City Point Press – förlag

Here are poems that celebrate and interpret the game by one of America's finest poets. They are for everyone who has experienced the magic released when three holy things come together: bat, ball and glove. "Ethelbert Miller is one of the most significant and influential poets of our time." --Gwendolyn BrooksIf God Invented Baseball is a complete game of baseball poems, a full nine innings pitched by a “master twirler,” whose complete arsenal includes fastballs, curves and change-ups, and the occasional knuckler, to keep readers swinging for the fences, his full artistry on display. Ethelbert Miller's work captures the enjoyment of the game from childhood to old age. Baseball fans will place this book next to their scorecards, peanuts and beer. Poetry readers will equally be delighted. If God Invented Baseball is a book for the ballpark and the home. “Ethelbert's replay of baseball joys and sorrows is a must read. He brings us THE GAME with skill and grace. It is an inside the park home run” --  Clifford Alexander

A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future provides a startling, fresh new message of understanding, perspective and hope for today’s tense, rapid-fire, kaleidoscopically changing world. A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future provides a startling, fresh new message of understanding, perspective and hope for today’s tense, rapid-fire, kaleidoscopically changing world. Drawn from the writings of visionary scientist Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, extended and developed by his son Jonathan, the message of the book explodes from the past and sheds light on tensions that besiege us and the currents of discord that are raging as these words are written. More importantly, it indicates a way forward out of our current situation. Written by a world-famous doctor and folk hero, based on population data, rich in visual imagery, elegantly designed, and clearly written,  A New Reality is unique in the marketplace. Readable in one or two sittings, it is accessible to the general reader while at the same time being of essential value to policy makers and academics. Its brevity and simplicity of design belie the importance and sophistication of its message.  “We are at a point in the course of human social evolution when the demands of survival converge with the higher ideals of humankind and the well-being and flourishing of human society. It is up to us to see that we navigate this transition, adapting to and emerging in a new reality.” —A New Reality Our country is divided and polarized. Terrorism is a major threat throughout much of the world. Mass migrations are causing national and international tension. Population growth continues to increase, especially in the developing regions of the world. Controversy rages as to the use of fossil fuels versus the development of alternative forms of energy. Disagreement continues about climate change. Opposing currents of opinion collide as to how much we should help other areas in the world and how much to help ourselves. Basic values are in conflict. More than 40 years ago, Jonas Salk understood that we are at a unique moment in the history of the human species. After centuries of increase, population growth has begun to slow and is trending toward equilibrium. This change is accompanied by an equally significant change in human values—a shift from those based on unlimited availability of resources, unremitting growth, excess, independence, competition and short-term thinking to those based on limits, equilibrium, balance, interdependence, cooperation and long-term thinking. This momentous transition is the source of far-reaching tension and conflict. The way through this difficult era is to understand its basis and to focus on new values that will be of the greatest benefit to humankind. There is an urgency, however, and failure to adapt will result in disaster both for humanity and for the planet as a whole.  A New Reality delivers a message of both caution and hope. Readers across the social and political spectrum will find it a reasoned and balanced counterpoint to current social and political trends. Its elegant design and long-range perspective will appeal to general readers, policy makers, millennials, baby boomers, teachers, and students, filling a need in the marketplace for a work of positivity and wisdom in otherwise bleak times.

How any leader can deliver business-changing innovation now.Any leader in any size company, no matter the size or sector, feels the pressure to innovate, find new ideas and business models, and create enduring customer value. There is no one formula or set process to find and execute the ideas that achieve these goals; customers set moving targets, shareholders are unforgiving and demanding, and society expects companies to care about much more than the bottom line. The fast and furious forces of change stimulated by technology, demographics, lifestyles, and economic, environmental, political and regulatory impacts -- or any number of these in combination – are easy to see. They are easy to talk about. They are easy to intellectualize. The problem? The answers are hard to execute and require nuanced combinations of leadership, skills, strategy and tactics. On top of that, innovation has moved from an abstraction that will matter at some distant date to a front-and-center deliverable that must show evidence of impact in the space of the calendar quarter.  In the stories, tools, techniques and advice inside The Change Maker’s Playbook, leaders will find tangible steps to find and safeguard the plans that will deliver the sustainable business-changing impacts – new customers, new relationships, new sources of value and growth— their businesses need. Separated from the pack of academic and consultant innovation theories, Radin’s approach stems from her own experience sitting in the innovation hot seat at some of the world’s most demanding companies and is bolstered by interviews with 50 corporate executives, founders and startup investors representing media, e-commerce, payments, healthcare, government, professional services, and not-for-profit sectors. The book walks readers through Radin’s adaptive, 9-part framework, engaging them in ready-to-apply techniques. Her work shows leaders how to find the big ideas that will meaningfully address customer needs, take the insight from idea through implementation in a way that delivers in the short and long-term for the organization, and lead effectively through the obstacles that tend to derail or diminish innovation. Three phases – Seeking, Seeding and Scaling – organize the framework within an intuitive, logical and useable format, with concrete actions outlined every step of the way. The answer to the dilemma every business faces today is that innovation is exhilarating, rewarding and even fun when it is approached as a unique challenge, but it can also be polarizing, unpredictable, and scary. Success requires that leaders rethink how they lead innovation. Leaders know they must set aside preconceived notions of what works, and look to those who have already walked in their shoes. This is why The Change Maker’s Playbook was written, and why it will become an ongoing resource for any innovation leader.      Table of Contents: Foreword The Change Maker’s Framework (image) Introduction   Chapter 1: Discovering Real Problems That Matter Chapter 2: Purpose, Passion, Promise and Positioning Chapter 3: The Art Of Being Resourceful Chapter 4: Prototype, Test, Learn, Iterate Chapter 5: Business Model Linchpins Chapter 6: The Green Light Moment Chapter 7: Launch Chapter 8: Testing and Experimenting Chapter 9: Anticipating and Adapting Epilogue Acknowledgements Bibliography

