My Remarkable Little Monkey


Mark Lages - 2017
    It is a decision that will soon change his life. The capuchin monkey he purchases turns out to be more than just an ordinary little tree-swinging pet. This monkey, named Shakespeare, is exceptionally bright. Marty does everything he can think of to accommodate his furry brilliant friend, but it just doesn’t seem to be enough. Join Marty and his group of unforgettable friends as they try to give Shakespeare a proper upbringing in an unpredictable human-oriented world. In My Remarkable Little Monkey, the outlandish becomes a reality and the status quo becomes unbelievable. Once you are done reading, you’ll put this book down while scratching your head and wondering what just happened.

The Note Through the Wire: The Incredible True Story of a Prisoner of War and a Resistance Heroine


Doug Gold - 2019
    One an underground resistance fighter, a bold young woman determined to vanquish the enemy occupiers; the other a prisoner of war, a man longing to escape the confines of the camp so he can battle again. A crumpled note passes between these two strangers, slipped through the wire of the compound, and sets them on a course that will change their lives forever.Woven through their tales of great bravery, daring escapes, betrayal, torture, and retaliation is their remarkable love story that survived against all odds. This is an extraordinary account of two ordinary people who found love during the unimaginable hardships of Hitler’s barbaric regime as told by their son-in-law Doug Gold, who decided to tell their story from the moment he heard about their remarkable tale of bravery, resilience, and resistance.

A Kilo of String


Rob Johnson - 2017
    Most, but not all. A Kilo of String is the story-so-far of this not-particularly-plucky couple’s often bewildering experiences among the descendants of Sophocles, Plato and Nana Mouskouri with occasional digressions into total irrelevances. This is a book which is almost guaranteed not to change your life, but what it will do is answer many of the fundamental questions about life in Greece, such as: How do you avoid ordering a double tomato for your pine marten when booking a hotel room? Should olive harvesting be registered with the Dangerous Sports Association? Why are chicken livers useful (other than to the chickens themselves)? Oh yes, and there are some serious bits too about how life in Greece has changed since the beginning of the economic crisis.

Jonesy: Put Your Head Down and Skate: The Improbable Career of Keith Jones


Keith Jones - 2007
    The improbable hockey career of Jonsey started in 1992, when he was with the Washington Capitals. After a brief stint in Colorado, Keith was traded to Philadelphia, where is hard work, dirty play and colorful personality made him one of the more popular players in recent history. Jonsey is the story of Keith s career in the league as well as all of the interesting stories he accumulated over the course of his career, playing with some of the leagues best players in the last 15 years, including Peter Forsberg, Joe Sakic, Mark Recchi and Eric Lindros. The book will include a forward written by Hall of Fame defense-man Ray Bourque.

Nurses On The Inside: Stories Of The HIV/AIDS Epidemic In NYC


Ellen Matzer - 2019
    It is the story of two nurses who witnessed the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic from the frontline. It focuses on their lives and their experiences. Some of the story is raw, sometimes graphic, but familiar for people with HIV infection, family members, friends, and other nurses and medical professionals such as Ellen and Valery. There were hundreds of nurses who went through what Ellen and Valery experienced. They want to tell this story to give a voice to a generation lost, encouraging the world to remember one simple thing: this history cannot be repeated.

Paw Prints In Oman: Dogs, Mogs and Me


Charlotte Smith - 2014
    But playing tennis, avoiding coffee mornings and being a perfect wife and mother in the Middle East is not enough. Charlotte convinces a local veterinary clinic to employ her and throws herself into assisting the vets, overcoming her fear of birds and rehoming hundreds of stray cats and dogs. Cyclones, earthquakes, transvestites, unwanted paramours, cultural differences, tears and laughter follow as seven years flash by. Will Charlotte stay, or gather up the motley crew of pets she has collected and head for home? Charlotte was born, raised and lived in West Sussex, UK, with her children, animals, Aga and husband until 2006. She dreamed of spending time with Colin Firth, or Gordon Ramsey, and couldn't wait for Christmas to come around for Love Actually to be on the TV. But then she was dragged off to live in Oman, in the heart of the Middle East, where coffee mornings and sets of tennis soon gave way to a life of animal rescue and re-homing. Her first book, Paw Prints in Oman, is full of wonderful stories and unique insights into her life in this mystical land.

