Books
In His Stead : Judith Sanders
In His Stead – A Father’s War
Filled with both tense action and heartbreaking tenderness, “In His Stead” captures the essence of family life in wartime—the good, the bad, and the hopeful—and explores what it means to be a father and a man.
Follow Retired Army Ranger Thomas Lane’s tumultuous battle as he navigates the United States Army, its JAG corps, a vengeful officer, his reckless son, and his own wife, who has the Solomon like choice of sending either a husband or a son to fight in Afghanistan.
Lane once burned for the taste of gunpowder and the thrill of the battle. But as he struggles to cope with his own PTSD and the death of his eldest son who was killed by an IED in Afghanistan, Lane has to face the fact that the National Guard is calling his youngest son to now serve.
Lane knows he will do anything to save his child—even if it means going in his place, a pursuit unheard of since the Civil War when the rich, like JP Morgan, sent poor immigrants to fight in their place.
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Excerpts From the Heart of a Mom : Jennifer Laurent
Excerpts From the Heart of a Mom
Excerpts from the Heart of a Mom was originally written as a gift to my son.
This book contains 25 conscious parenting concepts that help parents foster their children’s innate wisdom and keep children connected to their authentic selves.
The book is not intended to be read as a “how-to” but rather a heartfelt offering of ways to consciously connect with our children.
Its intention is to inspire parents to open their minds and hearts, and connect with the fulfillment, joy, and peace of parenting.
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Earning a Motorcycle : Pete Thompson
All I Needed to Know About Projects, I Learned As A Kid Shoveling Snow: Earning a Motorcycle
[ . . . ] it didn’t matter, because one word, “sure” in the context of motorcycle ownership, gave Pete permission to buy one. All he had to do now was earn the money. [ . . . ] When Ms. Strickland answered the door she looked at the stoop and noticed that it had been shoveled.
Since they were both holding shovels, the first thing she said in a rhetorical tone was “Did you guys do that? Thank you” Before they could get a word out, she continued with “I guess you are here to shovel my drive! Or did you do that too and now you want your money” Without missing a beat, Mel replied, “Yup! Twenty bucks” In a scolding almost frantic tone she replied with, “Well I’m not paying.
“I have the lawn service under contract. Not very smart business boys. You can’t just ask people to pay for a service they didn’t request” Pete just stood there in shock when Mel said, “OK, we’ll put it back” She paused for a moment with a look of horror on her face until she realized Mel was joking and started laughing.
She said “I’m sorry boys, but I’m already committed” Mel replied, “That’s OK, we understand” As they were walking toward the next house, they heard Ms. Strickland’s door open and she started yelling, “Boys? Boys? Wait” Mel and Pete exchanged glances wondering what now? “Come back! I changed my mind! You can shovel my drive Pete jokingly said to Mel, “It looks like we’re both gonna make $20 on this drive since our price just doubled”
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A Poet’s Passion : Jim Traylor
A Poet’s Passion
Passion! Take me into your arms,
Embrace my eager body.
Guide me through my brief existence,
That I might know
And have
And be
All that life does offer.
Passion! Fuel my thirsty soul
With the fury of your flames.
Light my path to prosperity,
And the madness of amour.
Passion! Intoxicating elixir,
Give me drink from your magic chalice,
Whet my appetite with ambition,
Strengthen my resolve.
Quick, my passion!
Push me ever forward.
Look! The sky grows ashen,
The sun will soon be setting.
~~~***~~~
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Regina Guitar : Jim Traylor
Regina Guitar and other Short Stories
Regina Guitar and other Short Stories is a compilation of incarnate capsules: Flavored doses, seasoned with the human condition, and served up on the theatrical masks of tragedy and comedy. Here you will find it all from heartrending drama to goofy buffoonery. Entertaining story selections for those who love to read but have little time to do it.
The Serpents of the Caduceus: An exploration of the subconscious mind, that dark and foreboding chamber, inaccessible from the phenomenon we call reality. This story deals the terrifying nightmares, psychotic delusions and horrid hallucinations that plummet through the tormented brain of a mortally wounded soldier.
A Fish Story: This is a tongue in cheek tale of a professional fisherman who wins big at a casino poker table, commits ‘accidental’ murder, and ends up with a Government Patton on a word known product.
Tooter and the Tutor: A brief and funny narrative, revealing just how easy it is for a country boy to fool his summer school teacher.
Humanity’s Three Most Unusual Sneezes: A completely insane bit of slapstick comedy. A “documentary” which chronicles a trio of sneezes and the calamity and chaos rendered by each.
Openers: This story offers insight into the “it’s not my fault” life of a looser. When a beautiful woman sits down beside a socially handicapped bus passenger, he blames the world for his inability to think of a pickup line.
Cowboy Shootout: A Texas Ramrod on a cattle drive to Kansas must ride his horse backward, and mistakenly herds his Moos to Yuma, Arizona. There, a reluctant cowpoke is forced to protect his lovely lady from Awful Alvin Aggravation, the meanest outlaw and fastest gun this side of the Pecos.
Hector the Pup: The cute and cagy puppy shenanigans of a cunning canine whelp, desperate to find food for his injured father.
Frankie Farone: Frankie had a boyfriend named Johnny and he and Nelly Bligh end up in a very bad way. Does this remind you of an old, familiar song? Don’t be fooled. Like the disclaimer says, “any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental”. Well, maybe not entirely coincidental, but pretty darn close. You’ll see.
Regina Guitar: The heartrending story of a young girl, who transitions from a runaway teen to a mature young woman taking the first step of her life’s journey; an emotional, twenty-four hour metamorphosis.