The Fall of a Great American City is the story of what is happening today in New York City and in many other cities across America. It is about how the crisis of affluence is now driving out everything we love most about cities: small shops, decent restaurants, public space, street life, affordable apartments, responsive government, beauty, idiosyncrasy, each other. This is the story of how we came to lose so much—how the places we love most were turned over to land bankers, billionaires, the worst people in the world, and criminal landlords—and how we can - and must - begin to take them back. Co-published with Harper's Magazine, where an earlier version of this essay was originally published in 2018.As New York City approaches the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is in imminent danger of becoming something it has never been before: unremarkable. By unremarkable I don’t just mean periodic, slump-in-the-art-world, all-the-bands-suck, cinema-is-dead boring. I mean flatlining. No longer a significant cultural entity but a blank white screen of mere existence. I mean The-World’s-Largest-Gated-Community-with-a-few-cupcake-shops. For the first-time in our history, creative-youngpeople- will-no-longer want-to-come-here boring. Even, New-York-is-over boring. Or worse, New York is like everywhere else. Unremarkable. This is not some new phenomenon, but a cancer that’s been metastasizing on the city for decades now. Even worse, it’s not something that anyone wants, except the landlords, and not even all of them. What’s happening to New York now—what’s already happened to most of Manhattan, its core, and what is happening in every American city of means, Boston, Washington, San Francisco, Seattle, you name it—is something that almost nobody wants, but everybody gets. As such, the current urban crisis exemplifies our wider crisis: an America where we believe that we no longer have any ability to control the systems we live under.

Equal parts nostalgic, witty, self-serving, and frank, Connecticut Yankee  is an entertaining and informative memoir of the state and a scholar who shaped it. Connecticut native, Yale graduate, Yale professor and dean, and finally, unlikely Governor of the State of Connecticut during the crucial Depression years, Wilbur L. Cross’ s autobiography tells a great American story.As a Yale professor, a writer, and an editor, Wilbur L. Cross devoted himself to the English language, and specifically to understanding how novels were capable of capturing the human condition. His autobiography, Connecticut Yankee is in many ways a novel itself. The protagonist is Cross and the plot is his education. Wilbur Lucius Cross was a most unlikely politician. A noted author and literary critic who had been a professor of English, editor of the Yale Review, and finally, Dean of the Yale Graduate School, his quiet character and almost poetic oration would seem at odds with the cut-throat world of state politics. But is was just this stoic demeanor and inquisitive intelligence, that would help him make a mark on Connecticut politics during his four terms of office, from 1931 to 1939. During his time as governor, he suffered the hardest years of the Depression and worked to implement President Roosevelt’s New Deal, fought for the abolition of child labor, instituted a minimum wage, improved working conditions in factories, and guided the state’s recovery from the devastation of the Great New England Hurricane. He also strove to reorganize the state government, and would help revitalize Connecticut’s Democratic Party, which had been torn by internal strife. Cross was an excellent writer, and here—updated with a new foreword by Yale Law School graduate and author Justin Zaremby—is his compelling account of life from a childhood in the bucolic town of Mansfield, through the hallowed halls of learning at Yale University, to the highest office in Connecticut.

Reality, as Eileen Robertson Hamra perceived it, instantaneously altered the moment authorities confirmed that the plane her husband was piloting had crashed, and he had not survived.Three days before Christmas 2011 and just two miles from her parents’ home, Eileen Roberston Hamra’s husband, Brian, died alone, flying his own airplane. Overnight, Eileen lost the man she loved, and her three young children lost their father. Brian’s parents lost their son, his younger sister lost her big brother, and hundreds of people working across the globe in the tech and solar energy industries lost their mentor, their leader, their guide. Al Gore sent his condolences. After holding bicoastal celebrations of Brian’s life, for weeks, months, a year, Eileen and her children wrapped themselves in his clothing, and cocooned. Each night, under the balmy black-blue skies of Southern California, they cried, hugged, and pressed forward in ways they knew Brian would have wanted them to. Through the rollercoaster ride of loss and mourning, they were buoyed by friends, teachers, strangers, angels, and of course, family. Despite the dark sense of having been gutted, in fact because of the shadowy pangs of emptiness she experienced, Eileen learned new ways in which to shine a light and make her way toward feeling whole again. She transformed longing and loneliness into wisdom and wonder. She became more patient, compassionate, balanced, joyful, and loving than she had ever thought possible. Time to Fly is the story of how one woman chose to view the tragedy of her husband’s death as an opportunity to strengthen the bond with her children, and to wake up to her life’s purpose. It is one woman’s high-flying and turbulent journey to taking full possession of her potential by breaking beyond what she thought she would, should, and could do. Eileen Robertson Hamra moved through grief toward healing via a tough and magical spiritual awakening. Making a series of conscious choices and paying attention to a string of “coincidences” and otherworldly signs, she eventually met another wonderful man, Mike. They fell in love, got married, and set a well-respected IVF clinic record by giving birth to a miracle child when Eileen was forty-six years old. Time to Fly is a memoir not only for the bereaved and those who support them, but for anyone who believes in the power of finding the silver lining in the darkest of situations and holding on to that sliver of light, in order to turn things around. We do not have complete control over our limited time on this remarkable planet, and so in the time we do have, we must hold one another, build softness alongside resilience, and write our own flight plan

