Download or read book If You Lived Here You d Be Home By Now written by Christopher Ingraham and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NPR Best Book of the Year The hilarious, charming, and candid story of writer Christopher Ingraham’s decision to uproot his life and move his family to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, population 1,400—the community he made famous as “the worst place to live in America” in a story he wrote for the Washington Post. Like so many young American couples, Chris Ingraham and his wife Briana were having a difficult time making ends meet as they tried to raise their twin boys in the East Coast suburbs. One day, Chris – in his role as a “data guy” reporter at the Washington Post – stumbled on a study that would change his life. It was a ranking of America’s 3,000+ counties from ugliest to most scenic. He quickly scrolled to the bottom of the list and gleefully wrote the words “The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll please) … Red Lake County, Minn.” The story went viral, to put it mildly. Among the reactions were many from residents of Red Lake County. While they were unflappably polite – it’s not called “Minnesota Nice” for nothing – they challenged him to look beyond the spreadsheet and actually visit their community. Ingraham, with slight trepidation, accepted. Impressed by the locals’ warmth, humor and hospitality – and ever more aware of his financial situation and torturous commute – Chris and Briana eventually decided to relocate to the town he’d just dragged through the dirt on the Internet. If You Lived Here You’d Be Home by Now is the story of making a decision that turns all your preconceptions – good and bad -- on their heads. In Red Lake County, Ingraham experiences the intensity and power of small-town gossip, struggles to find a decent cup of coffee, suffers through winters with temperatures dropping to forty below zero, and unearths some truths about small-town life that the coastal media usually miss. It’s a wry and charming tale – with data! -- of what happened to one family brave enough to move waaaay beyond its comfort zone

Download or read book If You Lived Here You d Be Home By Now written by Sandra Tsing Loh and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1998-09-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bronwyn and Paul are a couple stranded at a "temporary" stop on their inevitable way to Hollywood glamour--in a house that is so ugly, so frayed, so...brown that it's almost cool. But just as the Bohemian life is wearing painfully thin, their fortunes change, catapulting them out of the world of practical problems and into the world of ethical ones.

Download or read book If You Lived Here You d Be Famous by Now written by Via Bleidner and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If You Lived Here You'd Be Famous by Now is an insider’s collection of funny and warmhearted stories about coming of age in the Los Angeles suburb famed for birthing the Kardashian-Jenners and the Bling Ring For Via Bleidner, transferring to Calabasas High from the private Catholic school she’s attended since second grade is a culture shock, not to mention absolutely lonely. Suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar world of celebrities, affluenza, and McMansions, Via takes a page from Cameron Crowe and pretends she’s on a journalism assignment, taking notes on her classmates and jotting down bits of overheard gossip. Getting through high school in Calabasas is something else—from Kim Kardashian endorsing the students’ favorite hidden lunch spot, to the theater program hiring a famous dog to play Elle Woods' Chihuahua in its production of Legally Blonde, and Kanye trying to take control of your school to make it the very first YEEZY institution. But instead of floating through high school detached from her peers, Via finds that putting herself out there—for her writing, of course—just might have been exactly what she needed. She unexpectedly finds an eclectic group of friends to call her own, including a multi-multi-millionaire, a wild-card throwback intent on going viral, a former Disney actor, and a doughnut-dealing madman. With wit, candor, and sharp observations, twenty-one-year-old Via grounds the surreal glamour of Calabasas with reflections on her own coming-of-age, sharing her teenage misadventures as she struggles to fit in, faces crushing social pressure, and eventually makes her own way.

Download or read book If You Lived Here You d Be Home Now written by Claire LaZebnik and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2010-09-27 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the well-loved author of Knitting Under the Influence and The Smart One and the Pretty One comes a new novel about a young single mother trying to move out of her family's shadow. Rickie left home a long time ago-so how is it that at the age of twenty-five, she's living with her parents again, and sleeping in the bedroom of her childhood home? At least one thing has changed since high school: She now has a very sweet but frequently challenging son named Noah, who attends the same tony private LA school she herself attended. Rickie fit in fine when she was a student, but now her age and tattoos make her stand out from all the blond Stepford moms, who are desperate to know why someone so young-and so unmarried-has a kid in first grade. Already on the defensive, Rickie goes into full mother-tigress mode when her small and unathletic son tells her that the gym teacher is out to get him. She storms the principal's office, only to discover that Andrew Fulton, the coach, is no dumb jock. As her friendship with Andrew develops, Rickie finds herself questioning her assumptions-about motherhood, being a grown-up, and falling in love.

