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  Venice for Lovers

  Louis Begley, Anka Muhlstein

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  With an unforgettable novella and brilliant essays, a writing couple delivers “a love letter to an ancient Italian city by the sea” (The Washington Post).  Venice for Lovers is a memorable collaboration by two fine stylists who have fashioned their own personal homages to Venice, one with a novella, the other with a personal essay. Every year for all the thirty they have been married, Begley and Muhlstein have escaped to Venice to write. In her contribution to the book, Muhlstein charmingly describes how she and her husband dine at the same restaurant every night for years on end, and how becoming friends with restaurateurs has been an unsurpassed means of getting to know the city and its inhabitants, far from the tourists in San Marco Square. In his short novella, Begley writes a story of falling in love with and in Venice. His twenty-year-old protagonist, enamored with an older, far worldlier woman of twenty-seven, is lured by her to the City of Water, only to be unceremoniously dumped and left to fend for himself after a brief rendezvous. But he discovers a lasting love for Venice itself not an uncommon romance, as Begley’s brilliant literary essay on the city’s place within world literature demonstrates: Henry James, Marcel Proust, and Thomas Mann were all illustrious predecessors.   “Refreshing and delightful. Begley and Muhlstein manage to combine in one volume the innocent ardor of a first-time visitor and the seasoned appreciation of longtime lovers.” —Don George, National Geographic Traveler

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  English Lessons - The Crooked...

  Andrea Lucado

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  The Questions Would Teach Her More Than the Answers   It wasn't long after arriving in Oxford for graduate school that twenty-two-year-old Andrea Lucado - preacher's daughter from Texas - faced not only culture shock, a severe lack of coffee, but also some unexpected hard questions: Who am I? Who is God? Why do I believe what I believe? "So many nights in Oxford, I felt like the details of my faiths were getting fuzzier. Nights turned restless with the questions and the thoughts. I questioned God's existence and the doubt, it was getting into my bones…."  In this engaging memoir, Andrea speaks to all of us who wrestle with faith, doubt, and spiritual identity. Join Andrea as she navigates the Thames River, the Oxford Atheist Society, romance in ancient pubs-and a new perspective on who God is. As Andrea learned, sometimes it takes letting go of old ideas to discover lasting truth.   The church wasn't just a part of Andrea Lucado's childhood. It was her childhood. It provided more than happy moments. It provided an invitation to know Jesus.   When Andrea arrived in England the year after she graduated from college, she expected to meet God there. What she didn't expect was that God would be much bigger than she knew.  In English Lessons, Andrea takes us through the roads of England and the paths of the soul. Here she explores the journey of a changing faith and an unchanging God-and why growing up starts with realizing just how small we are.

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  Breathe - A Life in Flow

  Rickson Gracie, Peter Maguire

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  From legendary Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA master Rickson Gracie comes a riveting, insightful memoir that weaves together the story of Gracie’s stunning career with the larger history of the Gracie family dynasty and the founding of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, showing how the connection between mind and body can be harnessed for success both inside and outside the ring. 
  Undefeated from the late 1970s through his final fight in the Tokyo Dome in 2000, Rickson Gracie amassed hundreds of victories in the street, on the mat, at the beach, and in the ring. He has joined the pantheon that includes Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and Jackie Chan as one of the most famous martial artists of the twentieth century. Jiu-Jitsu, the fighting style developed and pioneered by his family, has become one of the world’s most prominent martial arts, and Vale Tudo, the “anything goes” style of Brazilian street fighting over which the Gracies had a monopoly, was an early precursor to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Simply put, without the Gracie family, there would be no sport of “MMA,” no 4-billion-dollar UFC empire, and no “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu” at strip malls all across America. 
  In Breathe, for the first time, Rickson will share the full story of how his father and uncles came to develop Jiu-Jitsu, what it was like to grow up among several generations of world-renowned fighters from the Gracie clan, and the principles and skills that guided him to his undefeated record. From learning to assert himself on the streets of Rio to gaining fame and honor in Japan and emerging through heartbreaking tragedy, the martial arts master shares tales of overcoming challenges, extolling universal virtues and showing readers how pride and ego are the enemies of success.  
  With profound insights into the sport and way of life that only a studied legend can provide, Breathe is an entertaining and magnified view of an enduring legacy as well as an inspiring tale of weathering life’s complexities and overcoming them with style and grace. 
  Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

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  The Lives of the Queens of...

  Agnes Strickland

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  The Lives of the Queens of England is a multi-volumed work attributed to Agnes Strickland, though it was mostly researched and written by her sister Elizabeth. These volumes give biographies of the queens of England from the Norman Conquest in 1066. Although by today's standards, it is not seen as a very scholarly work, the Stricklands used many sources that had not been used before.Volume 2 includes the biographies of Berengaria of Navarre, Isabella of Angouleme, Eleanor of Provence, Eleanora of Castille, Margarite of France, Isabella of France, Philippa of Hainault, and Anne of Bohemia.(Introduction by Ann Boulais)

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  For the Love of Physics - From...

  Warren Goldstein, Walter Lewin

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  “YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE” is a common refrain in the emails Walter Lewin receives daily from fans who have been enthralled by his world-famous video lectures about the wonders of physics. “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes,” wrote one such fan. When Lewin’s lectures were made available online, he became an instant YouTube celebrity, and The New York Times declared, “Walter Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits.” For more than thirty years as a beloved professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lewin honed his singular craft of making physics not only accessible but truly fun, whether putting his head in the path of a wrecking ball, supercharging himself with three hundred thousand volts of electricity, or demonstrating why the sky is blue and why clouds are white. Now, as Carl Sagan did for astronomy and Brian Green did for cosmology, Lewin takes readers on a marvelous journey in For the Love of Physics, opening our eyes as never before to the amazing beauty and power with which physics can reveal the hidden workings of the world all around us. “I introduce people to their own world,” writes Lewin, “the world they live in and are familiar with but don’t approach like a physicist—yet.” Could it be true that we are shorter standing up than lying down? Why can we snorkel no deeper than about one foot below the surface? Why are the colors of a rainbow always in the same order, and would it be possible to put our hand out and touch one? Whether introducing why the air smells so fresh after a lightning storm, why we briefly lose (and gain) weight when we ride in an elevator, or what the big bang would have sounded like had anyone existed to hear it, Lewin never ceases to surprise and delight with the extraordinary ability of physics to answer even the most elusive questions. Recounting his own exciting discoveries as a pioneer in the field of X-ray astronomy—arriving at MIT right at the start of an astonishing revolution in astronomy—he also brings to life the power of physics to reach into the vastness of space and unveil exotic uncharted territories, from the marvels of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud to the unseeable depths of black holes. “For me,” Lewin writes, “physics is a way of seeing—the spectacular and the mundane, the immense and the minute—as a beautiful, thrillingly interwoven whole.” His wonderfully inventive and vivid ways of introducing us to the revelations of physics impart to us a new appreciation of the remarkable beauty and intricate harmonies of the forces that govern our lives.

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  Coal Dust in My Blood -...

  Bill Johnstone

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  The men who worked British Columbia's mines have passed into history. Coal Dust In My Blood is a moving account of one coal miner's life, in plain, evocative language. But this book is much more than a personal memoir. Bill Johnstone's mining career spanned several decades and he worked in a wide variety of positions. His broad insights reveal important aspects of the history of coal mining in BC.

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