The author describes a year spent in Barcelona and discusses Spain's historic relationship with Jews, the country's attitudes about sex, and the city's preparations for the Olympics

Examines the catfish farming industry in the Mississippi Delta as well as the people, music, and customs that make the Delta unique (view table of contents)

A car-centered history of life on Cuba over the past century explores how vintage U.S.-made cars long extinct in the U.S. and held together with mechanical ingenuity and willpower provide a common representation of Cuba.

What has six legs, skulks around late at night, and likes to sniff out the hidden crevices, the dank corners, and the dark recesses? The cockroach, of course. The cockroach is a bug of great design. Most of its contemporaries from the Carboniferous period -- around 300 million B.C. -- are extinct, but cockroaches live on reproducing inside our walls and traveling the world as stowaways aboard ships. In The Cockroach Papers, readers learn more than they ever wanted to know about this nasty little pest. It features a mix of anecdotal material from people who have had memorable (mostly nightmarish) interactions with roaches and facts about the lives of roaches -- from where they live and how they mate to their much-awaited dying days.

Product Description: Journalist Richard Schweid first learned the strange facts of the freshwater eel's life from a fisherman in a small Spanish town just south of Valencia. "The eeler who explained the animal's life cycle to me did so as he served up an eel he had just taken from a trap, killed, cleaned, and cooked in olive oil in an earthenware dish," writes Schweid...read more

Product Description: Outside of sushi houses and the rare four-star restaurant, most Americans would never think to eat eel, but throughout Europe and Asia you can find it grilled, smoked, stewed, jellied, skewered, fried, baked, sautéed, and even cooked into an omelet...read more

Product Description: When pulled from the mud of creeks, ponds, rivers, or the sea, the eel, with its slick, snake-like body, emerges as an extremely mundane and even unappealing fish. But don’t let the appearance fool you—the eel has been one of the world’s favorite foods since ancient Greece, and the eel’s life cycle is one of the most remarkable on the planet—during the middle ages, impoverished Londoners survived on eel and the eel later saved the Mayflower pilgrims from starvation on American shores...read more

Provides information on the club scene, the bar scene, the arts, shopping, and late-night dining in Madrid and Barcelona

Combines an overview of historical theories with a survey of current attitudes to explore what happens after bodily death, offering insight into the views about three main belief systems including those about reincarnation, the permanent passage of the soul, and the finality of death. Reprint.

Product Description: Book by Schweid, Richard

Offers information about the culture, processing and use of red peppers, combining facts, humor and history along with authentic recipes

Product Description: Smitten by a love of hot peppers, journalist Richard Schweid traveled to the capital of the U.S. hot sauce industry, New Iberia, Louisiana. This is Cajun country, and capsicum (as hot peppers are known botanically) thrive in the region's salty, oil-rich soil like nowhere else...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

"By the second or third day that you’re homeless, in the car with all your clothes, your pots and pans, everything, having to wash yourself in a public rest room, you logically start to feel dirty. You prefer to use the drive-through [at fast-food restaurants] where no one will see you. You begin to hide your family."—Invisible Nation    More than 2.5 million children are homeless in the United States every year. In every state, children are living packed in with relatives, or in cars, or motel rooms, or emergency shelters, the only constant being too many people in too little space. In a vividly-written narrative, experienced journalist Richard Schweid takes us on a spirited journey through this "invisible nation," giving us front-row dispatches. Based on in-depth reporting from five major cities, Invisible Nation looks backward at the historical context of family homelessness, as well as forward at what needs to be done to alleviate this widespread, although often hidden, poverty. Invisible Nation is a riveting must-read for anyone who wants to know what is happening to the millions of families living at the bottom of the economy. 

Product Description: Barcelona is the most "European" city in Spain. Filled with amazing architecture and cultural attractions, it isa cosmopolitan city. Yet it is also a relaxed, friendly place, where the daymoves a little slower and dinner is a celebration that can last for hours...read more