St. John Feet, Fins and Four Wheel Drive


Pam Gaffin - 1994
    John, Virgin Islands. It tells you exactly where to go, how to get there, and what to do and see when you arrive. It contains everything you need to know about the St. John's beaches and hiking trails, as well as its confusing system, of roads, foot-paths and goat-trails. Recommended by Caribbean Travel and Life and by many St. Johnians since locals are NOT on vacation and can't always take time off from work to be a tour guide for their guests. Best Selling St John Guidebook since 1994. Updated in 2009.

Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work


Jason Brown - 2007
    He was less fond of speaking, however, than he was of hitting people in the face, which seemed a more likely source of her love to those of us who knew him,” begins Jason Brown’s linked collection of beautifully haunted, violent, and wry stories set in the densely forested lands of northern New England. In these tales of forbidden love, runaway children, patrimony, alcohol, class, inheritance, and survival, Brown’s elegant prose emits both quiet despair and a poignant sense of hope and redemption. These vivid accounts of troubled lives combine the powerful family drama of Andre Dubus and Russell Banks, the dark wit of Denis Johnson, the lost souls of Charles D’Ambrosio, and the New England gothic of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Jason Brown’s exquisitely crafted second collection will establish him as one of the most important voices in American short fiction.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands: Dark Waters


Richard Dansky - 2017
     INDIVIDUALLY, THEY ARE GREAT. TOGETHER, THEY ARE UNBEATABLE. When a group of renegade Venezuelan soldiers seize control of the no-man’s land in the middle of the Amazonian Jungle, the Ghosts are tapped to get the US citizens being held hostage there out safely. Newly promoted to team lead, Nomad finds himself going in-country with two new squadmates, little preparation, dubious intel and no backup. Still, they have no choice but to go in half blind as time is running short for the captives. And when faced with a difficult choice deep in enemy territory, the Ghosts must learn to stand together as a team, or fail. Action-packed and intense from beginning to end, this novel sets the stage for the upcoming video game Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands.

Listening In: The Secret White House Recordings of John F. Kennedy


Ted Widmer - 2012
    Kennedy installed hidden recording systems in the Oval Office and in the Cabinet Room. The result is a priceless historical archive comprising some 265 hours of taped material. JFK was elected president when Civil Rights tensions were near the boiling point, and Americans feared a nuclear war. Confronted with complex dilemmas necessitating swift and unprecedented action, President Kennedy engaged in intense discussion and debate with his cabinet members and other advisors. Now, in conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of the Kennedy presidency, the John F. Kennedy Library and historian Ted Widmer have carefully selected the most compelling and important of these remarkable recordings for release, fully restored and re-mastered onto two 75-minute CDs for the first time. Listening In represents a uniquely unscripted, insider account of a president and his cabinet grappling with the day-to-day business of the White House and guiding the nation through a hazardous era of uncertainty.Accompanied by extensively annotated transcripts of the recordings, and with a foreword by Caroline Kennedy, "Listening In" delivers the story behind the story in the unguarded words and voices of the decision-makers themselves." Listening In" covers watershed events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Space Race, Vietnam, and the arms race, and offers fascinating glimpses into the intellectual methodology of a circumspect president and his brilliant, eclectic brain trust.Just as the unique vision of President John F. Kennedy continues to resonate half a century after his stirring speeches and bold policy decisions, the documentary candor of Listening In imparts a vivid, breathtaking immediacy that will significantly expand our understanding of his time in office.

Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials


Marc Aronson - 2003
    In a plain meetinghouse a woman stands before her judges. The accusers, girls and young women, are fervent and overexcited. The accused is a poor, unpopular woman who had her first child before she was married. As the trial proceeds the girls begin to wail, tear their clothing, and scream that the woman is hurting them. Some of them expose wounds to the horrified onlookers, holding out the pins that have stabbed them -- pins that appeared as if by magic. Are they acting or are they really tormented by an unseen evil? Whatever the cause, the nightmare has begun: The witch trials will eventually claim twenty-five lives, shatter the community, and forever shape the American social conscience.

