up about his career, his reputation for sick humor, his pride and love for Full House, and how he's come to terms with the fame of being DT—"Danny Tanner." Throughout, he shares tales of close friends and colleagues like Rodney Dangerfield and Don Rickles, and recalls his experiences with show business legends, including Johnny Carson and George Carlin.
Told with his highly original blend of silliness, vulgarity, wit, and heart, Dirty Daddy reveals Bob Saget as never before—a man who loves being funny and making people laugh above all else.
Due to the kindness of Simon & Schuster, I have 5 copies of the new paperback of this book. To enter to win, retweet at least one of my tweets about the giveaway. My twitter name is @Book_Dude.
In these candidly witty and poignant essays, comedienne and writer Julia Sweeney muses on the complex blessings of motherhood: deciding to adopt her daughter, a Chinese girl named Mulan (“After the movie?”); nannies (including the Chinese Pat); being adopted by a dog; and meeting Mr. Right through an email from a complete stranger who wrote, “Desperately Seeking Sweeney-in-Law.” She recounts how she explained the facts of life to nine-year-old Mulan, a story that became a wildly popular TED talk and YouTube video. But no matter what the topic, Julia always writes with elegant precision, pinning her jokes with razor-sharp observations while articulating feelings that we all share.
In middle age, Ehrenreich came across the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence and set out to reconstruct that quest, which had taken her to the study of science and through a cataclysmic series of uncanny-or as she later learned to call them, "mystical"-experiences. A staunch atheist and rationalist, she is profoundly shaken by the implications of her life-long search.
Part memoir, part philosophical and spiritual inquiry, LIVING WITH A WILD GOD brings an older woman's wry and erudite perspective to a young girl's uninhibited musings on the questions that, at one point or another, torment us all. Ehrenreich's most personal book ever will spark a lively and heated conversation about religion and spirituality, science and morality, and the "meaning of life."
Certain to be a classic, LIVING WITH A WILD GOD combines intellectual rigor with a frank account of the inexplicable, in Ehrenreich's singular voice, to produce a true literary achievement.
Mark Fidrych exploded onto the scene in the summer of 1976 with the Detroit Tigers, capturing the hearts of Americans from coast to coast. Lanky with a curly mop, a nickname born of his resemblance to Sesame Street’s Big Bird would only hint at the large personality that was about to take baseball in a new direction. Known for wildly endearing antics such as throwing back balls that “had hits in them,” manicuring the mound of any cleat marks, talking to himself (and the ball for that matter), and shaking hands with just about everyone from groundskeepers to cops after games, The Bird infused each game with the fun, All-American spirit of 1970s baseball. A two-time All-Star player, Fidrych won nineteen games, along with the Rookie of the Year Award, becoming one of the biggest individual drawing cards baseball has ever seen.
Recreating the magic of an unforgettable era of baseball, The Bird shows how Fidrych was the player that brought a smile to your face, becoming a crossover pop culture icon and household name. Through meticulous research and interviews, Doug Wilson vividly recounts Fidrych’s struggles and final shining moments in the Minors, the tragic injury that signaled the beginning of the end of his career, through to his sudden death in 2009.
The Bird gives readers a long overdue look into the life of the refreshing rookie the likes of which baseball had never seen before, and has never seen since.
Through the kindness of New York University Press, I have two copies of this book to give away. In order to enter to win retweet me when I post about the book. Watch my timeline as I will post on twitter about the book every day until the give away ends.
From Benjamin Franklin's newspaper hoax that faked the death of his rival to Abbie Hoffman’s attempt to levitate the Pentagon, pranksters, hoaxers, and con artists have caused confusion, disorder, and laughter in Western society for centuries. Profiling the most notorious mischief makers from the 1600s to the present day, Pranksters explores how “pranks” are part of a long tradition of speaking truth to power and social critique.
Invoking such historical and contemporary figures as P.T. Barnum, Jonathan Swift, WITCH, The Yes Men, and Stephen Colbert, Kembrew McLeod shows how staged spectacles that balance the serious and humorous can spark important public conversations. In some instances, tricksters have incited social change (and unfortunate prank blowback) by manipulating various forms of media, from newspapers to YouTube. For example, in the 1960s, self-proclaimed “professional hoaxer” Alan Abel lampooned America’s hypocritical sexual mores by using conservative rhetoric to fool the news media into covering a satirical organization that advocated clothing naked animals. In the 1990s, Sub Pop Records then-receptionist Megan Jasper satirized the commodification of alternative music culture by pranking the New York Times into reporting on her fake lexicon of “grunge speak.” Throughout this book, McLeod shows how pranks interrupt the daily flow of approved information and news, using humor to underscore larger, pointed truths.
Written in an accessible, story-driven style, Pranksters reveals how mischief makers have left their shocking, entertaining, and educational mark on modern political and social life.
Mitchell Zuckoff
