When Jennifer Gilbert was twenty-two years old, someone tried to cut her life short in the most violent way. Not wanting this traumatic encounter to define her life, she buried it within and bravely launched a fabulous career in New York as an event planner. Always the calm in the storm--from fixing a ripped dress to relocating a lavish party on two days' notice--she was convinced she'd never again feel joy herself. Yet these weddings, anniversaries, and holiday parties slowly brought her back to life. No one's entitled to an easy road, Gilbert learned, but instead of anticipating our present in a goodie bag, it's our presence that is the real gift.

Christian Dior: The Illustrated World of a Fashion Master is a stunning illustrated biography of legendary designer Christian Dior from internationally renowned fashion illustrator Megan Hess. Discover the key moments of Dior's fascinating life and iconic items from the fashion world that he created. Dior's love of flowers, creativity, femininity and good-luck charms were woven into everything he designed, and his New Look remains iconic to this day. Elegantly enclosed by a hardback cover and ribbon, Megan's beautiful illustrations follow Dior through three distinct chapters: the highs and lows of his early life, set against a backdrop of bohemian and wartime Paris; the couture house that he built into an empire in just ten years; and the incredible legacy he left behind for one of fashion's most influential brands. Christian Dior is a celebration of a man whose life was as remarkable as the clothes that he created, brought to life on the page by the expert hand of Megan Hess.

Dr Joan Louwrens was always drawn to wild places, which were balm to her soul. When her husband died, leaving her alone with two small daughters to raise, she threw herself wholeheartedly into ‘adventure medicine’, seeking out the world’s most remote corners – on land and at sea – to practise her healing, both her own and others.

Working in wild places from the Kruger Park to the Australian Outback, the Atlantic Ocean islands, and both the south and north poles, ‘Doctor Joan’ dealt with a vast range of medical issues, from rabies to deep-vein thrombosis, childbirth to wisdom-tooth extraction, catatonia to depression.

Showing an eagerness to learn and a humility that isn’t always a given in her profession, and with a wry eye and a sympathetic outlook, Joan Louwrens has written a memoir that’s a poignant and often funny story of a life lived to the full

In her funny and wistful new book, Reeve Lindbergh contemplates entering a new stage in life, turning sixty, the period her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, once described as "the youth of old age." It is a time of life, she writes, that produces some unexpected surprises. Age brings loss, but also love; disaster, but also delight. The second-graders Reeve taught many years ago are now middle-aged; her own children grow, marry, have children themselves. "Time flies," she observes, "but if I am willing to fly with it, then I can be airborne, too." A milestone birthday is also an opportunity to take stock of oneself, although such self-reflection may lead to nothing more than the realization, as Reeve puts it, "that I just seem to continue being me, the same person I was at twelve and at fifty." At sixty, as she observes, "all I really can do with the rest of my life is to...feel all of it, every bit of it, as much as I can for as long as I can."
Age is only one of many subjects that Reeve writes about with perception and insight. In northern Vermont, nature is an integral part of daily life, especially on a farm. Whether it is the arrival and departure of certain birds in spring and fall, wandering turtles, or the springtime ritual of lambing, the natural world is a constant revelation.
With a wry sense of humor, Reeve contemplates the infirmities of the aging body, as well as the many new drugs that treat these maladies. Briefly considering the risks of drug dependency, she writes that "the least we the "Sixties Generation"] can do for ourselves is live up to our mythology, and take lots of drugs." Legal drugs, that is -- although what sustains us as we grow older is not drugs but an appreciation for life, augmented by compassion, a sense of humor, and common sense.
And of course there is family -- especially with the Lindberghs. Reeve writes about discovering, thirty years after her father's death and two and a half years after her mother's, that her father had three secret families in Europe. She travels to meet them, learning to expand her self-understanding: "daughter of," "mother of," "sister of" -- sister of many more siblings than she'd known, in a family more complicated than even she had imagined.
"Forward from Here" is a brave book, a reflective book, a funny book -- a book that will charm and fascinate anyone on the journey from middle age to the uncertain future that lies ahead.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. In 1936, George Orwell volunteered as a soldier in the Spanish Civil War. In Homage to Catalonia, first published just before the outbreak of World War II, Orwell documents the chaos and bloodshed of that moment in history and the voices of those who fought against rising fascism. His experience of the civil war would spark a significant change in his own political views, which readers today will recognise in much of his later literary work; a rage against the threat of totalitarianism and control.

