Books published by publisher Metro Books

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2011 titleFrom a State Department insider, the first account of our blundering efforts to rebuild Iraq—a shocking and rollicking true-life tale of Americans abroadCharged with rebuilding Iraq, would you spend taxpayer money on a sports mural in Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhood to promote reconciliation through art? How about an isolated milk factory that cannot get its milk to market? Or a pastry class training women to open cafés on bombed-out streets without water or electricity?According to Peter Van Buren, we bought all these projects and more in the most expensive hearts-and-minds campaign since the Marshall Plan. We Meant Well is his eyewitness account of the civilian side of the surge—that surreal and bollixed attempt to defeat terrorism and win over Iraqis by reconstructing the world we had just destroyed. Leading a State Department Provincial Reconstruction Team on its quixotic mission, Van Buren details, with laser-like irony, his yearlong encounter with pointless projects, bureaucratic fumbling, overwhelmed soldiers, and oblivious administrators secluded in the world's largest embassy, who fail to realize that you can't rebuild a country without first picking up the trash.Darkly funny while deadly serious, We Meant Well is a tragicomic voyage of ineptitude and corruption that leaves its writer—and readers—appalled and disillusioned but wiser.

From a State Department insider, the first account of our blundering efforts to rebuild Iraq--a shocking and rollicking true-life tale of Americans abroad Charged with rebuilding Iraq, would you spend taxpayer money on a sports mural in Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhood to promote reconciliation through art? How about an isolated milk factory that cannot get its milk to market? Or a pastry class training women to open cafés on bombed-out streets without water or electricity?According to Peter Van Buren, we bought all these projects and more in the most expensive hearts-and-minds campaign since the Marshall Plan. We Meant Well is his eyewitness account of the civilian side of the surge--that surreal and bollixed attempt to defeat terrorism and win over Iraqis by reconstructing the world we had just destroyed. Leading a State Department Provincial Reconstruction Team on its quixotic mission, Van Buren details, with laser-like irony, his yearlong encounter with pointless projects, bureaucratic fumbling, overwhelmed soldiers, and oblivious administrators secluded in the world's largest embassy, who fail to realize that you can't rebuild a country without first picking up the trash.Darkly funny while deadly serious, We Meant Well is a tragicomic voyage of ineptitude and corruption that leaves its writer--and readers--appalled and disillusioned but wiser.

According to Japanese mythology, the cosmos took form spontaneously from chaos. Lighter elements formed the abode of the gods. while heavier ones became the shapeless earth. Many divinities emerged in these two realms, but the seventh celestial couple consisted of Izanagi and Izanami, a god and goddess whose destiny was to establish the sea-kissed islands of Japan in the unruly waters far below. Many other tales can be found in realm of the Rising Sun: Japanese Myth, one volume in an exciting series called Myth and Mankind, a culture-by-culture examination of world myth and its historical roots.

Whether your garden is as vast as a meadow or as diminutive as a windowsill, these hundreds of superbly illustrated suggestions for beautifying it with special features will solve any design dilemma. Try great ideas for integrating window boxes with the larger landscape. Find out about plants that thrive in underwater or marshy locations; good shade-lovers; and a variety of arbors and trellises, plus vines and climbers to enhance them. For every garden type, there are plant lists and sample design plans.

"Sepsis strikes up like a fire in the forest, kills quickly, switching off the lights of life in hours, tearing limb from limb, leaving a shaking and humiliated half of you alive to grin and bear it like a wounded animal."The true story of a couple whose love is tested to its limit after their perfect life falls apart in a single moment. When Tom puts his small daughter to bed one chilly December evening, he has everything he could ever want – the house of his dreams, the life of a writer, a beautiful wife and a second baby on the way. By the next morning all of this is in jeopardy as Tom succumbs to the devastating illness that is sepsis.This is the incredible story of a family coming to terms with a life-changing diagnosis while battling to hold their family and their marriage together.

"Retire? You can't retire!" Sir David Attenborough told John Bartram, when the man who has been gamekeeper and senior wildlife officer for Richmond Park for the past 30 years announced his intention to step away from the role, bidding farewell to the iconic park which has been his home, the backdrop for a career many would give anything for, and a way of life for so long. During a career spanning four decades John has been the behind-the-scenes mastermind ensuring the welfare and maintenance of Richmond Park's world-famous herd of deer—widely thought of as the finest herd in captivity. Working with these fabled creatures has demanded balancing their needs with the very real, and often fatal, dangers the park's visitors pose to his herd, and John pulls no punches when it comes to his opinion on the deer's place in the scheme of things, the human "invaders" and the collision of their two worlds. A remarkable diary chronicling the final year of John's charmed life as the guardian of Richmond Park, this memoir tells of the unique demands of each new season, and of the enormous wrench he will feel upon no longer waking up in the midst of so much unchanged and wild beauty. Park Life is a treasure trove of stories and memories, some poignant and moving, others offbeat and hilarious: from the quirk of fate and farcical interview that led to him getting the job, to living in close-quarters with the deer, the tragedy of putting down fatally wounded animals, and the annual ritual of the rut—as dependable as the rising and setting of the sun.

Celebrity couple Katie Price and Peter Andre have separated after three-and-a-half years of marriage, and the tabloid fight has been escalating. With their camps trading accusations and underhanded comments on a daily basis, and Katie already in a relationship with cage fighter Alex Reid, Peter has broken his silence on their split and things have turned nasty. After a true fairy tale wedding at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, complete with pink Cinderella-style horse-drawn carriage, the couple went to have two children, Junior and Princess. But the happily-ever-after was simply not to be, and the couple's very public relationship will end with a very public divorce. This insightful and emotive book takes a look at the couple's relationship, break-up, and divorce.

A sex guide for all living things and a hilarious natural history in the form of letters to and answers from the preeminent sexpert in all creation. Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation is a unique guidebook to sex. It reveals, for example, when necrophilia is acceptable and who should commit bestiality with whom. It discloses the best time to have a sex change, how to have a virgin birth, and when to eat your lover. It also advises on more mundane matters -- such as male pregnancy and the joys of a detachable penis.Entertaining, funny, and marvelously illuminating, the book comprises letters from all creatures worried about their bizarre sex lives to the wise Dr. Tatiana, the only sex columnist in creation with a prodigious knowledge of evolutionary biology. Fusing natural history with advice to the lovelorn, blending wit and rigor, she is able to reassure her anxious correspondents that although the acts they describe might sound appalling and unnatural, they are all perfectly normal -- so long as you are not a human. In the process, she explains the science behind it all, from Darwin's theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists at all. Applying human standards to the natural world, in the end she reveals the wonders of both.