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If You Didn't Bring Jerky, What Did I Just Eat?: Misadventures in Hunting, Fishing, and the Wilds of Suburbia
For nearly a decade, Bill Heavey, an outdoorsman marooned in suburbia, has written the “Sportsman’s Life” column on the back page of Field & Stream, where he does for hunting and fishing what David Feherty does for golf and Lewis Grizzard did for the South. His work is adored by readers—one proclaims him “the greatest sportswriter who has ever walked the planet,” and another recently wrote in to nominate him for president of the United States in 2008—and his peers have recognized his work with two prestigious National Magazine Award nominations. If You Didn’t Bring Jerky, What Did I Just Eat? is the first collection of Heavey’s sidesplitting observations on life as a hardcore (but often hapless) outdoorsman. Whether he’s hunting cougars in the southwest desert, scheming to make his five-year-old daughter fall in love with fishing, or chronicling his father’s slow decline through the lens of the numerous dogs he’s owned over seventy-five years, Heavey is a master at blending humor and pathos—and wide-ranging outdoor enthusiasms that run the gamut from elite to ordinary—into a poignant and potent cocktail. Funny, warmhearted, and supremely entertaining, this book is an uproarious addition to the literature of the outdoors. .
Price: $5.76
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The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics
Since the end of World War II, economists have tried to figure out how poor countries in the tropics could attain standards of living approaching those of countries in Europe and North America. Attempted remedies have included providing foreign aid, investing in machines, fostering education, controlling population growth, and making aid loans as well as forgiving those loans on condition of reforms. None of these solutions has delivered as promised. The problem is not the failure of economics, William Easterly argues, but the failure to apply economic principles to practical policy work. In this book Easterly shows how these solutions all violate the basic principle of economics, that people--private individuals and businesses, government officials, even aid donors--respond to incentives. Easterly first discusses the importance of growth. He then analyzes the development solutions that have failed. Finally, he suggests alternative approaches to the problem. Written in an accessible, at times irreverent, style, Easterly's book combines modern growth theory with anecdotes from his fieldwork for the World Bank..
Price: $13.71
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Baghdad without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia
Horwitz has the touch, the ability to astutely capture the ludicrous essence of an experience while filling in all the pertinent socio-historic details. He chews qat with the Yemenis, plays soccer with the Sudanese Dinka refugees and listens to an endless refrain of "You are the perfume of Iraq, oh Saddam" in Baghdad. Horwitz' eye and wit are equally sharp, and his book is an exceptionally good read..
Price: $3.78
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Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair: The True-Life Misadventures of a 30-Something Who Learned to Knit After He Split
If you've ever been dumped, duped, or three minutes from crazy, you'll love Crazy Aunt Purl. Side-splittingly funny and profoundly moving, Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair is the true-life misadventures of Laurie Perry, aka Crazy Aunt Purl, a slightly neurotic, displaced Southerner trying to create a new life after her husband leaves her to 'get his creativity back.' (Whatever that means.) But will she get her groove back in a tiny rented apartment, with a mountain of boxes, visible panty lines, and a slight wine-and-Cheetos problem?
"I was a thirty-something woman living alone with four cats. I was probably going to be divorced. I was on the short bus to crazy. I pictured my grandmother making hoop-skirted yarn cozies for the toilet paper. I pictured myself making doilies for furniture that I did not own. I saw my cats wearing knitted hats with lace appliqués. From my vantage point, knitting seemed like 100 percent of some road I did not want to walk down."
Yet, surprisingly, it's knitting that saves her and emboldens her to become fully engaged in life again--to discover new friends; to take risks, however scary; and to navigate the ins and outs of the modern dating scene.
"Dating has changed in a decade. Now there is a higher chance of meeting someone who has an internet porn addiction than someone who has a job. In Los Angeles, your dinner companion might have served time in Pelican Bay or run a meth lab. Or, worst of all, he might spend all night talking about his agent, his craft, and what it means to grow as an actor. Then he'll ask you to read his screenplay."
And such is life in this quirky, irreverent memoir, a spin-off of the blog phenomenon, www.crazyauntpurl.com, one of the most successful online diaries in history, exploding to an international fan base of enthusiastic readers. But don't worry, you don't have to knit to love Aunt Purl. You just have to know what it feels like to have loved, to have lost, or to have taken a leap of faith. We've all been there: Pass the wine. .
Price: $7.94
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The Misadventures of Maude March
Eleven-year-old Sallie March is a whip-smart tomboy and voracious reader of Western adventure novels. When she and her sister Maude escape their self-serving guardians for the wilds of the frontier, they begin an adventure the likes of which Sallie has only read about. This time however, the "wanted woman" isn't a dime-novel villian, it's Sallie's very own sister! What follows is not the lies the papers printed, but the honest-to-goodness truth of how two sisters went from being orphans to being outlaws—and lived to tell the tale!.
Price: $3.20
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How to Fit a Car Seat on a Camel: And Other Misadventures Traveling with Kids
Have you ever struggled to dislodge a nostril-bound Cheerio while navigating the interstate at 70 miles an hour? Discovered exactly how many renditions of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” it takes for you to pull the car to the side of the road and weep? Or experienced just what happens when your miniature traveling companion pulls the “manual override” lever on the emergency exit door of a plane? You’re not alone. We all have memories of a hideous yet hilarious family trip.
Now you can read about some that make your trip look like a vacation with the Waltons.
Edited by Sarah Franklin, How to Fit a Car Seat on a Camel is an anthology of outrageous stories about the inherent misadventures that revolve around traveling with kids. Whether the trip is with newborn triplets or with moody teens, a road trip to the beach or a European vacation, each story will resonate with parents who hit the road or the tarmac with kids in tow. .
Price: $8.94
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The Thong Also Rises: Further Misadventures from Funny Women on the Road (Travelers' Tales Guides)
Too many travel guides are dry lists of attractions or portentous histories of a place. This isn't the case with The Thong Also Rises. Hot on the (high) heels of Sand in My Bra and Whose Panties Are These? comes this collection of the best in women’s travel and humor writing. These Ms-adventures take readers around the world and back again — and they’ll be happy to be reading rather than experiencing some of these adventures. Subjects include learning how to go to the bathroom with a pig in Thailand, trying to explain that sex toy to customs while Mother is watching, attending naked wedding ceremonies on Valentine’s Day in Jamaica, conquering that consuming fear of wooden puppets with a visit to Prague, boarding a crusty old Soviet Bomber in Laos, and more. Contributors include such notable writers and comedians as Jill Connor Browne, Wanda Sykes, Laurie Notaro, Wendy Dale, and Ayun Halliday. .
Price: $7.45
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Sand in My Bra and Other Misadventures: Funny Women Write from the Road (Travelers' Tales)
Travel doesn’t always live up to one’s expectations — it sometimes exceeds them. For the 25 women contributors to Sand in My Bra and Other Misadventures, hitting the road inspires tales that their friends and families, as well as the readers of this book, will never forget. Readers laugh, cry, and commiserate with these women and their comical, bizarre, and unforgettable adventures including being chased by a herd of 50 African elephants, getting bitten by a goddess-possessed healer in Kathmandu, nightclubbing with a prude in Bangkok’s infamous Patpong sex district, and observing the shenanigans of a delirious new son-in-law in the Himalayas. Contributors include Anne Lamott, Ellen Degeneres, Sandra Tsing Loh, Sarah Vowell, and Cynthia Kaplan. .
Price: $2.05
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