Pretty Good Years

A portrait of the talented singer/songwriter traces the evolution of a musical prodigy, from her early years to become one of the most important female musical voices of contemporary music, revealing how she has combined her talent on the piano with inspiration from some of the most tragic incidents of her life to create musical art. Original.

Pearline LaWanda Nicolls (Mrs. Oscar Wayne Nicolls) will tell you that she is not the town busy-body. As she tells the girls at the Curly Q, with everything she has to do she certainly has no time for idleness or gossiping. She works part time at the Stop N Buy and helps her friend, Carmella, clean houses. The rest of her time is spent trying to take care of her own house and family and helping her husband – a proud twenty year employee at the city sanitation plant - try to make ends meet and keep the wolves from the door. Of course, she also must contend with an on-going rivalry with an uppity sister, a son who is in danger of becoming religious and thirteen large dogs, and the rigors of being a volunteer in an election campaign. Then there is the fact that her mamma suddenly goes missing and then reappears with information that Pearline could well do without. Add this to the fact that Pearline finds herself deeply involved in the events surrounding the murder of a popular high school coach and the subsequent trial of the accused killer, and an ordinary year for Pearline becomes quite unforgettable.

Based on the acclaimed thirty-nine-part San Francisco Chronicle series, an award-winning journalist follows the making of a bottle of Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc from its harvesting off the vine by immigrant workers in Northern California to its first tasting, capturing all that goes into the process of turning a grape into a fine vintage and selling it to today’s connoisseurs. Mike Weiss spent nearly two years with Ferrari-Carano, a California winemaker founded in Sonoma County just over twenty years ago by Don Carano, a casino and hotel mogul from Reno. The narrative in A Very Good Year follows Ferrari-Carano’s Fume Blanc from barren vines in November to its first sampling by a customer at the Four Seasons in New York, and, over the course of the book, Weiss presents his unique insight into the making and marketing of wine today. BACKCOVER: “Superb. . . . Weiss tells a great story.” —THE NEW YORK TIMES “Finally, a wine book that explains all the ingredients. . . . You will marvel at the richness of what Mike Weiss . . . was able to capture and convey within this delicious book.” —LOS ANGELES TIMES “Compelling . . . A Very Good Year is both entertaining and comprehensive.” —THE BOSTON GLOBE “A sweeping book about tourism, globalism, environmental sustainability, immigration, and glamour. . . . The bottle of Fume Blanc . . . is like a Pandora’s box. Open it up and out spill all the vanity, marketing savvy, self-mythologizing, acres of land, buckets of money, precise science, alchemical blending, and feudal working conditions that make up the California dream known as the wine industry.” —SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Bisweilen schießen die Finanzmärkte entgegen allen Erwartungen in die Höhe und verschaffen den Investoren so überdurchschnittlich hohe Renditen von 35% und mehr in einem einzigen Jahr. Einmal ist es der Aktienmarkt, dann der Rentenmarkt oder der Immobilienmarkt. Dies ist das erste Buch, das den Versuch unternimmt, zu erklären, warum bestimmte Investitionen zu verschiedenen Zeiten in die Höhe geschnellt sind, damit Investoren ähnliche Trends in Zukunft rechtzeitig erkennen können. Jedes Kapitel vermittelt dem Leser einen echten Einblick in die Ereignisse der 10 besten Hausse-Jahre des vergangenen Jahrhunderts. Unterhaltsam und fesselnd geschrieben, gespickt mit zahlreichen historischen Anekdoten und schillernden Persönlichkeiten aus der jeweiligen Zeit, ist dieses Buch eine willkommene Lektüre nicht nur für Investoren, Finanzexperten, Journalisten und Studenten der Finanz- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften, sondern ebenso für Interessierte Laien. (01/98)

This is a book about works of art from an author that knows very little about art. I cannot explain these pieces in terms of artistic technique or style, because I lack the necessary education, training and experience. Instead I review these various types and pieces of artwork as an aficionado, writer and son. While I did not attain his artistic knowledge, and I did not take his craft, I did inherit his creative energy. It is creativity that will solve our problems.

Traces the author's two-year exploration of a successful Sonoma County winery, a visit during which he learned about the intricate process of grape cultivating, the minutiae of wine creation, and the detailed efforts of marketing and selling.

"In an effort to treat a debilitating mood disorder, Ayelet Waldman undertook a very private experiment, ingesting 10 micrograms of LSD every three days for a month. This is the story--by turns revealing, courageous, fascinating and funny--of her quietly psychedelic spring, her quest to understand one of our most feared drugs, and her search for a really good day"--