Southern Memoirs

Anyone doubting that Diego Maradona was more than just a football player had only to witness the outpourings after his death on 25th November 2020. During his tempestuous life and career, he played for top clubs in South America and Europe, notably Napoli, where he became an adored hero and adopted son, and grew to be a legend in his homeland of Argentina after leading them to victory in the 1986 World Cup.

Nearly two centuries before Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began their epic trek to the Pacific coast, a group of three Spanish noblemen and an African survived shipwreck, famine, Indian attack, and disease to make the first crossing of North America in recorded history. Drawing on contemporary accounts and long-lost records, Robert Goodwin tells the amazing story of their odyssey through the American South.

Islam is often associated with and limited to the worst of the world—extremism, obscurantism, misogyny, bigotry. So why would so many people associate with such a fundamentalist faith? Two Billion Caliphs advocates for a way of being Muslim in the world, ready for today and prepared for tomorrow.

In a dim clearing off a county road in Kentucky sits a sagging outdoor stage buried in moss and dead leaves. It used to be the centerpiece of carnival-like Sunday afternoons where local guitarists, fiddlers and mandolin players hammered out old mountain ballads and legends from the dawn of country music performed their classic hits. Most of the musicians who showed up have long since passed, but Nashville stars Ricky Skaggs and Marty Stuart survive. Highways and Heartaches takes listeners on the rural circuit Skaggs and Stuart traveled.

Cory Mortensen rode his bike from Chaska, Minnesota, to California. The experience ultimately changed his perspective on how life could be lived. So rather than returning home after his adventure—back to the life unwanted—and equipped with absolutely no plan and nothing tying him down, he makes a simple phone call to quit his career and hitchhike south along the Pacific Coast Highway. Destination unknown. Sounds like a pretty good idea.

Chances are your grandchildren have no idea of the world before cell phones, internet, and digital everything. Written for the author's grandchildren, this book presents vignettes of life before MTV and 24-hour news cycles. At times poignant, funny, and cynical, it's easy and entertaining reminders of a simpler time.

Jaime Primak Sullivan, a Jersey-bred, tough-as-nails PR maven - and unlikely transplant in an upscale suburb of Birmingham, Alabama - has spent her entire life crossing the line: whether she's pushing the boundaries of what proper Southern ladies consider to be "polite behavior" or literally traversing the Mason-Dixon line in the name of love. She isn't afraid to say what everyone is thinking when it comes to love, sex, friendship, and many other topics that are all too often sugar-coated in polite Southern company.

Mistress Vixen is intelligent, sophisticated, and charming, with a wicked sense of humor, which She loves to indulge at Her slaves expense. Naturally Dominant, She exudes sensuality and eroticism that you sense as soon as you enter Her presence: spellbound, you'll leave the everyday world behind you're in Hers now. A soft smile to lull you into a false sense of security, then the single word Strip to remind you of your place naked at Her feet and you'll hurry to obey.

Having had unparalleled access to the Chilean mine disaster, award-winning journalist Jonathan Franklin takes readers to the heart of a remarkable story of human endurance, survival, and historic heroism. 33 Men is the groundbreaking, authoritative account of the Chilean mine disaster, one of the longest human entrapments in history.

Here is the story of the infamous 1910 race to the South Pole, as told by its fearless yet desperate leader, Robert Falcon Scott. The New York Times called Scott's Last Expedition "A splendid record of heroism not soon to be forgotten."

From her childhood in Norway to the seasons she spent working as a guide on Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, Arnesen courted the cold, and her memoir reflects the knowledge and passion for Arctic and Antarctic exploration that grew with her adventures in the wintry reaches of Norway and beyond. Tracing her path from the heroic stories of explorers like Fridtjof Nansen and Ernest Shackleton to her own crossing of the Greenland Ice Cap in 1992, Arnesen credits the inspiring feats of those who preceded her.

The stories of life as a missionary are seldom boring. Part hilarious memoir and part inspiring journal, Kitten in a Biscuit Tin is a unique and lovable escape. Filled with you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up tales of breastmilk surprises, roadside puking, and nightmare-inducing infestations, Kitten in a Biscuit Tin takes the reader inside the life of a missionary abroad in stomach-churning and gut-busting detail. Open a window into the larger world - and perhaps into your own journey - through these extraordinary tales of cultural confusion and quiet reflection.

Che Guevara was a threat to American foreign policy - and when he turned his attention to Bolivia in 1967, the Pentagon made a decision: Che had to be eliminated. Hunting Che follows the exploits of Major Ralph "Pappy" Shelton, Felix Rodriguez, and Gary Prado - the Bolivian Ranger commander who ultimately captured him. With the White House and the Pentagon secretly monitoring every move, Shelton and his team changed history.

Sophie Crockett spent most of her childhood suffering from crippling anxiety. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, she became a virtual prisoner in her own home, afraid to venture outside. After battling with depression, eating disorders and self-harm, Sophie had the courage to re-enter society in her late teens.

Krista Doyle grew up in a small town in Louisiana where everyone was a gossip and a devout church goer. She attended church every Sunday where she listened to her grandfather preach from the stage, where she sang hymns from the audience as her mother led the choir, and where she was strictly taught that everything was black and white, right and wrong. So - how was Krista to cope with being a lesbian?

Humorous essays on life in the south. A Southern woman's take on daily life.

“Great Tits I’ve Known (And Other Species)” is the new edition of “Collected Selected Words” and is a combination of travel, memoir, autobiography and fiction, taking in three countries on its travels. It is also a book for ornithologists. Its humour and satire travel the world even ending up on the island of Cuba. Cambodia makes an appearance, too, and its hornbills get noisy. Overshadowing the book are the grim islands of Great Britain and the long Italian peninsular, but undaunted Jonathan Finch sings a song few birds can sing which embraces Thailand and especially Pattaya and ...

In 2013, South African businessman Daniel Janse van Rensburg set off to the West African country to finalise a legitimate airline contract with a local politician. Within days, Daniel was arrested by the local Rapid Intervention Force and detained without trial in the island’s infamous ‘Guantanamo’ cells, and was later taken to Black Beach. This is his remarkable story of survival over nearly two years, made possible by his unwavering faith and the humanity of a few fellow inmates. In this thrilling first-person narrative, Daniel relives his ordeal.

In 2015, Russia’s Anti-Doping Centre was suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) following revelations of an elaborate state-sponsored doping programme. Involving a nearly undetectable steroid delivery system known as ‘Duchesse cocktail’, tampering and switching of urine samples and a complex state-sanctioned cover-up, the programme was masterminded by Grigory Rodchenkov. The Rodchenkov Affair tells the full, unadulterated story that was first glimpsed in Bryan Fogel’s award-winning documentary and still continues to captivate and shock the world.

In the span of a generation, oil-rich Venezuela spiraled into a dire state of economic collapse. Reporter Paula Ramón experienced the crisis firsthand as her middle-class family saw their quality of life deteriorate. Public services no longer functioned. Money lost its value. Her mother couldn’t afford to buy food, which was increasingly scarce. The once-prosperous country fell into ruin. Like many others, Ramón’s family struggled to survive each day in their beloved city, Maracaibo—until, one by one, they each made the unbearable choice to leave the home they love.