On Pills and Needles


Rick Van Warner - 2018
    In the years of pain and heartache that followed as he tried to save his son from opioid addiction, Van Warner discovered what the American public is just now becoming aware of: opioids prescribed for even minor pain relief are so addictive that even a few days of use can create dependency. On Pills and Needles is a memoir that also serves as a wake-up call and crash course in opioid addiction. Through his harrowing personal story, Van Warner exposes the common causes of opioid addiction, effective and ineffective ways it has been treated, and how families can walk alongside loved ones who are dealing with the daily realities of addiction.

The House on Sunset


Lindsay Fischer - 2015
    When her boyfriend of a year-and-a-half cheated on her, Lindsay found herself alone, looking online for a replacement. His name was Mike. That’s where the nightmare started. The House on Sunset is a memoir, a collection of reminiscences, scattering the ashes of two broken homes and putting them to rest. Each chapter offers a different glimpse inside the cycle of intimate partner violence, where honeymoon phases and traumas coexist. Everyone could fall victim to abusers. This book bravely displays the reasons a quirky, twenty-something teacher would, and did.

Death Rattle


Sean Lynch - 2019
    . . THE LEGEND BEGINS In 1863, a teenaged boy fled his home in Atherton, Missouri, to escape the power-hungry men who murdered his father and stole his family's land. He joined the Confederacy under an assumed name and led guerilla raids in the Civil War. Then came a decade as a Texas Ranger. Now, after ten blood-soaked years, he is finally coming home. Finally using his real name. And finally getting revenge against the cold-hearted devils who destroyed his family and his life . . .This is the story of Samuel Pritchard. Now a small town sheriff with a long history of violence, a deep sense of honor, and wild streak of justice as dangerous as the guns that made him famous . . ."A riveting thriller that bristles with hard-boiled authenticity." --bestselling author Mark Greaney on Thy Partner's Wife "Sean Lynch spins a tale that is fast, fun and realistic." --Bestselling author James O. Born on Like Hell

Still Alive: A Wild Life of Rediscovery


Forrest Galante - 2021
    As a wildlife biologist and conservationist, Galante devotes his life to studying, rediscovering, and protecting our planet’s amazing lifeforms. Part memoir, part biological adventure, Still Alive celebrates the beauty and determined resiliency of our world, as well as the brave conservationists fighting to save it.  In his debut book, Galante takes readers on an exhilarating journey to the most remote and dangerous corners of the world. He recounts miraculous rediscoveries of species that were thought to be extinct and invites readers into his wild life: from his upbringing amidst civil unrest in Zimbabwe to his many globetrotting adventures, including suspenseful run-ins with drug cartels, witch doctors, and vengeful government officials.  He shares all of the life-threatening bites, fights, falls, and jungle illnesses. He also investigates the connection between wildlife mistreatment and human safety, particularly in relation to COVID-19.  Still Alive is much more than just a can’t-put-down adventure story bursting with man-eating crocodiles, long-forgotten species rediscovered, and near-death experiences. It is an impassioned, informative, and undeniably inspiring examination of the importance of wildlife conservation today and how every individual can make a difference.

