'I was riveted by Sweat and its extraordinary tale of the ups and downs of exercise over millennia' Jane Fonda 'Does what all good history books should do: take the past and make it vastly more human' The Times _________________________ From the author of Insomniac City 'who can tackle just about any subject in book form, and make you glad he did' (San Francisco Chronicle): a cultural, scientific, literary, and personal history of exercise Exercise is our modern obsession, and we have the fancy workout gear and fads to prove it. Exercise - a form of physical activity distinct from sports, play, or athletics - was an ancient obsession, too, but as a chapter in human history, it's been largely overlooked. In Sweat, Bill Hayes runs, jogs, swims, spins, walks, bikes, boxes, lifts, sweats, and downward-dogs his way through the origins of different forms of exercise, chronicling how they have evolved over time, and dissecting the dynamics of human movement. Hippocrates, Plato, Galen, Susan B. Anthony, Jack LaLanne, and Jane Fonda, among many others, make appearances in Sweat, but chief among the historical figures is Girolamo Mercuriale, a Renaissance-era Italian physician who aimed singlehandedly to revive the ancient Greek "art of exercising" through his 1569 book De arte gymnastica. In the pages of Sweat, Mercuriale and his illustrated treatise are vividly brought back to life. asHayes ties his own personal experience to the cultural and scientific history of exercise, from ancient times to the present day, he gives us a new way to understand its place in our lives in the 21st century.

'A beautiful memoir in which Oliver Sacks comes wonderfully to life ... Exquisitely wrought, heartrending and joyous' Joyce Carol Oates

Bill Hayes came to New York in 2009 with a one-way ticket and only the vaguest idea of how he would get by. But, at forty-eight years old, having spent decades in San Francisco, he craved change. Grieving over the death of his partner, he quickly discovered the profound consolations of the city's incessant rhythms, the sight of the Empire State Building against the night sky, and New Yorkers themselves, kindred souls that Hayes, a lifelong insomniac, encountered on late-night strolls with his camera.

And he unexpectedly fell in love again, with his friend and neighbor, the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose exuberance is captured in funny and touching vignettes throughout. What emerges is a portrait of Sacks at his most personal and endearing, from falling in love for the first time at age seventy-five to facing illness and death (Sacks died of cancer in August 2015). Insomniac City is both a meditation on grief and a celebration of life. Filled with Hayes's distinctive street photos of everyday New Yorkers, the book is a love song to the city and to all who have felt the particular magic and solace it offers.

As featured on 60 Minutes, Dateline, Inside Edition, and 48 Hours, the shocking true story of banker Edmond Safra's death and the man wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for the crime. When billionaire banker Edmond Safra died in the ashes of Monaco's La Belle Epoque building on December 3, 1999, the event made international headlines-for many reasons. One, of course, was the sheer wealth of the Lebanese mogul and his formidable presence in the international banking world. But the more seductive reason for the worldwide attention was the strange and intriguing way Safra died-ensconced within the armored walls of his vigilantly secured residence in the "safest city in the world." At 4:45 in the morning, a firestorm gutted Safra's opulent Monte Carlo penthouse, trapping-and killing-Safra and one of his nurses, Vivian Torrente. When the fire was ruled arson, a fast finger was pointed at the only other nurse present: former Green Beret Ted Maher. The true, bizarre circumstances that led to Safra's death and to the subsequent imprisonment of Ted Maher are contained within the pages of Framed in Monte Carlo: How I Was Wrongfully Convicted for a Billionaire's Fiery Death. The story features a play-by-play of that deadly night, as well as Ted's sham of a trial that put him behind bars for seven years and eight months. Brutal betrayals, harrowing kidnappings, prison breaks straight out of The Great Escape, and more pepper the pages of Framed in Monte Carlo. Ted was freed when the judge from his trial came forward with a stunning revelation. But his life was never the same. And since his return to American soil, he's continued to unearth more and more disturbing details about his ordeal. Armed with fresh facts, a greater understanding of the players, and a wider lens of perspective, Ted now reveals all, including his never-before-released findings that seek to answer the lingering big question: Who did kill Edmond Safra? The powerful famous names legitimately put forth by the author will shock you.

A bookstore where readers shout their orders from the street. A neighborhood restaurant turned to-go place where one has a shared drink-on either end of a bar-with the owner. These scenes, among many others, became the new normal as soon as the world began to face the COVID-19 pandemic.

