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Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay
by Shanna Greene BenjaminNellie Y. McKay (1930–2006) was a pivotal figure in contemporary American letters. The author of several books, McKay is best known for coediting the canon-making Norton Anthology of African American Literature with Henry Louis Gates Jr., which helped secure a place for the scholarly study of Black writing that had been ignored by white academia. However, there is more to McKay's life and legacy than her literary scholarship. After her passing, new details about McKay's life emerged, surprising everyone who knew her. Why did McKay choose to hide so many details of her past? Shanna Greene Benjamin examines McKay's path through the professoriate to learn about the strategies, sacrifices, and successes of contemporary Black women in the American academy. Benjamin shows that McKay's secrecy was a necessary tactic that a Black, working-class woman had to employ to succeed in the white-dominated space of the American English department. Using extensive archives and personal correspondence, Benjamin brings together McKay's private life and public work to expand how we think about Black literary history and the place of Black women in American culture.
Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay
by Shanna Greene BenjaminNellie Y. McKay (1930–2006) was a pivotal figure in contemporary American letters. The author of several books, McKay is best known for coediting the canon-making with Henry Louis Gates Jr., which helped secure a place for the scholarly study of Black writing that had been ignored by white academia. However, there is more to McKay's life and legacy than her literary scholarship. After her passing, new details about McKay's life emerged, surprising everyone who knew her. Why did McKay choose to hide so many details of her past? Shanna Greene Benjamin examines McKay's path through the professoriate to learn about the strategies, sacrifices, and successes of contemporary Black women in the American academy. Benjamin shows that McKay's secrecy was a necessary tactic that a Black, working-class woman had to employ to succeed in the white-dominated space of the American English department. Using extensive archives and personal correspondence, Benjamin brings together McKay’s private life and public work to expand how we think about Black literary history and the place of Black women in American culture.
Half-Jew
by Susan JacobySince childhood, Susan Jacoby, the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of American Unreason, was sure that her father was keeping a secret. At age twenty, just before beginning her writing career as a reporter for the Washington Post, she learned the truth: Robert Jacoby, a Catholic convert with a Catholic wife, was also a Jew. In Half-Jew, Jacoby grapples with the hidden identity cloaked by the persona of a successful accountant and member of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in East Lansing, Michigan--and with the secrets and lies that had marked her family's history for three generations on two continents. Beginning in 1849 when her great-grandfather arrived in America as a political refugee, Jacoby traces her lineage through the lives of her great-uncle Harold, the distinguished astronomer whose map of the constellations is etched on the ceiling of Grand Central Terminal; her uncle, the bridge champion Oswald Jacoby, her aunt Edith, also a Catholic convert and eventually a reformer within the church; and, of course her father himself. At the core of story is the psychic damage that accrues across generations when people conceal their true ethnic and religious origins. Featuring a new afterword, Half-Jew is a meticulously researched, emotionally poignant examination of the dark legacy of European and American anti-Semitism as well as a tender-hearted account of a daughter coming to understand her father, herself, and her family's true legacy.
Half Life: A Novel
by Jillian CantorThe USA Today bestselling author of In Another Time reimagines the pioneering, passionate life of Marie Curie using a parallel structure to create two alternative timelines, one that mirrors her real life, one that explores the consequences for Marie and for science if she’d made a different choice. In Poland in 1891, Marie Curie (then Marya Sklodowska) was engaged to a budding mathematician, Kazimierz Zorawski. But when his mother insisted she was too poor and not good enough, he broke off the engagement. A heartbroken Marya left Poland for Paris, where she would attend the Sorbonne to study chemistry and physics. Eventually Marie Curie would go on to change the course of science forever and be the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.But what if she had made a different choice? What if she had stayed in Poland, married Kazimierz at the age of twenty-four, and never attended the Sorbonne or discovered radium? What if she had chosen a life of domesticity with a constant hunger for knowledge in Russian Poland where education for women was restricted, instead of studying science in Paris and meeting Pierre Curie?Entwining Marie Curie’s real story with Marya Zorawska’s fictional one, Half Life explores loves lost and destinies unfulfilled—and probes issues of loyalty and identity, gender and class, motherhood and sisterhood, fame and anonymity, scholarship and knowledge. Through parallel contrasting versions of Marya’s life, Jillian Cantor’s unique historical novel asks what would have happened if a great scientific mind was denied opportunity and access to education. It examines how the lives of one remarkable woman and the people she loved – as well as the world at large and course of science and history—might have been irrevocably changed in ways both great and small.
