Polly Price didn't think it was possible for her actress mother, Arabella Diamonte, to be any more embarrassing than on the trip to San Francisco last summer. That is until she agrees to take part in a television programme called "Celebrity Home Watch" and a camera crew arrives at their home to film. Her mother lacks volume control at the best of times, so this is truly a reality TV nightmare - with no escape for Polly!
Meet Polly Price, owner of the world's most embarrassing mother: actress and all-round airhead Arabella Diamonte. Who has just been cast in a touring production of a new play, meaning Polly is heading to San Francisco for what may well turn out to be the craziest summer holiday of her life... Read Polly's wonderfully funny diary as she records the mishaps and mayhem backstage, before all of a sudden the spotlight is on her!
I had been looking forward to going to France in the Easter holidays for weeks. Admittedly it meant going with Mum and her annoying, yuckily young, French boyfriend, Almond. But I knew we would be staying at Almond's parents' place: A CHATEAU! Everyone knows 'chat' means 'cat' in French - so I couldn't wait... 2 whole weeks in a houseful of cats! I love animals! "Tragically things NEVER work out as you expect. Instead of a houseful of cats it turned out to be a houseful of Almond's annoying, totally weird French family. Before I had time to squeak 'murder,' I was on the ghastly trail of a heartless criminal. Could I, Polly Price, uncover the truth? Well - not if I was the chief suspect. And not if I starved to death trying to find my way through long, murky corridors to breakfast. I knew I was in a race against time. And I didn't even have a watch.
SAM DOLAN is a young man coming to terms with his life in the process and aftermath of making his first film. He has a difficult relationship with his father, B-movie actor Booth Dolan—a boisterous, opinionated, lying lothario whose screen legacy falls somewhere between cult hero and pathetic. Allie, Sam’s dearly departed mother, was a woman whose only fault, in Sam’s eyes, was her eternal affection for his father. Also included in the cast of indelible characters: a precocious, frequently violent half-sister; a conspiracy-theorist second wife; an Internet-famous roommate; a contractor who can’t stop expanding his house; a happy-go-lucky college girlfriend and her husband, a retired Yankees catcher; the morose producer of a true-crime show; and a slouching indie-film legend. Not to mention a tragic sex monster. Unraveling the tumultuous, decades-spanning story of the Dolan family’s friends, lovers, and adversaries, Double Feature is about letting go of everything—regret, resentment, dignity, moving pictures, the dead—and taking it again from the top. Against the backdrop of indie filmmaking, college campus life, contemporary Brooklyn, and upstate New York, Owen King’s epic debut novel combines propulsive storytelling with mordant wit and brims with a deep understanding of the trials of ambition and art, of relationships and life, and of our attempts to survive it all.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Engrossing...studded with wisdom about long-held bonds.” —People, Book of the Week “Enthralling, masterfully written...rich with social and psychological insights.” —The New York Times Book Review “A magnificent storytelling feat.” —The Boston Globe The “utterly engrossing, sweeping” (Time) story of a lifelong friendship between two very different “superbly depicted” (The Wall Street Journal) women with shared histories, divisive loyalties, hidden sorrows, and eighty years of summers on a pristine point of land on the coast of Maine, set across the arc of the 20th century. Celebrated children’s book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy—to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming, to permanently protect the peninsula of majestic coast in Maine known as Fellowship Point. To donate the land to a trust, Agnes must convince shareholders to dissolve a generations-old partnership. And one of those shareholders is her best friend, Polly. Polly Wister has led a different kind of life than Agnes: that of a well-off married woman with children, defined by her devotion to her husband, a philosophy professor with an inflated sense of stature. She strives to create beauty and harmony in her home, in her friendships, and in her family. Polly soon finds her loyalties torn between the wishes of her best friend and the wishes of her three sons—but what is it that Polly wants herself? Agnes’s designs are further muddied when an enterprising young book editor named Maud Silver sets out to convince Agnes to write her memoirs. Agnes’s resistance cannot prevent long-buried memories and secrets from coming to light with far-reaching repercussions for all. “An ambitious and satisfying tale” (The Washington Post), Fellowship Point reads like a 19th-century epic, but it is entirely contemporary in its “reflections on aging, writing, stewardship, legacies, independence, and responsibility. At its heart, Fellowship Point is about caring for the places and people we love...This magnificent novel affirms that change and growth are possible at any age” (The Christian Science Monitor).
"A cross between Carry On, Warrior and Everybody's Got Something, The Other Side of Yet is a powerful memoir about loss, faith, and the power of the human spirit. Starting her professional career as a producer at America's Most Wanted, Michelle Hord was no stranger to tragedy. But when the unimaginable happened in her own family, Michelle's entire life crashed down around her. As she sought out a new blueprint for how to live in this new world, The Book of Job became her anchor, with one verse in particular standing out: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" Job 13:15 King James Version (KJV). For Michelle, the concept of that 'yet' became an essential part of her life--one shaped by loss, yet filled with hope. This powerful memoir takes readers on a journey about creating a life of goodness and grace in the face of loss, injustice, or hardship. Michelle isn't interested in prosecuting her marriage, dwelling on what happened to her daughter, or pointing to God as her only salvation. In the pages of The Other Side of Yet, she invites readers to share not just her story, but to draw inspiration from her strength, her will to create goodness, and her defiant faith"--
Unexpected change can be like a breath of fresh air--a little brisk at first, but magic for body and soul, in the latest work from the author who paints the details of human relationships with the finesse of a master (Jodi Picoult).
Surveys the online social habits of American teens and analyzes the role technology and social media plays in their lives, examining common misconceptions about such topics as identity, privacy, danger, and bullying.
Critically acclaimed for "Girl Culture" and "Fast Forward," Greenfield continues her exploration of contemporary female culture with "Thin," a groundbreaking photographic exploration of eating disorders.