Real life is the birthplace of the best stories. The tales related in Lines From the Times are drawn from real life. Lacking the length of a short story, these tales are pithy reflections on life as it is encountered by the author. From a little girl's conversation on a park bench, a grown man flying a kite in the church yard, a daughter's attempts to rein in an indulgent grandfather, a homeless man or a drug-influenced woman seeking direction, an adventure getting children off to school, strangers passed along life's journey, all combine to entertain and delight. These are not sermons by any means, but hey are parables of life where one finds a lesson taught, a prejudice challenged or a value uplifted. Lines From the Times is a mirror held up to our age reflecting our beauty and our blemishes. There's love in these pages; there's sadness for love not shown. There's acceptance here; there's rejection. We can find ourselves tucked inside the stories, ourselves at our best and at our worse.

Behind a thin veneer of respectability, life in a small English village is not all it may seem. Through the eyes of Chumleigh the cat, the rural goings on are recorded in this funny and poignant diary, with an element of adult humour. From a cats perspective, Chumleigh tells all about life in his house and the antics of his neighbours. From domestic disharmony to a cannabis farm in next doors garden shed, he sees it all and shares it all in his diary. This is a cat who enjoys the finer elements of feline existence like tuna, sleeping in the warm and cat treats. But life doesnt always pan out the way he would like. Supported by a rich cast of locals, as odd and individualistic as still found in many small villages, Chumleigh charts a year in his life. Traumatic visits to the vet, turf wars with the local ginger tom and a desire to eliminate a neighbours yappy dog are all set down with great humour and insight. If youve ever lived in a village or owned a cat, this will make you laugh. If youve never lived in a village and never owned a cat, this will be a wonderful insight into what you have been missing. The Secret Diary of Chumleigh the Cat is a year in the life of a cat who never ceases to be amazed at just what goes on around him!

The first of its kind to explore the Nobel Prize experience

"Dad, some guy is calling from Sweden." It was 2:30am on October 13th, 1998, the youngest son in the Laughlin house had answered the phone. His dad had just become a recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics.

Frantic and funny events of the next two months are chronicled as the Laughlin's academic household morphs into a madcap staging area for the family and thirty guests who will be in attendance during Nobel week. From tickets to Stockholm to clothing measurements, Nobel lecture preparations, attach assistance and a quick trip to the White House for a formal reception with President and Mrs. Clinton, readers will laugh out loud while gasping in awe.

The glorious Nobel ceremony and elaborate banquet is held each winter with a viewing audience of tens of millions. An intimate dinner with King Gustaf in his royal palace follows the Nobel evening in which Anita Laughlin finds herself the King's dinner partner for what becomes an evening of hilarious surprises, and yes, reindeer.

This book is laced with cartoons drawn by Bob Laughlin that evoke collective feelings of surprise and bewilderment as he and his wife ascend the steep learning curve of Swedish protocol together.

Dr. Kuhn has written a book about her life and travels as a foreign language teacher. In essence, it is a book of memories, autobiographical in nature. She describes many of the 45 trips in detail, but she also groups many of the trips togeher. In 1973 when she began taking students to Europe, she had a good background of working with students and knowing how they think and act. (or so she thought) There is an interesting list of things to take, where to put the items, where they can be bought and the prices of the items. There is also a list of personal rules and regulations that were required of all students. They were called Mademoiselle's Rules or Mlle's Rules. Then there is a comprehensive list of Trip Procedures, giving all the do's and don't's of traveling. Students were allowed to "sample" beer and alcohol as long as their parents had signed a permission slip, but students will always try to outthink the teacher and circumvent the procedures. Dr. Kuhn describes many of the things that went wrong on both student trips and adult trips, along with things that didn't seem funny at the time, but in retrospect seem humorous today.

Julian Barrie knows that it's hard for men to find the women of their dreams and then sometimes even harder to keep them. He's made keen observations over the years when it comes to women and engaging in serious relationships with them and has noted bits of wisdom to help any man about to embark upon such a journey. Do you ever wish you could go back in time to your teen years or early twenties and advise yourself on how to avoid life-changing mistakes involving women?

Barrie provides humorous insights, including eleven commandments, regarding how to find, attract, and keep the woman of your dreams. Learn how to make decisions that will create a happy and peaceful existence with the love of your life.

Let Chasing Women without Leaving Your Seat help you choose your life mate and guide you through the often tricky stages of friendship, courtship, relationship, nuptials, raising a family, and finally, retirement, while keeping the sparks of romance burning brightly.