In How We Live Now, author and photographer Bill Hayes offers an ode to our shared humanity-capturing in real time this strange new world we're now in (for who knows how long?) with his signature insight and grace. As he wanders the increasingly empty streets of Manhattan, Hayes meets fellow New Yorkers and discovers stories to tell, but he also shares the unexpected moments of gratitude he finds from within his apartment, where he lives alone and--like everyone else--is staying home, trying to keep busy and not bored as he adjusts to enforced solitude with reading, cooking, reconnecting with loved ones, reflecting on the past--and writing.

Featuring Hayes's inimitable street photographs, How We Live Now chronicles an unimaginable moment in time, offering a long-lasting reminder that what will gets us through this unprecedented, deadly crisis is each other.

"A wonderful writer, Bill Hayes tells the multi-layered story of the two extraordinary young men who produced the most famous medical text of all time - a turning point in medical history, and a continuing influence and inspiration for artists, doctors and anatomists a century and a half later. Part memoir, part biography, part guided tour into the marvels of the human body, The Anatomist deserves a place on every bookshelf. And if you do not already have a copy of Gray's Anatomy, Bill Hayes's remarkable account will surely inspire you to get one." - Oliver Sacks, author and neurologist

"All laud and honor to Hayes. In perusing the body's 650 muscles and 206 bones, he has made the case that we are . . . 'fearfully and wonderfully made.'"--"The Washington Post""Prose both lucid and arrestingly beautiful."--"Publishers Weekly"

The classic medical text known as Gray's Anatomy is one of the most famous books ever created. In this masterly work of creative nonfiction, Bill Hayes uncovers the extraordinary lives of the seminal volume's author and illustrator while providing a "scalpel's-eye" view into the ingenuity of the human body.Bill Hayes is the best-selling author of "Sleep Demons" and "Five Quarts."

Exercise is our modern obsession, and we have the ubiquitous gyms, fancy workout gear, and fads from Zumba to TRX to CrossFit to prove it. Exercise-a form of physical activity distinct from sports, play, or athletics-was an ancient obsession, too, but it's a largely overlooked chapter in human history. In Sweat, Bill Hayes runs, jogs, swims, spins, walks, bikes, boxes, lifts, sweats, and downward-dogs his way through the origins of different forms of exercise, chronicling how they have evolved over time, dissecting the dynamics of human movement. Hippocrates, Plato, Galen, Susan B. Anthony, Jack LaLanne, and Jane Fonda, among many others, make appearances in Sweat, but chief among the historical figures is Girolamo Mercuriale, a Renaissance-era Italian physician who aimed to singlehandedly revive the ancient Greek "art of exercising" through his 1569 book De arte gymnastica. Though largely forgotten over the past five centuries, Mercuriale and his illustrated treatise were pioneering, and are brought back to life in the pages of Sweat. While modern society doesn't exercise in quite the same way people of the 16th century, or the Ancient Greeks, Hayes ties his own personal experience-and ours-to its cultural and scientific history, giving us a new way to understand the role of exercise in the 21st century.

Get an inside look at the real beginning of outlaw biker culture with this "raucous and heartfelt recounting of the early days of biker clubs" (Roadbike").The story starts one weekend in 1947, at a motorcycle race in Hollister, California.A few members of one club, the no-holds-barred "Boozefighters," got a little juiced up and took their racing to the street.Word of the fracas spread, and soon enough Life" magazine was on hand to tell the world, with sensational (albeit posed) pictures of the outlaws. And then the "Hollister riot" made its way into the movies, immortalized in Marlon Brando's "The Wild One."What was the reality behind the myth?Through interviews with the surviving members of the Boozefighters, current member Bill Hayes and club historian Jim "JQ" Quattlebaum take readers right into the fray for a firsthand account of what happened in Hollister, and the formation ofthe Boozefighters, where the outlaw biker culture truly began.The book, "with its great stories and entertaining real-life characters" (MotorcycleUSA.com"), is "mandatory reading for anyone interested in American motorcycling history "(Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly").

We often think of sleep as mere stasis, a pause button we press at the end of each day. Yet sleep is full of untold mysteries--eluding us when we seek it too fervently, throwing us into surreal dream worlds when we don't, sometimes even possessing our bodies so that they walk and talk without our conscious volition. Delving into the mysteries of his own sleep patterns, Bill Hayes marvels, "I have come to see that sleep itself tells a story." An acclaimed journalist and memoirist--and partner of the late neurologist Oliver Sacks--Hayes has been plagued by insomnia his entire life. The science and mythology of sleep and sleeplessness form the backbone to Hayes's narrative of his personal battles with sleep and how they colored his waking life, as he threads stories of fugitive sleep through memories of growing up in the closet, coming out to his Irish Catholic family, watching his friends fall ill during the early years of the AIDS crisis in San Francisco, and finding a lover. An erudite blend of science and personal narrative, Sleep Demons offers a poignant introduction to the topics for which Hayes has since become famous, including art, eros, and city life, the history of medical science, and queer identity.

