As bombs fell on Baghdad & the Gulf War erupted, journalist Thomas Kelly was there. Cruising in a 4X4, he witnessed it all: the ground war in Saudi Arabia, the missile attacks in Israel, shadows of torture & rape in Kuwait, & highways strewn with twisted torsos - grisly remnants of the Iraqi retreat

Hometown, U.S.A., the town of Northampton, Massachusetts & into the lives of people that live there. It is a place of startling complexity. Weaving together compelling stories of individual lives, delving into a rich & varied past, moving among all the levels of Northampton's social hierarchy, Kidder finds a great diversity contained within the town's narrow boundaries. Does the kind of small town that many Americans came from, & long for, still exist?

This is the true story of a trip to the beach that never ends. It''s about a husband and wife who escape civilization to build a small restaurant on an island paradise - and discover that even paradise has its pitfalls. It''s a story filled with calamities and comedy, culinary disasters and triumphs, and indelible portraits of people who work in a place where the rest of the world goes to play. It''s about the maddening, exhausting, impossible complications of trying to live the simple life - and the joy that comes when you somehow pull it off.