Download or read book If You Lived Here You d Be Home By Now written by Ed Briant and published by Roaring Brook Press. This book was released on 2009-09-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A crisp fall day in the park. Furry animals... brisk winds... jumping in a big pile of leaves -- OOF! Those aren't leaves; they're a giant leaf creature, visible only to children. But the city is pressing in on the beautiful park -- what does the future hold? Even pre-readers will enjoy discovering nature's secrets in this timely fable without words.

Download or read book If You Lived Here written by Giles Laroche and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2011 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Features detailed, bas-relief collage spreads of dwellings in other world regions and historical times to explain how different people live and have lived, from a village house in South Africa to a floating green house in the Netherlands.

Download or read book If You Lived Here I d Know Your Name written by Heather Lende and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2006-03-29 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Part Annie Dillard, part Anne Lamott, essayist and NPR commentator Heather Lende introduces readers to life in the town of Haines, Alaska . . . subtly reminding readers to embrace each day, each opportunity, each life that touches our own and to note the beauty of it all.” —The Los Angeles Times Tiny Haines, Alaska, is ninety miles north of Juneau, accessible mainly by water or air—and only when the weather is good. There's no traffic light and no mail delivery; people can vanish without a trace and funerals are a community affair. Heather Lende posts both the obituaries and the social column for her local newspaper. If anyone knows the going-on in this close-knit town—from births to weddings to funerals—she does. Whether contemplating the mysterious death of eccentric Speedy Joe, who wore nothing but a red union suit and a hat he never took off, not even for a haircut; researching the details of a one-legged lady gold miner's adventurous life; worrying about her son's first goat-hunting expedition; observing the awe-inspiring Chilkat Bald Eagle Festival; or ice skating in the shadow of glacier-studded mountains, Lende's warmhearted style brings us inside her small-town life. We meet her husband, Chip, who owns the local lumber yard; their five children; and a colorful assortment of quirky friends and neighbors, including aging hippies, salty fishermen, native Tlingit Indians, and volunteer undertakers—as well as the moose, eagles, sea lions, and bears with whom they share this wild and perilous land. Like Bailey White's tales of Southern life or Garrison Keillor's reports from the Midwest, NPR commentator Heather Lende's take on her offbeat Alaskan hometown celebrates life in a dangerous and breathtakingly beautiful place. Heather Lende's new book, Of Bears and Ballots: An Alaskan Adventure in Small-Town Politics is available now.

Download or read book Super Host written by Kate Russo and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Get ready to smile….[A] sweet story and the perfect antidote to the chaos that’s been 2021.” –the Skimm A deeply funny and shrewdly observed debut novel about being lost in the very place you know by heart. Bennett Driscoll is a Turner Prize-nominated artist who was once a rising star. Now, at age fifty-five, his wife has left him, he hasn't sold a painting in two years, and his gallery wants to stop selling his work, claiming they'll have more value retrospectively...when he's dead. So, left with a large West London home and no income, he's forced to move into his artist's studio in the back garden and list his house on the popular vacation rental site, AirBed. A stranger now in his own home, with his daughter, Mia, off at art school, and any new relationships fizzling out at best, Bennett struggles to find purpose in his day-to-day. That all changes when three different guests--lonely American Alicia; tortured artist Emma; and cautiously optimistic divorcée Kirstie--unwittingly unlock the pieces of himself that have been lost to him for too long. Warm, witty, and utterly humane, Super Host offers a captivating portrait of middle age, relationships, and what it truly means to take a new chance at life.

Download or read book Young House Love written by Sherry Petersik and published by Artisan. This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This New York Times bestselling book is filled with hundreds of fun, deceptively simple, budget-friendly ideas for sprucing up your home. With two home renovations under their (tool) belts and millions of hits per month on their blog YoungHouseLove.com, Sherry and John Petersik are home-improvement enthusiasts primed to pass on a slew of projects, tricks, and techniques to do-it-yourselfers of all levels. Packed with 243 tips and ideas—both classic and unexpected—and more than 400 photographs and illustrations, this is a book that readers will return to again and again for the creative projects and easy-to-follow instructions in the relatable voice the Petersiks are known for. Learn to trick out a thrift-store mirror, spice up plain old roller shades, "hack" your Ikea table to create three distinct looks, and so much more.