This is a new release of the original 1959 edition.

A Symbol of Everything that is Right with America America is filled with small towns-places you've never heard of, and probably never will. Yet it is these towns that are the lifeblood of this country. They don't have the financial might of New York City, or the glamor of Los Angeles. They don't have professional sports teams, or major research hospitals, or massive universities. Yet these small towns are, nevertheless, the feeder system that makes all those things possible. Their chief export? Decent, hardworking, and extremely talented people. Clawson, Michigan is just such a town. Located north of Detroit, it is a bit over two-square miles in size, yet has produced an amazing number of truly remarkable and gifted people. The list ranges from professional and Olympic athletes, to major players in the arts and sciences, to military leaders. In our first book, Two Square Miles: The Heroes of a Small Town, we chronicled over 50 such people. In this one, we cover 50 more. Will there someday be a third book? Yes, most certainly. For the work of towns like Clawson, and thousands of others like it, is far from done.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Clawson, Michigan is a small town-only 2.4 square miles. Once little more than two sawmills and a few farms, it was eventually captured by the urban sprawl of Detroit. In the years following WW-II the town rapidly grew as large numbers of homes were built for the blue collar workers needed to fuel the auto and manufacturing plants of the post-war boom. There is, however, little remarkable in that. It's the story of thousands of small towns-places from which you would expect very little. But that would be a mistake. Those two square miles wound up producing an extraordinary number of truly remarkable and gifted people. In an area smaller than what would be needed for a few good sized urban shopping centers, it somehow managed to produce a host of professional athletes, innovative business people, writers, and major players in the arts and entertainment industries. This does not include the hundreds of doctors, lawyers and other professionals-nor the tens of thousands of simple, honest, hard-working people-who got their start there. Clawson got the job done the way most small towns do-in a simple, off-hand, no nonsense, blue-collar kind of way. It represents a value system and a way of life that seems to be evaporating in our modern high-tech world. Yet, despite it all, the city remains as a symbol of everything that is right with America.

Most people think of the 1950's as a time of family values and conformity. Newspaper reporter Roxie Mallone was a woman in the 1950's who refused to conform, and she lived her life on her own terms. Trying to keep her personal family values in tact and those of the citizens of the town she loved, she took on another type of family: the mob that ran her town. And, in particular, she took on the one man who ran it, Butchie Cagney, the town's supposed pillar of family values and all of its virtues. From the time her own life was threatened by Butchie and his thugs, Roxie made a vow to expose him and his wrongdoings in a war of words that spanned over a decade.

Little by little, she seemed to be winning the war until Butchie came a bit too close to home.

Did Roxie go too far? Were her efforts all in vain? And worst of all, would her campaign against crime cost Roxie her life, or worse yet, the lives of the ones she loved?

"Hearsay: Watercolor Memories of Roxie Mallone" answers these questions and many, many more

Roxie Mallone was a woman ahead of her time, and "Hearsay: Watercolor Memories of Roxie Mallone" tells her story and serves as an inspiration for women and men of any time and any generation to stand up for their principles and do the right thing, no matter what the cost may be

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

In the 1960's and 1970's in the United States, if a person came from a blue collar background, chances for going to college were usually slim. Every once in a while, though, individuals emerge who defy the odds and take on seemingly impossible challenges. Such was the case for the twelve first-generation college graduates in Rebels with a Cause. As the pages unfold in this one of a kind account, these twelve individuals explain in their own words the opposition they faced, the doubts they had, and the strategies they employed to succeed and graduate from college. More importantly, their advice is just as timely for first-generation college students today as it was in a time not so long ago and far away.

Through the eyes and ears of a very young Shawn O'Connor, the story of his grandmother, Emily Romain, and her ten children unfolds through the early decades of the twentieth century to the mid-1960's.

Shawn tells how Emily Roemain came to America with just her steamer trunk and hopes and dreams. Though she met the love of her life and began to achieve her American dream, the untimely deaths of a child and her beloved husband almost stopped her in her tracks.

Shawn goes on to describe how Emily and her ten children would not give up.No matter what setback occurred, Emily used humor, hard work, and prayer to make it through the tough times.

This example provided the basis for the numerous stories that Shawn conveys. Each story is a tribute to both his family and and the power of positive thinking, and just when young Shawn, himself, is ready to give up, the example provided by his grandmother provides the strength for him to go on!