Half Life: A Novel
by Jillian CantorA brilliant sliding-doors reimagining of the passionate life of the first woman to win a Nobel Prize – and the life Marie Curie might have led if she had chosen love over science. Poland, 1891. Marie Curie (then Marya Sklodowska) was engaged to a budding mathematician, Kazimierz Zorawski. But when his mother insisted Marya was not good enough, he broke off the engagement. A heartbroken Marya left Poland for Paris to study chemistry and physics at the Sorbonne. Marie would go on to change the course of science forever and become the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. But what if Marie had made a different choice? What if she had stayed in Poland, married Kazimierz, and never attended the Sorbonne or discovered radium? What if Marie had chosen her first love and a life of domesticity, still ravenous for knowledge in Russian Poland where education for women was restricted, instead of studying science in Paris and meeting Pierre Curie? Seamlessly entwining the lives of Marya and Marie, Half Life is a powerful story of love and friendship, motherhood and sisterhood, fame and anonymity – and a woman destined to change the world.
Half Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy
by Frank CloseThe memo landed on Kim Philby's desk in Washington, DC, in July 1950. Three months later, Bruno Pontecorvo, a physicist at Harwell, Britain's atomic energy lab, disappeared without a trace. When he re-surfaced six years later, he was on the other side of the Iron Curtain.One of the most brilliant scientists of his generation, Pontecorvo seemed to have been privy to many secrets: he had worked on the Anglo-Canadian arm of the Manhattan Project, and quietly discovered a way to find the uranium coveted by nuclear powers. Yet when he disappeared MI5 insisted he was not a threat. Now, based on unprecedented access to archives, letters and surviving family members and scientists, award-winning writer and physics professor Frank Close pieces together an answer to whether Pontecorvo's defection ended a life of spycraft - and exposes a life irrevocably marked by the advent of the atomic age and the Cold War.
Half-Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy
by Frank CloseBruno Pontecorvo dedicated his career to hunting for the Higgs boson of his day: the neutrino, a nearly massless particle considered essential to the process of nuclear fission. His work on the Manhattan project under Enrico Fermi confirmed his reputation as a brilliant physicist and helped usher in the nuclear age. He should have won a Nobel Prize, but late in the summer of 1950 he vanished. At the height of the Cold War, Pontecorvo had disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. In Half-Life, physicist and historian Frank Close offers a heretofore untold history of Pontecorvo’s life, based on unprecedented access to his friends, family, and colleagues. With all the elements of a Cold War thriller-classified atomic research, an infamous double agent, a kidnapping by Soviet operatives-Half-Life is a history of particle physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb.
Half-Life of a Stolen Sister
by Rachel CantorReimagines the lives of the Brontë siblings—Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and brother Branwell—from their precocious childhoods, to the writing of their great novels, to their early deaths.A form-shattering novel by an author praised as &“laugh-out-loud hilarious and thought-provokingly philosophical&” (Boston Globe).How did sisters Emily, Charlotte, and Anne write literary landmarks Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey? What in their lives and circumstances, in the choices they made, and in their close but complex relationships with one another made such greatness possible? In her new novel, Rachel Cantor melds biographical fact with unruly invention to illuminate the siblings&’ genius, their bonds of love and duty, periods of furious creativity, and the ongoing tolls of illness, isolation, and loss.As it tells the story of the Brontës, Half-Life of a Stolen Sister itself perpetually transforms and renews its own style and methods, sometimes hewing close to the facts of the Brontë lives as we know them (or think we know them), and at others radically reimagining the siblings, moving them into new time periods and possibilities.Chapter by chapter, the novel brings together diaries, letters, home movies, television and radio interviews, deathbed monologues, and fragments from the sprawling invented worlds of the siblings&’ childhood. As it does so, a kaleidoscopic portrait emerges, giving us with startling intensity and invention new ways of seeing—and reading—the sisters who would create some of the supreme works of literature of all time.
