Combining memoir, travel writing, and a wealth of unbelievably hilarious anecdotes, this autobiographical extravaganza chronicles the amazing early life of entertainer Andy Smart. Whether its running with the bulls in Pamplona, juggling with pigs kidneys, drinking beer on the roof of a fast-moving train or living on the beach in Biarritz, Andy's early life comprised a series of jaw-dropping feats and bizarre situations from which, amazingly, he emerged unscathed to hitchhike to another location and fight another day. Living on his wits, sleeping rough and accepting lifts that get him into bizarre and often dangerous situations, Andy's six years spent on the road stand as a unique record of life as it was in the late 1970s and early 80s. In this hilarious memoir, they are juxtaposed with a host of earlier memories, resulting in a unique collection of dazzling funny stories that have been told and retold in countless bars and comedy clubs as well as on his regular guest spot on TalkSport Radio, but are collected together here for the first time in written form.
“An extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned.” —James Wolcott in his introduction An outstanding new collection, A HITCH IN TIME is a must have for Hitchens completists and the perfect starting point for understanding one of the most brilliant essayists of all time. Anthologized here for the first time, A HITCH IN TIME is a choice selection of Christopher Hitchens’s finest reviews, diary entries and essays - along with a smattering of ferocious letters. Familiar bêtes noires—Kennedy, Nixon, Kissinger, Clinton—rub shoulders with lesser-known preoccupations: P.G. Wodehouse, Princess Margaret and, magisterially, Isaiah Berlin. A HITCH IN TIME is a banquet of entertaining stories ranging from his thoughts on Salman Rushdie to being spanked by Margaret Thatcher in The House of Lords and the night he took his son to the Oscars. The broad scope and high caliber of Hitchens’ essays allows his work to transcend the occasion for which it was written and continues to be essential reading. Along with an introduction by James Wolcott, A HITCH IN TIME recaptures the brilliance of Hitchens - barnstorming, cauterizing, and ultimately uncontainable.
Sweet Home Alabama meets Emily in Paris in this hilarious romp through the world of extravagant southern weddings. When floundering and unlucky-in-love twentysomething Lottie Jones lands a new career as a wedding planner at a top-tier boutique event firm, she begins navigating a cutthroat workplace specializing in over-the-top details, unlimited budgets, and a broad spectrum of taste. Whether planning for parachute landings or wrangling intoxicated groomsmen, she has her hands full at every million-dollar wedding she helps organize. After her boss announces he’s opening a new office, Lottie sees her chance to finally carve out her place—and earn an income that justifies her dating app subscription fees. The weddings get bigger, the clients get wilder, the mishaps get funnier, and the stakes get higher. And Lottie’s forced to discover what she’ll risk for love and how far she’ll go to find herself. Set against the glamorous, ruthless world of high-end Southern weddings and inspired by real events in the authors’ lives, Without a Hitch is a hilarious romp about taking ownership, facing fears, planning your ex-boyfriend’s wedding, and choosing a happy ending that wasn’t what you once expected. Praise for Without a Hitch: “Without a Hitch is a delightfully quirky novel that proves the age-old adage ‘We plan, God laughs.’ Filled with fascinating insights into the world of high-end wedding planning, you can’t help but cheer for Lottie Jones as she learns that you can’t script your life and that, sometimes, the best laid plans are the ones you never make.” —Emily Giffin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of All We Ever Wanted and The Lies that Bind “Put a ring on Without a Hitch—a sweet, Southern confection of a book about what it takes to orchestrate everyone else’s happily ever after when your own heart has been broken. This sneak peek into the world of high-end wedding planning will keep you laughing as Lottie deconstructs the fairy tale and finds her authentic self.” —Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here and The Book of Two Ways “Without a Hitch is a must read. It is absolutely fabulous. As someone who works in the wedding industry, I found this book’s brevity, humor, and the glamorous over-the-top world of Southern Weddings a true joy to read. This is the book you will be gifting to all your friends!” —Mindy Weiss, bestselling author of The Wedding Book Stand-alone novel Book length: 106,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs
Obviously the man was dying, and there was no chance that he ever would be discovered. I blessed the carelessness that had caused me to set the space-time dials a little off when I began this journey to the distant past. I had come to this barbaric era in the proper time, indeed, but millions of miles removed from it in space. It had been only after an annoying search that I had discovered Earth, jetted toward it in my space-drive suit and had come down out of the skies to land on this tiny, deserted island in the middle of an empty sea. But it was incredible luck that had brought me there. For I had found exactly what I needed—a man who would give me information, clothing and an identity—and then die, and obliterate the record of my interference with the course of events! I, Thom Ra, walked toward him. Feeble though he was, he opened his eyes and stared at me. "Thank Heaven!" he whispered, in the thick, hideous language of that era. "I couldn't have lasted much longer