Describes how the culture of Vietnam is reflected in its many festivals, including Tet, the Firecracker Festival, and the Ngoc Son Festival.

"As full of excitement and the unexpected as his world-famous, best-selling books, Roald Dahl's tales of his own childhood are completely fascinating and fiendishly funny"-- Cover back. In Boy, Roald Dahl recounts his days as a child growing up in England. From his years as a prankster at boarding school to his envious position as a chocolate tester for Cadbury's, Roald Dahl's boyhood was as full of excitement and the unexpected as are his world-famous,...

Describes how the culture of Australia is reflected in its many festivals, including Melbourne Cup Day, Australia Day, and Mabo Day.

An irreverent, hilarious, and informative look at Mexican American culture is taken by a rising star in the alternative media, as well as a new kid on the block in such mainstream venues as NPR, the Los Angeles Times, Today, and The Colbert Report. Gustavo Arellano has compiled the best questions about Mexican Americans from readers of his Ask a Mexican! column in California's OC Weekly and uses them to explore the clichés of lowriders, busboys,...

An in-depth look at life for girls and women in America in 1904, discussing city and town life, social reform, new inventions, amusements, and more.

"'When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.' So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland...Frank...

When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, journalist and archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn't Disneyland, but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long dark winters, cured herring, Lego, and pastries. What is the secret to their success? Are happy Danes born, or made? Helen decides there is only one way to find out:...

"They were the super rich of their times, pampered beyond belief - the early 20th-century Edwardian gentry, who lived like superstars, their every desire or need catered to by an army of butlers, servants, footmen, housekeepers and grooms. Class, money, inheritance, luxury and snobbery dominated every aspect of the lives of the upper-crust Edwardian family. Below stairs the staff inhabited a completely different world, their very dependent on servicing...