Packing Light


Book Description

Vesterfelt tried to live through her dreams and her relationships, but none of them satisfied her as she hoped. Instead she just kept accumulating "baggage": electronics she couldn't afford, hurt from broken relationships, unmet expectations about life. After a chance meeting, she decided to join a friend on a trip to all fifty states. This is the story of her trip, and of learning to live with less baggage.




Southern Lady Code


Book Description

A collection of essays that are "like being seated beside the most entertaining guest at a dinner party" (Atlanta Journal Constitution)—from the New York Times bestselling author of American Housewives “Thank you Helen Ellis for writing down the Southern Lady Code so that others may learn.” —Ann Patchett, bestselling author of The Dutch House Helen Ellis has a mantra: “If you don't have something nice to say, say something not-so-nice in a nice way.” Say “weathered” instead of “she looks like a cake left out in the rain” and “I’m not in charge” instead of “they’re doing it wrong.” In these twenty-three raucous essays, Ellis transforms herself into a dominatrix Donna Reed to save her marriage, inadvertently steals a Burberry trench coat, avoids a neck lift, and finds a black-tie gown that gives her the confidence of a drag queen. While she may have left Alabama for New York City, Helen Ellis is clinging to her Southern accent like mayonnaise to white bread, and offering readers a hilarious, completely singular view on womanhood for both sides of the Mason-Dixon.




American Housewife


Book Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A raucous, whip-smart collection of stories featuring retro-feminist ladies who lunch.” —Elle Meet the women of American Housewife. They wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it’s cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies from the oven. Taking us from a haunted pre-war Manhattan apartment building to the unique initiation ritual of a book club, these twelve delightfully demented stories are a refreshing and wicked answer to the question: “What do housewives do all day?”




No Baggage


Book Description

"An engaging memoir of travel, love, and finding oneself." -- Kirkus Reviews Newly recovered from a quarter-life meltdown, Clara Bensen decided to test her comeback by signing up for an online dating account. She never expected to meet Jeff, a wildly energetic university professor with a reputation for bucking convention. They barely know each other's last names when they agree to set out on a risky travel experiment spanning eight countries and three weeks. The catch? No hotel reservations, no plans, and best of all, no baggage. No Baggage is at once a romance, a travelogue, and a bright modern take on the age-old questions: How do you find the courage to explore beyond your comfort zone? Can you love someone without the need for labels or commitment? Is it possible to truly leave your baggage behind?




Bomb Shelter


Book Description

"A ... memoir-in-essays that tackles the big questions of life, death, and existential fear with humor and hope"--




How to Pack


Book Description

It’s time to pack perfect. Every trip, every time. Your journey starts here. When you travel, the journey is just as important as the destination—and packing is the first step. In How to Pack, Hitha Palepu, a former consultant who has traveled more than 500,000 cumulative miles around the world, shows that what and how you pack are who you are. Confidence and comfort inspire success upon arrival, whether you’re exploring a new city, hoping to nail a job interview, or relaxing on a beach. In How to Pack, you’ll learn about: · Power Pieces vs. Fantasy Pieces: How clothing earns its place in your suitcase · The Accessory Math Secret: The precise formula for all you need to finish off your outfits · Folding versus Rolling: What’s right for which items · Globetrotter Gorgeous: Editing your beauty routine while still looking great · The Packing Timeline: How to avoid “I’m forgetting something” syndrome · Pack Perfect Lists: Samples and blanks for any kind of trip




The Tapir's Morning Bath


Book Description

An engaging portrait of a community of biologists, The Tapir's Morning Bathis a behind-the-scenes account of life at a tropical research station that"conveys the uncertainties, frustrations, and joys of [scientific] fieldwork" (Science). On Panama's Barro Colorado Island, Elizabeth Royte worksalongside the scientists -- counting seeds, sorting insects, collectingmonkey dung, radiotracking fruit bats -- as they struggle to parse theintricate workings of the tropical rain forest. While showing the humanside of the scientists at work, Royte explores the tensions between the slow pace of basic research and the reality of a world that may not have time to wait for answers.




How Not to Travel the World


Book Description

It was hitting rock bottom that convinced Lauren to quit her job, sell everything she owned, and travel the world alone. It wasn't an easy decision: she suffered from debilitating anxiety, was battling an eating disorder, and had just had her heart broken. Not only that, but she had so little life experience that she had never eaten rice or been on a bus. She'd hoped leaving everything behind would help her find and heal herself, but instead Lauren's travels were full of bad luck and near-death experiences. She was scammed and assaulted; lost teeth and swallowed a cockroach. She fell into leech-infested rice paddies, was caught up in a tsunami, had the brakes of her motorbike fail, and experienced a very unhappy ending in Thailand. It was just as she was about to give up on travel when she stumbled across a handsome New Zealander with a love of challenges... How Not to Travel The World is about following your dreams, no matter how many curveballs life throws at you. It's about learning to get out of your comfort zone, finding the humour in messed up situations, and falling in love with life on the road.




Love with a Chance of Drowning


Book Description

New love. Exotic destinations. A once-in-a-lifetime adventure. What could go wrong? City girl Torre DeRoche isn't looking for love, but a chance encounter in a San Francisco bar sparks an instant connection with a soulful Argentinean man who unexpectedly sweeps her off her feet. The problem? He's just about to cast the dock lines and voyage around the world on his small sailboat, and Torre is terrified of deep water. However, lovesick Torre determines that to keep the man of her dreams, she must embark on the voyage of her nightmares, so she waves good-bye to dry land and braces for a life-changing journey that's as exhilarating as it is terrifying. Somewhere mid-Pacific, she finds herself battling to keep the old boat, the new relationship, and her floundering sanity afloat. . . . This sometimes hilarious, often harrowing, and always poignant memoir is set against a backdrop of the world's most beautiful and remote destinations. Equal parts love story and travel memoir, Love with a Chance of Drowning is witty, charming, and proof positive that there are some risks worth taking.




Maiden Voyage


Book Description

What begins as the sheer desire for adventure turns into a spiritual quest as a young woman comes to terms with her family, her dreams, and her first love. Tania Aebi was an unambitious eighteen-year-old, a bicycle messenger in New York City by day, a Lower East Side barfly at night. In short, she was going nowhere—until her father offered her a challenge: Tania could choose either a college education or a twenty-six-foot sloop. The only catch was that if she chose the sailboat, she’d have to sail around the world—alone. She chose the boat, and for the next two and a half years and 27,000 miles, it was her home. With only her cat as companion, she discovered the wondrous beauties of the Great Barrier Reef and the death-dealing horrors of the Red Sea. She suffered through a terrifying collision with a tanker in the Mediterranean and a lightning storm off the coast of Gibraltar. And, ultimately, what began with the sheer desire for adventure turned into a spiritual quest as Tania came to terms with her troubled family life, fell in love for the first time, and—most of all—confronted her own needs, desires, dreams, and goals…