YOU CAN'T PUSH A STRING UP A HILL (a synopsis)* STRUNG UP: Why helping your cousins can only lead to ruin - no good deed goes unpunished!* A STRING ALONG: The mis-adventures of a screenwriter in Hollywood at a Pitch Fest, trying to get his screenplay accepted.* BLAME IT ON RENO: a romantic comedy screenplay treatment about two couples, lifelong friends, who go to Reno to get married, but get so drunk on the wedding night, they marry the wrong partner and live happily.* THE HAPPINESS ALCHEMIST: The adventures of Aloysius Williams and how they tested his belief in the need for happiness.* JAKE, THE SNAKE: A complaint about a friend who was a bully, coward and successfully business man.* CANE & ABE: The story of two friends whose lives go in opposite directions yet somehow teach the same life lessons.* PUSHING ON A STRING: An American and an Anglo-Caribbean discuss culture shock while traveling across the Sahara desert.* THE HELPER: A poem.* THE POET: Working with poets is like pushing a string up a hill; only those with limitless patience need apply.* PULLING ON A STRING: What is the meaning of life? Perhaps you find it going for a swim?* LIGHT-FINGURED LOUIE: The adventure of a thief and his conversion to Christianity.* TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN: It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was a twentieth century marriage - the perfect imperfection.* ANOTHER COUNTRY: An African-American man and an Anglo-Caribbean man meet in Israel and discover that it's culture that connects and divides people, not color!* MONEY: PUSHING ON A STRING: If all economists were laid end to end, they would still not reach a conclusion. A study of the origins of the term "pushing on a string" and a look at how economists screw up the economy.* CULTIVATING BLINDNESS: A poem.* SEASONS ON A ROPE: The trials and tribulations of an immigrant who does everything to fit into American society but runs afoul of a twist of fate.* HAWAIIAN HANG-UP: A son returns to his family in Hawaii for his father's funeral and finds himself caught up in the family's gangster past and present - "Do the meek inherit the earth?"* ROLL OF THE DICE: The ills of gambling clash with the sensitivities of a man who only wants to help.* THE PRODIGAL FATHER: No matter what you he's done (or hasn't done), you can't give up on your father!* ONLY IN AMERICA: A young boy from Ghana comes to America on a visit and is confounded by the use of a ubiquitous and uniquely American word.* THE VANITIES OF DESIRE: A poem.* THE END OF MY ROPE: After eleven years enduring petty racism, obdurate spitefulness, pointless bickering and cowardly and deceitful behavior, I had had enoughThe characters in this book come alive and seem to be telling us to focus on which end of the string the influence lies. In other words, in any given situation, who needs to change, me or the other guy? You are in for a treat.Sue Stoney,

The Tabernacle By: Jeff Clark The Tabernacle follows the sweeping 13,000 year history of two central Texas farm communities: Alameda and Cheaney. Searching along winding wooded trails, uncovering hidden homesteads miles from the nearest road and listening at last to the words of teachers four decades his senior, author Jeff Clark begins to hear the tale of timeless lands, and the lessons as it finally breaks open in his own life. This sprawling epic is full of firsthand testimony about the harsh settlement of the Texas frontier, as well as surprising glimpses into his storytellers’ twenty-first century lives. The Tabernacle will move you deeply, as it has moved within the lives of many generations encamped along the shores of the Leon River.

The Henshaw family moved to the wild country of DeSoto County, Mississippi with the departure of the Chickasaws in 1836. They farmed the rich land, hunted the rivers and streams, and struggled against slave robbers and outlaws. They were aided by their fast friend Push-pun-tubby, a member of the Chickasaw nation who had remained behind after the migration of his people to Oklahoma. Push was a wise man in many ways. He took young Herndon Henshaw under his wing, becoming to him a special friend, mentor, and spiritual guide in many sojourns into the wilderness. Almost as soon as he became an adolescent, Hern fell in love with the beautiful daughter of a neighboring family, friends of the Henshaws since older days in Limestone County, Alabama, from which they all had come to Mississippi. The couple had a beautiful courtship before they were separated by circumstances they failed to control, until it seemed unlikely they would ever meet again.

Ro murmurs into my ear. "Don't be afraid, Dol. They're not coming for us." Still, he slips his arm around me and we wait until the sky is clear. Because he doesn't know. Not really. Everything changed on The Day. The day the Icon appeared in Los Angeles. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting. Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside with fellow survivor Ro-safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid. They're different. They survived. Why? When the government discovers their secret, they are forced to join faint-hearted Tima and charismatic Lucas in captivity. Called the Icon Children, the four are the only humans on Earth immune to the power of the Icons. Torn between brooding Ro and her evolving feelings for Lucas, between a past and a future, Dol's heart has never been more vulnerable. And as tensions escalate, the Icon Children discover that their explosive emotions-which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses-may actually be their greatest strengths. Bestselling author Margaret Stohl delivers a thrilling novel set in a haunting new world where four teens must piece together the mysteries of their pasts-in order to save their future.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Born to Run comes a book that inspires us to unleash the extraordinary potential of the human body and climb, swim, skip, throw, and jump our way to heroic feats. "Redefines the heroic ideal, establishing heroism as a skill set rather than a virtue."—NPR Books Christopher McDougall’s journey begins with a story of remarkable athletic prowess: On the treacherous mountains of Crete, a motley band of World War II Resistance fighters—an artist, a shepherd, and a poet—abducted a German commander from the heart of the Axis occupation. To understand how, McDougall retraces their steps across the island that birthed Herakles and Odysseus, and discovers ancient techniques for endurance, sustenance, and natural movement that have been preserved in unique communities around the world. His search takes us scrambling over rooftops with a Parkour crew in London, foraging for greens with a ballerina in Brooklyn, tossing heavy pieces of driftwood on a Brazilian beach with the creator of MovNat—and, finally, to our own backyards. “McDougall traveled to Crete to examine the physical and mental capacity of Greek war heroes [and] studied natural movement, endurance, and nutrition to understand how regular people are capable of extraordinary athletic feats.... We can all adapt the tools of the athletes featured.” —Real Simple Look for Christopher McDougall's new book, Born to Run 2, coming in December!

In Working Cowboy, Margot Liberty and Barry Head present the oral history of Ray Holmes, a Wyoming cowboy born in 1911. Holmes has spent his life on horseback, herding cattle and doing other work with livestock. Since the time he rode his first horse, Holmes wanted nothing more than to be a cowboy--though his father insisted he would never make a living at it. The determination that started him on his dream has stayed with him throughout his life. Holmes remains a quiet man, averse to bragging but is candid and strongly opinionated. Practical chapters, such as “Some Talk about Cowboys” and “Some Talk about Calves and Calving,” alternate with chapters describing Holmes’s colorful life, including his coping with the blizzard of 1959, listening to the very first radio in the neighborhood, and sleeping with potatoes to keep them from freezing.