Half-Life of a Zealot
by Swanee HuntSwanee Hunt's life has lived up to her Texas-size childhood. Daughter of legendary oil magnate H. L. Hunt, she grew up in a household dominated by an arch-conservative patriarch who spawned a brood of colorful offspring. Her family was nothing if not zealous, and that zeal--albeit for more compassionate causes--propelled her into a mission that reaches around the world. Half-Life of a Zealot tells how the girl who spoke against "Reds" alongside her father became a fierce advocate for progressive change in America and abroad, an innovative philanthropist, and Bill Clinton's Ambassador to Austria. In captivating prose, Hunt describes the warmth and wear of Southern Baptist culture, which instilled in her a calling to help those who are vulnerable. The reader is drawn into her full-throttle professional life as it competes with critical family needs. Hunt gives a remarkably frank account of her triumphs and shortcomings; her sorrows, including a miscarriage and the failure of a marriage; the joys and struggles of her second marriage; and her angst over the life-threatening illness of one of her three children. She is candid about the opportunities her fortune has created, as well as the challenge of life as an heiress. Much of Swanee Hunt's professional life is devoted to expanding women's roles in making and shaping public policy. She is the founding director of Harvard's Women and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government, chair of the Initiative for Inclusive Security, and president of the Hunt Alternatives Fund. Swanee Hunt's autobiography brims over with strong women: her mother, whose religious faith and optimism were an inspiration; her daughter, who fights the social stigma of mental disorders; the women of war-torn Bosnia, who transformed their grief into action; and friends like Hillary Clinton, who used her position as First Lady to strengthen the voices of others. Hunt is one more strong woman. Half-Life of a Zealot is her story--so far.
Half Man, Half Bike: The Life of Eddy Merckx, Cycling's Greatest Champion
by William FotheringhamLeading cycling writer William Fotheringham presents the biography of the greatest cyclist in history, Eddy Merckx--the extraordinary man who is to cycling what Muhammad Ali is to boxing. This definitive history chronicles his life, examining both the ups and the downs. Throughout his professional career Merckx amassed an astonishing 445 victories and exhibited a remorseless sense of domination that created his legend. But his triumphs only tell half of a story that includes horrific injury, a doping controversy, and tragedy. To discover the background of the Belgian cyclist's former invincibility, the author spoke with those who were there at the time and those who knew Merckx best. This is the singular tale of a man whose fear of failure would drive him to reach the highest pinnacles before ultimately destroying himself.
The Half of It: A Memoir
by Madison BeerA memoir from singer-songwriter Madison Beer, chronicling the past decade of her life spent in the spotlight—the ups, the downs, and the in-betweens that you won’t see on social media.Discovered at twelve years old, Madison Beer was one of the first artists to have her entire life documented online. Over the past decade, she has navigated the spotlight as a child, through her teenage years, and now as a young woman in her twenties.In The Half of It, Madison pulls back the curtain to show the behind-the-scenes of her journey, from reckoning with mass hate online and the time her private pictures were leaked, to battling suicidal thoughts while making her highly acclaimed debut album, Life Support, and her recovery since then. This memoir is an honest and unflinching account of self-love, mental health, and advocacy from one of the fastest-rising musical voices and most influential social media presences of her generation. It hammers home the point, more striking and urgent than ever, that no matter how close the internet may make us feel to people, we truly don’t know the half of it.
