That breathing behind you is Edwin. He's an odd choice for the ancient ruler who grants a man the Power of invisibility. Why give it to Edwin–an inconsequential insurance actuarial? Edwin gets the Power and begins his existential dive on a visit to the Metropolitan Museum. At an exhibit of Egyptian wonders, the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamen bestows Edwin with the reality-altering Power and the transformations begin. Routinely ignored by women, initially Edwin uses his magic as a voyeur. Later, when his boss and nemesis Imelda fires him, a jobless Edwin discovers he can use the power to game the stock market. He gets very rich, very fast. But when, unseen, Edwin visits the FDA to gather insider information to manipulate stocks, he overhears White House executives as they plan to squash an important drug breakthrough. Their cynicism and politically driven ruthlessness enrages Edwin. What follows is a White House press conference unlike any ever held. Our meek actuarial evolves with new adventures. He uses the Power to avert a dangerous military confrontation, and on a visit to a leading biotech firm, Edwin finds it’s up to him to prevent a global food crisis. Each episode helps him better understand the nature of what personal power is, and why he was chosen to receive the Pharaoh’s gift. The Power is driven by our archetypal curiosity about invisibility–our fly-on-the-wall fascination with it in the tradition of Wells’ classic The Invisible Man or seen currently in our wonderment at Harry Potter’s magic cloak. In The Power, magic becomes the metaphor that asks the question: how should Edwin and in turn the reader use personal power. When does power destroy and when does it fulfill us? The Power is a vicarious ride that leaves readers feeling ever more empowered and more aware of our own unique magic. From I Michael Grossman, the author of: Coming to Terms with Aging and Shrinkwrapped: my first fifty years on the couch

The Power

Literature & Fiction

Grossman, I. Michael

Genre Fiction

EBook Bakery

Perhaps the world's longest coming-of-age story, SHRINKWRAPPED shows how one man's search for a better life worked-at last. In a blue-collar Michigan town where corporal punishment was seen as positive parenting, troubled families rarely sought professional help. But Michael Grossman's teachers sent him to see a Freudian psychoanalyst at age 7. It was the first of a parade of therapies that would include Rogerian bear-hugs, Gestalt dream analysis, Rolfing, Bioenergetics and even LSD. Sitting beside Michael on a succession of "shrinks'" couches, the reader follows his progress through one defense after another until he finally achieves a joyful capacity to care for others. Untangling the complex, sometimes eccentric and other times abusive family relationships that enmeshed his Midwestern boyhood in the mid-20th century, the author finally faces fundamental truths that lead to a profound transformation. By turns funny, poignant and shocking, Shrinkwrapped is a story of hope, of growing insight and ultimately of love reborn.

Shrinkwrapped: My First Fifty Years on the Couch

Religion & Spirituality

Little known poets are lucky to have an audience on open mic nights. On arrival, we pencil our names at the bottom of a yellow pad. The featured poet reads first and then, time allowing, authors on the list head to the podium to pour out a poem and our hearts. Polite applause may follow. There’s a flicker in time after such a reading, in the seconds it takes the poet to travel from the podium back to his or her seat, when...kazaam…it’s as if the words of the poem vanish…are never heard again. A friend, Tracy Hart, compares it to Buddhists creating a Mandela. They may labor in shifts for weeks, moving grains of colored sand and craft magnificent art. But when finished, they wipe the art away as a metaphor that nothing man-made lasts. It’s the reality that suggested the title: In Disappearing Ink and the subtitle, poems you can never find when you need them. But it also brings to mind a very human reality: the joy anyone who has ever written a poem knows – a pleasure arguably more immediate than writing in any other genre. Because so many try their hand at verse, I’m, betting you know how good it feels when you replace an imperfect with a perfect word; and that sense of pleasure when a jarring phrase is improved by shifting its position in a stanza. Here’s to every poet’s hours at the keyboard, to the stanzas, to the rhymes created, to the contentment of making, then sharing a poem. I Michael Grossman

In Disappearing Ink: poems you can't find when you need them

Poetry

The Realm: The Fable of Morality

Christian Books & Bibles

THE LAST MAN STANDING?Earth is in crisis. And the intergalactic managers who oversee all creatures of the Milky Way Galaxy are tasked to bottom-line man's usefulness. Should they let homo sapiens survive or watch them continue to their own destruction? To answer that, the extraterrestrials charged with evaluating us as a species discover incredible truths about who we are - the good, the bad, the really, really bizarre. They look at how we govern and decide to change the rules. The Accidental President takes a deep dive into our politics and human nature based on hard-to-believe but historically accurate facts. Take a fresh look at the two-legged creatures who dominate the third planet from the Sun, and follow the extraterrestrials as they tally our vices and virtues to reach a final judgment. Or do they? The Accidental President, I. Michael Grossman's seventh book, is raw satire. You may laugh, even cheer at his take on humanity, or consider him outrageous. But you'll find yourself rolling your eyes about curious creatures known as humankind.

The Accidental President: An Intergalactic Guide to Homo Sapiens

Humor & Satire