Showing all 13 results
A Better Man: True American Heroes Speak to Young Men and Women on Love, Power, Pride, and What It Really Means to Be a Man (2nd Ed.)
by Kelly Johnson $25.95
edited by Kelly H. Johnson
The journey from adolescence to adulthood is a momentous time in every person’s life. Never has this transition been more challenging than it is today. In addition to the perennial trials of peer pressure, hormones and popularity, young men and women must now grapple with a media-saturated culture that places enormous emphasis on physical appeal, material wealth and celebrity status. And, thanks to the growing number and reach of social media platforms, the cultural noise is only getting louder, making it exponentially more difficult to find reliable answers to life’s largest and most meaningful questions.
Stepping in to help fill this void, A Better Man features first-person narratives from some of the most respected and engaging men in America today. With sincerity, humor and directness, they share their experience and advice on courage, service, anger, respect, and a host of other topics. Their stories speak to our common humanity and so have the power to impact young men and women alike, inspiring them to imagine larger possibilities as they seek to define adulthood for themselves. For example . . .
Civil rights icon Andrew Young talks about what happened at the Lorraine Motel in the moments before Dr. King was shot . . . and what he learned from that event.
NBA Hall of Fame Basketball player Dominique Wilkins explains why it’s important to treat others with respect, do what you know is right and stand up for yourself.
Four-star Admiral Leighton Smith talks about learning the lesson of responsibility (and avoiding the life of a pig farmer!).
An open letter from one generation to the next, A Better Man offers young people some much-needed light on the journey to becoming who they were meant to be—showing all of us another way. A better way.
Eyewitness: My Journey to the Hague
by Isak Gaši and Shaun Koos $5.99 – $29.95Price range: $5.99 through $29.95
written by Isak Gaši and Shaun Koos
Before April of 1992, Isak Gaši was a world-class athlete and community leader, content to live a quiet life with his wife and infant daughter in the Bosnian city of Brčko. He never could have dreamed that within just a few short years, he would come face to face with Serbian President Slobodan Milošević and others indicted for war crimes, as a lead prosecution witness at the International Criminal Trials for the Former Yugoslavia.
Eyewitness is an accessible history that joins the personal story of a man who was close to the action with the war’s broader historical and political contexts. In a world still challenged by ethnic violence and refugee response, this story of justice, forgiveness, and truth will resonate with readers for many years to come.
Faith Beyond Belief: A Journey to Freedom
by David Eberly $16.00
by David Eberly
Faith Beyond Belief is a captivating testimony of personal faith by the senior Allied prisoner of the Gulf War. This dramatic recollection puts you in his F-15E cockpit when he was shot down in the Iraqi desert, evading the enemy, and held in the cells of Baghdad. Together, you walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and along his journey to freedom. By real example, it profoundly reflects the importance of faith and focus in life. No one has explained more intensely the experience of being hit by an exploding enemy missile, the agony of capture, and the dismal isolation and starvation suffered while in Saddam’s grasp. The uplifting message delivered under these unimaginable conditions holds promise for those who feel perplexed by life's challenges.
This book is for believers and non-believers, for young and old, and for all who may ever doubt their own inner strength or who may be unfamiliar with the inner courage and comfort that illuminate from God’s promise to care for us.
Honor Held Dear
by Alan Eschbach $4.99 – $28.95Price range: $4.99 through $28.95
by Alan Eschbach
What motivates people to follow the lead of another person—to sometimes suppress their own fears, desires, and needs and to adopt a leader’s vision as their own? It’s a question that anyone in, or who aspires to, a leadership position should ask.
In this uplifting and often humorous account, Captain Alan Eschbach, USN (Ret) reflects on his life experiences and how he used them to create his own code of leadership, behavior, and ethics. Using snapshots of his early life in the tiny village of Rawlinsville, Pennsylvania and recollections from the navy, from SEAL training to captaincy of the guided missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke, Alan shares his insights into what can be gained by working without compensation, the pain and joy of leaving the comfort of home and community, and the value of repeatedly testing one’s physical and mental limits. Most importantly, this book is an account of how an unwavering commitment to personal honor and integrity, and an even greater devotion to serving others can lead to positive change.