if you hadn't found me." He fell back and smiled at me with heartfelt gratitude, and for a moment I felt a wild, fleeting impulse to help him, to save his life. But of course, I dared not interfere. For that would change the shape of the future, and that meant destruction for me.... When I blasted off from the island, a little later, he was dead, and I was wearing his uniform—and his name. He gave me information before he died, and I had no trouble locating the spot I wanted. I waited till dark before landing a few hundred yards from the war-dome. Then I hid my space-drive suit in a cluster of ancient trees, and walked into the building that housed the most murderous weapon of all time. The sentry challenged me, of course, but I was ready for him. After a quick look at my stolen credentials he sheathed his ray pistol. "Pass, sir," he said, and I walked in, no longer as Thom Ra, but identified as a Captain San Requa of the Intelligence Service. At once I saw the atom-rocket. It was on the other side of the great chamber, nestled in a wheeled cradle, ready to be rolled out to the blast-off point. Hurrying technicians swarmed about it with last-minute checks. I walked over, saluted the officer who was supervising and began to witness events which I had crossed so tremendous a span of years to observe. The atom-rocket was a long, silvery torpedo, a cluster of tubes at the rear, a snub-nosed warhead at the front. A panel in the side of it was open, and technicians were setting dials according to the figures read off by a white-haired old officer with the insignia of a general on his collar...
This biography of Alfred Hitchcock is as intriguing, revealing, perverse, and entertaining as any of his classic films. 'The best book yet about the movies' most famous director' Publisher's Weekly 'No one will ever top Hitch' Jimmy Stewart One of cinema's greatest directors, a virtuoso visual artist, and a genius of the suspense genre, Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) is universally known for such masterpieces as Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. But he was also a famously difficult and complex man, prone to arguing with studios and stars alike. In writing this biography, John Russell Taylor, a distinguished film critic and friend of Hitchcock's, enjoyed his full cooperation. Based on numerous interviews, with photos from the private family albums, and an in-depth study of the making of his last film, this biography of the director is as intriguing, revealing, perverse, and entertaining as any Hitchcock classic.
After his aunt is kidnapped, an 11-year-old boy staying at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel in 1956 tries to find herNwith the help of filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. The two embark on a madcap journey full of hidden doorways, secret societies, cryptic clues, sinister villains, and cinematic flair.
In this sweeping collection of essays, reportage and criticism, Hitchens' polemical talents at their most fearsome. "I did not, I wish to state, become a journalist because there was no other 'profession' that would have me. I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information." Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays showcases the Hitchens' rejection of consensus and cliché, whether he's reporting from abroad in Indonesia, Kurdistan, Iraq, North Korea, or Cuba, or when his pen is targeted mercilessly at the likes of William Clinton, Mother Theresa ("a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud"), the Dalai Lama, Noam Chomsky, Mel Gibson and Michael Bloomberg. Hitchens began the nineties as a "darling of the left" but has become more of an "unaffiliated radical" whose targets include those on the "left," who he accuses of "fudging" the issue of military intervention in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, as Hitchens shows in his reportage, cultural and literary criticism, and opinion essays from the last decade, he has not jumped ship and joined the right but is faithful to the internationalist, contrarian and democratic ideals that have always informed his work.
Captured by the Japanese after the fall of Bataan, Lester I. Tenney was one of the very few who would survive the legendary Death March and three and a half years in Japanese prison camps. With an understanding of human nature, a sense of humor, sharp thinking, and fierce determination, Tenney endured the rest of the war as a slave laborer in Japanese prison camps. My Hitch in Hell is an inspiring survivor’s epic about the triumph of human will despite unimaginable suffering. This edition features a new introduction and epilogue by the author. Purchase the audio edition.
As a teenager growing up during the Depression, Moss Trawnley doesn't have time to be a kid. In search of opportunity, Moss lies about his age and heads west to join Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps. While working to protect Montana's wildlife, he goes to school, makes lifelong friends, falls in love, and finds what he almost lost in the crisis of the Great Depression: himself. In this captivating work of fiction, Jeanette Ingold tells the story of a teen who risks everything to start a new life and, in the process, gains a future.
He gave me information before he died, and I had no trouble locating the spot I wanted. I waited till dark before landing a few hundred yards from the war-dome. Then I hid my space-drive suit in a cluster of ancient trees and walked into the building that housed the most murderous weapon of all time. The sentry challenged me, of course, but I was ready for him. After a quick look at my stolen credentials he sheathed his ray pistol.
