To most people, cars are just appliances to be disposed of when they rust, become unreliable, or are outgrown. But to car people, it's different. Cars are like photographs that occupy physical space. They hold aromas that trigger memories, and remind us of who we once were. In addition, to some people, the relationship with the car itself is a real thing. Many enthusiasts pine for the cars of their youth, regret that they ever let them go, and yearn and search for them the way people do with old lovers, hoping to find them and rekindle that old spark. In Resurrecting Bertha, Rob Siegel assures you that this is normal (well, as normal as anything is with car people), and embarks on this journey himself. Writing in his trademark Hack Mechanic voice that's enthralled readers for 35 years, Rob describes his original eight-year relationship with his highly-modified 1975 BMW 2002 "Bertha," selling the car to a dear friend, its 26 years of storage, and buying it back in a weak whisky-soaked moment only to experience the "oh dear God what did I just do" regret when he raises the long-closed garage door and comes face-to-face with the badly deteriorated car. The book details the steps Rob went through to get the car running, then driving, then sufficiently sorted to make a 2000-mile drive, and how the reconnection with the car was so much deeper than he expected. Resurrecting Bertha is about more than just the nuts and bolts; it's about deciding what's important, the joy of doing good, and how, if you do it right, not only can you go home again, but you can do so in the same car.

For over 25 years Rob Siegel has written a monthly column called "The Hack Mechanic" for the BMW Car Club of America's magazine Roundel. In Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic, Rob Siegel shares his secrets to buying, fixing, and driving cool cars without risking the kids' tuition money or destroying his marriage. And that's something to brag about considering the dozens of cars, including twenty-five BMW 2002s, that have passed through his garage over the past three decades. With a steady dose of irreverent humor, Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic blends car stories, DIY advice, and cautionary tales in a way that will resonate with the car-obsessed (and the people who love them).

It is written, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles...” (Isaiah 40:31, KJV) This book was inspired by factual events... Resurrected Gentry Crossing Over is the creator’s work of genius that seeks to help bring awareness, empowerment, and redemption. It commemorates the Creator’s love and the life-changing, redemptive, and healing powers at work through apparent elusive dreams of good overcoming evil. It is an intriguing story told by Gretchen, who was compelled to redeem Bertha (Phillis) from a “pauper’s grave” and to give them (including herself) the honor they rightfully deserve. As her suffering in silence intensified, so did Gretchen’s faith, resilience, and determination to fulfill her promise to Bertha/Phillis and remain steadfast in glorifying the Creator.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

A majestic tale of colonialism and transformation, Patrice Nganang's Mount Pleasant tells the astonishing story of the birth of modern Cameroon, a place subject to the whims of the French and the Germans, yet engaged in a cultural revolution. In 1931, Sara is taken from her family and brought to Mount Pleasant as a gift for Sultan Njoya, a ruler cast into exile by French colonialists. Merely nine years old, she is on the verge of becoming the sultan’s 681st wife. But when she is dragged to Bertha, the long-suffering slave charged with training Njoya’s brides, Sara’s life takes a curious turn. Bertha sees within this little girl her son Nebu, who died tragically years before, and she saves Sara from her fate by disguising her as her son. In Sara’s new life as a boy she bears witness to the world of Sultan Njoya---a magical yet vulnerable community of artists and intellectuals---and learns of the sultan’s final days in the Palace of All Dreams and the sad fate of Nebu, the greatest artist their culture had ever seen. Seven decades later, a student returns home to Cameroon to learn about the place it once was, and she finds Sara, silent for years, ready to tell her story. But her serpentine tale, entangled by flawed memory and bursts of the imagination, reinvents history anew. The award-winning novelist Patrice Nganang’s Mount Pleasant is a lyrical resurrection of early-twentieth-century Cameroon and an elegy to the people swept up in the forces of colonization.