For most of his life, Roger Olson tried to fit into the "so-called" American Dream. He got a master's degree in Education and taught high school for 15 years. He got married and tried to have children, then an unexpected divorce shattered his world and made him take stock of the life he was living.He saw himself as not so much working for a living as living for a working. He needed a home to live in that was close enough to his work, so he was saddled with a mortgage. He needed a car to get to and from work, and of course, these things lead to needing other things, like fuel, maintenance costs, insurance, electricity, and much more.Instead, Roger Olson went a different way. He managed to buy a seaworthy sailing vessel, eventually quit his job and spent several decades sailing all over the world, principally in the South Pacific island archipelagos, Australia, and New Zealand. Roger is also the producer of the short film about his voyage entitled "Melanesian Adventure," now available on youtube.com.

This here place? Worse than the backside of Hades.” ~ Hank Varney First let me say, this here trip to Slagton weren’t my idea. This place is chock full of bad company done helped itself to a double dose of bad medicine. Slagton needs cleanin’, accordin’ to Miss Clem, and I know the crew to do it. I’m one of ’em. Hank Varney’s the name. Miss Clem and me, along with the two Sidewinders from Santa Fe—we’ll get the sharp-toothed vermin cleared out. Now, some people say I’m lucky, but I don’t know if’n it’ll do me any good, what with the army of trouble me an’ the crew are facin’. If’n we don’t live through it, well, there goes Deadwood. Maybe even the whole of the Black Hills. We’ll all be down the privy hole then, lookin’ up at the Backside of Hades.

Highly readable and entertaining, COULD HAVE BEEN ME takes the reader behind the scenes interacting with the world's most powerful individual-the President of the United States of America, and the world's least powerful and poorest individual-that of an infant orphan in the slums of Kenya, Africa. The orphan and the current president each have ancestors who hail from these same African soils, but their lives couldn't be more contrasted. Who is Barack Obama, the man? How does he live is life when his guard is down and he thinks no one can see? How does this wealth and power contrast with the challenges of poverty and discrimination many others face? The book "Could Have Been Me" goes behind the scenes and boldly answers this question and more. Every shocking word of this book is true.

At the age of 57, Australian Peter Keating set out to sail, single-handed, across the Atlantic. This is his account, yet it is also the journey of each one of us, should we decide to peer over the horizon and strike out from safe harbours.

In his popular series of books "From the Back Side," J. Ellsworth Kalas looks at Christian topics through a new lens, takes unique starting points on those subjects, and uses creative re-telling from different points of view. In Faith from the Back Side, Kalas explores something that is central in a Christian life but often difficult to understand. "We exercise faith every day, in hundreds of secular moments, then struggle to find it in its purest form when we need God’s help the most. The back side, indeed! Sometimes it’s the only side of faith we can seem to approach. Yet faith is nearer than our hands or feet, and more real than the air we breathe. It’s time we learned more about it." (J. Ellsworth Kalas, adapted from the foreword) A discussion guide is included for small-group use.

NOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED HULU ORIGINAL SERIES • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • “A stunning novel about the transformative power of relationships” (People) from the author of Conversations with Friends, “a master of the literary page-turner” (J. Courtney Sullivan). “[A] novel that demands to be read compulsively, in one sitting.”—The Washington Post ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’S TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: People, Slate, The New York Public Library, Harvard Crimson Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation—awkward but electrifying—something life changing begins. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Normal People is the story of mutual fascination, friendship, and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t. WINNER: The British Book Award, The Costa Book Award, The An Post Irish Novel of the Year, Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Oprah Daily, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Vogue, Esquire, Glamour, Elle, Marie Claire, Vox, The Paris Review, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country

Growing up in post-World War II Alberta in a stable, loving home, Tom Symington didn’t feel that he was “different.” Evading early pressures of romance and sexual exploration, repressing instances of name-calling (“femmy”), and hostility from schoolmates, Tom was almost able to believe in a world that valued the rights and freedoms of all citizens. From Calgary to Sierra Leone to France, this candid, heartbreaking memoir braids the evolution of gay rights in Canada with the life journey of one individual. Following high school, as Tom entered university and became a teacher, he was forced to reconcile his sexual orientation with the prevailing social and legal environment in Alberta, Canada, and the world beyond. As decades passed, “femmy” merged with “gay,” “queer,” and “LGBTQ+ community” in a rallying movement and an enduring struggle towards pride and self-acceptance against the current of societal expectations and discriminatory legislation. Not So Normal is as much a coming-of-age odyssey and a celebration of selfhood as it is a grave reminder that there is still much work to be done in the realm of human rights, and an urgent call to action to recentre love in our increasingly diverse and divisive world.