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If you love classic literature and reading novels from famous fiction authors then you are going to love this book! In Fascinating Facts, literary trivia expert and author Dave Astor provides 100-plus short chapters which contain anecdotes, oddities, coincidences, and of course great trivia about the greatest authors who have ever put pen to paper.It's no surprise that the best writers have interesting facts surrounding them, because famous authors have to be pretty fascinating themselves in order to create the literature we cherish and enjoy so much. Here is a sample of some of the many interesting informational nuggets and gems you will discover: * The phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" ...
When you stay in one job for a quarter century, it helps to have good reasons for doing so. Here are a few: Heloise, Arianna Huffington, Gary Larson ("The Far Side"), Lynn Johnston ("For Better or For Worse"), Mort Walker ("Beetle Bailey"), Abigail Van Buren ("Dear Abby"), Ann Landers, Hillary Clinton, Walter Cronkite, Martha Stewart, Coretta Scott King, Herblock, Charles Schulz ("Peanuts"), Stan Lee ("Spider-Man"), Garry Trudeau ("Doonesbury"), and Bill Watterson ("Calvin and Hobbes"). The part-humorous Comic (and Column) Confessional chronicles Astor's twenty-five years as newspaper-syndication reporter for Editor & Publisher magazine with candor - and anecdotes about famous people such as those named above. The important period in media history covered shows how the digital revolution, media mergers, and the shrinking newspaper business changed journalism forever.
Few newspaper editors are remembered beyond their lifetimes, but David Astor of the Observer is a great exception to the rule. He converted a staid, Conservative-supporting Sunday paper into essential reading, admired and envied for the quality of its writers and for its trenchant but fair-minded views. Astor grew up at Cliveden, the country house on the Thames which his grandfather had bought when he turned his back on New York, the source of the family fortune. His liberal-minded father was a constant support, but his relations with his mother, Nancy, were always embattled. At Oxford he suffered the first of the bouts of depression that were to blight his life; a lost soul for much of the Thirties, he became involved in attempts to put the British Government in touch with the German opposition in the months leading up to the war. George Orwell had urged Astor to champion the decolonisation of Africa, and Nelson Mandela always acknowledged how much he owed to the Observer’s long-standing support. A generous benefactor to good causes, he helped to set up Amnesty International and Index on Censorship. A good man and a great editor, he deserves to be better remembered.
Wyatt Palmer was a middle-school hero, but that doesn't count for anything in high school. When a ferret goes missing in this hilarious follow-up to The Worst Class Trip Ever, Wyatt and his friend Matt find themselves as unwanted guests at what turns into the Worst Party Ever! Last year, Wyatt foiled a plot against the president of the United States and became the hero of middle school. But now he and his friends are in Coral Cove High School—home of the Fighting Conch—and Wyatt is a hero no longer; he's just another undersized freshman, hoping to fit in, or at least not be unpopular. Things start to go wrong when Matt Diaz, who is Wyatt's best friend but also unfortunately an idiot, dec...
A brilliant, genre-defying work—both memoir and epic poem—about the struggle for wisdom, grace, and ritual in the face of unspeakable loss “A bruised and brave love letter from a brother right here to a brother now gone . . . a soaring, unblinking gaze into the meaning of life itself.”—Marlon James, author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf my father said david has taken his own life Adam is in the middle of his own busy life, and approaching a career high in the form of a #1 New York Times bestselling book—when these words from his father open a chasm beneath his feet. I Had a Brother Once is the story of everything that comes after. In the shadow of David’s inexplicable death, Adam is forced to re-remember a brother he thought he knew and to reckon with a ghost, confronting his unsettled family history, his distant relationship with tradition and faith, and his desperate need to understand an event that always slides just out of his grasp. This is an expansive and deeply thoughtful poetic meditation on loss and a raw, darkly funny, human story of trying to create a ritual—of remembrance, mourning, forgiveness, and acceptance—where once there was a life.
Chapter 1. JUPITER. Jupiter--the magnificent planet with a diameter of 86,500 miles, having 119 times the surface and 1,300 times the volume of the earth--lay beneath them. They had often seen it in the terrestrial sky, emitting its strong, steady ray, and had thought of that far-away planet, about which till recently so little had been known, and a burning desire had possessed them to go to it and explore its mysteries. Now, thanks to APERGY, the force whose existence the ancients suspected, but of which they knew so little, all things were possible. Ayrault manipulated the silk-covered glass handles, and the Callisto moved on slowly in comparison with its recent speed, and all remained glu...
In this hilarious novel, written in the voice of eighth-grader Wyatt Palmer, Dave Barry takes us on a class trip to Washington, DC. Wyatt, his best friend, Matt, and a few kids from Culver Middle School find themselves in a heap of trouble-not just with their teachers, who have long lost patience with them -- but from several mysterious men they first meet on their flight to the nation's capital. In a fast-paced adventure with the monuments as a backdrop, the kids try to stay out of danger and out of the doghouse while trying to save the president from attack-or maybe not.
Habits and Your Health Dr Tamsin Astor blends her scientific background and awareness (PhD in cognitive neuroscience) with her Yoga, Ayurveda, Meditation & Coaching training to give a unique approach to mastering your daily habits. Using tools from Health and Executive coaching, Tamsin provides a plan to help you navigate from a multi-tasking, low energy, time-deprived existence to one of abundance, nourishment and fun! Regain your power, reduce your stress: Feeling overwhelmed, stressed and that there isn't enough time or energy to get everything done? Follow the steps in Force of Habit: Unleash Your Power Through Healthy Habits to create a life of joy and freedom by making connections in y...
“If you could use some wild escapism right now, Hiaasen is your guy.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times From the author of Skinny Dip and Razor Girl, a hilarious, New York Times best-selling novel of social and political intrigues, set against the glittering backdrop of Florida’s gold coast. It's the height of the Palm Beach charity ball season: for every disease or cause, there's a reason for the local luminaries to eat (minimally), drink (maximally), and be seen. But when a prominent high-society dowager suddenly vanishes during a swank gala, and is later found dead in a concrete grave, panic and chaos erupt. Kiki Pew was notable not just for her wealth and her jewels--she was an a...
The Astor Orphan is an unflinching debut memoir by a direct descendant of John Jacob Astor, Alexandra Aldrich. She brilliantly tells the story of her eccentric, fractured family; her 1980s childhood of bohemian neglect in the squalid attic of Rokeby, the family’s Hudson Valley Mansion; and her brave escape from the clan. Aldrich reaches back to the Gilded Age when the Astor legacy began to come undone, leaving the Aldrich branch of the family penniless and squabbling over what was left. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs that bring this faded world into focus, The Astor Orphan is written with the grit of The Glass Castle and set amid the aristocratic decay of Grey Gardens.