The hectic, sad, ever so funny, you have to be kidding me life of a waiter and the day-to-day life of survival in the restaurant industry. Learn how to eat free and truly understand what the wait staff is thinking as they approach your table. Wait staff are a lot like first responders. We have to be at the tables no matter what is happening in our lives or even on the planet due to, as I like to call it, the "You're kidding me, right?" factor. Even in the midst of a global cataclysm, I do not even bother calling work to see if I need to go in today, as I know the answer is always going to be yes. It can be raining bricks and fireballs, deadly hoards of the living dead can be running the streets, killing at will. A nuclear holocaust of biblical proportions can be imminently poised to strike my city, and still I need to show up, uniform and all. Why, you ask me? Because some wicked stupid idiot and his family will show at the tables up to eat.

Emerging from a very protective, strictly Catholic, middle class family, Henry is equipped with a bachelor's degree, and an attache case when he enters the world of work. Lessons including tax avoidance, tax evasion, loneliness and blackmail are soon some of the problems he faces. Those plus a few years of military service convince him that his first love must be teaching. In the public schools, new words enter his vocabulary and he faces new challenges. In a small, conservative school, these battles center around the Who, What, Where, When and How of journalism. The problems are who may a new teacher date, what teaching methods are allowed, where may a new teacher live and drink, when must a new teacher be home and how long will the students and parents continue to educate him. The problems and vocabulary change when Henry signs a contract to teach in a large, metropolitan high school in Nevada. Now there are lessons to be learned about theft, wedding chapels, prostitution, Keno, legal guardianship, child neglect, child abuse, parole, comps and under cover police acting as students. On the other side of the coin are lessons in trust, love, scholarships, financial aid, advanced placement, real estate and fellow teachers to add humor and understanding to all the problems. The thirty year run in education is a rewarding, challenging, enjoyable and humorous life. With those lessons learned, he feels prepared for retirement.

GATORS, SNAKES, BEARS AND BIKERS, OH MY

This book is the second in a planned series of books entitles "Tails of a Woodsman." This book is similar to the first book Patti has published, it is a collection of humorous true stories of Patti's encounters with Florida Wild Life. Patti's gifted story telling style has a way of touching the heart of her readers and many readers report laughing right out loud

Most of the stories in this book happened in the 440,000 acres of the untamed piney woods of the Ocala National Forest. Patti resides in a cottage, near the healing springs of the Seminole Indians---Salt Springs. This is where she shares the land with many Florida critters to include, gators, poisonous snakes, black bears, owls, eagles, and great salt water and freshwater fishing.

These stories will warm the heart of the readers and expose the reader to rural Florida, a place that is spiritually scared to those born here and awesomely challenging to the newcomer

Everyone knows Uber drivers are expected to be courteous and attentive, both to their passengers and to those on the road. They are not expected to accept that invitation to the swinger party, flee the scene of a fatal accident, nor are they expected to be a convicted felon on probation. Unfortunately, this Joe Schmo is not your everyday Uber driver. I began sharing rides with the audacious hope to one day escape the road blocks stalling my merger onto the freeway of creative success. But when a typical shift U-turns into a series of detours involving herpes ridden riders, sexy sorority sisters, and blundering bank robbers, I arrive (at gunpoint) miles from my desired destination. ""Rideshares, Wrecks, and Sex: Confessions of a Convicted Uber Driver"" is based upon actual events that transpired over the year that I covertly drove for Uber while on probation. I confesses outlandish details in a highlight reel of wrecks (both car and train) and sex, effectively answering ""What's your craziest story?""

1975 Kenny fell in love with motorcycles; it was his gateway to freedom. Motorcycles were a big part of his life, and in 2008 a near fatal motorcycle vs car accident changed his life forever. This book details the events of his life and struggles with rehabilitation.

It has long been a government secret in the UK that Manchester is the home of man made weather. In neighbouring Salford, cloud machines are manufactured, and their owners are registered and certificated. Cirrus Cumulus and Percival White are two respectable, certified cloud machine operators, working together on a machine called the Nimbus. Down on the ground, they share a home in the Lancashire village of Slaidburn. Cirrus' reserved nature is perfectly partnered with Percival's rather bawdy behaviour. Operating out of Wythenshawe Weather Centre, they make a great team, taking on search and rescue, fundraising, foreign aid, and some more unusual projects. As crew of the Nimbus, they are occasionally called upon to fight criminal cloud activity. Other weather tasks are of vital importance, while some are just bizarre. In this collection of short stories, the crew of the Nimbus weaves magic in the sky but also in the hearts of colleagues and friends alike.