In 1944, Bertie Bowman–a poor, impressionablethirteen-year-old–heard South Carolina senator Burnet Maybankdeclare: “If you all ever get up to Washington, D.C., drop by andsee me!” Bertie took those words to heart, and when he arrived inWashington, Senator Maybank, surprisingly true to his word, saw toit that the young runaway had a place to stay and a steadyincome–earned by sweeping the Capitol steps for two dollars a week.Bowman would rise to become hearing coordinator for the SenateForeign Relations Committee in the U.S. Capitol–and this is hisremarkable story. For sixty years, Bertie Bowman stood at the epicenter of change andwitnessed history in the making, observing firsthand theclandestine backroom deals made in the name of democracy. Throughit all, he lived by these guiding principles: Work hard. Be true toyourself. Take responsibility. Have a positive outlook. Expect thebest from people. As Bowman recounts his extraordinary life, healso shares the lessons and values that have served him
The National Book Award-winning author of So Long, See YouTomorrow offers an astonishing evocation of a vanished world, as heretraces, branch by branch, the history of his family, takingreaders into the lives of settlers, itinerant preachers, and smallbusinessmen, examining the way they saw their world and how theyimagined the world to come.
What happens when a coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking,steak-eating twenty-five-year-old atheist decides it is time to getin touch with her spiritual side? Not what you’d expect… When Suzanne Morrison decides to travel to Bali for a two-monthyoga retreat, she wants nothing more than to be transformed from atwenty-five-year-old with a crippling fear of death into herenchanting yoga teacher, Indra—a woman who seems to have found itall: love, self, and God. But things don’t go quite as expected. Once in Bali, she finds thather beloved yoga teacher and all of her yogamates wake up everymorning to drink a large, steaming mug…of their own urine. Sugar isa mortal sin. Spirits inhabit kitchen appliances. And the more shetries to find her higher self, the more she faces her cynical,egomaniacal, cigarette-, wine-, and chocolate-craving lowerself. Yoga Bitch chronicles Suzanne’s hilarious adventures andmisadventures as an aspiring yogi who might be just a bit tooskeptical to drink the Kool-Aid. But along th
He was one of pro football’s most beloved and respected stars,admired not only by NFL fans and his own teammates, but by hisopponents as well. Super Bowl champion; six time Pro Bowler; NFLComeback Player of the Year; NFL Man of the Year; fifth all-timeleading rusher in the NFL; future Hall of Famer; now NBC Sportscommentator. You may think you know Jerome Bettis, but you don’t. In The Bus, Jerome Bettis tells his full, unvarnished story forthe first time--from his sometimes troubled childhood in inner-cityDetroit to his difficult transition at Notre Dame, to a pro coachwho almost caused him to quit the game, to a trade for the agesthat resulted in ten glorious seasons with the PittsburghSteelers. As a chunky child wearing glasses, Jerome’s only sports-relatedaspiration was to become a professional bowler. But growing up inone of the roughest neighborhoods in Detroit, he eventually foundhis escape on the high school football field, thanks to thedevotion of hard-working parents, a
