"Hugh Martin: The Boy Next Door" is an enchanting jaunt through the Golden Era of Broadway and the MGM musicals. This firsthand account captures the energy and excitement of those special times, with eyewitness tales of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, and dozens more. Hugh recounts the origins of some of America's most beloved songs, including the perennial favorite, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Martin also reveals some secrets that only he could know: the truth about his composition partner Ralph Blane, his addiction to the infamous Dr. Feelgood, Max Jacobson; how he was instrumental in turning Gene Kelly from a performer to a choreographer during the staging of Best Foot Forward; and what it was really like to be part of the MGM musical production machine. As Hugh enters his 96th year, this could be America's last chance to hear these stories from a living source. They are full of his signature charm, grace, musicality, and poeticism.

At age nineteen, Hugh Martin withdrew from college for deployment to Iraq. After training at Fort Bragg, Martin spent 2004 in Iraq as the driver of his platoon sergeant's Humvee. He participated in hundreds of missions including raids, conducting foot patrols, clearing routes for IEDs, disposing of unexploded ordnance, and searching thousands of Iraqi vehicles. These poems recount his time in basic training, his preparation for Iraq, his experience withdrawing from school, and ultimately, the final journey to Iraq and back home to Ohio. Hugh Martin holds an MFA from Arizona State University. He is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

Death is often thought of as the inescapable terminus of life"€"something which, in the end, overpowers and conquers us. But in Christian theology, the death of Christ has central significance for our salvation. Christ died victoriously, conquering death and triumphing over his and our enemies. His death is our life. This glorious truth occupied a large place in the thinking of Scottish theologian Hugh Martin (1822"€"85). Martin is best known for his mind-stretching books such as The Atonement and The Shadow of Calvary, and for his insightful character study of Simon Peter. But there exists a significant corpus of largely forgotten shorter writings from his pen which major on the significance of the cross of Christ. This volume brings together a number of Martin's sermons, essays and letters, many of which have not been published since the nineteenth century.

Previously unpublished sermons in which Martin (1822-85) traces all blessings to Jesus, the Surety and Representative of his people, who's 'Christ for us'.

“The most important book on cooking over live fire in decades. Life of Fire illuminates it all, from coal beds, to home-built pits (in minutes!) to simple, delicious, recipes and enough whole hog know-how to impress the weekend warriors without intimidating newcomers.”—Andrew Zimmern ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Saveur One of the few pitmasters still carrying the torch of West Tennessee whole-hog barbecue, Nashville’s Pat Martin has studied and taught this craft for years. Now he reveals all he knows about the art of barbecue and live fire cooking. Through beautiful photography and detailed instruction, the lessons start with how to prepare and feed a fire—what wood to use, how to build a pit or a grill, how to position it to account for the weather—then move into cooking through all the stages of that fire’s life. You’ll sear tomatoes for sandwiches and infuse creamed corn with the flavor of char from the temperamental, adolescent fire. Next, you’ll grill chicken with Alabama white sauce over the grown-up fire, and, of course, you’ll master pit-cooked whole hog, barbecue ribs, turkey, pork belly, and pork shoulder over the smoldering heat of mature coals. Finally, you’ll roast vegetables buried in white ash, and you’ll smoke bacon and country hams in the dying embers of the winter fire. For Pat Martin, grilling, barbecuing, and smoking is a whole lifetime’s worth of practice and pleasure—a life of fire that will transform the way you cook.