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The Grass Swale: Living with Guilt, Depression, and Ptsd

by Mickey Thomas

At the age of fifteen Mickey loses his older brother who is killed in a car accident; an accident that took split second timing for two cars to come in contact on a remote highway in rural Iowa. At age twenty he arrives in Vietnam as a Marine infantryman. The Grass Swale is a section of a trail in Vietnam that changes the lives of six Marines, including the author, who lives with the mental anguish and nightmares caused by post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The walk with Mickey down the gras... more

Where Did My Life Go? A Towering Experience

by K.D. Sanders

The story is about a dream of a teenager who wants to become a rock star drummer, He moved from Florida to California in search of fame and fortune to capture his dream. He found a band and played gigs around the San Francisco Bay area then moved to Los Angeles to make it in the music business. After months of playing in the band, determined to make it as a musician, not letting any obstacle stand in his way, even to go so far as living in his van. The band broke up and moved back to San Francis... more

This Side of Freedom: Life After Clemency

by Anthony Papa

"This Side of Freedom: Life After Clemency" is a riveting, compelling tale about the life of activist, writer and artist Anthony Papa. He tells firsthand of his experience of returning home after serving 12 years of a 15-to-life sentence for a non-violent drug crime sentenced under the mandatory provisions of the Rockefeller Drug Laws of New York State. In 1997 he was granted executive clemency by New York Governor George Pataki. Papa says that the freedom he fought so hard to get, ... more

Dear Rita

by William Baird

Dear Rita is a love story gleaned from the letters of a young Marine during World War II. These letters, and the hand-drawn illustrations on the accompanying envelopes, give a uniquely candid look into the passionate love and steadfast devotion that kept this Marine going in the throes of war. Preserved for 70 years, the letters were kept private, read only by George and Rita, until Rita’s passing in 2014. Now, the abridged letters - supplemented with anecdotes from George’s own oral history of ... more

Missionary Kid: Born in India, Bound for America

by Margaret H. Essebaggers Dopirak

This story, a memoir, delves into the mind and heart of a little girl who lived in two different worlds - one, of her white-skinned privileged American missionary parents, and the other, of the brown-skinned Indian people in whose country they lived and worked, and into which she was born. The missionary lifestyle and the work of her parents are described through the eyes of the author, who spent all but 3 years of her childhood in India when it was still under British rule. In her first f... more

Wolf Land

by Carter Niemeyer

Carter Niemeyer has followed wolves – and captured many – since he helped reintroduce them in the Northern Rockies in the mid-1990s. In his second memoir, Wolf Land, he takes us across the rugged West as he tracks wolves, shares in their lives, and seeks middle ground for these iconic animals, both on the land and in our hearts.

Don Perry Produced the Music: My Journey Through the Golden Age of Rock and Roll

by Don Perry

A Texas Tale of the Depression

by Wanda Harris Arnold

This story covers the time tunnel of the Great Depression in an area of Texas that had not changed for several decades and would continue to progress only slowly until the 1960s—the Panhandle. It is a child's view of the brutal realism of the time, the smells, the blood, the cold, the lack of sanitation, and the rigidity of the adults surrounding her. It is the story of the author's first year in a school where parents are entertained with a prejudicial skit about African Americans, where a teac... more

Secrets and Shadows

by Mad Wolf

This book takes my personal experiences from childhood to the point of Living with PTSD for many years. I cannot speak for all Vietnam Veterans and only for myself. Coming from a middle class family and enjoying growing up till a war changed everything and created an atmosphere of resentment, bitterness and hopelessness for the future. As a Marine Corps drill instructor once said. “It's our job to take kids straight out of high school whose biggest worry was getting a prom date and transforming ... more

An Everyday Miracle

by Jennifer Muszik

In February 2015, everything changed in an instant for Jennifer Muszik. One moment she had a healthy, loving husband who embraced his role as stay-at-home dad for their three children. The next moment, she was dealing with a shocking reality: Paul was on life support and the doctors did not think he would make it through the next hour-much less the night. Jennifer soon learned Paul was suffering from toxic shock syndrome and hung precariously between life and death while she helplessly watche... more

What Once Broke ‘Me’

by Rosie Banyan

In 2013 I had been transported back to the fear, the confusion and grief that I lived so long ago. I felt trapped. I used to leave my body and escape the world when it was like this. After working so hard I finally reached my breaking point. I wanted to hide, I wanted to scream, I wanted out. So in answer to the question asked “What sort of person just drops everything and steps out of their life?” I can tell you a desperate one. I had to revisit my childhood horror of sexual abuse to finally fo... more

Thunder's Glory

by Loryn Kramer Staley

Cory Horton is a passionate young swim coach when he decides he is ready to go after what he wants: his own elite swim team. With the chance to coach a second Olympic hopeful, Horton is ready to roll the dice, even if it means he has to live like a pauper for the rest of his life. But first, he must find his new team--Memphis Thunder--a pool. After he secures a practice pool, Horton immerses himself in recruiting talented athletes for his team, including a rising star he hopes to send to the ... more

Goodbye, My Children

by Angela Diener

The story of an American family which travels to Germany to join their U.S. Air Force husband, and father to live in a small village where no one spoke English. When a next door neighbor invites herself into their daily lives, speaking only German phrases and uses pantomime to communicate, she endears herself to them. Life becomes a series of events, some comical, some aggravating yet tender, interspersed with some calamitous and fearful experiences, with this neighbor affecting every moment ... more

Dear Mom and Dad

by Georgia Lee McGowen

Much has been written both about and by people who feel they were assigned the wrong body at conception, exploring the struggles and too often the tragedies that result from that mismatch of nature. Very little has been written, however, to chronicle the lifelong struggle of people to understand and come to terms with two distinct sets of emotions, one male and one female – a single soul, at times divided, at times united, by two clearly identifiable spirits. Dear Mom and Dad: You Don't Know Me,... more

Full Circle

by Erin Callan Montella

In Full Circle, Erin Callan Montella traces her experiences as a young girl in Queens, New York to the highest-ranking woman on Wall Street during the financial crisis as chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Erin recounts her path of achievement starting as a promising young student and athlete and, ultimately, how she allowed her career and its demands to become the center of her life. She sacrificed all other priorities and relationships along the way, throwing work-... more

What Papa Told Me

by Felice Cohen

What Papa Told Me is the story of Murray, a young Jewish boy from Poland whose courage and sheer will to live helped him survive eight different labor and concentration camps in the Holocaust, start a new life in America, and keep a family intact in the aftermath of his wife's suicide - one of the Nazis' last victims. Written by his granddaughter Felice, what makes this book unique is that in between chapters are snippets of dialogue between Felice and her grandfather from when they worked toget... more

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