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The Monkey Soldiers : Jim Traylor
The Monkey Soldiers
Bloody war, erotic sex, stoned out drugs, delicious decadence, exotic locations, heart pounding action.
This story brings together a menagerie of humans and primates who find themselves in a world of heroic action, comic absurdity, tearful sorrow and boorish behavior. Wartime love stories and erotic, tropical rhondavous counterbalance the hedonism and decadence served up by the biggest and hottest R&R bar in Bangkok Thailand: The FTA Club.
While Lieutenant Thurgood could not control his voluptuous, blonde wife, he could control primates and his alliance with Hanuman, the Monkey God, made him one hell of a savage warrior. Unaware of his Channeling and Telepathic abilities, he felt an irrefutable compulsion to work secretly with the CIA, to create a combat unit unlike any other in the history of warfare.
Meanwhile, in Bangkok, Thailand, his thrill addicted wife played in a world of illicit drugs and deviant behavior, while soldiers on R&R gambled for her sexual favors.
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A Change of Needs : Nate Allen
A Change of Needs
An affair, it was never about “romance,” only lust… But lust became love, love begot jealousy, obsession, betrayal and ultimately self redemption …sorta? And if love is a drug …affairs are its “crack.”
“A Change of Needs” is the story of one man’s crooked path through life that leads him to a married woman’s doorstep and the “straight and narrow” path she has taken that leads her to inviting him inside. What follows is a unique, atypical, often uncomfortable modern-day love story about what happens when one ordinary man accepts the invitation to cross that imaginary boundary each of us draws around our life that defines us.
Jake Arnett was a rogue, solitary man with an aversion to commitments, but the thing he may have found most attractive about Rae Anne Johnston was the fact she wasn’t available …the woman of his dreams …because she belonged to someone else. It’s true what they say, “The heart has its reasons, the mind knows nothing of…” Once emotions get involved and sex is no longer “casual,” the lines between right and wrong become frighteningly indistinguishable.
Told with a unique and endearing style that has a “careful Southern twang” reminiscent of “Scout” narrating “To Kill a Mockingbird,” …only of a much more adult nature. At times humorous yet salacious and sexy, it’s a clever, provocative and disturbingly raw examination of the relational dynamics of an affair and the mutually detrimental consequences of an intimacy and “trust” built upon lies and secrecy. There is no fidelity among the unfaithful. Affairs are messy …they never end well. Not recommended for the “faint of heart” …or the heartless. A bit of a genre foster-child, this one’s not easily categorized …except for ENTERTAINING, it’s a literary candy-store of memorable quotes, insight and unique perspectives …so indulge yourself.
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Warpaint : Stephanie A. Smith
Warpaint
A haunting tale of friendship and rivalry between three women artists, who’ve known each other for years, who must come to terms with imminent mortality and artistic frustration: Liz Moore, born poor in Minnesota, fought her way to New York in the 1920s, but isn’t “discovered” until late in life; C.C. Davis, a well-to-do New Yorker is Moore’s only student, and rival, who, just after WWII achieves some small success, but feels, as she faces cancer in 2002, a failure; and Quiola Kerr, part Ojibwe, once C.C.’s lover, who is caught in the middle, and who, as a painter in the 21st century, has the most doubts about art’s value in an electronic world.
In April 2002, all three meet a week before C.C.’s mastectomy at a MOMA retrospective for Liz Moore, but their reunion is tense. Still, they try to cope, until C.C. makes an unexpected and controversial choice, one which nearly breaks the bonds these three took so many decades to forge, and forces Quiola to try to confront Liz, who she believes deliberately sabotaged C.C.’s career
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Murder Made in Italy : Ellen Nerenberg
Homicide, Media, and Contemporary Italian Culture
Looking at media coverage of three very prominent murder cases, Murder Made in Italy explores the cultural issues raised by the murders and how they reflect developments in Italian civil society over the past 20 years. Providing detailed descriptions of each murder, investigation, and court case, Ellen Nerenberg addresses the perception of lawlessness in Italy, the country’s geography of crime, and the generalized fear for public safety among the Italian population.
Nerenberg examines the fictional and nonfictional representations of these crimes through the lenses of moral panic, media spectacle, true crime writing, and the abject body. The worldwide publicity given the recent case of Amanda Knox, the American student tried for murder in a Perugia court, once more drew attention to crime and punishment in Italy and is the subject of the epilogue.
“Original, engaging, and thought-provoking… quite unlike any other existing book in Italian cultural and media studies.” —Ruth Glynn, University of Bristol
(Ruth Glynn, University of Bristol )
“A fantastic array of literary, cinematic, and oral narratives.” —Stefania Lucamante, Catholic University of America
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Lefty and Her Gangsters : Anthony Valerio
Lefty and Her Gangsters – A Novel of Power and Sex
The incomparable Lefty – a redheaded, left-handed, cross-eyed, married and very sexy woman – reduces her Italian-American lover, Nicholas, to a sex slave, her own private Button Man, propelling him back to the neighborhood don, Johnny, for counsel and wisdom. Lefty is also their muse and their salvation, humanizing both the Italian poet and the Italian gangster, and even transforms them to the godfather of the future, the unforgettable Don Pippo–reformed, wise, gentle.
“Subsequent artistic attempts at humanizing the don include Analyze This and The Sopranos. Both of these productions feature don characters in therapy. Valero’s use of the therapy device, though, is unique and visionary. It not only predates these films, but also shows the don in control, as therapist, not patient. This configuration emphasizes the power of Italian culture to nurture individual identity. Johnny, the don, serves as cultural nursemaid to the reborn Italian-American, Nicholas. “ Melus
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