If you ask them, Dave and Morley's friends will tell you that no matter how long you've known people, they can still surprise you. After all, no one expects to see a grown man dive into the trunk of his car to chase a rat. And despite what they may claim, few people are actually prepared to have their backyard, never mind their 12-year-old son, shoot to stardom on YouTube's most watched videos. And yes, the sight of a 87-year-old bungeejumping off a cruise ship is... unusual. But well-wishers at the Vinyl Cafe will advise you to be philosophical about such things. No matter who sends a volley of nails through your truck window, which mannequin is disrobed, or how green your skin turns when your mom leaves town, life marches on. In "Extreme Vinyl Cafe" bestselling author Stuart McLean regales us with the wild impulses and extreme behaviours of Canada's favourite characters at the Vinyl Cafe.

The further adventures of Dave and Morley.

Bestselling author and radio storytelling sensation Stuart McLean revisits the heartwarming and hilarious friends from his iconic Vinyl Cafe. Dave and his wife Morley would no doubt tell you that life is what you make it. Unfortunately for them, that means a compilation tape of mistakes, miscues, misunderstandings, and muddle. That's not to say that there is anything particularly unusual about the family and friends at the Vinyl Cafe. After all, who wouldn't try to toilet-train a cat? Who hasn't started a small home fix-it job only to set fire to the walls? Created mass hysteria at a school concert? Lost an aging relative while visiting our nation's capital? Vinyl Cafe Unplugged is a warm and delightful collection of stories following the common foibles and everyday absurdities of family life.

Selected from fifteen years of radio-show archives and re-edited by the author, this eclectic collection gives a glimpse into the thoughful mind at work behind The Vinyl Cafe.

The Craft and Science of Coffee follows the coffee plant from its origins in East Africa to its current role as a global product that influences millions of lives though sustainable development, economics, and consumer desire.For most, coffee is a beloved beverage. However, for some it is also an object of scientifically study, and for others it is approached as a craft, both building on skills and experience. By combining the research and insights of the scientific community and expertise of the crafts people, this unique book brings readers into a sustained and inclusive conversation, one where academic and industrial thought leaders, coffee farmers, and baristas are quoted, each informing and enriching each other.This unusual approach guides the reader on a journey from coffee farmer to roaster, market analyst to barista, in a style that is both rigorous and experience based, universally relevant and personally engaging. From on-farming processes to consumer benefits, the reader is given a deeper appreciation and understanding of coffee's complexity and is invited to form their own educated opinions on the ever changing situation, including potential routes to further shape the coffee future in a responsible manner. - Presents a novel synthesis of coffee research and real-world experience that aids understanding, appreciation, and potential action - Includes contributions from a multitude of experts who address complex subjects with a conversational approach - Provides expert discourse on the coffee calue chain, from agricultural and production practices, sustainability, post-harvest processing, and quality aspects to the economic analysis of the consumer value proposition - Engages with the key challenges of future coffee production and potential solutions

A fable about the power of books and knowledge, “finely balanced between pathos and comedy,” from one of Czechoslovakia’s most popular authors (Los Angeles Times). A New York Times Notable Book Haňtá has been compacting trash for thirty-five years. Every evening, he rescues books from the jaws of his hydraulic press, carries them home, and fills his house with them. Haňtá may be an idiot, as his boss calls him, but he is an idiot with a difference—the ability to quote the Talmud, Hegel, and Lao-Tzu. In this “irresistibly eccentric romp,” the author Milan Kundera has called “our very best writer today” celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the written word (The New York Times Book Review).

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.