Honor Held Dear: My View from the Bridge Wing is a portrait of leadership as a calling. Moreover, it’s a challenge to leaders everywhere to take stock of their leadership styles as a measure of their understanding of sacrifice and duty.
Last, it is Alan’s way of saying thank you—to the community and people who shaped and inspired him, and to everyone who granted him the great privilege and profound honor of leadership.
Nine Lives: My Risky Road from Fifties Rebel to Feminist Critic
$7.99 – $33.95Price range: $7.99 through $33.95
Written by Claire Kahane
In this tell-all memoir, a woman in her eighties, born during the Great Depression to Jewish immigrants, unveils her intimate self-transformations in the course of nine decades. Determined at an early age to prove herself a free spirit in a male dominated world, as a young adult Kahane went on the road, hitchhiking her way into and out of risky adventures and romantic affairs, ceaselessly chasing new experiences. But what started out as a “road book” takes a different turn in midlife when, influenced by the insights of psychoanalysis and feminism, she became a feminist professor, mother, and wife. In later life, her story changed tracks again when a visit to Auschwitz compelled her to confront her own family history of loss and renewal. The memoir ends with a surprising new twist that opens to a hopeful future. In this long and hard-earned coming-of-age story, readers will find a piece of themselves.
Orphaned Heritage : The East Coast’s Disappearing History
$9.99 – $18.95Price range: $9.99 through $18.95
Written by Ben Swenson
The spot where the most famous manhunt in United States history came to a bloody end languishes in the litter-strewn median of a four-lane highway. There are no physical traces left of the Garrett farmhouse, where John Wilkes Booth died, and few historic footprints to be found at all in this unlikely place, a common right-of-way. The Garrett place is one of scores of sites on the East Coast that society cast aside, places of historic value left to the natural world as orphans of the American landscape. Orphaned Heritage: The East Coast's Disappearing History tells the story of the Atlantic seaboard's historic castaways and explores what we can learn from the ruin.
Patton’s Forward Observers: History of the 7th Field Artillery Observation Battalion XX Corps, Third Army
by John Kurt Rieth $23.95
by John Kurt Rieth
More than any other, General George S. Patton Jr. conjures up the image of the ultimate World War II American warrior, and even today, the Patton mystique continues to grow. Despite his renowned egotism, Patton understood that it was the blood of his soldiers that earned the glory attributed to him.
Formed on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the 7th Field Artillery Observation Battalion (7th FAOB) was assigned the hazardous task of determining the source of enemy artillery fire. The exceptional level of training prepared the battalion well for combat in July 1944 when they landed in Normandy. Serving as XX Corps (the Ghost Corps) primary counterbattery unit, the battalion quickly advanced through France. Stopped cold by a ferocious German defense in Metz and Saarland in the bitter winter of 1944-1945, the 7th FAOB participated in some of the bloodiest, yet least well published, fighting of the war. Finally breaking through the German West Wall, XX Corps and the 7th FAOB ultimately crossed the Rhine and ended the war at Hitler’s birthplace in Braunau, Austria.
Patton’s Forward Observers is a story told by a unique collection of highly trained artillery observers who fought every step of the war with Patton's famed Third Army. We remember Patton today only through the service of men like these. This is a soldier's story. Derived from wartime letters and oral histories told by the veterans themselves, we see the classic American Army experience of World War II—the friendships, courage, terror, carnage, humor and ultimate victory that all part of the Patton legend—a legend build by soldiers.
Reclaiming Southside
$14.95
Written by M.J. Coll
M.J. Coll grew up imagining herself as like her father’s son, but 1950’s Richmond, Virginia, wasn’t a welcoming environment for her to come of age. Venturing to the Midwest for college, M. J. came into her own as a lesbian feminist in her twenties, exploring relationships with other women, participating in Vietnam War protests, and advocating for citizens in crisis. But when her mother got sick, M. J. found herself back in Richmond, the city that she both loved and struggled to understand. Caring for her mother and reconciling with her father left her with no choice but to reclaim Southside, the neighborhood she grew up in and had sought so desperately to flee in her teens and twenties.
This collection of vignettes and poems about coming of age in the South speak both to M. J.’s personal experience as a young lesbian and the movements of the latter half of the twentieth century that have shaped America today. A testament to both how far we have come since the fifties yet how far we still need to go in our search for equality for the LGBTQIA+ community, M. J.’s story is both personal and political.
