1988 would prove to be the worst drought since the ‘dustbowl’ of the 1930’s.  Yellowstone would burn,  Ronald Reagan would shake his fist at the 'Evil Empire', and the author, oblivious to it all, hit the road and never looked back. That trip would consume the entire summer, logging over twelve thousand miles from sea to sea and back.  “Alone In The Wind” is the account of that trip, with pictures, maps, historical & geographical notes, and rolling narrative. A few selected excerpts: The early evening sun is bright red and except for wind slapping the tents, all is quiet.  Other campers are talking in subdued tones.  The  scene has a timeless quality I can’t explain.  Maybe it’s how I’d picture an Oregon Trail  camp.  Everybody too exhausted to do more than whisper, anticipating the day ahead, trying to forget the ones behind. Kurt Vonnegut might have written that the Custer annihilation occurred solely to provide me with a ranger to give advice on the coming storms.  That irony rattled around in my helmet for the next forty miles. Chewing mindlessly I stare at passing trucks with red eyes.  This has been an endless, grueling day.  A far cry from the mystical experience that other writers claim.  The bone numbing reality of motorcycle touring is exhaustion, dehydration, disorientation. Vacant eyes seem to be nothing more than rubber stoppers that keep my liquefied brains from spilling out over my face. Carved out by the tides, the cave is probably underwater for most of the day.  At the entrance is a rock with a well-formed depression at the top.  Without thinking I dump both bottles of Atlantic Ocean into that shallow basin, move deeper into the cave and sit.  There’s a lot on my mind, and it all seems to be demanding immediate attention.  The mission will be accomplished.  The oceans will unite.  It will take a few hours, and I won’t be here to see it, but this is a better way.  Letting the sea take it on its own terms seems more fitting. Heat was the real problem.  Both the heat of a western summer day and the heat thrown off an air-cooled engine that's being pushed to its limits.   While it was never transcendental, the passage was always very real, very immediate, and unforgettable.  Thinking back to the other riders that I met, it seemed the same for them as well.  They were all worn down with fatigue and loneliness - while at the same time brimming over with confidence and satisfaction. I won't forget them.

    Unwilling to accept her new fate, Jodi's family searches for a doctor who will join their fight against the odds. But when the surgery that could save her life thrusts her into battle with a devastating spinal fluid leak and facial paralysis, even her own children fear her new appearance and physical failings. Jodi perseveres, even with an injured body and spirit. Interweaving the inspiring, provoking, and sometimes disturbing, Jodi reveals the hells and highs of her journey as she fights for hope and purpose—and life.

    Dressed to kill and running on pure ambition, he enters the ranks of mortgage-backed securities trader twice his age, for one of the most prestigious firms in San Francisco. Life couldn't be sweeter. Butt the roller coaster ride has only just begun. Upon meeting Stephanie, an equally enterprising young real estate appraiser, his dreams appear to be unstoppable. But unbridled love too often hides the truth in its shadow and not everything is as it appears. As he discovers the world of real estate investment, experiencing a soaring financial wave never seen before in the housing market, Matt is welcomed with open arms into a seductive arena almost too good to be true. When insatiable greed raises its ugly head, jealousy and betrayal follow quickly behind. In a moment of brutal clarity, his world shatters with the realization he is merely a pawn in someone else's wicked game. Just as quickly as it all begun, the housing bubble begins to burst and his dreams slip through his fingers as he desperately struggles to hold on to a world that never really existed.

    With them we can build up a heart or with them we can break one. Words can bless and words can crush, but if they’re not founded in love they’ll always be harmful in one way or another. Love has always been expressed first through the lips. Before every romantic relationship begins, words of love come first. We communicate our hearts through our mouths, and whatever is bubbling over from our hearts spills forth from the mouth. Like a kiss on the ear a beautiful word can truly bless a soul. But a bitter word can crush a spirit. The words we use can hurt, and are often taken seriously by the one we’re speaking to. We ought not to be caught saying things we don’t actually mean, but expressing sincerity with the heart of Christ. Knowing this, we ought to devote ourselves to having holy, edifying, and loving tongues. For if the Gospel of Jesus comes from our mouths, then what are hurtful words doing there as well? One should be careful to abstain from negative talk, whether toward others or of ourselves. Consider devoting yourself to have lips full of love as you choose words that heal.

    To save a child's life she'll break all the rules... but is it already too late? The first instalment in a compulsive new crime novel introducing a female heroine like no other. For all fans of Lynda La Plante.

     Americans are angry and divided along party lines. They’re tired of the endless wars, high gas prices, and high unemployment. They’re tired of the graft in DC and on Wall Street. They’re tired of being spied on and herded like cattle into the prison industrial complex. Like in years before, they’re certain that, this time, their guy will change everything. The Republican and Democratic saviors make their promises, and the true believers swoon, but domestic terrorists aren’t buying what these politicians are selling. Truck driver George Chapman is in the right place at the right time to foil an assassination attempt on one of the most influential men in politics. Some might say the reluctant hero was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some might say it was a false flag. Nonetheless, his fifteen minutes of fame grows because of his extraordinary gift. Will he use his gift and newfound fame to unite the country or to tear it apart? A revolution is coming. Which side are you on? Adult language, content, and sexual violence.

