Books by Andrew McCarthy
The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down
Award-winning travel writer and actor Andrew McCarthy delivers a revealing and insightful memoir about how travel helped him become the man he wanted to be, helping him overcome life-long fears and confront his resistance to commitment.
WITH AN IRREPRESSIBLE TASTE for adventure, candor, and a vivid sense of place, award-winning travel writer and actor Andrew McCarthy takes us on a deeply personal journey played out amid some of the world’s most evocative locales.
Unable to commit to his fiancée of nearly four years—and with no clear understanding of what’s holding him back—Andrew McCarthy finds himself at a crossroads, plagued by doubts that have clung to him for a lifetime. Something in his character has kept him always at a distance, preventing him from giving himself wholeheartedly to the woman he loves and from becoming the father that he knows his children deserve. So before he loses everything he cares about, Andrew sets out to look for answers.
Hobbling up the treacherous slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, dodging gregarious passengers aboard an Amazonian riverboat, and trudging through dense Costa Rican rain forests—Andrew takes us on exotic trips to some of the world’s most beautiful places, but his real journey is one of the spirit.
On his soul-searching voyages, Andrew traces the path from his New Jersey roots, where acting saved his life—and early fame almost took it away—to his transformation into a leading travel writer. He faces the real costs of his early success and lays bare the evolving nature of his relationships with women. He explores a strained bond with his father, and how this complex dynamic shapes his own identity as a parent. Andrew charts his journey from ambivalence to confidence, from infidelity and recklessness to acceptance and a deeper understanding of the internal conflicts of his life.
A gifted writer with an unsparing eye, Andrew relishes bizarre encounters with the characters whom he encounters, allowing them to challenge him in unexpected ways. He gets into peculiar, even dangerous situations that put him to the test—with mixed results. Disarmingly likable, Andrew is open, honest, and authentic on every page, and what emerges is an intimate memoir of self-discovery and an unforgettable love song to the woman who would be his wife.
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The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down
“A soulful and searching book. Vibrant and elegant…McCarthy’s prose shines with intelligence and intimacy. One feels pulled along…the book gaining momentum and meaning page by page” (Cheryl Strayed, The New York Times Book Review).
With absorbing honesty and an irrepressible taste for adventure, award-winning travel writer and actor Andrew McCarthy takes us on a deeply personal journey played out amid some of the world’s most evocative locales. Unable to commit to his fiancée of nearly four years—and with no clear understanding of what’s holding him back—McCarthy finds himself at a crossroads, plagued by doubts that have clung to him for a lifetime. Though he ventures from the treacherous slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro to an Amazonian riverboat and the dense Costa Rican rain forests, McCarthy’s real journey is one of the spirit. Disarmingly likable, McCarthy isn’t afraid to bare his soul on the page, and what emerges is an intimate memoir of self-discovery and an unforgettable love song to the woman who would be his wife.
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Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain
An intimate, funny, and poignant New York Times bestseling travel memoir following award-winning author and actor Andrew McCarthy as he walks the Camino de Santiago with his son Sam.
When Andrew McCarthy's eldest son began to take his first steps into adulthood, McCarthy found himself wishing time would slow down. Looking to create a more meaningful connection with Sam before he fled the nest, as well as recreate his own life-altering journey decades before, McCarthy decided the two of them should set out on a trek like few others: 500 miles across Spain's Camino de Santiago.
Over the course of the journey, the pair traversed an unforgiving landscape, having more honest conversations in five weeks than they'd had in the preceding two decades. Discussions of divorce, the trauma of school, McCarthy's difficult relationship with his own father, fame, and Flaming Hot Cheetos threatened to either derail their relationship or cement it. Walking With Sam captures this intimate, candid and hopeful expedition as the father son duo travel across the country and towards one another.
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$19.99
Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain
An intimate, funny, and poignant New York Times bestseling travel memoir following award-winning author and actor Andrew McCarthy as he walks the Camino de Santiago with his son Sam.
When Andrew McCarthy's eldest son began to take his first steps into adulthood, McCarthy found himself wishing time would slow down. Looking to create a more meaningful connection with Sam before he fled the nest, as well as recreate his own life-altering journey decades before, McCarthy decided the two of them should set out on a trek like few others: 500 miles across Spain's Camino de Santiago.
Over the course of the journey, the pair traversed an unforgiving landscape, having more honest conversations in five weeks than they'd had in the preceding two decades. Discussions of divorce, the trauma of school, McCarthy's difficult relationship with his own father, fame, and Flaming Hot Cheetos threatened to either derail their relationship or cement it. Walking With Sam captures this intimate, candid and hopeful expedition as the father son duo travel across the country and towards one another.
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$28.00
Brat: An '80s Story
Fans of Patti Smith's Just Kids and Rob Lowe's Stories I Only Tell My Friends will love this beautifully written, entertaining, and emotionally honest memoir by an actor, director, and author who found his start as an 80s Brat pack member -- the inspiration for the Hulu documentary Brats, written and directed by Andrew McCarthy.
Most people know Andrew McCarthy from his movie roles in Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo's Fire, Weekend at Bernie's, and Less than Zero, and as a charter member of Hollywood's Brat Pack. That iconic group of ingenues and heartthrobs included Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, and Demi Moore, and has come to represent both a genre of film and an era of pop culture.
In his memoir Brat: An '80s Story, McCarthy focuses his gaze on that singular moment in time. The result is a revealing look at coming of age in a maelstrom, reckoning with conflicted ambition, innocence, addiction, and masculinity. New York City of the 1980s is brought to vivid life in these pages, from scoring loose joints in Washington Square Park to skipping school in favor of the dark revival houses of the Village where he fell in love with the movies that would change his life.