The Half of It: A Memoir
by Madison BeerA memoir from singer-songwriter Madison Beer, chronicling the past decade of her life spent in the spotlight--the ups, the downs, and the in-betweens that you won't see on social media.Discovered at twelve years old, Madison Beer was one of the first artists to have her entire life documented online. Over the past decade, she has navigated the spotlight as a child, through her teenage years, and now as a young woman in her twenties.In The Half of It, Madison pulls back the curtain to show the behind-the-scenes of her journey, from reckoning with mass hate online and the time her private pictures were leaked, to battling suicidal thoughts while making her highly acclaimed debut album, Life Support, and her recovery since then. This memoir is an honest and unflinching account of self-love, mental health, and advocacy from one of the fastest-rising musical voices and most influential social media presences of her generation. It hammers home the point, more striking and urgent than ever, that no matter how close the internet may make us feel to people, we truly don't know the half of it.(P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers
The Half of It: A Memoir
by Madison BeerDiscovered at twelve years old, Madison Beer was one of the first artists to have her entire life documented online. Over the past decade, she has navigated the spotlight as a child, through her teenage years, and now as a young woman in her twenties.In The Half of It, Madison pulls back the curtain to show the behind-the-scenes of her journey, from reckoning with mass hate online and the time her private pictures were leaked, to battling suicidal thoughts while making her highly acclaimed debut album, Life Support, and her recovery since then. This memoir is an honest and unflinching account of self-love, mental health, and advocacy from one of the fastest-rising musical voices and most influential social media presences of her generation. It hammers home the point, more striking and urgent than ever, that no matter how close the internet may make us feel to people, we truly don't know the half of it.
The Half That's Never Been Told: The Real-Life Reggae Adventures of Doctor Dread
by Doctor Dread"Impassioned and engaging."--Booklist"A heartfelt tribute to Caribbean roots music and those who keep it alive."--Kirkus Reviews"In 1972, Gary Himelfarb...heard reggae music for the first time and fell in love. He embraced the music...with a passion that he matched with a genuine curiosity about Jamaican culture and sincere friendships with musicians there....There is a sweetness and sincerity to the best parts of the book....Dread's serious case of 'reggaemylitis' gave him some remarkable experiences."--Publishers Weekly"The book is a tale of business, family, ethics, health, and survival...an entertaining read."--Washington City Paper"A gem...Real music heads will truly enjoy this book....For anyone who is a fan of Reggae music, this book is a must-have."--Baltimore Times"A nice read...hilarious and spellbinding."--Caribbean Life"Doctor Dread may just prove to be as gripping a storyteller as he was a record producer. In this revelatory vignette-filled offering, he bends the rules with an unorthodox literary style, unveiling a torrent of chronicles that are spontaneous, colorful, richly authentic and brazen. This is a unique work on many levels. Doctor Dread does offer new and intimate insights into the legends of Jamaican culture....Highly recommended."--Jamaica Gleaner"Full of heart and soul as well as photos from many of the author's greatest moments, it is a must for anybody interested in reggae music and its cast of characters or the music business in general."--Reggaeville"This book should be on the shelf of any serious lover of reggae...Not only is Himelfarb a great storyteller...he is also a talented writer."--FDRMX"An inside perspective of the reggae music phenomenon...[Dread] explains how his decision to form the RAS label came at a tragic but important moment in music history, as the death of Bob Marley in 1981 led to a market eager for the earthy sounds of reggae. Dread also relates fine portrayals of legends like Philip 'Fatis' Burrell, the many Marleys, Freddie McGregor, and Bunny Wailer."--Insights"This easily readable memoir does far more than chart the label's ebbs and flows....Delightfully candid and brutally honest, this is a must-read for all reggae fans."--MOJO Magazine (UK)"Hugely compelling page-turner....a no-nonsense tome that gives intimate portraits of Jamaican music's most colorful characters, and sheds light on the individual world view of Doctor Dread, with many 'twilight zone' incidents, lots of confliction, and a good deal of redemption too....Recommended reading for all reggae fans."--Riddim Magazine (Germany)"Absolutely not to be missed!"--HotMC (Italy)With an introduction by Bunny Wailer.Doctor Dread has committed his life to producing reggae music and releasing it on his label, RAS Records. He has become one of the world's foremost reggae producers, and has worked with almost all the genre's icons: Bunny Wailer, Black Uhuru, Ziggy and Damian Marley, Gregory Isaacs, etc. This book, full of behind-the-scenes stories, has shocking chapters that will reveal aspects of reggae never before explored.
