Silas Cully's Tavern Tales is a sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant look at Nineteenth Century America through the eyes of a barkeep. Who else but the local barkeep could tell it all? Here is Silas - expounding against California statehood, chiding ladies for entering his barroom, and telling the jokes and humorous stories that are his stock in trade. Authentic food and drink recipes from 1850 taverns are also provided.

Ranging from dark tales of vampires and serial killers to tongue-in-cheek science fiction to comedy and farce, My Shorts, by author Bert G. Osterberg, shares an eclectic collection of short stories centering on life, death, and laughter. The Option was written while Osterberg contemplated his past. High School was inspired by a plot twist in Tchaikovskys opera, The Queen of Spades, and recalls his own tortured high school career. To Amerikay calls on his love of history as told in the stories of ordinary people who do extraordinary things. Three Views shares Osterbergs political statement. Netties Triumph was penned for his granddaughter to illustrate when she was in grade school. And My Aunt Ruth tells about this feisty woman who lived in Michigan all of her life. From a suspenseful story of a dark castle in Transylvania to a fanciful encounter with a wonderfully strange fifth grade teacher, this collection of tales entertains and often challenges conventional ideas and notions.

Before the Civil War there were a half a million people of African decent living as freemen in the United States. This book is their untold story. Our Silent Song is the remarkable story of an African-American family whose members were in America before America was a country and were living free in a slave state. It chronicles the struggles, victories, and defeats of these family members from one who fought for freedom in the Revolution through those who fought to extend freedom in the Civil War. The book tells the story of education pioneers like Fanny Richards, Michiganas first black schoolteacher and political giants like Dr. Joseph Ferguson, William Webb, and John D. Richards. It is a love story and a story of great courage. Our Silent Song tells the overlooked and forgotten stories of those who were legally free but still suffered the enslavement of discrimination and ignorance. Our Silent Song is a sometimes tender and a sometimes forceful retelling of American history though different eyes a those of free Africans in America.