Over And Back

A fast-paced, riveting and vividly told story of unknown and true aviation adventure in the spirit of the legendary Air America. An abundance of actual photos accompany the 328 pages of text. Throughout, the author entertains with gut busting laughs and anecdotes of some truly extraordinary aviating the likes of which will never be seen again. Summer 1984. A lone, desperate pilot arrives in the blistering heat of the south Texas border city of McAllen. Searching for a flying job, he finds old aircraft flying south in the dead of night, their cabins overloaded with electronic contraband. They were headed for clandestine airstrips deep into Mexico's interior. With pockets full of hope and not much else, the pilot's fragile lives hung literally on both engines running. Read about the incredible adventures, the hair raising escapes, the long prison terms and death that await them south of the border. Read about the inherent danger in flying the dark, sinister Sierras and landing at blacked out, improvised airstrips. Dealing with corrupt and ruthless Mexican authorities, pilots found their well-being hung by a tenuous thread. Everyone, north and south, had a price. For more than a few, that price was death. "While not exactly a fountain of information, Chuck did manage to leave me with an uplifting reflection as I ambled away from his esteemed presence. I think he had sensed my apprehension. Offhandedly, he said that no one had been killed since early June. My pace slowed a bit as that uncertain benediction hit home like a June bug smackin' a Harley driver's eyeball. Whap! I took a quick look at my Seiko watch, a long-lived holdover from another asylum of anxiety called Vietnam. The day/date showed Jun/21. Maybe he meant last June? I thought. I turned to ask but changed my mind. With a somewhat dampened spirit, I returned to my metal abode for more contemplation. Keeping my options open grew more appealing for now."

Brett’s most recent manic episode has derailed him from life as the director of operations at a prominent software start-up in Texas. He is now at home, fully dependent on his mother, and officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Brett is terrified. He has no guarantees on his long-term health, no understanding of how his medication works and is still dealing with hell-like anxiety, restlessness, mania, and depression. Crossing Back Over: The Practice of Owning and Accepting Bipolar Disorder details Brett’s battle with taming the beast that is bipolar. Written in the same style as part 1 of his story, Crossover: A Look inside a Manic Mind, Crossing Back Over sheds light on what true recovery looks and feels like from a firsthand account. No matter the environment, recovering from a serious event takes hard work, discipline, patience, and acceptance. Crossing Back Over allows the reader to peek behind the curtain of an individual determined to find a happy life, even with his chronic brain disorder. This book is valuable for anyone who is facing a deeply personal challenge.

In The Last of the Doughboys, Richard Rubin introduced readers to a forgotten generation of Americans: the men and women who fought and won the First World War. Interviewing the war’s last survivors face-to-face, he knew well the importance of being present if you want to get the real story. But he soon came to realize that to get the whole story, he had to go Over There, too. So he did, and discovered that while most Americans regard that war as dead and gone, to the French, who still live among its ruins and memories, it remains very much alive. Years later, with the centennial of the war only magnifying this paradox, Rubin decided to go back Over There to see if he could, at last, resolve it. For months he followed the trail of the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front, finding trenches, tunnels, bunkers, century-old graffiti and ubiquitous artifacts. But he also found an abiding fondness for America and Americans, and a colorful corps of local after-hours historians and archeologists who tirelessly explore these sites and preserve the memories they embody while patiently waiting for Americans to return and reclaim their own history and heritage. None of whom seemed to mind that his French needed work. Based on his wildly popular New York Times series, Back Over There is a timely journey, in turns reverent and iconoclastic but always fascinating, through a place where the past and present are never really separated.

The long-awaited autobiography of legendary singer Tom Jones, following six decades of unparalleled experiences in the spotlight to coincide with his 75th birthday. Across six decades, Sir Tom Jones has maintained a vital career in a risky, unstable business notorious for the short lives of its artists. With a drive that comes from nothing but the love for what he does, he breaks through and then wrestles with the vagaries of the music industry, the nature of success and its inevitable consequences. Having recorded an expansive body of work and performed with fellow artists from across the spectrum and across every popular music genre, from rock, pop and dance to country, blues and soul, the one constant throughout has been his unique musical gifts and unmistakable voice. But how did a boy from a Welsh coal-mining family attain success across the globe? And how has he survived the twists and turns of fame and fortune to not only stay exciting, but actually become more credible and interesting with age? In this, his first ever autobiography, Tom revisits his past and tells the tale of his journey from wartime Pontypridd to LA and beyond. He reveals the stories behind the ups and downs of his fascinating and remarkable life, from the early heydays to the subsequent fallow years to his later period of artistic renaissance. It's the story nobody else knows or understands, told by the man who lived it, and written the only way he knows how: simply and from the heart. Raw, honest, funny and powerful, this is a memoir like no other from one of the world's greatest ever singing talents. This is Tom Jones and Over the Top and Back is his story.

From New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author! After taking his new snowboard for a ride in the mountains of Colorado, Peter Bailey is stunned to find himself in Transadonia - a hidden world that coexists alongside with the Earth. Peter soon learns that the shiny, new snowboard was crafted especially for him by the smiths of Transadonia. Now, Peter's help is needed to defeat the evil mastermind who is threatening the freedom of Transadonia's magical inhabitants. Just why has Peter been chosen for this daunting task, and does he have the mettle to complete it? Lara Grover never listened to her elders, so warnings like "do not talk to strangers" mean nothing to her. When a boy from an unknown world saves her from an avalanche with the aid of a snow dragon, Lara is not stunned in the least. Instead, she joins Peter on his quest to help him realize the purpose behind his arrival to Transadonia. Together, Lara and Peter embark on an adventure filled with perils, trickery, betrayals, and unexpected alliances.

Ann Beattie, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Bausch, and twenty-one other celebrated American writers contribute to this moving anthology of fiction, compiled by the editors of the Glimmer Train literary quarterly. In the ten-plus years since Susan Burmeister-Brown and Linda B. Swanson-Davies founded Glimmer Train, they have introduced an astonishing array of talented and innovative authors to a growing readership hungry for inspiring fiction. The stunning stories in this anthology -- many of which have never appeared anywhere except in Glimmer Train Stories -- explore one of the most complex emotional and psychological ties of all: motherhood, and its many facets. The writers in Mother Knows include established authors as well as up-and-coming talents like Junot DÍaz and award-winning writers like Robin Bradford, Nancy Reisman, Lee Martin, and Doug Crandell. Their stories demonstrate that motherhood is more than toilet training and tantrum control, as they portray the full, fierce, joyous, and frightening range of experience that marks this state of being. Mother Knows is a thoughtful and powerful exploration of the most mysterious bond in life.

“A glimpse into the fragile psyche of a dancer.” —The Washington Post Jenifer Ringer, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, was thrust into the headlines after her weight was commented on by a New York Times critic, and her response ignited a public dialogue about dance and weight. Ballet aficionados and aspiring performers of all ages will want to join Ringer behind the scenes as she shares her journey from student to star and candidly discusses both her struggle with an eating disorder and the media storm that erupted after the Times review. An unusually upbeat account of life on the stage, Dancing Through It is also a coming-of-age story and an inspiring memoir of faith and of triumph over the body issues that torment all too many women and men.