National sensation, Author Mike Leonard, to sign his New York Times’ Best Seller at Lazydays

SEFFNER- Lazydays^® confirmed today that best-selling author, Mike Leonard, will make an appearance at Lazydays^® RV SuperCenter^®, 6130 Lazy Days Blvd., Fri., May 19 at 12 p.m. to sign copies of and read excerpts from his hit book, The Ride of Our Lives. The public is invited to attend.

Author Mike Leonard, who was an NBC correspondent, took a one month sabbatical from work to travel cross country in two RVs with his parents, his three grown children and their families. Eventually, real life drama and high-jinx ensued giving him the inspiration to The Ride of Our Lives. The book was an instant hit and made the New York Times Best Seller list.

“We are very pleased to have Mike spend the day with us at Lazydays. The Ride of Your Life is a true slice of our culture steeped in humor, adventure and self-discovery. I’m confident our customers and guests will be just delighted to meet him,” says Stewart Schaffer, chief marketing officer for Lazydays.

For more information, about the book signing or to inquire about interview opportunities, please contact Stephanie Steele at 813-258-5858 or stephanie@schifinolee.com

Reviews:

The Ride of our Lives has been named as one of Reader’s Digest’s “5 Things We Don’t Want You to Miss: April 2006″.

“Mike Leonard is a national treasure and his touching, hilarious, instructive account of a loving road trip with his parents and children should be required reading in every family. I’m sending it to all my children so they can share the laughs and the tears.”-Tom Brokaw, author of The Greatest Generation

“Mike Leonard has generously invited the rest of us along for a ride aboard his land yacht, the ‘S.S.Fiasco.’ And what a ride it is. Profound and profoundly funny, Leonard takes us on a journey deep into the heart of his family. He has been blessed with characters who are as bizarre, maddening, unpredictable and hilarious as any dreamt up by Hollywood — and they are his real-life parents! “The Ride of Our Lives” reads like intimate dispatches from your funniest friend, and is as touching and whimsical as a series of home movies unspooling from an American childhood.” -Amy Dickinson, syndicated advice columnist, “Ask Amy”

About the book (from Random House): Mike Leonard is a lucky man. It’s not everyone who gets parents like Jack and Marge. At eighty-seven, Jack is a pathological optimist with an inexhaustible gift of gab. Marge, Jack’s bride of 60 years, though cut from the same rough bolt of Irish immigrant cloth, is his polar opposite–pessimistic and proud of it. What was their son, Mike, thinking when he took a sabbatical from his job with NBC News so he could pile these two world-class originals along with three of his grown kids and a daughter-in-law into a pair of rented RVs and hit the road for a month?

Mike was thinking that he wanted to give his parents the ultimate family reunion. And so, one February morning, three generations of Leonards set out on their journey under the dazzling Arizona sky. Thirty minutes later, one of the humongous recreational vehicles has an unplanned meeting with a concrete island at a convenience store. Thus begins the adventure of a lifetime–and an absolute gem of a book.

In the course of their humorous, often poignant cross-country tour, from the desert Southwest to the New England coastline, the Leonards reminisce about their loves, their losses, and their rich and heartwarming (and sometimes heartbreaking) lives, while encountering a veritable Greek chorus of roadside characters along the way. The home stretch finds the clan racing back to Chicago, hoping to catch the arrival of the next generation, Jack and Marge’s first great-grandchild. Through it all, Mike pieces together a century of family lore and lunacy – and discovers surprising sides to his parents that allow him to see them in a whole new light.

Mike Leonard has captivated millions of television viewers with his wry and witty feature stories for NBC’s Today Show. Now, he brings that same engaging charm and keen insight to the foibles and passions of his own blessedly unique family. By turns uproariously funny and deeply moving, The Ride of Our Lives delivers a lifetime of laughs, lessons and priceless memories.

About Don Wallace and Lazydays: Founded in 1976 by Don Wallace, Lazydays^® is the largest single site RV dealership in the world. Its revenues exceeded $800 million in 2005. Located on 126 acres outside Tampa, Florida, Lazydays^® has an 86,600 sq. ft. main building, 273 service bays, 300 RV campsites and more than 1,200 RVs on display. The property also has a 40,000 sq. ft. Camping World store, a Cracker Barrel Restaurant and a Flying J RV Travel Plaza. Lazydays^® is a national RV destination which hosts more than one million visitors and serves more than 300,000 meals annually. http://www.lazydays.com