When Clay Spencer fails to arrive home at the expected hour on Christmas Eve of 1933 his family is concerned. The older son Clay–boy is dispatched to find his father. On his journey through the snowbound Virginia hills he experiences a series of hazardous touching and hilarious adventures. An encounter with the neighborhood Negro church teaches Clay-boy a lesson in race relations and while taking refuge from a snowstorm he is overwhelmed by the intoxicating hospitality of two elderly genteel lady bootleggers. Finally, at midnight, when all hope for him has been abandoned, Clay Spencer provides a surprising climax to the story, and in a single moment illuminates the triumph of the human spirit. Rich with life that rings true filled with nostalgia laughter and tears The Homecoming is a warm and wonderful classic and the novel on which the CBS Christmas special was based. EARL HAMNER JR. is a novelist and an Emmy Award–winning writer.

For eight wonderful years The Waltons, the story of a family living in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains during the Depression, entertained America and the world. Yet this television show was more than entertaining. Each episode combined wonderful stories and "teachable moments" in which adults and children alike learned the importance of honesty, hard work, respect, responsibility, self-sacrifice, and kindness. As is true in most families, the Waltons faced many challenges, occasionally stumbled along the way, but they struggled to live their lives within the framework of the values they believed and taught. Goodnight, John-Boy is a memory book of The Waltons, the number-one television show of its time. Filled with behind-the-scenes anecdotes and profiles of people who appeared on the show, it introduces readers to the Hamner family members who later became characters on The Waltons, suggests events and locales that inspired many of the episodes, and traces Earl Hamner's life as a writer from Virginia to New York to Hollywood. Included is a description of each episode plus reminiscence, comments, and personal feelings from numerous people connected with the series-writers, actors, directors, producers, family, and fans. Heavily illustrated with publicity shots and personal photographs taken by cast, crew, and others, Goodnight John-Boy will be a welcomed book by millions of loyal fans. When The Waltons first aired in 1972, it was at the bottom of the Nielson ratings-by December it led the list. That dramatic leap came about because fans told their friends about it and wrote the CBS network to praise the show and to plead that the show not be canceled. Thirty years later, Goodnight, John-Boy is sure to touch the hearts of the show's fans again.

"[Poppy’s] recipes are unshowy, unfussy (for all her Michelin training) and simply make you want to go skipping into the kitchen to cook."—Nigella Lawson, Nigella.com With Chef and TikTok sensation Poppy O’Toole you'll learn the basics, up your cooking game, with delicious results every time. This is a cookbook with no judgement. Together, we’ll learn how to make incredible food at home. We’ll start with the basics: 12 core recipes (or go-to skills) that everyone needs to know, like how to make a pasta sauce, roast a chicken or make a killer salad dressing. Then we’ll use these core skills as a base for delicious and adaptable recipes that will up your cooking game—the Staple, the Brunch, the Potato Hero (of course they make an appearance) and the Fancy AF. So, once you’ve nailed that classic tomato sauce (which I promise will become the new go-to in your kitchen), you can stir it through pasta, or bake it with eggs for the perfect Shakshuka and, before you know it, you’ll be getting real fancy and making a show-stopping Chicken Parmigiana to impress your friends. I'll walk you through 75 delicious recipes, including: White Sauce: think Mac and Cheese and Bacon-y Garlicky Gratin. Dough: easy flatbreads for Halloumi Avo Breads and Salmon Tikka wraps. Emulsions: Chicken Caesar Salad with homemade mayo and next level Steak Béarnaise with Hollandaise and Crunchy Roast Chips. Meringue: from Eton Mess Pancakes through to Simply the Zest Lemon Meringue Pie Whether you’re completely new to the kitchen or looking to elevate your basics with clever tricks, my step-by-step guidance will help you nail delicious food every time. As a Michelin-trained chef with over ten years’ experience in professional kitchens, I’ve done the years of training so you don’t have to. It’s okay to make a few mistakes along the way, and together, we'll help you fix them and achieve incredible results at home. I am passionate about the importance of great food at home, every day—it’s what we all deserve. This is not just the food you want. It’s the food you need.

Named one of Vulture’s Top 10 Best Books of 2020! Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform. Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: Academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability. Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place. This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.

“[Not] the typical celebrity memoir . . . as much an account of her decades-long spiritual journey as it is a look back at her TV and movie career.” —Spiritual Pop Culture “Mary is a whole lot more than Erin on The Waltons. This book shows how she’s handled all the highs and lows with grace.” —George Clooney For nine seasons, Mary McDonough was part of one of the most beloved families in television history. Just ten years old when she was cast as the pretty, wholesome middle child Erin, Mary grew up on the set of The Waltons, alternately embracing and rebelling against her good-girl onscreen persona. Now, as the first cast member to write about her experiences on the classic series, she candidly recounts the joys and challenges of growing up Walton—from her overnight transformation from a normal kid in a working class, Irish Catholic family, to a Hollywood child star, to the personal challenges that led her to take on a new role as an activist for women’s body image issues. Touching, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, and always illuminating, Lessons from the Mountain is the story of everything Mary McDonough learned on her journey over—and beyond—that famous mountain. Includes Never Before Published Bonus Chapter! “A fascinating look at what it’s like to grow up in front of and beyond the cameras.” —Eve Plumb “For someone who started out as a sweet little girl afraid to speak up, it certainly is a pleasure to hear her shout from the top of the mountain now!” —Alison Arngrim, New York Times bestselling author “[A] poignant memoir . . . the actress shares intimate, behind-the-scenes memories.” —Smashing Interviews Magazine

Oscar was the last of the giants, and he was lonely - so lonely he simply lay down and went to sleep.....for a very long time. Then one day Rosie came along, and she was lonely too.

The first full scale biography of Wallis Simpson to be written by a woman, exploring the mind of one of the most glamorous and reviled figures of the Twentieth Century, a character who played prominently in the blockbuster film The King's Speech. This is the story of the American divorcee notorious for allegedly seducing a British king off his throne. "That woman," so called by Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, was born Bessie Wallis Warfield in 1896 in Baltimore. Neither beautiful nor brilliant, she endured an impoverished childhood, which fostered in her a burning desire to rise above her circumstances. Acclaimed biographer Anne Sebba offers an eye-opening account of one of the most talked about women of her generation. It explores the obsessive nature of Simpson's relationship with Prince Edward, the suggestion that she may have had a Disorder of Sexual Development, and new evidence showing she may never have wanted to marry Edward at all. Since her death, Simpson has become a symbol of female empowerment as well as a style icon. But her psychology remains an enigma. Drawing from interviews and newly discovered letters, That Woman shines a light on this captivating and complex woman, an object of fascination that has only grown with the years.

Sharon M. Draper presents “storytelling at its finest” (School Library Journal, starred review) in this New York Times bestselling Depression-era novel about a young girl who must learn to be brave in the face of violent prejudice when the Ku Klux Klan reappears in her segregated southern town. Stella lives in the segregated South—in Bumblebee, North Carolina, to be exact about it. Some stores she can go into. Some stores she can’t. Some folks are right pleasant. Others are a lot less so. To Stella, it sort of evens out, and heck, the Klan hasn’t bothered them for years. But one late night, later than she should ever be up, much less wandering around outside, Stella and her little brother see something they’re never supposed to see, something that is the first flicker of change to come, unwelcome change by any stretch of the imagination. As Stella’s community—her world—is upended, she decides to fight fire with fire. And she learns that ashes don’t necessarily signify an end.