Are You Famous? Touring America with Alaska's Fiddling Poet
by Ken Waldman
Non-Fiction
Book 10

Product Description
Ken Waldman has toured throughout North America as Alaska's Fiddling Poet since 1995. He is the author of six poetry collections and has released seven CDs. This, his first book of prose, is part memoir, part travel notes, and part artist how-to. A Blue Highways for 2009. "Ken's story is.all our stories, collected and distilled by a roving poet/musician possessed of a clear eye and a big heart. Waldman is clearly in the tradition of Walt Whitman, Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey." Jim Clark, author of Handiwork, Dancing on Canaan's Ruins, and Notions: A Jim Clark Miscellany and Jordan Professor of Southern Literature and Writer in Residence, Barton College, Wilson NC. "A great read. For those who've wondered what it's like to live a life on the road in pursuit of one's passion, here's your book. Those who already know what it's like can point and say, 'It's like this.' From the harrowing plane crash in Alaska all the way to the appearance at Kennedy Center stage, we feel like we're there." Jeff Talmadge, CoraZong Records recording artist, internationally touring singer/songwriter.

Sudden Death
by Michael Balkind
Fiction
Book 9

Product Description
Reid Clark is a pro golfer at the top of the leader board during the PGA tour; he's also a hothead with a reputation for trouble. Reid receives a death threat right before teeing off on the final day of the Master's Tournament, and hires a P.I. to track down the perpetrator. Suspense builds throughout as Reid tries to compete in one of golf's most prestigious contests...and woo the woman he loves...while dodging death at every turn. For golfers, mystery lovers and male readers in general, Sudden Death will score big.

The Mental Environment
by Bob Gebelein
Non-Fiction
Book 8

Product Description
Human beings as social creatures are immersed in a sea of other people's thoughts, including all the books that have ever been read. In this mental environment there are inaccuracies, or "mind pollution," created mainly by social pressures. This book is a basic introduction to the mental environment and mind pollution -- not just the obvious pollution of advertising and political lies, but going deeper than that, into the internalized social influences of family, peers, religion, and education. It explains how the high status of physical science has steered psychologists away from the study of the mind, and presents a view of the mind with the "mental senses." It describes methods of mind pollution -- "unscientific methods," misrepresentation, manipulation, and mental warfare -- and factors contributing to mind pollution -- bad logic, psychological problems, sorcery, domination, and status. It presents the perspective of a new civilization (first described in Re-Educating Myself, 1985), and from that perspective points out inaccuracies in major belief systems of the present culture -- the religious, the academic, and the New Age.

Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block
by Judith Matloff
Fiction
Book 7

Product Description
After twenty years as a foreign correspondent in tumultuous locales including Rwanda, Chechnya, and Sudan, Judith Matloff is ready to put down roots and start a family. She leaves Moscow and returns to her native New York City to house-hunt for the perfect spot while her Dutch husband, John, stays behind in Russia with their dog to pack up their belongings. Intoxicated by West Harlem's cultural diversity and, more important, its affordability, Judith impulsively buys a stately fixer-upper brownstone in the neighborhood. Little does she know what's in store. Judith and John discover that their dream house was once a crack den and that "fixer upper" is an understatement. The building is a total wreck: The beams have been chewed to dust by termites, the staircase is separating from the wall, and the windows are smashed thanks to a recent break-in. Plus, the house-crowded with throngs of brazen drug dealers-forms the bustling epicenter of the cocaine trade in the Northeast, and heavily armed police regularly appear outside their door in pursuit of the thugs and crackheads who loiter there. Thus begins Judith and John's odyssey to win over the neighbors, including Salami, the menacing addict who threatens to take over their house; MacKenzie, the literary homeless man who quotes Latin over morning coffee; Mrs. LaDuke, the salty octogenarian and neighborhood watchdog; and Miguel, the smooth lieutenant of the local drug crew, with whom the couple must negotiate safe passage. It's a far cry from utopia, but it's a start, and they do all they can to carve out a comfortable life. And by the time they experience the birth of a son, Judith and John have even come to appreciate the neighborhood's rough charms. Blending her finely honed reporter's instincts with superb storytelling, Judith Matloff has crafted a wry, reflective, and hugely entertaining memoir about community, home, and real estate. Home Girl is for anyone who has ever longed to go home, however complicated the journey.

The 19th Wife: A Novel
by David Ebershoff
Fiction
Book 6

Product Description
Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.

Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense. It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family's polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife. Soon after Ann Eliza's story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds-a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father's death. And as Ann Eliza's narrative intertwines with that of Jordan's search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith.

Won't Get Fooled Again: A Voter's Guide to Seeing Through the Lies, Getting Past the Propaganda and Choosing the Best Leaders
by Joseph H. Boyett
Non-Fiction
Book 5

Book Description
In the last decade, incompetent leadership has done more to change the face of our world than perhaps in any other time in history. Recent events like Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq have proven that blind faith in our rulers is more than foolish--it can be downright dangerous. The world has grown more complicated and more volatile, and making intelligent decisions about the people in charge has never been more crucial. What causes us to follow bad leaders and how can we stop it? The answer is simple: If we want better leaders, we need to become better informed and more demanding followers. Won't Get Fooled Again is an eye-opening look at the politicians and other public servants who promise too much and deliver too little.

The Art of Hanging (A New Mangled Guide)
by Jr., W. Town Andrews
Non-Fiction
Book 4

Product Description
Is Dating Dead? ...is a headline that has appeared in numerous popular magazines and sociological essays in recent years. If true, then what the heck are paired-up people doing out there at Starbucks, at the Cineplex, dining romantically, strolling arm-in-arm--in other words, pursuing the age-old and instinctive rituals of attraction and courtship? What do we call it now!! Hanging out won't do. It's clumsy...an awkward compounding that will create all kinds of confusing and unmellifluous constructions. Unheard of Books has done the world a great service by creating the solution, a shortened terminology--and much, much more--and that solution is The Art of Hanging. This book refines the vocabulary of the activity-formerly-known as dating, and creates a guide, a handbook for the modern-thinking individual interested in getting out there and Hanging, and doing it righteous. Recipe for The Art of Hanging 1. Take a 1950s dating manual. 2. Replace key terms and phrases with standardized, simplified equivalents from the actual day-to-day usage of a youth culture that hangs rather than dates. 3. Sprinkle in more new lingoisms from the vocabularies of subsequent urban, suburban, and exurban youth subcultures. Add catchphrases, neologisms, niche jargons, and cliches from pop culture, pop psychology, and Madison Avenue. 4. Shake well. The result is an old-fashioned guide to new social lifestyles, filled with in-your-face surprises and unexpected linguistic somersaults.

East Anglia
by William P. Kennedy
Fiction
Book 3

Product Description
Jim Marron returns to his World War II bomber base 50 years after he was wounded and sent home. He brings with him the answer to a wartime murder that involved an American officer and an English prostitute, a crime that was lost in the gap between English law enforcement and American military authority. He also brings a burning need to know the fate of the woman he loved and then abandoned at the war's end. East Anglia is the story of a life that reached a crossroads at the intersection of war and peace, and the decisions that weren't seen until long after they had been made. It follows Marron's life through the second half of the century as he struggles with the American dream. Now, back at the base where his manhood was forged, he wonders what might have been if he had chosen the other direction.

Another Time
by Roger Neetz
Fiction
Book 2

Book Description
What happens when a downed American WWII pilot finds himself in a complicated relationship with a German General's wife? Another Time is a novel that reaches deep inside the personal lives of two strangers brought together by fate and separated by the postwar tribulations thrust upon them. Author Roger Neetz, an old cold war warrior himself, has crafted this episode of life from the memories of people who lived them. Another Time is a stirring, poignant romance that truly captures the essence of a time period gone by.

Dark Canvas
by Jody Summers
Fiction
Book 1

Product Description
It seems innocent enough at first, thought Kira McGovern-mixing her dead mother's ashes with paint to create a tribute painting. What a way to personalize and immortalize her mom's memory! The idea so ensnares her that she forms a new business, Canvas of Life, to do just that for others. As she begins with her first clients, something inexplicable occurs: Kira experiences segments of the dead person's life. In dreams and visions she begins to receive images, some are gratifying, some unpleasant and some of them are downright deadly.

Sean Easton is a Kansas farm boy with a special talent he is just beginning to understand. His father, too, has recently died, but something sinister still lingers on the farm. When he takes his father's ashes to Kira as a pretense to meet her, he not only falls in love but makes some startling discoveries about his own life as well, and as Kira begins to paint with Sean's father's ashes the real terror begins ...

In Dark Canvas, join Kira and Sean as they realize they must quickly find the meaning and the source of her dreams and visions before both their love and their lives are destroyed.