Filled with personal revelations of innocence lost to heady days in Hollywood with John Hughes and an iconic cast of characters, Brat is a surprising and intimate story of an outsider caught up in a most unwitting success.
Copies
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$18.99
Brat: An '80s Story
Fans of Patti Smith's Just Kids and Rob Lowe's Stories I Only Tell My Friends will love this beautifully written, entertaining, and emotionally honest memoir by an actor, director, and author who found his start as an 80s Brat pack member -- the inspiration for the Hulu documentary Brats, written and directed by Andrew McCarthy.
Most people know Andrew McCarthy from his movie roles in Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo's Fire, Weekend at Bernie's, and Less than Zero, and as a charter member of Hollywood's Brat Pack. That iconic group of ingenues and heartthrobs included Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, and Demi Moore, and has come to represent both a genre of film and an era of pop culture.
In his memoir Brat: An '80s Story, McCarthy focuses his gaze on that singular moment in time. The result is a revealing look at coming of age in a maelstrom, reckoning with conflicted ambition, innocence, addiction, and masculinity. New York City of the 1980s is brought to vivid life in these pages, from scoring loose joints in Washington Square Park to skipping school in favor of the dark revival houses of the Village where he fell in love with the movies that would change his life.
Filled with personal revelations of innocence lost to heady days in Hollywood with John Hughes and an iconic cast of characters, Brat is a surprising and intimate story of an outsider caught up in a most unwitting success.
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Just Fly Away
The debut novel from Andrew McCarthy—actor, director, and bestselling author of Brat: An 80s Story—is a powerful story about family secrets, first love, the limits of forgiveness, and finding your way in the world.
When fifteen-year-old Lucy Willows discovers that her father has a secret child from a brief affair, she begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her family. How could her father have betrayed them like this? How could her mother forgive him? And why isn’t her sister rocked by the news the way Lucy is? Lucy can’t bring herself to tell her friends, and when she tries to confide in her boyfriend, he doesn’t understand. Fed up with everyone around her and desperate for answers, Lucy runs away to Maine—the home of her mysteriously estranged grandfather—to get to the bottom of her family’s secrets and lies.
Copies
No copies available.
Just Fly Away
The debut novel from Andrew McCarthy—actor, director, and bestselling author of Brat: An 80s Story—is a powerful story about family secrets, first love, the limits of forgiveness, and finding your way in the world.
When fifteen-year-old Lucy Willows discovers that her father has a secret child from a brief affair, she begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her family. How could her father have betrayed them like this? How could her mother forgive him? And why isn’t her sister rocked by the news the way Lucy is? Lucy can’t bring herself to tell her friends, and when she tries to confide in her boyfriend, he doesn’t understand. Fed up with everyone around her and desperate for answers, Lucy runs away to Maine—the home of her mysteriously estranged grandfather—to get to the bottom of her family’s secrets and lies.
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Who Needs Friends: An Unscientific Examination of Male Friendship Across America
None
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$29.00
The Best American Travel Writing 2015
by Jason Wilson, Andrew McCarthy
In his introduction, guest editor Andrew McCarthy says that the best travel writing is “the anonymous and solitary traveler capturing a moment in time and place, giving meaning to his or her travels.” The stories in The Best American Travel Writing 2015 demonstrate just that spirit, whether it is the story of a marine returning to Iraq a decade after his deployment, a writer retracing the footsteps of humanity as it spread from Africa throughout the world, or looking for love on a physics-themed cruise down the Rhone River. No matter what the subject, the writers featured in this volume boldly call out, “Yes, this matters. Follow me!”
The Best American Travel Writing 2015 includes
Iris Smyles, Paul Theroux, Christopher Solomon
Patricia Marx, Kevin Baker, Benjamin Busch, Maud Newton
Gary Shteyngart, Paul Salopek,
and others
ANDREW MCCARTHY, guest editor, is the author of the New York Times best-selling travel memoir The Longest Way Home. He has served as an editor at large at National Geographic Traveler and been named travel journalist of the year by the Society of American Travel Writers. He is also an actor and director.
JASON WILSON, series editor, is the author of Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits and the digital wine series Planet of the Grapes. He has written for the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Daily News, and many other publications. He is the founding editor of The Smart Set and Table Matters.
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The Huns Have Got my Gramophone!: Advertisements from the Great War
by Andrew McCarthy, Amanda Jane Doran
Fountain Pens―The Super-Pen for Our Super-Men
Ladies! Learn to Drive! Your Country Needs Women Drivers!
Do you drink German water?
When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, industrious companies wasted no time in seizing the commercial opportunities presented by the conflict. Without TV or radio, newspapers provided one of the few ways in which the British public could get reliable news of the war. To cater to their rising readerships, advertising emerged as the new science of sales, growing increasingly sophisticated throughout the war years in both visual presentation and psychological appeal.
The Huns Have Got my Gramophone! collects some of the most compelling and cleverly worded original advertisements created between 1914 and 1918. Many of the advertisements are aimed at women, from fearless guard dogs promising protection while husbands are away to soaps and skin creams for “beauty on duty.” Others use the power of patriotism to push new products for men, including “officers’ waterproof trench coats,” and one young officer writing in the Times attests to the coats’ superior weather resistance by boldly asserting that he’d leave his sword behind before he left his Burberry. Together, the advertisements collected in the book reveal how advertisers sought to create new markets for products that took into account social change throughout the course of the conflict.
Featuring a range of products, from clothing, cigarettes, and invalid carriages to motorcycles and portable Decca phonographs―the “ideal gramophone for active service”―the book offers a new and unexpected source of historical information and an intimate glimpse of a nation at war.
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