Happy Valley College will resonate with baby boomers that attended college during the Vietnam War and that dealt with the angst, uncertainties and challenges emanating from that crazy period in time. It is at once a feel good story about college life in the 60’s, ala “Animal House” and some of the cynicism of The Catcher in the Rye, but with a strong undercurrent of the Vietnam War and the emotions of a college student dealing with the military draft. College adventures are juxtaposed with war horrors of death and amputation. The reader will remember Dave Pedersen for his wealth and breadth of college and growing up experiences, and for the pain, frustration and anxiety while wrestling with options to meet his military service obligation in a way that preserves his relationship with a fellow college coed. Happy Valley College takes the reader on a journey of transition from the early carefree years of college to the realities of the Vietnam War and military draft. The story takes place at a small state college in northern California, far from the urban centers and large university hotbeds of anti-war activity. While unintended, the story also brings to light many similarities between the Vietnam War and the War in Iraq. Younger readers will gain an understanding and appreciation of the military draft system in place in the 1960’s, while baby boomers will experience a mix of refreshing nostalgia and quiet reflection.

How do you know with any certainty that the person you marry is not going to torment you for the next twenty years? Dave Pedersen, an incurable romantic that writes poetry to his lady friends, gives up his long-held bachelorhood when he feels he has met the perfect lifetime mate, and he ties the knot with the cute little brunette, Carla. But Carla is not the sweet, demure girl that Dave believed her to be during their short courtship. The marriage plunges Dave into a painful proverbial marriage from hell with an adulterous, accusatory psycho, and he must decide how much of the controlling, lunatic Carla and her verbal and physical abuse he can tolerate to keep the family together. After a divorce, Dave must endure Carla’s maniacal, tormenting behavior and nonstop venom to keep communication lines open with his children. His marriage and divorce problems are juxtaposed against his once enchanting and memorable life as an unmarried man, which in itself results in torturous reflection as he deals with Carla. Enter Carla’s childhood neighbor, Billy of a criminal mind-set, an ex-convict with prison time, and the already unbearable situation becomes alarmingly provocative and dangerous. Carla and Billy unite to create a toxic duo to scheme revenge on Dave and his new wife, Maria. A cascade of troubling events unravels Carla’s world. Will Billy straighten out his life in the evil vortex of Carla’s manipulation? Will Carla’s incessant vengeful scheming lead to her comeuppance? Will Dave ever again enjoy peace of mind, realizing all too late that life has thrown him a wicked Sandy Koufax curveball?

The Jerry Sandusky child molestation case stunned the nation. As subsequent revelations uncovered an athletic program operating free of oversight, university officials faced criminal charges while unprecedented NCAA sanctions hammered Penn State football and blackened the reputation of coach Joe Paterno. In Wounded Lions, acclaimed sport historian and longtime Penn State professor Ronald A. Smith heavily draws from university archives to answer the How? and Why? at the heart of the scandal. The Sandusky case was far from the first example of illegal behavior related to the football program or the university's attempts to suppress news of it. As Smith shows, decades of infighting among administrators, alumni, trustees, faculty, and coaches established policies intended to protect the university, and the football team considered synonymous with its name, at all costs. If the habits predated Paterno, they also became sanctified during his tenure. Smith names names to show how abuses of power warped the "Penn State Way" even with hires like women's basketball coach Rene Portland, who allegedly practiced sexual bias against players for decades. Smith also details a system that concealed Sandusky's horrific acts just as deftly as it whitewashed years of rules violations, coaching malfeasance, and player crime while Paterno set records and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the university. A myth-shattering account of misplaced priorities, Wounded Lions charts the intertwined history of an elite university, its storied sports program, and the worst scandal in collegiate athletic history.

(Applause Books). Following his highly successful An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (Applause), John Kenneth Muir now turns to the life and work of legendary cult-film director Sam Raimi. Raimi exploded on the movie scene in 1982, when he was 23 years old, with the audacious, independently produced horror film The Evil Dead . Re-igniting the horror genre to such a degree that Wes Craven credited Raimi on-screen in A Nightmare on Elm Street , Raimi went on to direct two Evil Dead sequels, his own comic-book superhero, Darkman , and an over-the-top, post-modern western, The Quick and the Dead . Raimi's influence on other filmmakers continues to be enormous from the "shaky cam" shots of the Coen brothers to the early oeuvre of Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, both of whom have been termed the "direct progeny" of Raimi's works.In 2002, Raimi's Spider-Man had the biggest opening weekend in history, earning more than $114 million at the box office. The Unseen Force also features a sneak peek at the much anticipated Spider-Man 2 . Included are 30 first-person accounts and interviews from a number of eclectic sources from the cinematographers who shot Raimi's early films to the producers, screenwriters, actors, special effects magicians and composers who collaborated to make his films the stuff of legend, earn mainstream success, and still be the focus of obsessive cult followings.

Interest in the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal swept the nation when the highly-respected Penn State University football coach and founder of a childrens charity was charged with 51 criminal counts involving 10 prepubescent boys. To Believe a Kid is not merely an expos of the horrific victimizations told with compelling conviction by the abused but, more importantly, an excellent resource about pedophilia, why sexually abused children rarely disclose, and the long-term effects upon kids. Designed for every citizen raising or working with children, the book details how sports organizations, parents, and educators can better protect kids. It reveals legislative and social responses to this landmark case and describes how PSU stepped forward to lead in the detection, education, and prevention of CSA. Some proceeds will benefit the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC).