When Hugh Hefner quit his job at Esquire to start a magazine called Playboy, he didn’t just want to make money, he wanted to make dreams come true. The first issue had a Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an article on the Dorsey brothers, and a feature …

A great inventor, journalist, satirist, politician – a true Renaissance man – Benjamin Franklin perfectly embodied the traits we now treasure as “American.” One of the prime movers and shakers in our nation’s history, Franklin was known for his common sense, practicality, and frugality. Here, Franklin describes his rags-to-riches journey …

What do you do after you write a number-one best-selling book about your drunken, sexual misadventures that makes you rich and famous? Celebrate by getting more drunk and having insane amounts of sex, obviously. And pretty soon you’ve got another f-ing book on your hands. Stuffed full of ridiculous stories …

The Olive Tree charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time.
Troubled by challenges her own South of France …

Since Carol Drinkwater moved to an olive farm in France, she has developed a passion for the olive tree and the culture that has grown up around it. From the eastern shores of the shimmering Mediterranean to its western coast, this fruit is farmed. Its silvery-green branches have inspired painters …

“The stars shimmer like spilled handfuls of glitter. The day is beginning to rise with a faint mist. As I turn my head, ghostly halos, auras of light, appear and disappear….The silence is truly awesome. Not a bird, not a whisper of wind, not a breath of life. Only the …

Carol Drinkwater’s bestselling The Olive Farm told the lyrical tale of her real-life romance with partner Michel and an abandoned Provencal olive farm which they fell in love with and bought. In The Olive Season Carol is now pregnant and their ever-loyal Arab gardener is leaving to oversee the marrying …

For many, Carol Drinkwater will be forever remembered for her part as the wholesome Helen Herriot in the television series All Creatures Great and Small.
But since being a successful actress in England, she has spent the past 13 years in France with her husband Michel. This is the story of …

After being dumped by his longtime girlfriend, 28-year-old Justin Halpern found himself living at home with his 73-year-old dad. Sam Halpern, who is “like Socrates, but angrier, and with worse hair,” has never minced words, and when Justin moved back home, he began to record all the ridiculous things his …

Today, Lipton means tea. However, in his time, Sir Thomas Lipton was known for much more. Raised in desperate poverty, he became rich beyond his wildest dreams. he built a global empire of markets, factories, plantations, and stockyards. And his colorful pursuit of the America’s Cup trophy made him a …