Considered by many to be one of the most unique, avant-garde works published by the Lost Generation, The Eater of Darkness is hailed as the first Dada novel published by an American. Previously out of print for more than fifty years, this new edition has been updated with a new introduction and contemporary material that pays homage to the groundbreaking life and career of author Robert M. Coates.';One of the cleverest tours de force ever contrived by the pen of a wit.' Young, charming, and fresh from a passionate jaunt in France, Charles Dograr leaves behind his French lover and returns to America to spend a year in New York City. Eager to make his year in New York one to remember, Charles leaves his boarding house room one night in search of an adventure. As he wanders, Charles stumbles into the living quarters of Picrolas, an eccentric, crazed scientist who refers to himself as ';the Eater of Darkness.' Picrolas reveals his prized invention: a remote-control x-ray machine, designed to electrocute and kill at random by shooting ';x-ray bullets' into the brains of Picrolas' intended targets. Tricked by Picrolas into releasing the trigger, Charles is instantly taken by the machine and the power it holds. After a string of murders ensue, Charles agrees to help Picrolas plot an elaborate bank heist, using the x-ray bullets to kill the bank's guards and any unlucky witnesses that happen to be on the street during the heist. As the city is terrorized by these mysterious murders, Charles becomes entangled in the fallout. Characters disappear and reappear; events spiral in a disorienting, antirealistic fashion; and genres collide in an unpredictable, dreamlike conclusion. Often compared to Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, The Eater of Darkness is many things: both an acclaimed crime novel and a study in surrealist fiction; an experimentation of style, structure, and syntax; and an innovative, avant-garde concoction from an author who wrote years ahead of his time.

History played a trick on McKinley. He has been consigned to the shadows between Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, vilified or ignored by historians . . . It is a richly undeserved fate.As Eliot Vestner demonstrates in this narrative of the political life of William McKinley, there was much more to the twenty-fifth president's tenure in office than history books allow. He was a popular president, winning a second term with ease. But only nine months into it, he was assassinated by a self-described anarchist. What more he might have accomplished is anyone's guess. He had managed to successfully pull America out of one of the worst economic depressions yet experienced, the Panic of 1893. And his controversial tariffs strengthened industry and contributed to the overall wealth of the country, as did his return of the country to the gold standard. He also led the U.S. to victory in the Spanish-American war, and implemented the first steps toward building the Panama Canal, which his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, continued. Perhaps the most under-appreciated aspect of McKinley's presidency was his advocacy for black civil rights, and his challenge to the white supremacy of the south. As governor of Ohio, he fought against lynching. He signed a ground-breaking anti-lynching bill. Ironically, as president, he had a much more difficult time combating violence and racial injustice because of the use of states' rights as justification for voter suppression and terrorism towards blacks. He pursued opportunities to advance the interests of black Americans wherever he could, but his inability to stop the lynchings and disfranchisement of blacks was most regrettable. His successors had no interest in the race issue, which remained unresolved until the 1954 court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education. This book gives McKinley his due, and thereby helps us better understand a President of the United States whose work has seemingly been overlooked by most Americans today.

An action-packed historical novel whose charismatic characters take the reader from the roaring twenties to the fiery nineties in Americas favorite left coast city. Los Angeles has never been better portrayed than by novelist James Oliver Goldsborough in Blood and Oranges.Blood and Oranges: The Story of Los Angeles tells the story of how Los Angeles got that way you know, THAT way, with Hollywood, mega-churches, impossible traffic, oil wells on the beaches, murders in the foothills, and riots in the suburbs. You have to go back a ways to understand, back to when the water came. Twin brothers Willie and Eddie Mull, a preacher and a high roller, arrive with the water and set out to make their marks. They rise with the city and reach the top. The brothers have much to answer for, especially to their children. Maggie and Lizzie, Eddie's daughters, don't like Eddie's mob ties, oil wells, or his gambling ship in Santa Monica Bay. Cal Mull, Willie's son, watches his father rise to become the nation's top evangelistic preacher, but like his idol, St. Augustine, Willie is weak in the flesh. Maggie, an aviator, wants women to fly in the war, but must get past Howard Hughes and find help in Washington. Lizzie works for the LA Times, wants women to be able to write for more than just the society pages in the paper, and does her best to get crime out of the D.A.'s department. (And what happened to the trolleys that once covered 1,100 miles of city streets, half the distance to Chicago?) The second generation of the family reacts to the first, but then must face the revolt of its own children. In Blood and Oranges, we follow and fall in love with the City of Angels as it transforms itself over three generations, rolling with the waves that lap its Pacific shores, a place of plazas and orange groves becoming something unrecognizable to those who knew it even a half century earlier. It is the story of a family with its fingers in the seminal events of a city's historythe rise and fall of institutions, neighborhoods, citizens, of the very land itself, constantly threatened by the people who call themselves its stewards.