An enchanting portrait of the trials and triumphs of family life, which any parent of any age will recognise with a wry smile. Sally Magnusson lives with her husband and five children in Scotland. This book begins soon after the birth of the fifth child, with a scene to which we can all relate with feeling: that night when you slept through for the first time and without any small body in your bed either. Life continues through holidays (and the baggage required for the family and British weather conditions), school Christmas plays (and the parental competition for best parts for their offpsring), pets (and how they multiply), children and cars (and how long it takes for a quarrel to start), going out (and the organization required to arrange children, animals and house), and all the many facets of family life. Family Life is written with verve and humour, as well as pithy accuracy.

The best gift for the dudes and bros in your life: the fratire "New York Times "bestseller "Assholes Finish First," featuring twenty-five new and exclusive stories by Tucker Max.
What do you do after you write a #1 bestselling book about your drunken, sexual misadventures that makes you rich and famous? Celebrate by getting more drunk and having insane amounts of sex, obviously. And pretty soon you've got another bestselling book on your hands.
Stuffed full of ridiculous stories of bad decisions, debauchery, and sexual recklessness, "Assholes Finish First" starts where "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" left off, then proceeds to "some next-level shit."
You already know how women react to confidence, game, and vodka, but what happens when you add money and fame to the mix? You get answers to the hard questions you've never thought of asking:
- What's it like to have sex with a midget? What about two midgets?
- What does it do to a man to watch a nineteen-year-old do wind sprints to sober up, so that she can have sex with you before her twin sister does?
- At what number of virgins does deflowering them stop being fun and start feeling like a job?
- When a girl you met three hours ago decides to tattoo your name on her body, what is the appropriate reaction?
The answers are inside, they are absurd and hilarious, and they are the product of one man's experiences:
His name is Tucker Max, and he is still an asshole.

Simply and without bitterness, Shuguba tells his story: he speaks of the Chinese invasion and Tibetan military resistance against overwhelming odds; the bombings, executions, and massacres; the deaths of his wife and daughter; and his own "trial" and nineteen-year imprisonment. Shuguba, who was the last surviving high official from the 14th Dalai Lama's original government, reveals information that was concealed from the outside world for over three decades. His recollections of his earlier life offer intimate views of a unique traditional society that is now all but extinct. After his release in 1978, Shuguba was brought to the United States, where he died in 1991 at the age of 87. This moving personal account is based on Shuguba's autobiography supplemented by many hours of interviews conducted by writer Sumner Carnahan and translated by Lama Kunga Rinpoche, a Tibetan high lama who is one of Shuguba's sons. The book includes rare photos of Shuguba's family and associates as well as views of monasteries and other Tibetan cultural treasures that have since been destroyed. The Tibetan catastrophe -- the brutal ongoing campaign to stamp out every trace of Tibetan identity, culture, and civilisation -- continues unchecked after more than 35 years.

DESCRIPTION: Elmore Leonard meets Franz Kafka in the wild, improbably true story of the legendary outlaw of Budapest. Attila Ambrus was a gentleman thief, a sort of Cary Grant--if only Grant came from Transylvania, was a terrible professional hockey goalkeeper, and preferred women in leopard-skin hot pants. During the 1990s, while playing for the biggest hockey team in Budapest, Ambrus took up bank robbery to make ends meet. Arrayed against him was perhaps the most incompetent team of crime investigators the Eastern Bloc had ever seen: a robbery chief who had learned how to be a detective by watching dubbed Columbo episodes; a forensics man who wore top hat and tails on the job; and a driver so inept he was known only by a Hungarian word that translates to Mound of Ass-Head. BALLAD OF THE WHISKEY ROBBER is the completely bizarre and hysterical story of the crime spree that made a nobody into a somebody, and told a forlorn nation that sometimes the brightest stars come from the blackest holes. Like The Professor and the Madman and The Orchid Thief, Julian Rubinsteins bizarre crime story is so odd and so wicked that it is completely irresistible.