Bitter Bronx


Jerome Charyn - 2015
    These stories are informed by a childhood growing up near that middle-class mecca, the Grand Concourse; falling in love with three voluptuous librarians at a public library in the Lower Depths of the South Bronx; and eating at Mafia-owned restaurants along Arthur Avenue's restaurant row, amid a "land of deprivation…where fathers trundled home…with a monumental sadness on their shoulders."In "Lorelei," a lonely hearts grifter returns home and finds his childhood sweetheart still living in the same apartment house on the Concourse; in "Archy and Mehitabel" a high school romance blossoms around a newspaper comic strip; in "Major Leaguer" a former New York Yankee confronts both a gang of drug dealers and the wreckage that Robert Moses wrought in his old neighborhood; and in three interconnected stories—"Silk Silk," "Little Sister," and "Marla"—Marla Silk, a successful Manhattan attorney, discovers her father's past in the Bronx and a mysterious younger sister who was hidden from her, kept in a fancy rest home near the Botanical Garden. In these stories and others, the past and present tumble together in Charyn's singular and distinctly "New York prose, street-smart, sly, and full of lurches" (John Leonard, New York Times).Throughout it all looms the "master builder" Robert Moses, a man who believed he could "save" the Bronx by building a highway through it, dynamiting whole neighborhoods in the process. Bitter Bronx stands as both a fictional eulogy for the people and places paved over by Moses' expressway and an affirmation of Charyn's "brilliant imagination" (Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune).

The Unquiet Daughter


Danielle Flood - 2016
    Home comes and goes, like thoughts, like the clouds drifting over our slightly wild blue garden. It doesn't make sense, for I am loved by my husband and our children who scamper in and out during the day. I am loved by the dog even, who likes to listen with me to opera in the evening. Still, the feeling that home is somewhere in general and nowhere in particular returns, quite predictably, when I remember my mother." --So begins THE UNQUIET DAUGHTER: A journalist born of the wartime love triangle that inspired the one in Graham Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN, searches for her father after barely surviving a bizarre youth of privilege, estrangement and cruelty. As she yearns for her father's love and presence -- and that of anyone in her family abroad who was kept from her -- Danielle's tall, beautiful, French and Vietnamese mother leaves her in burlesque house dressing rooms in the American Midwest, in convent schools in Long Island and Dublin, and with strangers in New York City. Meanwhile she lies to Danielle about who they are and their past for decades in this sometime-humorous near-tragic love story between a daughter and a mother and more. In the end we learn if Flood's journey through the truth of what happened between her parents in early 1950's Saigon satisfies her life-long quest for who she is. A story of resilience and love on many levels. A tale of the power of love."Powerful," "compelling," "heartbreaking," "a gripping story of self-doubt and self-discovery." --PUBLISHERS WEEKLY"The similarities in THE UNQUIET DAUGHTER between Flood’s parents’ lives and the plot of Graham Greene novel, THE QUIET AMERICAN, “are tantalizingly close, far too close to be coincidental; as Flood writes in the Prologue: ‘I came from a love triangle much like the one Greene describes in his novel. I am the sequel he never wrote.’“…As sequels go, Danielle Flood’s life story could easily be a Graham Greene novel, full of dark twists and turns, betrayals, heartbreak and the saddest of all forms of unrequited love …“…moving and at times imbued with humour…the tension is all too believable, but so is the joy…forgiveness and healing are at the heart of the story and the author’s ability to forgive is almost as powerful as the complex plot itself.” --THE CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT"I loved it." -- Sara Nelson, as books editor of O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE."THE UNQUIET DAUGHTER by Danielle Flood is the true story of an exceptional woman. It takes the reader on an amazing journey. Exotic, mysterious, exciting, and romantic.Bravo Danielle Flood. It's a classic." -- Oscar-nominated actor Elliott Gould"When I was 13 or so, the Vietnam War in full flower, reading Graham Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN let me appreciate fiction in a whole new way. Years later, Danielle Flood's riveting memoir-cum-mystery-story has let me appreciate Greene and his novel - and the intersections of fiction and nonfiction - in new ways. Such a story! And so beautifully told." -- Kurt Andersen, novelist, host of the public radio show STUDIO 360"Holy Moly, Mother of God...It's a knockout...Ferociously honest and gorgeously written, Flood's memoir is a fiercely tragic story of her search for her real father, her knotted relationship with her complicated mother-and her hard-won understanding of herself. About memory, love, loss and time, Flood's engrossing debut shines like mica and is as polished as platinum." -- Caroline Leavitt, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author."Passionate and unflinchingly honest, this is a fascinating memoir...Danielle Flood is the child of an affair so much like the one described in the love triangle of Greene's novel, THE QUIET AMERICAN that she is perfectly right to make her startling claim, 'I am a sequel he never wrote." --Michael Shelden, author, GRAHAM GREENE THE ENEMY WITHIN"In Danielle Flood's clear eyed memoir of her early life with her exquisitely beautiful and deeply troubled mother, this truth echoes: the fact that a child could survive such emotional devastation and cruelty is a testament to her resilience and her valiant spirit." -- Leslie Daniels, author, CLEANING NABOKOV'S HOUSEFor a limited time, you can read and excerpt -- the prologue and the first two chapters -- of THE UNQUIET DAUGHTER at http://www.danielleflood.com