Half the Mother, Twice the Love
by Tonya Bolden Mother LoveAs a talk-show host and inspirational speaker, Mother Love used to have to just grin and bear it -- all that extra weight and the poor health that went along with it. Today she can truly smile as she serves up sound advice with big portions of humor in her new book about better living and good health that can turn your life around just like it did hers. Half the Mother, Twice the Love tells about the major weight loss Mother Love achieved over the last three years to reverse the decline in her health and regain control over her life. She went from size 22 to size 10 using a multitiered approach that included exercise, diet, and other lifestyle adjustments, and all her secrets are here in this informative and uplifting book. Half the Mother, Twice the Love speaks to everyone who wants the good life without the bad habits that can make us tired, overweight, and eventually ruin our health. Part memoir and part self-help, this book teaches you how to learn from the mistakes which almost cost Mother Love her life. In the end, she may be half the woman she used to be, but she can give twice as much love as ever.
Half the Way Home: A Memoir of Father and Son
by Adam HochschildA New York Times Notable Book: &“An extraordinarily moving portrait of the complexities and confusions of familial love&” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). From the author of King Leopold&’s Ghost, Half the Way Home is a compelling memoir about a complicated father-son relationship. Adam Hochschild never used the words &“Dad&” or &“Daddy,&” just &“Father.&” The only son of Harold Hochschild—the head of a multinational mining corporation—Adam always felt as though his father remained purposefully at a distance—a demanding, immovable pillar to be respected and sometimes feared. Here, in lyrical prose, Hochschild recounts his privileged upbringing at his family&’s estate in the Adirondacks, his coming-of-age in the tumultuous 1960s, and his enduringly conflicted relationship with his father. But as a boy grows into a man, times change and perspectives shift, and a chance for reconciliation emerges from the space between. Hailed by Studs Terkel as &“an exquisite memoir of a boy growing up,&” Half the Way Home is ultimately the story of a father and his son, and the unexpected peace finally made between them. &“It is a primer on the upper class and on class itself, a series of meditations on the burden of wealth to the liberal consciousness and even a commentary on what it means to be a Jew in America. . . . This is a fine and moving book&” (People).
Half-Ton of Trouble: An old Juneau crime, hidden treasure, and contemporary greed leads to half-ton of trouble
by James KohnOld man Denton's life is plagued by a secret. He is victim of his momentary crime of greed committed during Juneau's mining heydays. As his mind unravels in illness he longs for absolution for his youthful crime. After a lifetime of sorrow and regret, the greed of his past sparks the hopes and dreams of a disillusioned Juneau tourist merchant and an Islamic radical. As they seek Denton's hidden treasure their ambitions blind them to strong forces seeking justice.
Halfbreed
by Maria CampbellA new, fully restored edition of the essential Canadian classic.An unflinchingly honest memoir of her experience as a Métis woman in Canada, Maria Campbell's Halfbreed depicts the realities that she endured and, above all, overcame. Maria was born in Northern Saskatchewan, her father the grandson of a Scottish businessman and Métis woman--a niece of Gabriel Dumont whose family fought alongside Riel and Dumont in the 1885 Rebellion; her mother the daughter of a Cree woman and French-American man. This extraordinary account, originally published in 1973, bravely explores the poverty, oppression, alcoholism, addiction, and tragedy Maria endured throughout her childhood and into her early adult life, underscored by living in the margins of a country pervaded by hatred, discrimination, and mistrust. Laced with spare moments of love and joy, this is a memoir of family ties and finding an identity in a heritage that is neither wholly Indigenous or Anglo; of strength and resilience; of indominatable spirit.This edition of Halfbreed includes a new introduction written by Indigenous (Métis) scholar Dr. Kim Anderson detailing the extraordinary work that Maria has been doing since its original publication 46 years ago, and an afterword by the author looking at what has changed, and also what has not, for Indigenous people in Canada today. Restored are the recently discovered missing pages from the original text of this groundbreaking and significant work.
