Some people are born to midlife crises, others have them thrust upon them. Regardless of what brings them to roost, the important thing is how they're dealt with.For the author, it came down to checking out or checking in. Since the first would preclude the second but not the other way around, he set off for Maui with a co-worker similarly familiar with angst to set up shop on Ka'anapali Beach.On paper, it shaped up as a fine trip. There was only one question: Could a West Po...

****Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography**Included in President Obama’s 2016 Summer Reading List“Without a doubt, the finest surf book I’ve ever read . . . ” —The New York Times Magazine**Barbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way ...

* Have you ever walked into a room and couldn't remember what you went there for?* Have you ever grasped the hand of a potential client and then when the handshake broke, the name seemed to disappear from your memory?* Or have you ever left a prospect or an important meeting and as you drove away remembered a key point that you should have shared with them?The problem is NOT with your memory. The problem is with the "Filing System" your brain currently uses to store...

There's a different schemer or slimeball behind every door: cocaine duckpins who have survived only by the dumbest fortune, hard-luck gigolos desperate to score, undercover cops busting undercover cops who are running sting operations on undercover cops. And just down the row, local historian and spree killer Serge A. Storms -- who has stopped keeping up with his meds -- is still looking for a briefcase stuffed with five million dollars...and is now capable of wreaking more havoc than hurr...

**A New York Times Notable Book for 2011One of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011A Time Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction book of 2011A Boston Globe Best Nonfiction Book of 2011One of Library Journal's Best Books of 2011**A sharp-eyed, uniquely humane tour of America's cultural landscape—from high to low to lower than low—by the award-winning young star of the literary nonfiction...

A pampered Long Island princess hits the road in a converted bus with her wilderness-loving husband, travels the country for one year, and brings it all hilariously to life in this offbeat and romantic memoir.Doreen and Tim are married psychiatrists with a twist: She’s a self-proclaimed Long Island princess, grouchy couch potato, and shoe addict. He's an affable, though driven, outdoorsman. When Tim suggests “chucking it all” to travel cross-country in a converted bus, Doreen asks,...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • You can't make this stuff up. Dave Barry wouldn't lie—and here are the real life, laugh-out-loud stories from across America to prove it.Get up-close with Dave as he examines UFO thrillseekers and Elvis-worshippers, plays lead guitar with a horrifying rock band that includes Stephen King, and swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in stories like these:• a U.S. Supreme Court justice shares h...

Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry is a pretty amiable guy. But lately, he’s been getting a little worked up. What could make a mild-mannered man of words so hot under the collar? Well, a lot of things–like bad public art, Internet millionaires, SUVs, Regis Philbin . . . and even bigger problems, like• The slower-than-deceased-livestock left-lane drivers who apparently believe that the right lane is sacred and must never come in direct contact with tires• The parent-...

"One of the funniest peole ever to tap tap on a PC."PHILADELPHIA INQUIRERNot since George Bush's memorable dinner with the Japanese prime minister has the Land of the Rising Sun seen the likes of a goodwill ambassador like Dave Barry. Join him as he belts out oldies in a karaoke bar, marries a geriatric geisha girl, takes his first bath in public, bows to just about everyone, and explores culture shock in all its numerous humorous forms, including: Failing to Learn Japanese i...

Finalist for the National Book Award: Through the eyes of a precocious twelve-year-old in a seaside South Carolina town, the world of love, sex, friendship, and betrayal blossomsSimons Everson Manigault is not a typical twelve-year-old boy in tiny Edisto, South Carolina , in the late 1960s. At the insistence of his challenging mother (known to local blacks as "the Duchess"), who believes her son to possess a capacity for genius, Simons immerses hims...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, bestselling author, and Wheel of Fortune contestant Dave Barry exposes the shattering truth. Whether he's splashing with the U.S. sychronized swim team ("Picture a bunch of elegant swans swimming with a flailing sea cow") or reliving the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving ("We've decided to obliterate your culture, but first may we try the stuffing?"), Dave Barry proves that one man can make a difference--by having the guts to answer the questions few people bo...

It began with a weekend house; then weekend trips. Then the occasional meeting rearranged in favor of a morning in Central Park, just while the spring migration was on. Before Luke Dempsey knew it, he had spiraled down into full-on birding mania - finding himself riding along with two like-minded maniacs in a series of disreputable rental cars and even nastier motel rooms, charging madly around the country in search of its rarest and most beautiful birds.A Supremely Bad Idea