In The Weekend Starts on Wednesday, NASCAR insider Andrew Giangola scoured the circuit and slept in school buses to find remarkable fans and tell their hilarious, heart-warming stories. With a keen eye for detail and uncommon humor, Giangola probes the open hearts and colorful experiences of the sport’s most fervent fans.  There’s a male nurse who braves death to bring the NASCAR flag to the top of Mt. Everest, and a woman who dons a nurse’s outfit when her hero Dale Earnhardt Jr. wrecks; we meet a fellow who goes naked at the track save a Goodyear tire, and a lifelong fan who’s been to all 51 Daytona 500 races.  Celebrities are not immune from the lure of NASCAR racing either, and the stories of celebrities such as Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise, Brian Williams and Mario Batali are also told as well.  This collection of amazing stories opens a new chapter on the extraordinary appeal of NASCAR, and shows why so many are so crazy about this great American sport.

The Weekend Starts on Wednesday is a light-hearted, heart-warming, insider’s tour of the racetracks and infields of the Deep South, through the heartland and on to Southern California. It’s a guided expedition to the soul that truly makes NASCAR the nation’s #1 spectator sport: its fans!

See Author Andrew Giangola interviewed on FOX Television here: http://video.foxnews.com/v/4313955/nascar-and-its-fans/?playlist_id=87484

Poised for takeoff on that hot morning in April 2005, the Airbus A380 had the purposeful, powerful presence of a giant predatory bird. With its enormous gulled wings, imperiously tall tail, and broad, domed forepeak, it looked ready to take on the world. And along the way, it has had plenty of supporters—and critics. No civil airliner since the supersonic Concorde has aroused such emotion, such fascination, and such cause célèbre.

To a confident Airbus and the thousands of awestruck workers who cheered it into that cloudless sky over Toulouse, it means so much more. The European company has been transformed under the broad wings of this incredible project into a single corporate entity—from a loose consortium into a new, more dynamic force to challenge its worthy adversary Boeing in every market sector.

There are millions of new motorcyclists hitting the blacktop every year. But being part of the American motorcycle culture takes more than just wanting to be cool. It takes a passion for the open road, freedom, and a lifestyle that even the best financing cant buy. This book, by someone who knows motorcycles as few do, provides a road map to biker culture for anyone new to the experience. Jay Barbieri explains everything a new rider needs to know to become a real biker. He begins with a brief history of motorcycles, and draws on his twenty-five years of riding experience for examples of what works and doesn't in this heady world. Most of all, he aims to spare new bikers the bad decisions neophytes typically make. With hundreds of motorcycle trips under his belt, there is not a mistake Barbieri hasn't made or a situation he hasn't encountered. By sharing the sometimes comical outcomes, he gives the new biker a head start to become more comfortable, credible, and knowledgeable about joining a community that is as much a part of American culture as baseball, hotdogs and apple pie.

Philadelphia-based Baldwin began designing and building steam locomotives in the 1830s and gave the U.S. many of its most significant and famous types of steam, and diesel-electric motive power. This history of Baldwin is illustrated with a large selection of rare, superb builder's photos and other publicity images from the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, with the book's large page size showcasing the detail and crisp quality of the images in this outstanding collection. Author Brian Solomon provides technical histories of each locomotive along with builder's specifications and explanations of how the locomotives were used by the railroads that bought them. These carefully researched histories are keys to understanding the significance of the locomotives and how they worked, and are presented in a manner that makes the book accessible to everyone, while retaining sufficient technical detail to appeal to the most ardent railroad enthusiast.

In the 1960s and 1970s, John Deere’s tractors evolved dramatically from small machines into large, powerful tractors with modern advances and muscular engines; it was a period of the greatest changes since the 1920s. Deere christened these tractors the New Generation. This book in the Tractor Legacy series examines these Big Green machines in detail, with archival and current photography of restored tractors, a thorough historical text, and details of model specifications and variations.