Martin Swans Diary: Black Water Crossing


Kyle Keyes - 2011
    He only replied to the want-ad because the wording linked Florida with Washington DC and wanted someone who could speak Arabic. The year was 2008. Jobs were scarce, gas prices high. The back page ad called for a big rig driver with a clean record, who could be at Black Water Crossing the day before Halloween. As fate would have it, a quirky satellite blackout occurred before the government agent could complete the overseas agreement. A follow-up call led nowhere. Thus, the mid-east connection never fell victim to a federal communications dragnet – nor could Martin Swan detail the pending threat against Washington, or where the explosives would come ashore.

Tuesdays with Morrie


Mitch Albom - 1997
    Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you? Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying of ALS - or motor neurone disease - Mitch visited Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final 'class': lessons in how to live.

The Orphan Keeper


Camron Wright - 2016
    It takes months before the boy can speak enough English to tell his parents that he already has a family back in India. Horrified, they try their best to track down his Indian family, but all avenues lead to dead ends.Meanwhile, they simply love him, change his name to Taj, enroll him in school, make him part of their family—and his story might have ended there had it not been for the pestering questions in his head: Who am I? Why was I taken? How do I get home?More than a decade later, Taj meets Priya, a girl from southern India with surprising ties to his past. Is she the key to unveil the secrets of his childhood or is it too late? And if he does make it back to India, how will he find his family with so few clues?

These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901


Nancy E. Turner - 1998
    Scrupulously recording her steps down the path Providence has set her upon—from child to determined young adult to loving mother—she shares the turbulent events, both joyous and tragic, that molded her, and recalls the enduring love with cavalry officer Captain Jack Elliot that gave her strength and purpose.Rich in authentic everyday details and alive with truly unforgettable characters, These Is My Words brilliantly brings a vanished world to breathtaking life again.

The Unicorn Tree


Cynthia Collins - 2012
    During the tour, she begins to suspect that Mirabelle’s ghost is watching her. One of the items on display is a diary, open to a passage about going to a place called the unicorn tree to watch for ships. This appeals to Lisa whose brother is currently sailing across the Atlantic on a commemorative voyage. When news arrives that his ship is lost at sea, her interest in the diary deepens as the past and present lead her to discover what happened.This new edition is significantly revised from the original version and is available in Kindle and paperback formats.

Caught in a Web


Joseph Lewis - 2018
    The drug trade along the I-94 and I-43 corridors and the Milwaukee Metro area is controlled by MS-13, a violent gang originating from El Salvador. Ricardo Fuentes is sent from Chicago to Waukesha to find out who is cutting in on their business, shut it down and teach them a lesson. But he has an ulterior motive: find and kill a fifteen-year-old boy, George Tokay, who had killed his cousin the previous summer.Detectives Jamie Graff, Pat O’Connor and Paul Eiselmann race to find the source of the drugs, shut down the ring, and find Fuentes before he kills anyone else, especially George or members of his family. The three detectives discover the ring has its roots in a high school among the students and staff.

The Basketball Diaries


Jim Carroll - 1978
    Jim Carroll grew up to become a renowned poet and punk rocker. But in this memoir of the mid-1960's, set during his coming-of-age from 12 to 15, he was a rebellious teenager making a place and a name for himself on the unforgiving streets of New York City. During these years, he chronicled his experiences, and the result is a diary of unparalleled candor that conveys his alternately hilarious and terrifying teenage existence. Here is Carroll prowling New York City--playing basketball, hustling, stealing, getting high, getting hooked, and searching for something pure.

One Child


Torey L. Hayden - 1980
    Six-year-old Sheila was abandoned by her mother on a highway when she was four. A survivor of horrific abuse, she never spoke, never cried, and was placed in a class for severely retarded children after committing an atrocious act of violence against another child. Everyone thought Sheila was beyond salvation—except her teacher, Torey Hayden. With patience, skill, and abiding love, she fought long and hard to release a haunted little girl from her secret nightmare—and nurture the spark of genius she recognised trapped within Sheila's silence. This is the remarkable story of their journey together—an odyssey of hope, courage, and inspiring devotion that opened the heart and mind of one lost child to a new world of discovery and joy.

As It Was: Poetical Works


Louise Hayward - 2018
    A little mystery, excitement, intrigue and magic. Some surprises for you, some joy and happiness too. Hope of another day, another life, another way for our future. 'As It Was' is most of all about hope. A hopeful now brings us a hopeful future.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values


Robert M. Pirsig - 1974
    Pirsig's Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an examination of how we live, a meditation on how to live better set around the narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's Northwest, undertaken by a father & his young son.

The Lion's Tail


Luna Miller - 2018
     Gunvor Strom may be in her sixties, her hands might be too shaky to perform operations and her body complains every time she works out. But her mind is as sharp as her scalpel. And she embraces change. After the divorce, she moved from a well-heeled Stockholm satellite to the far-from idyllic, inner suburb of Fruängen. It gets a little lively, but she likes being in the middle of things. She’s smart, experienced and innocent-looking – all qualities appreciated by a detective agency. As the agency’s rookie, she gets a surveillance job. A straightforward case, they say. Typical domestic. A wife suspects infidelity. Just track the husband. But when the husband is attacked and viciously beaten, his wife calls off the assignment. Too late. Gunvor is on the trail. The agency aren’t paying her, but her free time is her own business. After intervening in an incident of bullying, Gunvor finds herself with two unlikely allies. David is a young, jobless waster who hangs about Fruängen tube station. 19-year-old Elin is shy and introverted, after spending too long in her bedroom hiding from her parents’ fights. Out of curiosity, the pair join forces with Gunvor. Who’s going to notice two young people and an elderly lady slinking around the Stockholm streets? Only someone who’s watching their every move, biding his time, waiting to pounce. Curiosity can be deadly. A story of violence, madness, passion and bravery. A cat-and-mouse game of life and death. Never play with the lion’s tail.

A Sibling in Always


Ernest Gordon Taulbee - 2016
     This stylized novel uses mythology as a base for a narrative that examines the nature of life by exploring the ways we die.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden


Hannah Green - 1964
    It is not a case history or study. I like to think it is a hymn to reality." —Joanne Greenberg

The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story


Richard Bach - 1982
    It is intimacy.""Look in a mirror and one thing's sure: what we see is not who we are.""Next to God, love is the word most mangled in every language. The highest form of regard between two people is friendship, and when love enters, friendship dies.""There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go."

Into the Wild


Jon Krakauer - 1996
    McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, a party of moose hunters found his decomposed body. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw away the maps. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.