Essays from a Native American grandfather to help navigate life's difficult experiences. Offered in the oral traditions of the Nez Perce, Native American writer W. S. Penn records the conversations he held with his granddaughter, lovingly referred to as ""Bean,"" as he guided her toward adulthood while confronting society's interest in possessions, fairness, and status. Drawing on his own family history and Native mythology, Penn charts a way through life where each endeavor is a journey-an opportunity to love, to learn, or to interact-rather than the means to a prize at the end. Divided into five parts, Penn addresses topics such as the power of words, race and identity, school, and how to be. In the essay "In the Nick of Names," Penn takes an amused look at the words we use for people and how their power, real or imagined, can alter our perception of an entire group. To Have and On Hold is an essay about wanting to assimilate into a group but at the risk of losing a good bit of yourself. "A Harvest Moon" is a humorous anecdote about a Native grandfather visiting his granddaughter's classroom and the absurdities of being a professional Indian. "Not Nobody" uses "Be All that You Can Be Week" at Bean's school to reveal the lessons and advantages of being a "nobody." In "From Paper to Person," Penn imagines the joy that may come to Bean when she spends time with her Paper People-three-foot-tall drawings, mounted on stiff cardboard-and as she grows into a young woman like her mom, able to say she is a person who is happy with what she has and not sorry for what she doesn't. Comical and engaging, the essays in Raising Bean will appeal to readers of all backgrounds and interests, especially those with a curiosity in language, perception, humor, and the ways in which Native people guide their families and friends with stories.

The official history of British Vogue, telling the magazine's story and how it has reflected the changing face of Britain from the first issue in 1916 right up to the present day.

British Vogue has always been far more than just a fashion magazine. For more than a century it has defined the tastes and style of successive generations, playing a leading role in the continuing story of Britain's national identity. From wartime austerity to the swinging sixties, it is a chronicle of arts, politics, health, travel and much more in addition to fashion. Now, for the very first time, the fascinating history of British Vogue is told in full.

Beautifully illustrated with images from the Vogue photographic collections, the book draws on hitherto unseen archives and behind-the-scenes interviews with Vogue insiders including stylist Grace Coddington, editor Alexandra Shulman and fashion editor Lucinda Chambers. This is the story of a legend and the individuals who created (and curated) it, told against the backdrop of an extraordinary century of change, upheaval and beauty.

A fun, sophisticated illustrated collection of essays that catalogs the simple and not so simple pleasures of the eclectic world of candy from the award-winning author of After the Eclipse. With illustrations by Forsyth Harmon.

A taxonomy of sweetness, a rhapsody of artificial flavors, and a multi-faceted theory of pleasure, Sweet Nothings is made up of one hundred illustrated micro essays organized by candy color, from the red of Pop Rocks to the purple Jelly Bonbon in the Whitman’s Sampler. Each entry is a meditation on taste and texture, a memory unlocked. Everyone’s favorites—and least favorites—are carefully considered, including Snickers and Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Cups, as well as the beloved Good n’ Plenty and Werther’s Originals.

An expert guide and exquisite writer, Sarah Perry asks such pressing questions as: Twizzlers or Red Vines? Why are Mentos eaters so maniacally happy? And in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, how could Edmund sell out his siblings for, of all things, Turkish delight? She rejects the dreaded “What is your favorite candy?” question and counters: Under what circumstances? F The question itself is flawed—favorite under what circumstances? In what weather? On the road, or at home? In what mood? For candy is inextricably tied to the seasons of our lives. Sweet Nothings moves associatively, touching on pop culture, art, culinary history, philosophy, body image, and class-based food moralism. It challenges the very idea of “junk” food and posits taking pleasure seriously as a means of survival.

Sarah Perry’s pure love of candy weaves together elegiac glimpses of her 90s childhood—and the loss at its center—with stories of love and desire. Surprisingly smart and frequently funny, Sweet Nothings is a tart and sweet ode to finding small joys where you can. Yes, even in black licorice.

It started as a daydream. Poring over a map of the world at home one quiet Saturday afternoon, Ewan McGregor -- acclaimed actor and self-confessed bike nut -- noticed that it was possible to ride all the way round the world, with just one short hop across the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska. It was a revelation he couldn't get out of his head. So he picked up the phone and called his fellow actor-slash-biker friend Charley Boorman and told him it was time to hit the road....

Long Way Round

Beginning in London, Ewan and Charley chased their shadows through Europe, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia; across the Pacific to Alaska; then down through Canada all the way to New York. "Long Way Round" is the result of their four-month, 20,000-mile joyride. Featuring original diary entries, travel maps, mileage charts, and dozens of photographs, this is a freewheeling, fully charged, and uproariously entertaining book about two world-famous individuals who chose the road not taken...and made the journey worthwhile.