The phenomenal international bestseller - with over 8 million copies sold. What legacy would you choose to leave behind for your children? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give 'a last lecture' lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. But the lecture he gave, 'Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams', wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. A lot of professors give talks titled 'The Last Lecture'. Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humour, inspiration, and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass encompasses eleven chapters that recount Douglass's life as a slave and his ambition to become a free man. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist of the early 19th century in the United States.

"Portrait of a Dalai Lama" is the story of one of Tibet's greatest religious and political leaders. It also stands as an important historical portrait of a pivotal era in Asian and world affairs.

A unique blend of memoir and public history, Packinghouse Daughter, winner of the Minnesota Book Award, tells a compelling story of small-town, working-class life. The daughter of a Wilson & Company millwright, Cheri Register recalls the 1959 meatpackers' strike that divided her hometown of Albert Lea, Minnesota. The violence that erupted when the company "replaced" its union workers with strikebreakers tested family loyalty and community stability. Register skillfully interweaves her own memories, historical research, and oral interviews into a narrative that is thoughtful and impassioned about the value of blue-collar work and the dignity of those who do it.

A mouth-wateringly evocative memoir of a new life in Tuscany. Ferenc Mate and his painter wife Candace arrived from New York in the late 1980s, knowing almost no Italian and with only four weeks to find themselves a new home. After many (hilariously told) mishaps, they finally conclude the deal for their perfect house - an ancient farmhouse in the Tuscan hills - by drawing on the hood of a rusty tractor. Mate brings the real Tuscany to life: the neighbours, the countryside, country-life, the family farm down the road who virtually adopt them and teach them the Tuscan traditions of grape-picking, wine-making, mushroom hunting, woodcutting, the holidays and, of course, the almost never-ending, mouth-watering feasts. The Hills of Tuscany is a classic piece of rural escapism for urban dreamers. Witty and enticingly written, it offers a tempting invitation to readers to lose themselves in its lushness. Steeped in the mesmerizing Italian landscape, full of unforgettable characters, this book is an affirmation of traditions, friendship and the countryside - a celebration of life itself.

'Why do I know a few more things? Why am I so clever altogether?' Self-celebrating and self-mocking autobiographical writings from Ecce Homo, the last work iconoclastic German philosopher Nietzsche wrote before his descent into madness. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

Getting Lost is the diary kept by Annie Ernaux during the year and a half she had a secret love affair with a younger, married man, an attache to the Soviet embassy in Paris. Her novel, Simple Passion, was based on this affair, but here her writing is immediate and unfiltered. In these diaries it is 1989 and Annie is divorced with two grown sons, living in the suburbs of Paris and nearing fifty. Her lover escapes the city to see her there and Ernaux seems to survive only in expectation of these encounters. She cannot write, she trudges distractedly through her various other commitments in the world, she awaits his next call; she lives merely to feel desire and for the next rendezvous. When he is gone and the moment of desire has faded, she feels that she is a step closer to death. Lauded for her spare prose, Ernaux here removes all artifice, her writing pared down to its most naked and vulnerable. Translated brilliantly for the first time by Alison L. Strayer, Getting Lost is a haunting record of a woman in the grips of love, desire and despair.

Reporter is an account of John McBeth's 50-year journey through Asia, more than half of that time as a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, the venerable magazine long regarded as the region's English-language Bible on political and economic affairs. While necessarily a memoir, the book is more a reflection of the lives of a small group of foreign journalists who came to Asia on a wing and a prayer - and in McBeth's case by ship - and stayed on as fascinated witnesses to a region going through turbulent times and historic change. Part-history, part-analysis, part story-telling and, in a smaller way, part-commentary on the salad days of print journalism and its steady decline under the onslaught of television and the Internet, Reporter introduces us to a diverse cast of journalists, diplomats, officials, politicians and generals McBeth meets and befriends along the way. New in paperback to make 50 years reporting in Asia, the original book has been complemented with a new introduction and a new chapter "The Defining Years" which bring McBeth's story up to date.

The extraordinary life of tycoon and philanthropist Dr Anton Rupert is told in full in this updated version of the topselling biography.