Much-honored Washington, D.C. poet activist E. Ethelbert Miller delights and surprises us with his deft imaginings and portraits. Ethelbert's poems play out in baseball rhythm and express the joy of living, despite the bitter challenges in today's world. These poems define our time and allow us to see ourselves as human through the lens of baseball, family and music. When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories is Millers second book of baseball poems. Here he touches new bases. There are poems about Marcel Duchamp and Ornette Coleman as well as Whitey Ford and Don Larsen. Millers poems move the outdoor game indoors where there are moments of disappointment and despair. Baseball can be a blues game. Tommy John surgery is a way of holding onto hope. Many of these poems were written during the Covid pandemic. They beckon fans back to the ballpark. They remind us to enjoy a game that is precious and maybe even essential to our wellness. Coming after If God Invented Baseball, Miller seems to emerge from a literary dugout after a brief rain delay, ready to celebrate the American pastime again.

The illuminating and deeply personal debut from Gabriela Maya Bernadett, Stories My Grandmother Told Me explores culture, race, and chosen family, set against the backdrop of the twentieth-century American Southwest.In a hilly Southern California suburb in the late twentieth century, Gabriela Maya Bernadett listens as her grandmother tells her a story. It's the true story of Esther Small, the great-granddaughter of slaves, who became one of the few Black students to graduate from NYU in the 1940s. Having grown up in Harlem, Esther couldn't imagine a better place to live; especially not somewhere in the American Southwest. But when she learns of a job teaching Native American children on a reservation, Esther decides to take a chance. She soon finds herself on a train to Fort Yuma, Arizona; unaware that each year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs kidnaps the native Tohono O'odham children from the reservation and forces them to be educated in the ';ways of the White man.' It doesn't take long for Esther to notice how Fort Yuma parallels her own grandmother's story as a slave in the Souththe native children, constantly belittled by teachers and peers, are forced to perform manual labor for local farmers. One of two Black people in Fort Yuma, Esther feels isolated, never sure where she belongs in a community deeply divided between the White people and the Tohono O'odhams. John, the school bus driver and Tohono O'odham tribe member, is one of the only people she connects with. Friendship slowly grows into love, and together, Esther and John navigate a changing America. Seamlessly weaving in the present day with the past, Stories My Grandmother Told Me blends a woman's memory of her life, and that woman's granddaughter's memories of how she heard these stories growing up. Bernadett's captivating narrative explores themes of identity, tradition, and belonging, showing what it really means to exist in a multicultural America.

In 1996, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was tortured and murdered in her family home. Twenty-five years later, Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist Paula Woodward revisits the cold case to share new insider information on the heinous murder that gripped the nation.After the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, rumors and misinformation planted by Boulder, Colorado law enforcement sped rapidly around the world. Suspicion immediately fell on the family as police sought to exploit her death in the media. Prosecutors and law enforcement intentionally manipulated existing evidence and ignored inconvenient evidence. Child beauty pageant photos of JonBenet whipped the case into a judgmental frenzy. Paula Woodward was one of the few journalists who reported the family's side of the story. She's still investigating the 25-year conspiracy to convict John and Patsy Ramsey by law enforcement who acted with arrogance, insecurity, incompetence, and benign neglect. In Unsolved, the follow-up to Woodward's award-winning and acclaimed true crime expose We Have Your Daughter, Woodward explores outstanding questions still swirling around the cold case: Who wrote the baffling ransom note? What was found in the 11 pages of exclusive police report summaries backgrounding the Ramseys? And why has the case languished for years? Included in the book are new, exclusive interviews with John Ramsey, his wife Jan, and his son John Andrew as they look back at the case, 25 years later, and react with stunning candor. New photos and reports from JonBenet's teachers, friends, and family cut through the sensationalized headlines to show who JonBenet really was. Interwoven throughout the book is expert commentary on what the actual evidence shows, and whether the killer might ever be caught. With never-before-released evidence from a now-passive investigation, Unsolved presents the known facts of the killing of JonBenet Ramsey, the bizarre yet intriguing aspects of this ongoing mystery, and gives you rare insight into whether a family member or an intruder savagely murdered JonBenet.

Set in the blighted industrial landscape of the Los Angeles basin, Dreamland Court is an underground love story.Just out of prison, Johnny Dalton returns home to find his wife Jackie, the mother of his two small children, passionately involved with one of his good friends. Doing everything in his power to win her back, Johnny blunders his way through one criminal enterprise after another. When the cops pick him up for being the only adult present at a wild teenage party, he's sent back to jail. The strange thing is, as far as Jackie is concerned, Johnny's maneuvers actually work. Reminiscent of the pathos in Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn, and the comedy of John Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, Dale Herd focuses his astute gaze on lives that are ordinarily invisible, while turning the conventional love story on its head. ';...and I like Dale Herd for prose.' Allen Ginsberg, Poetry Flash ';No one writes American better than Dale Herd. His writing is like some bastard offspring of a liaison between Charles Bukowski and Joan Didionunflinching and streetwise as Bukowski, but with Joan Didion 's unfailing clarity and intelligence.' Lewis MacAdams, Wet Magazine, a Journal of the Avant-Garde ';Herd has an acute sense of what people say as against what they mean. This creates the tension in the prose: that something emotionally unbearable is being spilled out into completely bearable talk.' Keith Abbott, on Wild Cherries, San Francisco Review of Books ';Known for his brilliant short prose pieces as published in the books, Early Morning Wind, Wild Cherries, Diamonds, and Empty Pockets, Dale Herd is a meticulous recorder of the language we move around in, and he possesses the skill and guts to take it all the way. His underground novel Dreamland Court is simply a masterpiece.' Kevin Opstedal, Blue Press Books