From beloved spiritual writer and Catholic leader Gregory Floyd comes a moving meditation on the power of memory and how God is often more clearly seen when we look back. This is a book about memory, about what stays in the mind, and why. It is a book about the presence of God in our lives and the sights, sounds, words, and experiences that become unforgettable. Beginning with a single word he heard in the middle of the night-one that changed his life-this powerful memoir by Gregory Floyd asks the question: without memory, who are we? It is a meditation on beauty, marriage, family, and prayer, asking of the memories that each implants: what do they reveal? Where do they lead? -and witnessing to their potential to draw us to God.

"I became a life insurance salesman in London in May 1969, for the glamour, the fast cars, the groupies... the beautiful women who'd stop at nothing to buy life insurance. It's a very well-kept secret." Thus begins Peter Rosengard's extraordinary account of his life so far, and the endless adventures in which he made, lost and remade a fortune; founded London's famous Comedy Store, discovered and managed some of the greats in stand-up comedy; turned an unknown boy band into a chart-topping sensation; and sold the world's biggest life insurance policy in history, for $100m, which is still celebrated by the Guinness Book of Records. This is a book about "chutzpah," testament to a simple belief that "nothing is impossible."

The Real Interior not only allows the reader a behind-the-scenes peek into the glitz and glamour of design and décor, but into a career once never considered an option for a young girl, born in Soweto.

As one of the first black and very recognisable faces of Interior Design in Africa, Nthabi Taukobong was thrust into the limelight from the very start of her profession. Spanning a career of more than 23 years she has worked on esteemed residential and leisure projects for presidents, African royalty, captains of industry and five-star hotels, to name but a few. Through the rough and often very challenging terrain of her chosen career, sprinkled generously with the high-end glamour of prestigious interiors that Nthabi has been privileged to work on, she learned that she, in fact, had to be seated right within her own interior before she could offer anything further to those in search of her creative gift.

And as she searched and explored the greater world of design, trying to grasp what it really took to be an esteemed designer, the journey unexpectedly brought her right back into her own home. Not only Nthabi’s physical home, but also to her inner-home, the place that she refers to as her ‘real interior’. It was in writing a letter one evening, congratulating herself on reaching the milestone of 21 years in her career, that Nthabi discovered she was not only writing to herself, but to every creative.

Her letter ended up being an entire book and Nthabi finally understood how her unique story could inspire and encourage others.

A coming-of-age travel memoir that probes thorny spiritual questions while taking the reader on a wild ride from the deep American South to the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East. Once the golden girl of her Arkansas town, Natalie finds herself squeezed under small town shame and rejection after being kicked out of church for getting a divorce. It's a hard fall off of a sanctimonious high horse, and religious fundamentalism has left her feeling broken and stuck. But she can't shake the 'wanderlust woes' that have plagued her since childhood, so she runs away to the Middle East. As a mostly-sheltered Southerner, she struggles to adapt but is determined to be 'at home' in the world. Her journey is more than a pilgrimage, it's a peregrination: a one-way ticket to elsewhere in search of the place of her own resurrection. Within these pages is a suspenseful adventure filled with love, loss, laughter, tears, and a little bit of scandalous behavior, but at the heart of it, Natalie walks squarely into the unknown to confront the secret matters of the soul that we wrestle with at night.

A road trip to Namibia unfolds across these pages, but when? Yesterday, years ago, or never at all? Barbara Adair refuses to say, creating something between memoir and fever dream.

This is no ordinary travel narrative. Language shifts without warning: playful one moment, brutal the next. The text overflows with names of rivers, flowers, trees, places, and people, then suddenly confronts the cruel realities of history and contemporary life. Nothing stays still long enough for comfort.

Here is freedom captured in words: wind, mythology, politics, life and death all tumbling together. Questions emerge about technology, mechanics, the vacuous nature of our existence. The reader can never settle into complacency.

Mark Kannemeyer's eerie illustrations enhance or deliberately undermine the text, offering visual refuge from the relentless verbal energy.

Non-linear, indulgent, challenging: this book demonstrates how language can be bent into new shapes, how stories can become something more than mere storytelling. Fun, sad, and occasionally repellent. Often all at once.

"As I sat on the side of Hamnafield on Foula in the Shetland Islands, looking down at my 'enormous' 38-foot ferry stowed in its cradle on the quay in Ham Voe, over 1,000 feet below me, I reflected on a moderately successful career to date, and wondered how on Earth I had ended up driving what was, in effect, a floating dust cart" After 42 years at or connected with the sea, Jeremy Walker ended up on the Shetland Island of Foula commanding and running a small ferry to the mainland of Shetland. Throughout the course of his career, firstly as a seagoing deck officer with a large, but now defunct, British shipping company, then as a Hovercraft Commander for four years, returning to sea for a brief period as Master of two small coastal tankers and then for the majority of his career as a Pilot on the River Humber, he encountered many amusing situations. In this book he attempts to relate these stories and to illustrate the lighter side of what was a very difficult, responsible and, at times, incredibly stressful job. And little did he know that his career was far from over and new opportunities and challenges would take him on for a further 13 years to eventual retirement.