American Spirit: Profiles in Resilience, Courage, and Faith


Taya Kyle - 2019
    But what happens if you use challenge as an opportunity to discover your PURPOSE? These Americans did and are changing the world. After losing her husband, "American Sniper" Chris Kyle, bestselling author Taya Kyle entered a period of deep grief. And yet the experience served as a catalyst for profound growth. Taya found her own reserve of strength with the help of the generous love and support of family and friends—and also many strangers across America, who selflessly shared their own stories of suffering, survival, and triumph. Inspired by her experience, Taya discovered her calling: spreading a message of how love, passion, and service can combine to help us persevere over personal pain and heal our communities.Working with trusted collaborator Jim DeFelice (coauthor of American Sniper and American Wife), Taya tells her own story, as well as those of other Americans who have built extraordinary lives after traveling down life’s most difficult roads—through loss, illness, all manner of setback. They embody the “American spirit” of resilience, faith, togetherness that has built the nation.American Spirit profiles more than 30 individuals, young and old, rich and not-so-rich, famous and unknown, who have overcome hardship and done extraordinary things for their communities and for the nation at large. The 9/11 survivor, badly burned over 60% of his body, who asked himself What debt do I owe to God? And to my fellow human beings? What am I supposed to do with this miracle of survival? The man with the hole in his heart who runs ultramarathons. The young cancer victim whose lemonade stand inspired a revolutionary new model for fighting cancer. The blind cyclist; the pastor who became an undercover investigator, and more.In the end, these stories teach us how to find purpose and heal the world, no matter the difficulty. “Every action, big or small,” Taya writes, “has the potential to spark someone else’s movement.”

Love Story: The Hand that Holds Us From the Garden to the Gate


Nichole Nordeman - 2012
    Based on the #1-selling Christian album The Story (EMI/WOW), lyricist and Grammy-nominated artist Nichole Nordeman helps readers embrace God’s relentless, loving pursuit of the most weak and sinful among us from the beginning of time.

The Camino Way: Lessons in Leadership from a Walk Across Spain


Victor Prince - 2017
    Each year, hundreds of thousands of peregrinos make their way through rugged countryside and medieval towns in order to reflect, test their will, and join a community of strangers on a shared mission. In short, it's the ideal training ground for authentic leadership.Challenged to walk the Camino, Victor Prince began his trek as one person: driven, work-focused and highly competitive, and he finished it a very different one: more balanced, more caring, and more present in the moment. In this transformative book he guides readers on their own Camino, translating his experience into seven essential leadership lessons inspired by the values emblazoned on the back of every pilgrim's passport:Treat each day as its own adventure ● Make others feel welcome ● Learn from those who've walked before ● Consider your impact on those who follow ● And moreLeadership is a journey. The Camino Way prepares you to tackle it with a pilgrim's heart, a wayfarer's grit, and a leader's vision.