You Should Smile More: How to Dismantle Gender Bias in the Workplace empowers women and men to unlock a culture of greatness in the workforce—one little thing at a time. Written by six C-suite women with a collective resume covering 29 industries, the book offers a completely new lens through which to talk about and tackle the stubborn remnants of gender bias at work.“In the business world, barriers to inclusion are barriers to success,” states a line from the book’s Introduction. “Diversity breeds better solutions faster if people feel comfortable in their environment.” But from small indignities to unconscious slights, women experience situations at work every day that may seem small or unimportant but that effectively differentiate and exclude them. These are not #MeToo moments - they are micro-offenses; the small, awkward, or uncomfortable moments that slow-build until the unwelcome environment takes hold and women disengage. Situations the authors address range from things like use of the term “girl” versus “woman,” watching male colleagues leave work for a social event where women colleagues were left off the invite list or hearing that a qualified woman shouldn’t be offered an assignment because she has small children at home. You Should Smile More shows witnesses, allies, supervisors, and women at every level in their careers how to dismantle everyday gender bias, based upon the latest research, personal accounts, and interviews with dozens of professionals, both women and men. Widely known as a meme, the title itself is now a call-to-action against the very advice women so frequently hear from male colleagues or bosses. The authors spotlight these all-too-familiar moments, offering realistic strategies every witness can use to confront and productively address them. The information within the book finally advances women in the corporate workplace as equals and advances organizations on the path to creating cultures of true inclusion. The authors call themselves “The Band of Sisters” and have collectively seen it all, from the bottom rung to the boardroom. They know firsthand how hard it is to navigate these gendered situations in the moment.  Now they share their experience with a forward-looking eye -- often with humor, and in a way that recognizes the realities of the workplace. With this book as a guide, The Band of Sisters are ready to: +      Help anyone to recognize and effectively respond to these micro-moments rooted in gender bias. +      Pave the way for their ultimate elimination, through shared participation. +      Allow organizations to build high-performance cultures that truly value and include diverse perspectives and experiences.  Gender bias has been part of our workplaces for too long. We are at the point now where all of us who are in the workplace, around conference tables, water coolers and in Zoom meetings, must make the next push for real change.

In Heroes are Human: Lessons in Resilience, Courage and Wisdom from the COVID Front Lines, we read gripping first-hand accounts by those thrust into the depths of the crisis.This book is a must-read for health care workers who have been besieged by the ongoing pandemic, for those who love them, and for any reader wanting to gain a deeper understanding of their immense sacrifices and struggles. Heroes are Human also offers invaluable self-care insights in the face of trauma. The book’s central voice and guide, Bob Delaney, is an internationally respected and experienced figure in the field of post-traumatic stress. His powerful message to front-line caregivers is that they are not alone. Delaney, along with co-author and award-winning journalist Dave Scheiber, published Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob (Sterling Publishing, 978-1-4027-5442-2, Hardcover, 2008; 978-1-4027-6714-2, trade paper, 2009) and Surviving the Shadows: A Journey of Hope into Post-traumatic Stress (Sourcebooks, 978-1-4022-6355-2, 2011). Covert is the true story of Delaney’s undercover life in a landmark 1970s Mafia investigation, dubbed “Project Alpha,” for which he risked his life wearing a wire as a young New Jersey State Trooper,  taking on a new identity as a mob associate. He also writes about his overcoming PTSD through the sport of basketball, and career as an elite NBA referee. Surviving the Shadows tells the stories of brave men and women whose lives were plunged into despair by post-traumatic stress but who learned to cope, with Delaney’s help, by sharing their struggles with others who underwent similar trauma. For more than a quarter of a century, Delaney was a fixture as a referee on the hardwood courts of the National Basketball Association (NBA). But what Delaney did—and has done—off the courts defines his true legacy: It is his less visible, life-saving work of the last four decades, helping active members and veterans of the U.S. armed forces, law enforcement, fire fighters, and first responders—the often under-appreciated heroes who put their lives on the line for the rest of us every day—cope with the devastating effects of post-traumatic stress. Delaney comes by his healing wisdom from hard-won experience. He learned about PTSD first-hand, developing the condition after emerging from his grueling and prolonged undercover work. Helping others suffering from the debilitating effects of post-traumatic has been a driving force in his life. Former President Barack Obama and senior-ranking military leaders have honored Delaney for his contributions to PTSD awareness—stemming from his multiple visits with U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. In addition, Delaney was twice awarded the U.S. Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, presented by General Raymond T. Odierno (retired U.S. Army Chief of Staff) and Four-Star General (ret.) Robert W. Cone. In 2020, the NCAA bestowed its highest honor on him: the Theodore Roosevelt Award, previously given four U.S. presidents (Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan). More recently, Delaney has become deeply involved with the prestigious Harvard Global Mental Health initiative, which focuses on traumas and psychological burdens experienced throughout the world.

