On a small dairy farm on Christmas Eve, ten-year-old Jimmy, who doubts the existence of Santa Claus, helps his younger siblings feed the calves and encounter a surprise that turns him into a true believer.

When Jerry Apps was growing up on a Wisconsin farm in the 1930s and 1940s, times were tough. Yet most folks living on farms had plenty to eat. Preparing food from scratch was just the way things were done, and people knew what was in their food and where it came from. Delicious meals were at the center of every family and social affair, whether it be a threshing-day dinner with all the neighbors, the end-of-school-year picnic, or just a hearty supper after chores were done. As Jerry writes, "For me food will always be associated with times of good eating, storytelling, laughter, and good-hearted fun." Inspired by the dishes made by his mother, Eleanor, and featuring recipes found in her well-worn recipe box, Jerry and his daughter, Susan, take us on a culinary tour of life on the farm during the Depression and World War II. Seasoned with personal stories, menus, and family photos, Old Farm Country Cookbook recalls a time when electricity had not yet found its way to the farm, when making sauerkraut was a family endeavor, and when homemade ice cream tasted better than anything you could buy at the store.

Wrap up warm and retreat to the wintry countryside with farmer and Countryfile presenter Adam Henson, as he recounts his Christmas memories tending to an assorted cast of animals, and celebrates the farmers who make our celebrations possible. Adam Henson has spent his whole life on Bemborough farm - over 50 winters and Christmases. During that time, the troughs have frozen over, snow has fallen so thickly riding shire horses out to the fields has been the only option, puppies have been found under the Christmas tree - and crises out in the world have almost brought the farm to a close... Christmas for a farmer takes a different shape to everyone else's, because the animals always have to come first. So settle down - ideally by a fireside and with a cup of something hot - to hear the tales that have defined festivity for the Henson family, and the turbulent times that have ensured Christmas is now more important than ever for Adam and his loved ones. Heart-warming and full of Christmas spirit, Christmas on the Farm will give you a new respect for the people who work on them.

Perhaps all of Jonathan Ames’ problems–and the genesis of this hilarious book–can be traced back to the late onset of his puberty. After all it can’t be easy to be sixteen with a hairless “undistinguishable from that of a five year old’s.” This wonderfully entertaining memoir is a touching and humorous look at life in New York City. But this is life for an author who can proclaim “my first sexual experience was rather old-fashioned: it was with a prostitute”–an author who can talk about his desire to be a model for the Hair Club for Men and about meeting his son for the first time. Often insightful, sometimes tender, always witty and self-deprecating, What’s Not to Love? is an engaging memoir from one of our most funny, most daring writers.

It is 1936, and BEN FINDLAY, a 16-year-old Michigan farm boy, wanders to a local airport to escape his abusive father. Ben meets BRICE, a crusty flight instructor and veteran pilot with the U. S. Army Air Corps in the 1914-1918 Great War, who teaches Ben to fly in a bi-wing, open-cockpit Stearman trainer. Ben quickly masters advanced maneuvers, including aerial combat tactics, and is recruited to fly for Spain s Republican Air Force in that country s bloody civil war. Ben slips away from home before his eighteenth birthday, and after additional combat training, sails for Barcelona, Spain. Thus begins an adventure filled odyssey that sweeps Ben from Spain to England and into the early days of World War 2 as a Spitfire pilot with Britain s Royal Air Force. Following America s entry into the war Ben transfers to the U. S. Army Air Force and opts to fly Boeing B-17 bombers to carry the war directly to Germany. Escape to the Sky ends with Ben s thirtieth and final bombing raid over Regensburg, Germany.