Halfway: A Memoir
by Tom MacherFrom a searing new literary voice, a raw, compulsively readable memoir about a young man seeking hope, community, and ultimately recovery from addiction in a series of halfway houses and boys’ homes—the first book to so vividly capture this world.In his late teens Tom Macher rebelled against a world that seemed stacked against him. Raised in a broken family and estranged from an absentee father suffering with AIDS, Macher turned to alcohol to escape the painful loneliness of his reality. In quick succession, he is kicked out of school, and then his mother’s house, sent to a boys’ home in Montana, and later, a halfway house in a truck-stop town of Louisiana. It was there that Macher encounters a community of young men struggling to survive—outcasts and thieves, liars and ex-cons, men seeking redemption, men running from the past. As he moves further away from boyhood and embraces a hard-won sobriety, these men—the broken, the hardscrabble, the near gone—become his salvation. Macher captures the trials of sobriety—suicide, death, recovery—and the unusual beauty that forms in the bonds of those who suffer. In visceral, striking prose, he introduces the unforgettable characters he meets along the way, from a former child actor, a young teen struggling with schizophrenia, a tough-love addiction counselor, a sex-addicted social worker, to Matt O, who became Macher’s loyal friend and wingman. Raw, disarming, frenetic, and subversive, Halfway is a brutally honest portrait of the world of down-and-out recovering alcoholics, and a story of how, in their darkest hour, these men create the bonds that form a family.
Halfway Home: My Life 'til Now
by Ronan TynanYes, I am a singer. But I am also a horseman, an athlete, and a doctor. I am a son, a brother, and a friend. I can sing as I do only because of the life that I've led. With each decade, I've found myself in very different, evermore challenging arenas, but the many stages of my life have always intertwined. I have moved from one stage to the next as if on a wild steeplechase, keeping my eye fixed straight ahead and above me. If there is a single line connecting all the episodes and main events of my life it is this -- a gift both given and received. -- from the IntroductionInHalfway Home,a beautifully written memoir, Ronan Tynan, a member of the enormously popular Irish Tenors, shares his remarkable story of overcoming adversity and attaining worldwide success in several different areas. Diagnosed with a lower limb disability at birth, Ronan Tynan had his legs amputated below the knee when he was twenty years old. Eight weeks later, he was climbing the stairs of his college dorm, and within a year, he was winning races in the Paralympic Games, amassing eighteen gold medals and fourteen world records. After becoming the first disabled person ever admitted to the National College of Physical Education, he served a short stint in the prosthetics industry and began a new career in medicine. He continued his studies at Trinity College, where he specialized in orthopedic sports injuries. After earning his medical degree, Ronan chose music for the next act in his life. Less than one year after he began studying voice, he won both the John McCormick Cup for Tenor Voice and the BBC talent showGo for It. He went on to win the prestigious International Operatic Singing Competition in France, and in 1998 his debut Sony album,My Life Belongs to You,became a top-five hit in England within just two weeks and eventually went platinum. Later that year, he was invited to join The Irish Tenors, furthering a journey that started in a small Irish village and has brought him to the world's grandest stages. InHalfway Home,Tynan movingly describes his life story, which Barbara Walters called "so amazing you may find it hard to believe. "
Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled—and Knuckleheaded—Quest for the Rocky Mountain High
by Mark ObmascikFat, forty-four, father of three sons, and facing a vasectomy, Mark Obmascik would never have guessed that his next move would be up a 14,000-foot mountain. But when his twelve-year-old son gets bitten by the climbing bug at summer camp, Obmascik can't resist the opportunity for some high-altitude father-son bonding by hiking a peak together. After their first joint climb, addled by the thin air, Obmascik decides to keep his head in the clouds and try scaling all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot mountains, known as the Fourteeners -- and to do them in less than one year. The result is Halfway to Heaven, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Obmascik's rollicking, witty, sometimes harrowing, often poignant chronicle of an outrageous midlife adventure that is no walk in the park, although sometimes it's A Walk in the Woods -- but with more sweat and less oxygen. Half a million people try climbing a Colorado Fourteener every year, but only twelve hundred have reported summiting them all. Can an overweight, stay-at-home dad become No. 1,201? With his ebullient personality and sparkling prose, Obmascik brings us inside the quirky, colorful subculture of mountaineering obsessives who summit these mountains year after year. Honoring his concerned wife's orders not to climb alone, Obmascik drags old friends up the slopes, some of them lifelong flatlanders tasting thin air for the first time, and lures seasoned Rockies junkies into taking on a huffing, puffing newbie by bribing them with free beer, lunches, and car washes. Among the new friends he makes are an ex-drag racer trying to perform a headstand on every summit, the lead oboe player in a Hebrew salsa band, and a climber with the counterproductive pre-climb ritual of gulping down four beers and a burrito. Along the way, Obmascik experiences the raw, rowdy, and rarely seen intimacy of male friendship, braced by the double intoxicants of adrenaline and altitude. Though danger is always present -- the Colorado Fourteeners have killed more climbers than Mount Everest -- Mark knows his aging scalp can't afford the hair-raising adventures of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, and his quest becomes a story of family, friendship, and fraternity. In Obmascik's summer of climbing, he loses fifteen pounds, finds a few dozen man-dates, and gains respect for the history of these storied mountains (home to cannibalism, gold rushes, shoot-outs, and one of the nation's most famed religious shrines). As much about midlife and male bonding as it is about mountains, Halfway to Heaven tells how weekend warriors can survive them all as they reach for those most distant things -- the summits of mountains and a teenage son. And as one man exceeds the physical achievements of his youth, he discovers that age -- like summit height -- is just a number.
Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two)
by Michael PalinMichael Palin's bestselling diaries of the 1980s.After a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl, The Pythons made their last performance together in 1983 in the hugely successful MONTY PYTHON'S MEANING OF LIFE. Writing and acting in films and television then took over much of Michael's life, culminating in the smash hit A FISH CALLED WANDA (for which he won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor), and the first of his seven celebrated television journeys for the BBC. He co-produced, wrote and played the lead in THE MISSIONARY opposite Maggie Smith, who also appeared with him in A PRIVATE FUNCTION, written by Alan Bennett. Such was his fame in the US, he was enticed into once again hosting the enormously popular show Saturday Night Live, in one edition of which his mother makes a highly successful surprise guest appearance. He filmed several journeys for television and became chairman of the pressure group, Transport 2000. His family remains a constant as his and Helen's children enter their teens.
Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two)
by Michael PalinMichael Palin's bestselling diaries of the 1980s.After a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl, The Pythons made their last performance together in 1983 in the hugely successful MONTY PYTHON'S MEANING OF LIFE. Writing and acting in films and television then took over much of Michael's life, culminating in the smash hit A FISH CALLED WANDA (for which he won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor), and the first of his seven celebrated television journeys for the BBC. He co-produced, wrote and played the lead in THE MISSIONARY opposite Maggie Smith, who also appeared with him in A PRIVATE FUNCTION, written by Alan Bennett. Such was his fame in the US, he was enticed into once again hosting the enormously popular show Saturday Night Live, in one edition of which his mother makes a highly successful surprise guest appearance. He filmed several journeys for television and became chairman of the pressure group, Transport 2000. His family remains a constant as his and Helen's children enter their teens.
Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two)
by Michael PalinAfter a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl, The Pythons made their last performance together in 1983 in the hugely successful MONTY PYTHON'S MEANING OF LIFE. Writing and acting in films and television then took over much of Michael's life, culminating in the smash hit A FISH CALLED WANDA (for which he won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor), and the first of his seven celebrated television journeys for the BBC. He co-produced, wrote and played the lead in THE MISSIONARY opposite Maggie Smith, who also appeared with him in A PRIVATE FUNCTION, written by Alan Bennett. Such was his fame in the US, he was enticed into once again hosting the enormously popular show Saturday Night Live, in one edition of which his mother makes a highly successful surprise guest appearance. He filmed several journeys for television and became chairman of the pressure group, Transport 2000. His family remains a constant as his and Helen's children enter their teens.Read by Michael Palin(p) 2009 Orion Publishing Group
Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two)
by Michael PalinMichael Palin's bestselling diaries of the 1980s.After a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl, The Pythons made their last performance together in 1983 in the hugely successful MONTY PYTHON'S MEANING OF LIFE. Writing and acting in films and television then took over much of Michael's life, culminating in the smash hit A FISH CALLED WANDA (for which he won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor), and the first of his seven celebrated television journeys for the BBC. He co-produced, wrote and played the lead in THE MISSIONARY opposite Maggie Smith, who also appeared with him in A PRIVATE FUNCTION, written by Alan Bennett. Such was his fame in the US, he was enticed into once again hosting the enormously popular show Saturday Night Live, in one edition of which his mother makes a highly successful surprise guest appearance. He filmed several journeys for television and became chairman of the pressure group, Transport 2000. His family remains a constant as his and Helen's children enter their teens.