    Until it arrives. From the desk of Honor Raconteur comes the tale of one guild, who believes in the impossible, and fight with everything they have to prevent the war they see coming. ~ Contains all three books in the trilogy "Deepwoods," "Blackstone," and "Fallen Ward," as well as "Origins," the collection of short stories.

    So why would a team of killers want to murder him and frame it as a suicide? Finn survives the encounter to discover the killers have left behind a “suicide note” detailing a dark incident from Finn’s past no one could possibly know about.Finn escapes to Musqasset Island, his former home, to seek refuge with an old friend, but soon realizes he has trapped himself on the small island with the very people who want him dead—and with old debts that need to be paid. His only hope for survival, and redemption, is to figure out who’s trying to kill him and why they’ve waited eighteen years to act—no easy task in a raging nor’easter, where communications are shaky and relationships (and Finn’s mental state) are even shakier.

    Though they pray for a solution, they find themselves unprepared for the transformation God has in store. Short story, 6,000 words, about 20 pages.

    A teacher who can show you what it takes to live to the fullest, to love until your heart bleeds out—to have it all, and then to let it all go. Now, suppose your teacher is only five weeks old. When the Sullivans are told their unborn child has a congenital heart defect, they have no idea where the news will lead them. Their dreams of bedtime cuddles and soft baby coos give way to the incessant beeping of hospital machinery and the sharp smell of antiseptic. With two young children in tow, the uprooted family takes an unexpected journey discovering the truth of love, sorrow, and ultimately, the gift of life. This true story—comprised of journal entries, letters, and emails—is the legacy of one small boy’s lifetime.

    Benjamin Pruitt plans to repair the town’s buildings before retiring to a solitary life. Sarah Campbell longs for freedom since her long task as caregiver has ended.Can Benjamin and Sarah piece the tattered remnants of their lives into a beautiful design to warm their waning years?Melinda Evaul and her husband enjoy traveling the back roads of North Carolina and Tennessee where rural culture and history are preserved through a unique art form—Quilt Barn Squares.Come follow her adventures along the Quilt Trails of America in this series of novels.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Using what Sentinel taught her, Lauren began a crusade to uncover the truth about the conspiracy of silence.But after a year of dead ends and a personal tragedy, Lauren is on the verge of giving up. Yet she can’t ignore the sudden alerts erupting across the international UFO forums about a new alien phenomenon. What are the crystal runic symbols that have started to appear all over the Isles of Orkney? Do they mean that the ancient alien race, the Angelus, are once again reaching out to humanity, and if so, why?In her search for answers, Lauren teams up with archaeologist Jack Harper. But they’re up against an oligarchy intent on suppressing the truth behind UFOs – who will stop at nothing to silence them. Can Lauren and Jack unlock the secret buried in Orkney to defend Earth against a threat set to extinguish life on our planet for ever? Earth Song is the sequel to the novella The Signal, and is also part of the Multiverse Chronicles, an epic series of interlinked stories that includes the Fractured Light trilogy and follows the struggle of humanity to survive across parallel universes.

    *Includes Cagney's own quotes about his life and career. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. *Includes a table of contents. "You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them...I'm acting for the audience, not for myself, and I do it as directly as I can." – James Cagney A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. When the American Film Institute assembled its top 100 actors of all time at the close of the 20th century, one of the Top 10 was James Cagney, an actor whose acting and dancing talents spawned a stage and film career that spanned over 5 decades and once compelled Orson Welles to call him "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera." Indeed, his portrayal of “The Man Who Owns Broadway”, George M. Cohan, earned him an Academy Award in the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy, and as famed director Milos Forman once put it, "I think he's some kind of genius. His instinct, it's just unbelievable. I could just stay at home. One of the qualities of a brilliant actor is that things look better on the screen than the set. Jimmy has that quality." Ultimately, it was portraying tough guys and gangsters in the 1930s that turned Cagney into a massive Hollywood star, and they were the kind of roles he was literally born to play after growing up rough in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. In movies like The Public Enemy (which included the infamous “grapefruit scene”) and White Heat, Cagney convincingly played criminals that brought Warner to the forefront of Hollywood and the gangster genre. Cagney also helped pave the way for younger actors in the genre, like Humphrey Bogart, and he was so good that he found himself in danger of being typecast. While Cagney is no longer remembered as fondly or as well as Bogart, he was also crucial in helping establish the system in which actors worked as independent workers free from the constraints of studios. Refusing to be pushed around, Cagney was constantly involved in contract squabbles with Warner, and he often came out on top, bucking the conventional system that saw studios treat their stars as indentured servants who had to make several films a year. American Legends: The Life of James Cagney examines the life and career of one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Cagney like never before, in no time at all.

    Of course, the 75-year-old actress and comedian has been turning out unforgettable roles for the better part of five decades, from Ernestine, the condescending telephone operator on “Laugh-In,” to Violet Newstead, the secretary in “9 to 5.” In this wide-ranging, intimate and often hilarious Kindle Singles Interview, Tomlin covers all aspects of her extraordinary life and career, turning a drab Manhattan hotel room into a one-woman show with tales of her childhood in Detroit, her early years in New York, and the origins of her classic characters.Tom Roston is a veteran journalist and author of two previous Kindle Singles Interviews, with Ted Allen and Ken Burns. Roston began his career at The Nation and Vanity Fair, before working at Premiere magazine as a senior editor. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and his book, I Lost It At The Video Store, a filmmakers' oral history, will be published by The Critical Press in September. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in New York City.Cover design by Adil Dara.