As the only child of troubled parents, author John Loomis was isolated from his peers and grew up shy, bookish, and knowing from an early age he was different in a seemingly serious and unacceptable way. Gradually, he made peace with being gay and continued his search for love, leading to many adventures, much happiness, and some heartbreak. He shares his story in the Wandering Heart trilogy.The first volume discussed his early years and young-adult life. In the second volume, Loom...

John Loomis grew up in a small South Texas town during the last days of the Great Depression and World War II. As an only child, and with disturbed parents, he was isolated from his peers. Growing up shy, bookish, and knowing from a very early age that he was different in some unacceptable way, he was very distressed to find out from the high school library that he was gay. There was no one to turn to for help or information. He thought the only other gay person on earth was Andre Gide, th...

Internationally bestselling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins' legendary memoir—wild tales of his life and times, both at home and around the globe.Tom Robbins' warm, wise, and wonderfully weird novels—including Still Life with Woodpecker, Jitterbug Perfume, and Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates—provide an entryway into the frontier of his singular imagination. Madcap but sincere, pulsating with strong social and philosophical undercurrents, his irreverent...

"In her memoir . . .the eldest sister in the famed singing family, attempts to set the record straight . . .Charming." — Washington PostIn this poignant memoir, Agathe von Trapp shares the true story behind The Sound of Music. As the oldest von Trapp daughter, Agathe's impeccable recall of her childhood brings fresh life to the events that forged enduring bonds within her family. Her memories of her idyllic Austrian home transport...

From the author of the wildly controversial books Liar and Paul's Case comes one of the most anticipated — and perhaps, in some quarters, feared — books of the year. This is author Lynn Crosbie at her most honest, most cutting, most hilarious, and most heartbreaking. The stories told here are at once a cache, a repository, of a seven-year period in the author's life; and, too, a gymnasium, a place where she can flex her prodigious wit and her dazzling stash of literary tricks Deft with mat...

Memoir, biography, and outrageous comedy make for a perfect blend in the debut book from acclaimed writer Steve Burgess. Telling the tale of his mother's life and death, and along the way laying bare his own life and struggles, Burgess renders a memorable and deeply moving meditation on life and family.The author's mother, Joan, barely survived her thirteenth birthday: a rare disorder had made it almost impossible for her to swallow food. Her battle to survive this...

One of These Things First is a wry and poignant reminiscence of a 15 year old gay Jewish boy in Brooklyn in the early sixties, and his unexpected trajectory from a life behind a rack of dresses in his grandmother’s bra and girdle store, to Manhattan’s fabled Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, a fashionable Charenton for wealthy neurotics and Ivy League alcoholics, whose famous alumni include writers, poets, madmen, Marilyn Monroe, and bestselling author Steven Gaines.

In this collection of articles, the author paints vignettes and describes happenings from the vantage point of an American observer in what he has dubbed the Golden Triangle in France. The focus is on a fascinating group of persons and personal experiences in a corner of the beautiful Dordogne valley in the northern edge of the Lot that is still relatively unspoiled, and filled with an astounding number of significant places. The entire region throbs with the material reminders of prehisto...

Twenty of the best American short stories of 2011, chosen by the New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Chord.The twenty tightly crafted stories collected here by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Geraldine Brooks are full of deftly drawn characters, universal truths, and often surprising humor. Richard Powers's "To the Measures Fall" is a comic meditation on the uses of literature in the course of a life. In the satirical "The Sleep," Caitlin...

Dennis Bock’s novel The Communist’s Daughter met with praise from readers and reviewers the moment it reached bookstore shelves, debuting as an instant Maclean’s bestseller. This is the story of legendary Canadian doctor Norman Bethune—visionary, radical, martyr. Amidst the death and chaos of the Japanese army’s advance into the hills of northern China, Bethune composes a wrenching letter to his daughter, a small child he has never seen, the daughter of a woman abandoned ...

These 101 miraculous stories of hope, faith, divine intervention and answered prayers will amaze you! As John Edward says in his foreword to the book: The personal stories you’ll read here about hope, faith, answered prayers and divine intervention are to me all about one thing – our connection to a higher power or divine source.Good things do happen to good people! You will be encouraged and uplifted as you read these stories about powerful hope, miraculous healin...

A New York Times Notable Book: A memoir of the writing life of Jim Harrison, from hardscrabble years to high-profile Hollywood friendships, " as engaging as it is eccentric" ( The Washington Post Book World).In this "sprawling, impressionistic memoir", which was selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Jim Harrison chronicles his coming-of-age, from a boy drunk with books to a young man making his way among ...