EARLY DEPARTURES FOR THE SUN, is a book that consists of literary compositions and poetry that details how violence permeates our lives, and destroy family and friends before their time. The book also chronicles the terrible ordeals of children living in foster care and adoptive homes after their parents lose their rights only to be abuse and neglected in the very homes the government swear to protect them. Violence leaves a permanent stain in the heart of parents that now have to bury their babies that have become innocent heroes in man's sad effort of disagreeing violently.

Once humanity dreamt of stars and built space AIs to help reach them. But AIs grew beyond our control and now keep humans bottled up in the solar system. Join captain John Lester on his voyage from Titan Primary Space Station back to Earth! Written as an homage to golden age sci-fi and with specifically created images from designer M Rigaux, take a ride aboard John’s ship, in this age where humanity strives to keep its place in space.

The world’s second-wealthiest country, Japan once seemed poised to overtake America. But its failure to recover from the economic collapse of the early 1990s was unprecedented, and today it confronts an array of disturbing social trends. Japan has the highest suicide rate and lowest birthrate of all industrialized countries, and a rising incidence of untreated cases of depression. Equally as troubling are the more than one million young men who shut themselves in their rooms, withdrawing from society, and the growing numbers of “parasite singles,” the name given to single women who refuse to leave home, marry, or bear children. In Shutting Out the Sun, Michael Zielenziger argues that Japan’s rigid, tradition-steeped society, its aversion to change, and its distrust of individuality and the expression of self are stifling economic revival, political reform, and social evolution. Giving a human face to the country’s malaise, Zielenziger explains how these constraints have driven intelligent, creative young men to become modern-day hermits. At the same time, young women, better educated than their mothers and earning high salaries, are rejecting the traditional path to marriage and motherhood, preferring to spend their money on luxury goods and travel. Smart, unconventional, and politically controversial, Shutting Out the Sun is a bold explanation of Japan’s stagnation and its implications for the rest of the world.

Number five of nine journeys in the "And There I Was" series begins in 1998 at the crossroads of civilizations---Istanbul---where the beautiful and haunting sounds of Adhan are heard once again. From there it's on to Eastern Turkey---Kurdistan---where the author hooks up with an old traveling friend before pushing on to the Black Sea and the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Armenia. Meet a Kurdish resistance fighter, visit the purported landing site of Noah's Ark, attend a Kurdish wedding, survive a visit to a Turkish haman and stand in the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the world as you trod in the footsteps of the prophets Abraham and Job. Spend a week with three sisters in Tibilisi, capital of Georgia, land of Kings and Queens and dine with a smuggler then head for the rugged Caucasus and the remote mountain outpost of Kasbegi on the Russian border where you learn to make katchapuri and drink the local cognac amidst rusting Russian tanks. By train, travel across Georgia and into Armenia beneath the shadow of Mt. Ararat---a country made entirely of grey stone with a dark mood to match. With the immensely talented daughter of a Russian Politburo member mourn with the rest of the country at the eternal flame atop a hill marking the genocide of eighty years past when the Armenians were nearly extinguished as a people. Finally, marvel at the origins of Orthodox Christianity in churches dug out beneath the earth where refuge was sought and listen to the most beautiful, emotion-drenched song ever before sung.