One can watch many baseball games before seeing a triple play. With this book E. Ethelbert Miller completes his baseball trilogy. How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask is a collection of poems that celebrates baseball by putting a spin on how the game brings meaning to one’s life.Well known Washington, D.C. poet, former Howard University professor, and literary activist, Ethelbert Miller is personal and political when writing from the batter’s box or pitching mound. Here are poems that tip their caps to Joe DiMaggio, Ken Griffey Sr., and Emmett Ashford. Miller's book does not duck from examining the Black Sox Scandal, the career of Glenn Burke or the tragedy of Carl Mays. Miller’s own life at times is a playing field for sadness and what Ellington called “mood indigo.” But his love for baseball is a complete game and continues to reflect the hard heat of pleasure. After If God Invented Baseball and When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and other Baseball Stories, this book, like a triple play, is a thing of beauty. “Baseball should create a new position, poet laureate, and give it to E. Ethelbert Miller. In his third collection of baseball poems (‘a double turning into a trilogy,’ as he writes), Miller weaves knuckleballs and pickoff throws with universal themes of family, race, relationships—and the issues of our time, like rioting and voting rights. With allusions to Monbouquette and Giacometti, Henderson and Danticat, How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask will make you laugh, think and feel a whole new way about baseball and the world around it.”—Tyler Kepner, national baseball columnist for the New York Times and author of the best-selling K: A History of Baseball In Ten Pitches "Ethelbert Miller is one of the most significant and influential poets of our time." --Gwendolyn Brooks

Ruin is a thoroughly engrossing novel about a young couple’s struggle back from financial catastrophe that so many of us dread. Having fled their urban life, they begin to build a new life together in a rural setting, far from former friends and colleagues—only to have it fall apart all over again in ways that could never be predicted.Frank Campbell, a thirty-something former founding owner of a high-flying New York City-based hedge fund, has gone bankrupt, losing not only all his own money but the entire inherited fortune of his artist wife, Francy. The couple take refuge in an abandoned Hudson Valley farm shared with a resident herd of congenial goats. Frank is deeply shaken by the life-changing loss that has so thoroughly ruined their life together. Frank tries to build a new microbrewery business on a shoestring but is haunted by the memory of passages from literature he revered as an undergraduate at Yale before jumping into finance. For Francy, her altered circumstances, after a lifetime of privilege, have galvanized her work as an artist and she distances herself from her struggling husband. In the midst of it all, Frank takes up fly fishing on the nearby river, aspiring to join the local fishing club. Tragedy ensues during a fishing contest, further framing Frank as a “loser loner” in life. Only when he turns to fly fishing in earnest, traveling the world in search of the ever more perfect and elusive trout (and one memorable carp), does he find his way forward in “the yowling madness” of the world.

Rom coms, meet cutes, mystery men, courageous women, and the happy endings of today draw a direct line to the words between the covers of Emilie Loring’s romance novels.With a career spanning 40 years, Emilie Baker Loring saw millions of her books sold during her lifetime. Happy Landings: Emilie Loring's Life, Writing and Wisdom shares this best-selling author’s uplifting story for the first time. Loring’s books brimmed with intricate plot twists, intense imagery, and page-turning excitement, setting her works apart from the drugstore novels of the early- to mid-20th century. Her oft-quoted phrases are part of the American lexicon. Her readership has continued long after her passing. Now with generations of readers, Loring’s books have sold more than thirty-seven million copies in a dozen languages. And now Emilie’s own compelling life story is finally told in full. With never-before-published photographs, privileged access to the Loring family archives, and twenty years of meticulous research, Patti Bender reveals a woman who lived as she wrote, with intelligence, humor, and wisdom. "After all, living is the greatest thing we'll ever do.   Why not make an art of it?" (Emilie Loring) Emilie Loring lived through two World Wars, a pandemic, the Great Depression, and deep, personal loss with her optimism intact and thirty best-selling novels to show for it. This is a woman’s story in swiftly changing times for women; a charming story with little-known anecdotes about prominent authors; and the story of a writer in the making, with advice and encouragement for aspiring authors. "I am personally grateful to Patti for filling out a dim, long-ago picture of my grandmother. Her skillful, sensitive portrait brings Emilie alive for me and adds many new dimensions--hard working, organized, feminist--with an extraordinary sense of optimism, and faith that things would turn out all right." --Valentine Loring Titus, Emilie Loring's granddaughter