This is the story of a Karoo boy who grew up during the Depression, struggled to find money to study science, and then made good as a businessman, spectacularly so, reaching the Forbes list of the 500 wealthiest people worldwide. Unlike Harry Oppenheimer, Rupert was no heir, neither did he make his millions from mining. His Rembrandt Group of manufacturers became known across the globe, owning brands like Cartier, Dunhill, Rothmans and Montblanc. Within a few decades, a family dynasty was built, making the Ruperts, next to the Oppenheimers, the richest family in Africa.

This compelling book, based on extensive research, does justice to a South African icon whose life contains invaluable business lessons. Anton Rupert's insights into job and wealth creation are today more relevant than ever.

A memoir of startling insight, divine comedy, and irreversible, unconscionable stupidity

Fans of Jason Mulgrew's wildly popular blog know that everything really is wrong with him. The product of a raucous, not-just-semi-but-fully-dysfunctional Philadelphia family, Jason has seen it all--from Little League games of unspeakable horror to citywide parades ending in stab wounds; from hard-partying longshoremen fathers to feathered-hair, no-nonsense, kindhearted mothers; and from conscience-crippling Catholic dogmas to the equally confounding religion of women. With chapter titles like "My Bird: Inadequacy and Redemption" (no, he is not referring to a parakeet) and "On the Relationship Between Genetics and Hustling," Everything Is Wrong with Me proves that, as Jason puts it, "writing is a fantastical exercise in manic depression"--but he never fails to ensure that laughter is part of the routine.

With echoes of Jean Shepherd transplanted to Philly in the eighties and nineties, this book is a must-read for every person who looks back wistfully on his or her childhood and family and wonders, "What were we thinking?"

A cantankerously funny view of books and the people who love them. It does take all kinds and through the misanthropic eyes of a very grumpy bookseller, we see them all--from the "Person Who Doesn't Know What They Want (But Thinks It Might Have a Blue Cover)" to the "Parents Secretly After Free Childcare." From behind the counter, Shaun Bythell catalogs the customers who roam his shop in Wigtown, Scotland. There's the Expert (divided into subspecies from the Bore to the Helpful Person), the Young Family (ranging from the Exhausted to the Aspirational), Occultists (from Conspiracy Theorist to Craft Woman). Then there's the Loiterer (including the Erotica Browser and the Self-Published Author), the Bearded Pensioner (including the Lyrca Clad), and the The Not-So-Silent Traveller (the Whistler, Sniffer, Hummer, Farter, and Tutter). Two bonus sections include Staff and, finally, Perfect Customer--all add up to one of the funniest book about books you'll ever find. Shaun Bythell (author of Confessions of a Bookseller) and his mordantly unique observational eye make this perfect for anyone who loves books and bookshops. "Bythell is having fun and it's infectious."--Scotsman "Virtuosic venting ... misanthropy with bursts of sweetness." Guardian "All the ingredients for a gentle human comedy are here, as soothing as a bag of boiled sweets and just as tempting to dip into."--Literary Review "Any reader finding this book in their stocking on Christmas morning should feel lucky...contains plenty to amuse--an excellent diversion"--Bookmunch

In April 2009, a modest middle-aged woman from a village in Scotland was catapulted to global fame when the YouTube video of her audition for "Britain's Got Talent" touched the hearts of millions all over the world. From singing karaoke in local pubs to a live performance with an eighty-piece orchestra in Japan's legendary Budokan Arena and a record-breaking debut album, Susan Boyle has become an international superstar. This astonishing transformation has not always been easy for her, faced with all the trappings of celebrity, but in the whirlwind of attention and expectation, she has always found calm and clarity in music. Susan was born to sing. Now, for the first time, she tells the story of her life and the challenges she has struggled to overcome with faith, fortitude, and an unfailing sense of humor.

The thrilling narrative of Rosanna McGonegal Yoder, the Irish Catholic baby girl, who lived with an Amish woman, Elizabeth Yoder. All the episodes of "Rosanna of the Amish" are based on fact. Joseph W. Yoder gives an honest, sympathetic, straightforward account of the religious, social, and economic customs and traditions of the Amish.