Soviet Baby Boomers traces the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of Russia into a modern, highly literate, urban society through the life stories of the country's first post-World War II, Cold War generation. Illuminating a critical generation of people who had remained largely faceless up until now, the book reveals what it meant to "live Soviet" during the twilight of the Soviet empire.

After a multi-faceted career, M.L. (Mike) VanBlaricum has turned his attention to writing poetry and musing on his life as a Baby Boomer. The author is a prototypical Boomer. He was born in 1950 and went off to college to study engineering in the explosive year of 1968. He grew up in small towns in Illinois where he developed a fascination with science, the trombone, nature, and girls. This collection of poems, essays, and musings includes memories and reflections of being a free-range child in the Fifties, a restrained teenager in the Sixties, a college student in the Seventies, and a rambunctious retiree in the Tens. VanBlaricum's accessible writings are laced with wry humor, musical references, and surprise endings. The subject matter ranges from lost loves, the importance of puppy love to the wonderment of real love, what it means to be a Baby Boomer, teenage angst, ruminations on kite-flying and teeter-totters, a fascination with clouds, toads, and moons, and observations and sideways ponderings on natural phenomena. The internal dialogue between engineer and poet bookends this collection.

While many books examine the effect that adult baby boomers have had on the country, politics, and society, few have dealt with the formative years of this influential generation-until now. Inspired by the recollections and nostalgic conversations from his fiftieth high school reunion, "typical" baby boomer Fred Arnow sets out to describe the events and environment in which he grew up. The result is a sometimes serious, often humorous examination of the world that shaped a generation. Focusing his remembrances around the graduating class of 1964, Arnow summons up powerful memories of growing up in the 1950s and coming of age in the 1960s, comparing them with the often turbulent world boomers occupy today. Baby Boomer Reflections is more than nostalgia. Arnow has created a storehouse of powerful memories boomers can share with their children and grandchildren, offering a chance to pass on the wisdom of a lifetime-a chance he wishes someone had offered him when he was a brash young man on the cusp of adulthood. Relive the events-good and bad-that made the boomers who they are. This is their story, set down on paper so that it will never be forgotten.

In Boom!, Tom Brokaw, one of America’s premier journalists and the acclaimed author of The Greatest Generation, gives us an epic portrait of another defining era in America: the tumultuous Sixties. The voices and stories of both famous people and ordinary citizens come together in this “virtual reunion” as Brokaw takes us on a memorable journey through a remarkable time, exploring how individuals and the national mood were affected by a controversial era and showing how the aftershocks of the Sixties continue to resound in our lives today. In the reflections of a generation, Brokaw also discovers lessons that might guide us in the years ahead. Race, politics, war, feminism, popular culture, and music are all delved into here. Brokaw explores how members of this generation have gone on to bring activism and a Sixties mindset into individual entrepreneurship , as we hear stories of how this formative decade has shaped our perspectives on business, the environment, politics, family, and our national existence. Remarkable in its insights, wonderfully written and reported, this revealing book lets us join in these frank conversations about America then, now, and tomorrow. Praise for Boom! “Tom Brokaw does an excellent job of capturing an exciting, controversial period in American history and Boom! is a worthy addition to his growing canon.”–New York Post “[Tom Brokaw] approaches this magnum opus with warmth, curiosity and conviction, the same attributes that worked so well for his Greatest Generation.” –The New York Times “[A] verbal scrapbook of the Sixties . . . [Boom! shows] that the era’s core issues–racism, women’s rights, a nation-dividing war–remain central today, and that the values boomers championed haven’t yet gone bust.” –People (four stars) “Packed with memorable people, places, events . . . A ‘virtual reunion’ of 1960s folks telling what they did back then, where they’ve been since and how they assess that tumultuous decade.” –Chicago Tribune “Genuinely fascinating recollections . . . plenty of memorable anecdotes.” –The Wall Street Journal

Martin H. Levinson lived in Brooklyn from his birth in 1946 to 1962, the height of the baby boom following World War II. He grew up two blocks from Ebbets Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and attended Erasmus Hall High School, which boasts alums such as Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, and chess-wiz Bobby Fischer. The author's personal recollections of his middle-class childhood in Brooklyn during the 1950s alternate with chapters detailing seminal cultural events of that era including the advent of television, fast-food restaurants, big cars with fins; desegregation and the white flight to the suburbs; rock and roll, beatniks, hula hoops, The Kinsey Reports, the Cold War, McCarthyism, Playboy, and much more. Part memoir, part social history, Brooklyn Boomer offers a captivating portrait of Brooklyn and America in the mid-twentieth Century.

Throughout the years, Lisa and her dad had a tenuous relationship. In her youth, she was disappointed and angered by his behavior, distancing herself from him and blaming him for the sudden end to their intact comfortable family life. As a young adult and after her father's sudden heart attack, Lisa was given a second chance to heal their relationship. Over the next three decades they became closer, enjoying time together, including travel. When her dad entered his eighties, and while still raising her own children, Lisa found herself unprepared for his steady health decline. Suddenly, she was thrust into the role of overseeing his care as he began to experience increasing disability and the beginnings of dementia. Not having prepared for or anticipated such a role, Lisa floundered as she attempted to address his ever-changing situation. The closeness and healing they had achieved was challenged as her father resisted conversations about his failing health and his care, exacerbated by a western medical system that fell short to prepare them for the end of his life. A moving tribute to a remarkable man and a daughter's experience of losing her dad, A Chance to Say Goodbye gives rise to reflections about what is important in living and dying.