It was impossible to hide in the Maine woods during the 1970s, especially when your humble homestead was between back-to-the-land gurus Helen and Scott Nearing, authors of "Living the Good Life" on one side, and the young organic gardener Eliot Coleman, author of "Four Season Harvest" and "The New Organic Grower" on the other. Updated a decade after its original publication, this memoir by Jean Hay Bright chronicles the years in the 197...

At a whopping 600 absorbing pages, Uncle John pulled out all the stops to make the behemoth Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader the epitome of Throne Room entertainment.Happy birthday, Uncle John! This 20th anniversary edition proves that some things do get better with age. Since 1987, the Bathroom Readers’ Institute has led the movement to stand up for those who sit down and read in the bathroom (and everywhere else for that matter). Uncle Joh...

Explore tangle possibilities and discover a host of new techniques with Zentangle 3, Expanded Workbook Edition! This inspiring book offers 40 original tangle patterns and a host of new ideas for combining rubber stamps and tangles to create rich and delightful graphics.Begin with the Zen of basic tangling, filling in the spaces between simple lines one step at a time. Then start turning rubber stamp shapes into spectacular designs! Create beautiful Zentangle-inspired art by...

With humor and poise, Jenna Woginrich describes her adventurous self-education in homesteading. Poignant offbeat observations on learning to farm by trial and error punctuate the story of her quest to find a permanent home for herself and her livestock: chickens, geese, sheep, ducks, rabbits, a goat, and a turkey. Alone and on a shoestring budget, Woginrich takes on cranky neighbors and small-town politics without ever losing her trademark humility or comedic style.

With this Dickensian tale from America’s heartland, New York Times writer and columnist Dan Barry tells the harrowing yet uplifting story of the exploitation and abuse of a resilient group of men with intellectual disability, and the heroic efforts of those who helped them to find justice and reclaim their lives.In the tiny Iowa farm town of Atalissa, dozens of men, all with intellectual disability and all from Texas, lived in an old schoolhouse. Before dawn each morning, they were...

In March 1986, while living in Brooklyn, Chris Bohjalian and his wife were cab-napped on a Saturday night and taken on a forty-five-minute joy ride in which the driver ignored all traffic lights and stop signs. Around midnight he deposited the young couple on a near-deserted street, where police officers were about to storm a crack house. Bohjalian and his wife were told to hit the ground for their own protection. While lying on the pavement, Bohjalian's wife suggested that perhaps it was ...

Ponder, if you will ...What is the difference between a kit and a caboodle?Why don't people get goose bumps on their faces?Where do houseflies go in the winter?What causes that ringing sound in your ears?Pop-culture guru David Feldman demystifies these topics and so much more in Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? -- the unchallenged source of answers to civilization's most nagging questions. Part of the Imponderables® series and charmingly illustrated by Kassi...

In Chasing the White Dog, journalist Max Watman traces the historical roots and contemporary story of hooch. He takes us to the backwoods of Appalachia and the gritty nip joints of Philadelphia, from a federal courthouse to Pocono Speedway, profiling the colorful characters who make up white whiskey's lore. Along the way, Watman chronicles his hilarious attempts to distill his own moonshine -- the essential ingredients and the many ways it can all go wrong -- from...

Fruitcake Hill is a cleverly written history and personal memoir of an Irish family from the Chicago suburbs that has continuously occupied a single farmhouse property for over 137 years. The story focuses on the family's struggles to preserve the life they knew before urban sprawl became a reality. A humorous and informative read!

“An American classic.” —The New YorkerIn An Hour Before Daylight, Jimmy Carter, bestselling author of Living Faith and Sources of Strength, recreates his Depression-era boyhood on a Georgia farm before the civil rights movement forever changed it and the country.Carter writes about the powerful rhythms of countryside and community in a sharecropping economy, offering an unforgettable portrait of his fathe...

Situated beautifully at the intersection of Michael Pollan, Ruth Reichl, and Barbara Kingsolver, Heirloom is an inspiring, elegiac, and gorgeously written memoir about rediscovering an older and still vital way of life.Fourteen years ago, Tim Stark was living in Brooklyn, working days as a management consultant, and writing unpublished short stories by night. One evening, chancing upon a Dumpster full of discarded lumber, he carried the lumber home and built a germination ...

An improbably funny account of how the purchase and restoration of a disaster of a fixer-upper saves a young marriageWhen a season of ludicrous loss tests the mettle of their marriage, Matthew Batt and his wife decide not to call it quits. They set their sights instead on the purchase of a dilapidated house in the Sugarhouse section of Salt Lake City. With no homesteading experience and a full-blown quarter-life crisis on their hands, these perpetual grad students/waiters/nonprofit...