Download or read book Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House written by Meghan Daum and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-05-04 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author and columnist: a laugh-out-loud journey into the world of real estate—the true story of one woman’s “imperfect life lived among imperfect houses” and her quest for the four perfect walls to call home. After an itinerant suburban childhood and countless moves as a grown-up—from New York City to Lincoln, Nebraska; from the Midwest to the West Coast and back—Meghan Daum was living in Los Angeles, single and in her mid-thirties, and devoting obscene amounts of time not to her writing career or her dating life but to the pursuit of property: scouring Craigslist, visiting open houses, fantasizing about finding the right place for the right price. Finally, near the height of the real estate bubble, she succumbed, depleting her life’s savings to buy a 900-square-foot bungalow, with a garage that “bore a close resemblance to the ruins of Pompeii” and plumbing that “dated back to the Coolidge administration.” From her mother’s decorating manias to her own “hidden room” dreams, Daum explores the perils and pleasures of believing that only a house can make you whole. With delicious wit and a keen eye for the absurd, she has given us a pitch-perfect, irresistible tale of playing a lifelong game of house.

Download or read book Sometimes I Lie written by Alice Feeney and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie. Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?

Download or read book How to Leave Hialeah written by Jennine Capó Crucet and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2009-09 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: United in their fierce sense of place and infused with the fading echoes of a lost homeland, the stories in Jennine Capó Crucet’s striking debut collection do for Miami what Edward P. Jones does for Washington, D.C., and what James Joyce did for Dublin: they expand our ideas and our expectations of the city by exposing its tough but vulnerable underbelly. Crucet’s writing has been shaped by the people and landscapes of South Florida and by the stories of Cuba told by her parents and abuelos. Her own stories are informed by her experiences as a Cuban American woman living within and without her community, ready to leave and ready to return, “ready to mourn everything.” Coming to us from the predominantly Hispanic working-class neighborhoods of Hialeah, the voices of this steamy section of Miami shout out to us from rowdy all-night funerals and kitchens full of plátanos and croquetas and lechón ribs, from domino tables and cigar factories, glitter-purple Buicks and handed-down Mom Rides, private homes of santeras and fights on front lawns. Calling to us from crowded expressways and canals underneath abandoned overpasses shading a city’s secrets, these voices are the heart of Miami, and in this award-winning collection Jennine Capó Crucet makes them sing.

Download or read book We Have Always Lived in the Castle written by Shirley Jackson and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate.

Download or read book If He Had Been with Me written by Laura Nowlin and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...

Download or read book A House of My Own written by Sandra Cisneros and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction • From the celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street: "This memoir has the transcendent sweep of a full life.” —Houston Chronicle From Chicago to Mexico, the places Sandra Cisneros has lived have provided inspiration for her now-classic works of fiction and poetry. But a house of her own, a place where she could truly take root, has eluded her. In this jigsaw autobiography, made up of essays and images spanning three decades—and including never-before-published work—Cisneros has come home at last. Written with her trademark lyricism, in these signature pieces the acclaimed author of The House on Mango Street and winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature shares her transformative memories and reveals her artistic and intellectual influences. Poignant, honest, and deeply moving, A House of My Own is an exuberant celebration of a life lived to the fullest, from one of our most beloved writers.

Download or read book If You Lived Here written by Martha Rosler and published by Bay Press (WA). This book was released on 1991 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume documents the present crisis in American urban housing policies and portrays how artists...within the context of neighborhood organizations, have fought against government neglect, shortsighted housing policies and unfettered real estate speculation. Through essays, photographs, symposiums, architectural plans and the reproduction of works from the series of exhibitions organized by [Martha] Rosler, the book serves a number of functions: it's a practical manual for community organizing; a history of housing and homelessness in New York City and around the country; and an outline of what a human housing policy might encompass for the American city"--Back cover.

Download or read book These Precious Days written by Ann Patchett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays. "The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." —Publisher's Weekly “Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.