{"product_id":"9781429982771","title":"The Urban Hermit: A Memoir","description":"\u003cp\u003eFaced with the truth that his debts and his waistline had both ballooned out of control, Sam MacDonald devised a plan to change his life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen Sam graduated from Yale in 1995, he watched a classmate make inroads as a head-office guy in professional baseball, another become a day-trading millionaire, and another develop connections at the Playboy Mansion. Struggling to make ends meet, he shrugged his shoulders at their success and raised a tall one to them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt wasn't until April 2000 that Sam got his wake-up call. He weighed 340 lbs. He was flat broke. And the IRS had caught up with him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a desperate attempt to save himself, Sam decided to limit himself to a budget of $8 a week and 800 calories a day. He called it \"The Urban Hermit Plan.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe thought he would do it for a month. Instead, he embarked on a bizarre year-long journey. He lost 160 pounds in the process, befriended rent-dodging trailer-park denizens, flew to Bosnia on assignment, traveled to a peace festival in a hippie van, had a run-in with Cooter from the Dukes of Hazzard, and met the woman who would later become his wife.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Urban Hermit is a wildly hilarious story about backwoods living, as told by a man who should have known better.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"St. Martin's Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47174754697456,"sku":"9781429982771","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781429982771_p0.jpg?v=1769903713","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781429982771","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}