Kitchen Canary


Joanne C. Parsons - 2017
     Boston 1868...At the insistence of her parents, sixteen-year-old Katie O'Neil reluctantly left her beloved Galway. She joined her cousin, Moira Murphy to work as a nanny and domestic. In mid-nineteenth century Boston, Irish domestics were often referred to as Kitchen Canaries and considered property of their employers. The young women are violated by their employer, Charles Brennan. Their shame and guilt is so great, they keep the abuse a secret even from each. When Katie becomes pregnant, Charles Brennan's victims, Moira, his wife Rose, and the negro household help, bond together to hide the newborn. In this post-Civil War era, Boston is bustling with change as wealthy Englishmen and Boston Brahmins expand world trade routes, build railroads and develop land. Immigrants from Ireland, Italy and Poland establish neighborhoods, existing in overcrowded, disease-ridden shacks and tenements. They, and negroes flocking North, suffer hate, humiliation and rejection from the establishment. The only value they have to the rich Bostonians is their willingness to work for little money performing menial or back-breaking, dangerous jobs on the docks, and building railroads. This story is about the goodness of others, black, white, Irish and English whose strength prevails to overcome evil and guide Katie and Moira to true redemption. The sequel, Through the Open Door is now available.

The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism


Megan Marshall - 2005
    The story of these remarkable sisters — and their central role in shaping the thinking of their day — has never before been fully told. Twenty years in the making, Megan Marshall's monumental biograpy brings the era of creative ferment known as American Romanticism to new life. Elizabeth, the oldest sister, was a mind-on-fire thinker. A powerful influence on the great writers of the era — Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau among them — she also published some of their earliest works. It was Elizabeth who prodded these newly minted Transcendentalists away from Emerson's individualism and toward a greater connection to others. Mary was a determined and passionate reformer who finally found her soul mate in the great educator Horace Mann. The frail Sophia was a painter who won the admiration of the preeminent society artists of the day. She married Nathaniel Hawthorne — but not before Hawthorne threw the delicate dynamics among the sisters into disarray. Marshall focuses on the moment when the Peabody sisters made their indelible mark on history. Her unprecedented research into these lives uncovered thousands of letters never read before as well as other previously unmined original sources. The Peabody Sisters casts new light on a legendary American era. Its publication is destined to become an event in American biography. This book is highly recommended for students and reading groups interested in American history, American literature, and women's studies. It is a wonderful look into 19th-century life.

Over-the-Rhine: When Beer Was King


Michael D. Morgan - 2010
    In the 1870s, OTR was comparable to the cultural hearts of Paris and Vienna. By the turn of the last century, the neighborhood was home to roughly three hundred saloons and had over a dozen breweries within or adjacent to its borders. It was beloved by countless citizens and travelers for the exact reasons that others successfully sought to destroy it. This is the story of how the heart of the "Paris of America" became a time capsule.

Fatal Impulse


Lori L. Robinett - 2014
    He’s a successful pillar of the community. She is a beautiful young wife devoted to him. From the outside, their life appears perfect. But on the inside, she is constantly on edge, trying to keep him happy so she won’t suffer scathing words that hurt just as much as the occasional sharp blow from him. Then she snaps. In the blink of an eye, she becomes a widow and finds herself inextricably entwined in the web of lies he wove in the months before his death. When a blackmailer threatens to expose her as a murderer, she must piece together her husband’s life to find the key to her own freedom. Fatal Impulse is the first in an intriguing new series, where each widow faces challenges that threaten to destroy her just as she begins to find her strength.

Fig Tree


Conn Iggulden - 2013
    This is the brilliant short story that featured in the back of the special edition ebook of CONN IGGULDEN’S bestselling novel EMPEROR: BLOOD OF GODS.As the effects of age creep up on Augustus Caesar, he is left with the whispers of his wife Livia in one ear and the echoes of his youthful dreams in the other, as he tries to come to the rescue of his beloved grandson, Marcus.

Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom: Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys and the American Revolution


Christopher S. Wren - 2018
    A rare look at a corner of the Revolutionary War.In Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom, Wren overturns the myth of Ethan Allen as a legendary hero of the American Revolution and a patriotic son of Vermont and offers a different portrait of Allen and his Green Mountain Boys. They were ruffians who joined the rush for cheap land on the northern frontier of the colonies in the years before the American Revolution. Allen did not serve in the Continental Army but he raced Benedict Arnold for the famous seizure of Britain’s Fort Ticonderoga. Allen and Arnold loathed each other. General George Washington, leery of Allen, refused to give him troops. In a botched attempt to capture Montreal against specific orders of the commanding American general, Allen was captured in 1775 and shipped to England to be hanged. Freed in 1778, he spent the rest of his time negotiating with the British but failing to bring Vermont back under British rule.Based on original archival research, this is a groundbreaking account of an important and little-known front of the Revolutionary War, of George Washington (and his good sense), and of a major American myth. Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom is an important contribution to the history of the American Revolution.