The Ivy Hero is the true story of Sergeant William (Bill) Shemin, child of immigrants, an American soldier who fought in World War I.  Dedicated, fearless, and brave, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously in 2015 by President Barack Obama.Why The Ivy Hero? Sergeant Shemin fought with the U.S. Army’s 4th Division, which is known as the “Ivy” Division because the Roman Numeral for 4 is composed of an I before a V—IV—so its nickname is “IVY.” The Ivy Division’s motto, mirroring the way the ivy plant itself grows, is “steadfast and loyal.” After serving in World War I in the Ivy Division, Bill Shemin used the ivy plant as the logo for his tree and plant business. And “steadfast and loyal” was how he lived his life. He passed along his values of patriotism, education, close family ties, and hard work to three children and 14 grandchildren. Long after his service in the Army was over, Bill’s daughter, Elsie Shemin-Roth, waged her own battle for many years to have the U.S. government award him the Medal of Honor that rightfully should have been awarded at the time of his service in World War I. The book also features Henry Johnson, an African American soldier who, like Bill, fought bravely and heroically in World War I—not far away from the battlefields where Bill fought in France in 1918. Like Bill, Henry Johnson’s bravery in saving his fellow soldiers’ lives went unrecognized with a Medal of Honor in his lifetime, even though his actions certainly called for one. William Shemin was discriminated against because he was a Jewish American, and there was a pronounced mood of anti-Semitism in the United States in 1918. Henry Johnson was discriminated against because he was African American at a time when African Americans were severely discriminated against in the U.S. Army and throughout American life. Both Bill Shemin and Henry Johnson were awarded posthumous Medals of Honor by President Obama, due in no small measure to the efforts of their family members. Although much progress has been made, racial and religious discrimination have been with American society from the birth of our country to the present day. The struggle for equality and freedom continues, as people try to make the United States a “more perfect union.” The pain and suffering of war and discrimination run through this story, but it has a hopeful ending. And much can be learned from the lives and experiences of these heroes!

Can fiction save us? Is there hope for America in the time of Trump, pandemics, QAnon, and the end of genuine political discourse? What better than this perfectly told novel to tell the story of so many of us to ourselves, as we seek hope and solace in terrible times.Andy McKnight had never seen anything like it; nobody had. The election of this man was breaking up families across the nation – wives and husbands, children and parents, lifelong friends, the fabric of American social life torn apart as it hadn’t been since the Civil War. The venom even seeped into his own happy home. Then came the pandemic, two plagues at once – even in the Bible they were one at a time. He tried escaping into the past, back to better times, but Max and Elly, an old man and a young girl he met on the streets of Santa Monica, jolted him back to reality. With others like them – mad as hell and not going to take it anymore – maybe it wasn’t too late after all.

Can fiction save us? Is there hope for America in the time of Trump, pandemics, QAnon, and the end of genuine political discourse? What better than this perfectly told novel to tell the story of so many of us to ourselves, as we seek hope and solace in terrible times.Andy McKnight had never seen anything like it; nobody had. The election of this man was breaking up families across the nation – wives and husbands, children and parents, lifelong friends, the fabric of American social life torn apart as it hadn’t been since the Civil War. The venom even seeped into his own happy home. Then came the pandemic, two plagues at once – even in the Bible they were one at a time. He tried escaping into the past, back to better times, but Max and Elly, an old man and a young girl he met on the streets of Santa Monica, jolted him back to reality. With others like them – mad as hell and not going to take it anymore – maybe it wasn’t too late after all.

The controversy over who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays has been around almost since they were written. Was the genius behind the plays really that obscure glover’s son from Stratford? Or was it someone else entirely—a man whose class, background, education, and peculiarities make him a more than plausible candidate?In The Which of Shakespeare’s Why, a 21st-century playwright named Harry Haines makes the case for a major contender via a play he himself is writing for a struggling New Jersey theatre company. Faced with strong disapproval from the “Stratfordites” and with the backing of supporters that sometimes takes some unusual forms, Harry attempts, against great odds, to get the play written and staged. In the process he has to overcome his own doubts, stay on the right side of the right people, keep his romantic life under control, and deal with not only a difficult actress or two but a flock of opinionated Rockettes. Part hilarious farce, part serious critical examination, The Which of Shakespeare’s Why provides a thought-provoking look at a controversial puzzle with a surprising, ingenious, and wholly satisfying ending that Shakespeare—whoever he was—would have given a standing ovation.  

Calling to mind Basho¯’s late life journeys through the backcountry of Japan, two women poets in a well-worn Honda hit the road for a legendary pilgrimage in a far-flung (pre-pandemic) landscape of American poetry.Although a road trip across North American calls to mind Jack Kerouac’s youthful meanderings of self-discovery, this reading tour was more in the manner of Basho¯’s late life journeys through the backcountry of Japan. . . . The road trip was in a sense a pilgrimage of reengagement with their calling as poets, and a chance to reacquaint with like-minded friends, old and new, in a far-flung landscape of American poetry. Venues would include upscale bookstores, coffee houses, museums, legendary used bookstores, botanical gardens, university classrooms, art centers, and artist coops—in short, a unique sampling of poetry environments tracing an arc across the Southern States, the Southwest, and up the West Coast before hooking back to the Rockies. Framed as a personal challenge, the poets hit the road much in the manner of itinerant preachers and musicians, lodging at discount motels, funky hostels, Airbnbs, and with friends along the way. Adding a social media touch, Maureen and Barbara created a blog of their tour so that friends, family, hosts, and fellow poets might also share in their adventure. ­—from the Introduction by Pat Nolan

