Picture by Lance Fairchild Photography A Man finds a despondent and brutally abused eight-year-old boy in a garden and although he is on the verge of suicide, the Man is able to convey that he cares for the boy. After that initial meeting, the Man and the boy begin a series of dialogues. He helps the boy become a child of God, and He encourages him to always be child like as he gains enlightenment. As the boy acquires wisdom, he learns to listen with his heart, mind, and soul. Using the messages in the Bible, the Man teaches the boy truths about life's greatest mysteries, including, physics, cosmology, the arts, and human nature. Over the course of their discussions, the boy grows from a miserable eight-year-old to a well-rounded nineteen-year-old. The Man becomes his teacher, friend, and spiritual father. With the Man's guidance, the boy solves his problems and becomes strong. Find out how the heavens and the earth are tied together, examine the nature of faith, and celebrate the power of good over evil in The Man and a Boy.

“This crazy, gorgeous family novel” written at the end of the Great Depression “is one of the great literary achievements of the twentieth century” (Jonathan Franzen, The New York Times). First published in 1940, The Man Who Loved Children was rediscovered in 1965 thanks to the poet Randall Jarrell’s eloquent introduction (included in this ebook edition), which compares Christina Stead to Leo Tolstoy. Today, it stands as a masterpiece of dysfunctional family life. In a country crippled by the Great Depression, Sam and Henny Pollit have too much—too much contempt for one another, too many children, too much strain under endless obligation. Flush with ego and chilling charisma, Sam torments and manipulates his children in an esoteric world of his own imagining. Henny looks on desperately, all too aware of the madness at the root of her husband’s behavior. And Louie, the damaged, precocious adolescent girl at the center of their clashes, is the “ugly duckling” whose struggle will transfix contemporary readers. Named one of the best novels of the twentieth century by Newsweek, Stead’s semiautobiographical work reads like a Depression-era The Glass Castle. In the New York Times, Jonathan Franzen wrote of this classic, “I carry it in my head the way I carry childhood memories; the scenes are of such precise horror and comedy that I feel I didn’t read the book so much as live it.”

Having worked closely with Harry S. Truman in the triumphant campaign of 1948, Jonathan Daniels believed that President Truman was an "everyday" American, an ordinary human who aspired to greatness and achieved it. Thus, it was Daniels's intention that The Man of Independence not be a conventional biography; rather, he wanted it to reveal in real terms "the Odyssey of the 'everyday' American through our times." As a result, this comprehensive work not only presents Truman's life, it also details the development of the America in which the president grew up. Truman spent his youth and his political life believing that old- fashioned, determined conservatism was vital to the preservation of personal liberty. Daniels re-creates Truman's remarkable journey through life--employing newspapers, letters, memos, family papers, as well as interviews with Truman, his family, and his close acquaintances. In the process, Daniels provides powerful evocations of the time during which Truman lived. Daniels tells this extraordinary story by following this simple farm boy from Missouri through his youth and his years as a farmer, a veteran, and a businessman, on to his early career in politics, and then his presidency. Along the way, Daniels deals with issues, events, and ideas that were part of Missouri and American politics in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s; ultimately, he gives us the Truman who was to become the legend. This inside account provides thought-provoking and personal information about Truman. His relationship with Thomas Pendergast, the seeming conflict between Truman's midwestern conservatism and his belief in equality for American blacks, and his momentous decision to use the atomic bomb to end the war--these are just a few of the topics touched on. Ending in 1949 when Truman was for the second time sworn in as president, The Man of Independence provides a fascinating and valuable look at one of America's most important and beloved presidents, as well as a crucial look at the America from which he emerged.

What's the most courageous thing you've ever done?

An epic coming-of-age novel about the bonds and history between two men that intertwine their families together—for better and for worse. Steve is a seventeen-year-old runaway when he meets, Juan, the son of a fugitive drug lord. The two work together, deep in the Calaveras Mountains of California, on a large marijuana-growing operation run by Juan’s father. Their friendship is fueled by the brutal conditions and horrific events that define their day-to-day lives. The utter loneliness of their world creates a lasting bond, and the boys finally escape. Steve knows the two will be friends for life—but Juan hopes they will be something more. When they grow to manhood, Juan’s love for Steve endures. Steve marries, has children, and fulfills his dream of becoming a journalist for San Francisco’s leading newspaper. Juan becomes a famous artist who loves Steve’s son as though the boy was his own, confessing to Steve that, “He is the only part of you that I can ever claim.” By turns heartbreaking, emotional, and provocative, And Yesterday Is Gone is a must-read novel about the changes—unexpected, unacceptable, and life-threatening—that can alter our lives over the decades.