Memoirs from chef to political cover-ups are waiting @ your library

Not Taco Bell Material by Adam Carolla

Overview –

Now in paperback, Adam Carolla takes us back--before Loveline and The Man Show, before the Guinness World Record-breaking podcast and the New York Times bestseller In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks--to reveal all the stories behind how he came to be the angry middle-aged man he is today.

Funnyman Adam Carolla is known for two things: hilarious rants about things that drive him crazy and personal stories about everything from his hardscrabble childhood to his slacker friends to the hypocrisy of Hollywood. He tackled rants in his first book, and now he tells his best stories, debuting some never-before-heard tales as well.  Organized by the myriad "dumps" Carolla called home as a child to the flophouse apartments he rented in his twenties, up to the homes he personally renovated after achieving success in Hollywood, the anecdotes here follow Adam's journey and the hilarious pitfalls along the way.

     Adam Carolla started broke and blue collar and has now been on the Hollywood scene for more than fifteen years. Yet he's still connected to the working-class guy he once was and delivers a raw and edgy, fish-out-of-water take on the world he lives in (but mostly disagrees with), telling all the stories, no matter who he offends--family, friends, or the famous.

What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter, and Me by Rielle Hunter

Overview –

The John Edwards–Rielle Hunter affair made headlines for years. “One of the biggest political scandals of all time,” “a fall from grace,” “a modern-day tragedy”—it’s a story that has been reported, distorted, and spun over and over again by the media, by political aides, by the U.S. government, by supposed friends. However, there is someone who actually knows the truth, someone who lived it from day one—the woman at the heart of the story itself: Rielle Hunter.

In What Really Happened, Hunter offers an extremely personal account of her relationship with John Edwards: the facts of how they actually met, how their accidental love started and escalated, what it was like to fall in love with a married man who decided to run for president, the surprise of becoming pregnant during the campaign, how the affair became public, the extensive cover-up, and finally, what happened in the years after Edwards publicly admitted to being the father of their daughter, Frances Quinn.

Meet Edwards’s political players and get an intimate look at how they really operated. Learn about the evolution of “friends,” enablers, and do-gooders, their involvement with the affair and Edwards’s 2008 presidential campaign, and where the money from Rachel “Bunny” Mellon and Fred Baron actually went.

This book doesn’t spin the truth to achieve a prettier picture or a better story. It isn’t about changing anyone’s mind. It’s simply the facts, the truth of what really happened.

Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson

Kirkus Reviews –

A compelling memoir from an acclaimed chef. Born in Ethiopia, the author was placed in an orphanage after his mother died from tuberculosis, and the Samuelsson family adopted him and his sister. After becoming a famous chef, the author sought out his roots in multiple visits to his birth country. During one of those visits, he reconnected with his father, and he has kept in touch with his birth family since then. In rich detail, the author tracks his rise as a chef, from the cooking classes at his vocational high school and his first internship, to his appearance on Bravo's Top Chef, which coincided with his cooking of the White House State Dinner after President Obama's inauguration. The author chronicles the long and grueling hours in the kitchen and looks at the stiff hierarchy that exists not only among the kitchen staff, but also among head chefs. It took Samuelsson several years of working at Aquavit (where he "became the youngest chef ever to receive a three-star rating from the New York Times") to be accepted as an equal chef by veterans, like Bobby Flay, already in the inner circle. In 2010, Samuelsson won Top Chef Masters, and he currently owns and runs Red Rooster Harlem in New York City. In addition to plenty of behind-the-scenes details, the author ably captures the feeling of being a young, single (he is now married), ambitious person in New York City. Samuelsson strikes a skillful balance between the personal and the professional--recommended for those interested in pursuing a career as a chef or those curious about the secrets behind high-end dining.