Richmond’s Unhealed History
by Ben Campbell $5.99 – $30.95Price range: $5.99 through $30.95
written by Ben Campbell
In a detailed look at the history of Richmond, Benjamin Campbell examines the contradictions and crises that have formed the city over more than four centuries. Campbell argues that the community of metropolitan Richmond is engaged in a decisive spiritual battle in the coming decade. He believes the city, more than any in the nation, has the potential for an unprecedented and historic achievement. Its citizens can redeem and fulfill the ideals of their ancestors, proving to the world that race and class can be conquered by the deliberate and prayerful intention of honest and dedicated citizens.
Slow Dying: The Bosnian War Prison Camp at Visoko Diary and Testimonies
by Milenko S. Milanovic $15.95
by Milenko S. Milanovic
Following the Bosnian War and his immigration to the U.S., Serbian refugee Milenko Milanovic would awaken from horrifying dreams—vestiges of his eight-month imprisonment in the Bosnian war camp at Visoko. For years, Milenko’s memories remained suppressed, but his experiences lived on in the loose-leaf diary he had kept hidden in the lining of his jacket. After his release, he compiled these notes into the book that would become Slow Dying, a harrowing volume that details his capture and subsequent internment—the starvation, beatings and death. This fourth edition presents his diary in English for the first time, accompanied by contributions from his fellow prisoners and Milenko’s own reflections on his imprisonment and life as a refugee. It offers a poignant and compelling story of personal survival during one of the most brutal conflicts in recent history.
The Fourth Branch of Government: We the People
by Jack Trammell, PhD and Guy Terrell, MS, PMP $7.99 – $16.95Price range: $7.99 through $16.95
by Jack Trammell, PhD and Guy Terrell, MS, PMP
With the explosion of social media and the Internet, practically everyone in America has instant access to the news and a greater ability to follow what is happening anywhere. As a result, we are a culture and a nation that is bombarded with information. However, we are coping poorly with that assault and using an outdated framework for our governance. Many people feel disconnected from the very mechanisms and people who are supposed to represent their interests. The Fourth Branch of Government is about updating the framework of our democracy. It is a movement whose time has come, and one that the Founding Fathers envisioned. This book outlines a roadmap for how change can be facilitated, as well as a rationale for why it is absolutely necessary and urgent. The only way to update our democracy and make it relevant to the 21st century is to call for a Constitutional Convention. In that forum, we can consider changes like eliminating the Electoral College, or implementing e-voting—perhaps even changes leading to a broader and more direct participation in our governance, the Fourth Branch of Government.
When Mayor Doug Wilder Ruled Richmond: Strong-Arm Politics in Virginia’s Capital City
$9.99 – $35.95Price range: $9.99 through $35.95
written by Linwood Norman
Our nation’s first elected Black governor, L. Douglas Wilder, returned to public service in 2005 as the first popularly elected mayor of Richmond, Virginia in nearly sixty years. Despite his landslide election, voters may have had little idea what they were getting themselves into, as many were ill-prepared for Wilder’s strong style of leadership. He had remarkable success in reducing crime, cutting government spending, and boosting economic vitality, but Wilder’s relationship with City Council and the School Board—and the disagreements that ensued from both sides—tarnished his record as mayor. Author and former press secretary to the mayor, Linwood Norman, skillfully recounts the turmoil of Richmond’s transition to the “strong mayor” model of local government during what was a memorable chapter in Richmond’s rich political history that is still deliberated today, more than fifteen years after Wilder’s charismatic tenure concluded.
Wisdom Builds Her House
$8.99 – $18.95Price range: $8.99 through $18.95
written by Carole Duff
Wisdom Builds Her House is the true story of a woman who comes face-to-face with her past when she reads the journal of her husband’s deceased daughter, a girl she never met. Curiosity leads to self-inquiry and haunting parallels between Carole and Gretchen: inexplicable disruptions from when they were five; mental illness episodes starting at sixteen; troubles in college; rejection in love—secrets hiding in their closets. While building a new house in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband, Carole reads the journals, which lead her to uncover the never-spoken truth about the violent crime from her childhood, all resulting in a crisis of faith.