Southern Memoirs

At 33, Virginia Vallejo was part of the media elite. A renowned anchorwoman and socialite, and a model who appeared on magazine covers worldwide, Vallejo was the darling of Colombia's most powerful politicians and billionaires. Meeting Pablo Escobar in 1983, then becoming his mistress for many years, she witnessed the rise of a drug empire that was characterized by Escobar's far-reaching political corruption, his extraordinary wealth, and a network of violent crime that lasted until his death in 1993.

(THE TONKS IN SPAIN containing SETTLING IN SPAIN and PROSPERING IN SPAIN is now also on sale at a reduced price.) Ken E. Tonks, husband of the celebrated travel writer Doreen B. Tonks, has finally put pen to paper to give his version of their first months in Spain, before recording the exciting events of the following spring and summer. Ken, usually a man of few words, bares his soul in this eventful narrative set on and around the Costa del Sol. His budding friendship with Fede the artist proves to be his passport into a life far removed from the insular expat community, and the singular ...

In The Position of Spoons, Deborah Levy invites the listener into the interiors of her world, sharing her most intimate thoughts and experiences, as she traces and measures her life against the backdrop of the literary and artistic muses that have shaped her. From Marguerite Duras to Colette and Ballard, and from Lee Miller to Francesca Woodman and Paula Rego, we can relish here the richness of their work and, in turn the richness of the author’s own.

For a woman traveling without her husband in the late nineteenth century, there was only one reason to take the train all the way to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one sure to garner disapproval from fellow passengers. On the American frontier, the new state offered a tempting freedom often difficult to obtain elsewhere: divorce. In The Divorce Colony, writer and historian April White unveils the incredible social, political, and personal dramas that unfolded in Sioux Falls and reverberated around the country through the stories of four very different women.

In this book, former South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) forensic photographer Lt. Rita Y. Shuler recounts twenty-eight days of terror and shocking developments in one of the most notorious double murders and manhunts in South Carolina history. Shuler shares her own personal interactions with some of the key players in this famous manhunt and investigation. Also included are Bell's chilling calls from area phone booths to the Smith family, along with his disconcerting interviews and bizarre actions in the courtroom.

She was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia. Her dream was to become a concert pianist, though she’d been writing since she was sixteen and the influence of music was evident throughout her work. Her first novel—The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter—was published in 1940 when she was twenty-three and overnight, Carson McCullers became the most widely talked-about writer of the time. Mary Dearborn gives us the first full picture of one of America’s greatest writers, a complex artist who was decades ahead of her time, a writer who understood—and captured, the heart and longing of the outcast.

What happened when a young man ditched the office and headed to the outback of Australia for the adventure of a lifetime? In 2002, a young Englishman left London behind to try something new on a working holiday. One year; 2,000 sheep: 4,000 km travelled. Horses and quad bikes; two light aircraft; one Ford station wagon. He uncovered real life far from the hustle and bustle of the beaches and coffee shops of the East coast. There were "Skimpies", surly farmers, tough miners, vets and call-girls. How did he go learning to fly, and getting behind the wheel of a ten-tonne truck? A must-read for...

The Martin Luther King Jr. of popular memory vanquished Jim Crow in the South. But in this myth-shattering book, award-winning and New York Times bestselling historian Jeanne Theoharis argues that King's time in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—outside Dixie—was at the heart of his campaign for racial justice. King of the North follows King as he crisscrosses the country from the Northeast to the West Coast, challenging school segregation, police brutality, housing segregation, and job discrimination.

Few athletes hold a record comparable to that of Oscar Chalupsky. He made history at the age of fifteen as the first person to win both the Junior and Senior Ironman titles on the same day at the South African National Lifesaving Championships, he was the country’s spokesman at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and he is a multiple-times global surfski champion. No Retreat, No Surrender is an uplifting account of grit, perseverance, talent and attitude, vividly capturing the determined mindset of an inspirational sporting legend.

Based on years of investigative reporting and unprecedented fieldwork, Walking the Bowl immerses readers in the daily lives of four unforgettable characters: Lusabilo, a determined waste picker; Kapula, a burned-out brothel worker; Moonga, a former rock crusher turned beggar; and Timo, an ambitious gang leader. These children navigate the violent and poverty-stricken underworld of Lusaka, one of Africa’s fastest growing cities.

Rassie Erasmus has been called a genius. He’s been called reckless. All his life, he’s done things differently. Now, with his trademark candour, Rassie talks openly about his adventures and misadventures at the pinnacle of world rugby, both as player and coach. From his role in Nick Mallett's record-breaking Springbok team of the late 1990s, to the devastating injuries that cut short his playing career, to his revolutionary coaching career, Rassie is an essential window into one of the most successful figures of modern rugby.

In July 1776 a pair of Franciscan friars, Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante, were charged by the governor of New Mexico with discovering a route across the unknown Southwest to the new Spanish colony in California. They had other goals as well, some of them secret: converting the indigenous natives along the way to the true faith, discovering a semi-mythical paradise known as Teguayo, hunting for sources of gold and silver, and paving the way for Spanish settlements from Santa Fe to Monterey. In strict terms, the expedition failed.

First published in 1988, the award-winning Trash showcases Allison at her most fearlessly honest and startlingly vivid. The limitless scope of human emotion and experience are depicted in stories that give aching and eloquent voice to the terrible wounds we inflict on those closest to us. These are tales of loss and redemption; of shame and forgiveness; of love and abuse; and the healing power of storytelling.

Expansivo recuento de los diversos, creativos, frecuentemente extraños y sin embargo increíblemente inquietantes intentos de asesinar a Fidel Castro. Fabián Escalante, el fundador de los servicios de seguridad cubanos y jefe del Departamento de Seguridad del Estado Cubano provee un lúcido recuento en primera persona de sus experiencias defendiendo a Castro contra extraordinarios intentos de homicidio.

You may think you know the butter-loving, finger-licking, joke-cracking, queen of melt-in-your-mouth Southern cuisine. You may have even heard some version of her Cinderella story: she was a single mom with two teenaged sons when she started a brown-bag lunch business with $200 and wound up with a thriving restaurant business, a fairy-tale second marriage, and wildly popular television shows. But you have never heard the intimate details of her often bumpy road to fame and fortune.

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.

Mississippi Sissy is the stunning memoir from Kevin Sessums, a celebrity journalist who grew up scaring other children, hiding terrible secrets, pretending to be Arlene Frances and running wild in the South. As he grew up in Forest, Mississippi, befriended by the family maid, Mattie May, he became a young man who turned the word "sissy" on its head, just as his mother taught him. In Jackson, he is befriended by Eudora Welty and journalist Frank Hains, but when Hains is brutally murdered in his antebellum mansion, Kevin's long road north towards celebrity begins.

No. 1 Best Seller in New Zealand Travel, Family Travel, Australia & Oceania Travel, Humor Essays, Off the Beaten Path, Guidebook Series, Senior Travel and Auto & RV Travel. No. 1 New Release in Italian Travel, South Pacific Travel, Travel Writing & Food, Lodging & Transportation When Denise is captured by a policeman on her first day of school and kicked off the bus for having crabs, little does she know that it will be the beginning of a hilarious romp through life. Will she and her family survive a mysterious UFO encounter, deadly gas, ghostly goings-on, a cataclysmic quake, Cockney ...

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.

Call Me Chef, Dammit! is the inspiring story of Andre Rush, who became an overnight sensation in 2018, after a photograph of his now-famous 24-inch biceps went viral. However, his journey to that moment could never be captured in a fleeting moment.