Forty-one-year-old Jason Thiessen was a recently unemployed husband and father of two young boys. During a time when he should have been acting responsibly and being realistic, he did what many thought was reckless and foolhardy. He traveled to Central America and made his way overland from Mexico City to Panama City, with virtually no plan. Rather than succumb to the fears of others, he followed his heart and the wise guidance of his ever-supportive wife and took off on an adventure through one of the worlds most dangerous, yet beautiful, and often overlooked geographies. He was typically twice as old as the travelers he encountered but he also met and teamed up with others in his own age group. With heart, humour, wit, and edginess, Thiessen shares his travel stories in A Most Improbable Adventure. He tells how he ventured through Central America to explore, to expand his mind and spirit, to take advantage of a gift that was given him, and, ultimately, to seek fulfillment.

Apprentice magician Skeeve, his mentor Aahz, and Tanda, the former assassin, journey into the Kowtow realm to retrieve a golden cow that gives gold-laced milk, but first they will have to match wits with a gang of vegetarian cowboys who will do anything to protect their livestock from an evil enemy that only comes out after dark.

“You don’t look like brothers . . .” Peace activist and cofounder of the Enough Project, John Prendergast is known as a champion of human rights in Africa. But the not-so-public face of J.P. is the life he’s led as a Big Brother to Michael Mattocks. As a curious, driven, and emotionally wounded twenty-year-old, J.P. made the life-changing decision to form a “Big Brother/Little Brother” relationship with then seven-year-old Michael, who was living out of plastic bags and drifting from one homeless shelter to the next with his mother and siblings. Lacking a connection with his own brother and distancing himself from a disastrous relationship with his father, J.P. formed a unique bond with Michael the moment they met. Michael and J.P. became like family, with Michael and some of his siblings even living with J.P. one summer. In the years that followed, J.P. took Michael and his brothers on outings, whether it was fishing, playing basketball, patronizing cheap restaurants, or going on road trips. This friendship would continue for over twenty-five years as the two coped with varying degrees of violence, instability, and trauma in their own lives. Told in duet, Unlikely Brothers follows Michael as he grows up on the tough streets of Washington, D.C., where as a young teenager he watched his best friend get shot, dropped out of school, and started dealing crack cocaine shortly thereafter. By sixteen, Michael had become the kingpin of his neighborhood, guns and drugs always close at hand. Meanwhile, J.P. was traveling to and from African war zones. J.P. offered Michael a refuge from the streets, never really confronting the gravity of what Michael was going through in his adolescence. In turn, Michael afforded J.P. an escape from his own turbulent personal and professional life. As the years go by, the two swoop in and out of each other’s lives, slowly disconnecting as they disappear into their respective worlds, but making their way back to each other at a critical moment for both of them. The effect the two have on each other is extremely significant to both of their paths to redemption. Inspirational and deeply moving, Unlikely Brothers beautifully showcases how life’s most random moments can often be the most profound.

A new novel from the author of acclaimed Sherlock Holmes patisches The Albino's Treasure and The Counterfeit Detective. WRONGLY IMPRISONED Following a summons to a fictional patient, Dr. Watson finds himself arrested for the horrific murder of an elderly woman. Imprisoned at Holloway, and with the evidence stacked against him, Watson's only hope is that Sherlock Holmes can discover the identity of the real killer. But when a mysterious letter appears to link Watson to blackmail and a notorious street gang, Holmes must use all his powers of reasoning to save his friend from the hangman's noose.

This is a tale of the most ambitious round of golf ever conceived — an adventure that spans continents and cultures. The adventure takes you from New Hampshire to Mongolia.

Columbia University began the second half of the twentieth century in decline, bottoming out with the student riots of 1968. Yet by the close of the century, the institution had regained its stature as one of the greatest universities in the world. According to the New York Times, "If any one person is responsible for Columbia's recovery, it is surely Michael Sovern." In this memoir, Sovern, who served as the university's president from 1980 to 1993, recounts his sixty-year involvement with the institution after growing up in the South Bronx. He addresses key issues in academia, such as affordability, affirmative action, the relative rewards of teaching and research, lifetime tenure, and the role of government funding. Sovern also reports on his many off-campus adventures, including helping the victims of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, stepping into the chairmanship of Sotheby's, responding to a strike by New York City's firemen, a police riot and threats to shut down the city's transit system, playing a role in the theater world as president of the Shubert Foundation, and chairing the Commission on Integrity in Government.