Calling to mind Basho¯’s late life journeys through the backcountry of Japan, two women poets in a well-worn Honda hit the road for a legendary pilgrimage in a far-flung (pre-pandemic) landscape of American poetry.Although a road trip across North American calls to mind Jack Kerouac’s youthful meanderings of self-discovery, this reading tour was more in the manner of Basho¯’s late life journeys through the backcountry of Japan. . . . The road trip was in a sense a pilgrimage of reengagement with their calling as poets, and a chance to reacquaint with like-minded friends, old and new, in a far-flung landscape of American poetry. Venues would include upscale bookstores, coffee houses, museums, legendary used bookstores, botanical gardens, university classrooms, art centers, and artist coops—in short, a unique sampling of poetry environments tracing an arc across the Southern States, the Southwest, and up the West Coast before hooking back to the Rockies. Framed as a personal challenge, the poets hit the road much in the manner of itinerant preachers and musicians, lodging at discount motels, funky hostels, Airbnbs, and with friends along the way. Adding a social media touch, Maureen and Barbara created a blog of their tour so that friends, family, hosts, and fellow poets might also share in their adventure. ­—from the Introduction by Pat Nolan

The poet lives inside and outside of life.In the little book of e poet E. Ethelbert Miller embraces the Japanese poetic form of haiku to comment on our contemporary world. Written during the pandemic Miller’s poems follow in the tradition of Basho and Richard Wright. the little book of e is a collaboration with translator Rafi Ellenson. Haiku presented in English and Hebrew is symbolic of how language can bring people together. Miller and Ellenson have given us a book that shows how Black and Jewish relations can continue to be a beacon of hope. This book is filled with words that blossom like flowers.

Es posible convertir la tragedia en un regalo. Cuando el esposo de Eileen Robertson Hamra, Brian, muri repentinamente en un accidente areo, la vida que haba imaginado para ella y sus tres hijos pequeos desapareci de la noche a la maana.Tiempo de volar relata el camino de Eileen a travs de un duelo devastador, seales inesperadas y un profundo despertar espiritual. En este recorrido aprendi que poda honrar el amor perdido sin renunciar a la vida que an tena por delante. Al abrir su corazn otra vez, descubri nuevo amor, una familia ms grande y una verdad profunda: no siempre podemos elegir lo que nos sucede, pero podemos elegir cmo vivir la historia que viene despus. Tres das antes de la Navidad del 2011, Brian, el esposo de Eileen Robertson Hamra, muri repentinamente en un accidente areo, dejndola con un dolor inimaginable y tres hijos pequeos que deba criar sola. En la vida que nunca plane vivir, Eileen comenz a notar algo extraordinario: seales, coincidencias y momentos de conexin que desafiaban todas sus creencias sobre la prdida y que poco a poco la guiaban para que sanara. Lo que comenz como un recorrido a travs del duelo termin convirtindose en un profundo despertar espiritual. Aprendi que seguir adelante no significaba dejar atrs a Brian ni el amor que compartieron. Tiempo de volar: la vida y el amor despus de la prdida narra el viaje de Eileen de una prdida devastadora hacia su recuperacin, el reencuentro de un propsito y un nuevo captulo inesperado. Fortaleci el vnculo con sus hijos, volvi a abrir su corazn al amor, se cas con Mike y trajo al mundo a otro hijo a los 46 aos. Ms que una memoria sobre el duelo, Tiempo de volar nos cuenta lo que ocurre cuando la vida que planeaste deja de ser tu vida. Es una historia sobre la resiliencia, el amor y sobre aprender a confiar nuevamente en el mundo. Nos recuerda que no siempre podemos elegir lo que nos sucede, pero podemos elegir cmo vivir la historia que viene despus.

In early Spring of 2022, the author boarded a 52-foot sailboat to cross the Atlantic with a close friend and a captain and sailor he did not know.From the start of the 2,600-mile trip, from St. Martin in the Caribbean to the Azores off Portugal, things went awry— with the captain, the boat, the weather and, most precipitously, the author’s state of mind. As a recreational sailor with no experience of being out of sight of land, the author’s darkest fears materialized as the small crew sailed through squalls then gales and, finally, a tropical storm with near-hurricane force winds. In Crossing, Glyn Vincent explores why he ventured into the middle of the ocean in the first place, and how he first fell in love with the sea. He describes his unsettled childhood in New York City, his parents’ tabloid existence (his mother was the Broadway and television actress Betsy von Furstenberg) and the itinerant, unstable lives of his grandparents and great-grandparents, whose troubled history goes back on his mother’s side to a Gothic castle in Germany and on his father’s side to an orphanage in Alexandria, Egypt, and a massacre in Damascus in 1860. In the end, this enthralling memoir is as much about the storm Vincent inherited and harbored within, as it is about the one he encountered at sea.

Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick. A fiercely feminist novel cataloguing the innumerable obstacles encountered by young women in the 1970s and 1980s.Ana Fried is a struggling filmmaker fighting to step out of her mothers shadow. While researching the essence of Indian goddesses at Mount Abu for a film she was writing, a bout of malaria sends her back to her childhood suburban home. In her fever dreams, she relives her time at Yale during the early years of coeducation, where she first fought the many men who refused to take women artists seriously. Anas filmmaking journey takes her from the high-stakes New York art scene to the gritty blues clubs of Memphis. Along the way, she navigates toxic relationships and mentors who try to control her talent. Ana returns to Manhattan to finish her film, The Cyborg Goddess, and stop playing it safe. Confronting the ghosts of her past, she determines to finally stop letting others define her and claim her own voice. Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman is a powerful #MeToo story from a different era, exposing the dark side of sexual liberation and the systems designed to keep women small and under control. This novel will inspire anyone who has ever dared to choose their art to live a true life of independence and personal empowerment.