While on a camping trip, Ted Kerasote met a dog--a Labrador mix--who was living on his own in the wild. They became attached to each other, and Kerasote decided to name the dog Merle and bring him home. There, he realized that Merle's native intelligence would be diminished by living exclusively in the human world. He put a dog door in his house so Merle could live both outside and in. This portrait of a remarkable dog and his relationship with the...

Collects the best of the author's essays from five decades of the "Irish Times" to reflect a changing culture as well as her observations on such topics as the royal wedding, waitressing, and boring airline companions.

Although less well known than the Mayans, the Anasazi, who flourished in the region now known as New Mexico, also vanished without a trace. Now, eight centuries after their thriving, 2,000-year-old civilization disappeared as though it had never existed, naturalist and adventurer Childs undertakes to find out where the Anasazi went and why. But discovering the fate of an entire race of people, 800 years after the fact, is not like tracking down a...

With Dress Your Family in Courduroy and Denim, David Sedaris returns to his deliriously twisted domain, hilarious childhood dramas infused with melancholy; the gulf of misunderstanding that exists between people of different nations or members of the same family; and the poignant divide between one's best hopes and most common deeds.

"Daring and wise, hilarious and tender, Cheston Knapp's exhilarating collection of seven linked essays, Up Up, Down Down, tackles Big Questions through unlikely avenues. In his dexterous hands, an examination of a local professional wrestling promotion becomes a meditation on pain and his relationship with his father. A profile of UFO enthusiasts ends up probing his history in the church and, more broadly, the nature and limits of faith itself. Attending...

Contents: In her comic, scathing essay, "Men Explain Things to Me," Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters. This updated edition with two new essays of this national bestseller book features that...

Take an unforgettable journey through the English countryside and into the homes of its inhabitants--four-legged and otherwise--with the world's best-loved animal doctor. For over 25 years, since "All Creatures Great and Small" was first published, readers have delighted to the storytelling genius of James Herriot, the Yorkshire veterinarian whose fascinating vignettes brim with the wonder of life, animal and human.

"'In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.' So begins Upstream, a collection of essays in which beloved poet Mary Oliver reflects on her willingness, as a young child and as an adult, to lose herself within the beauty and mysteries of both the natural world and the world of...

When Chelsea Handler needs to get a few things off her chest, she appeals to a higher power--vodka. Welcome to Chelsea's world--a place where absurdity reigns supreme and a quick wit is the best line of defense. In this collection, Chelsea mines her past for stories about her family, relationships, and career that are at once singular and ridiculous. Whether she's convincing her third-grade class that she has been tapped to play Goldie Hawn's daughter...

"In this book, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself." "The woman who brought us When Harry Met Sally ..., Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, and Bewitched, and the author of best sellers Heartburn, Scribble Scribble, and Crazy Salad, discusses everything - from how...