Supernova: Rivers of Time, Supernova

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Seibert, Raymond Walter

Science Fiction

Advanced Concept Design

The Second Daisy Queen

Literature & Fiction

Val Jean Faubion, Bryant

Humor & Satire

In the Big Bend country of the Rio Grande, a series of misadventures brings entomologist Gene Hart to spend a night listening to and writing down stories told to him by the Cactus Man who recalls past events stored in patterns on his collection of pinto beans. The tales include his long dead twin brother and their love for, and adventures with, Consuelo Alvarez as she seeks to save the souls of murderous bandits. Original.

The Diary of the Beans

Faubion, Bryant Val Jeane

Texas Short Stories is a romp through the cities and country that is Texas. From the tounge in cheek title, with its humorous twist on Texas Tale Tales, the author uses a zany sense of the characters that pepper these tales. A virtual time trip through the war years of The Great War, and a close look at the changing character of our cities, and rural areas. Stories of Social Protest, and of the down and out getting lucky. The musings of the children in these stories are precious and a rare and priceless glance back into our own childhood. A great collection of stories for anyone who has lived in the USA for the last 60 years. Laughter until the tears will come, is the norm for each story, with many deep reflections of ourselves, and the way things were.

Texas Short Stories

This book explains the necessity of self-care that determines the outcome of how life feels. He writes about the consequences of self-condemnation and blaming others, which destroys your chance of internal harmony. Finding your internal care-takers frees you from dependency and allows you to set your own course in life. He explains how your internal parents can take you from depression, anxiety, and problem relationships to a successful and rewarding life. Original.

Look at You: Essentials for Taking Good Care of Yourself and Relationships

Self-Help

Williams, Larry D.

Happiness

Donald Foy Scott tells stories from his childhood in Wewoka Oklahoma.

The Grandfather Stories

Teen & Young Adult

Scott, Don

Biographies

“You’re forbidden to go any farther. Go back to the mission house and don’t leave it. We’ll be checking on you regularly.” Even though they had tried to mentally prepare themselves for this possibility, they still found that the official pronouncement came as a shock. Four of them had made the trip: Dr. Jerry Bedsole and Dr. Dale Beighle, veterinarians; Lynn Groce, an agriculturalist; and Muko Okare, an Ethiopian doctor who worked for the mission. They had planned to go on to their homes in Tsahai Sina, sixteen miles farther, but they only made it as far as Mehal Meda, the capital of Menz. They had all pinned such high hopes on this last visit to the area where they had lived and worked for so long. Several weeks earlier, when the local officials ordered them out of Menz so that they wouldn’t inadvertently be involved in the escalating war, they had left so hurriedly that they had forgotten some things. Also they hadn’t had a chance to say enough “goodbyes.” Now they had a car full of Bibles and some veterinary medicine that they wanted to get out to the people. Under house arrest, it seemed obvious that they had wasted their efforts. What was worse, they might not be quickly released. It had been only four days since their fellow missionary, Dr. Sam Cannata, had been freed after sixteen days in prison in the capitol, Addis Abeba. As they dejectedly headed for the house, they went over their plans for the trip once again. They had spent considerable time in prayer over the wisdom of this journey and all of the missionaries, including their wives, had agreed that it was the Lord’s will that they should go. This assurance gave them little comfort at the moment, however, as they watched an armed guard make a check around the house. Just the day before, the government had called a meeting in the town of all the leaders of surrounding areas. Priest Girma, as chairman of Kaya, was obliged to attend. His three close friends—Tatuk, Girma, and Aschallew—went along to provide him company. As the meeting drew to a close, a glance at the sky told them that they would have to hurry to make the long seven hour walk home before darkness descended. In a race against the sun, they set out at a brisk pace. As they reached the last rise on the outskirts of town before dropping into the valley below, they heard the faint noise of a car. They turned to watch for its approach. As they waited, they began to dare to hope that it might be the missionaries returning. The village hid the car from their sight, but the trail of dust rising led unmistakably to the mission house. No discussion was needed. Quickly retracing their steps, they ran to find their friends. Kissing each other on both cheeks in traditional greeting, they couldn’t help but conclude that God had arranged this meeting. Although the missionaries were forbidden to leave the house, their Ethiopian friends were allowed to spend the night with them. Even the knowledge of their confinement that night didn’t quench the joy they felt as they prayed and fellowshipped together. The young men from Menz were eager to tell of the Lord’s working in recent weeks and of the growing thirst for the Bible which they were attempting to meet. Seeing the missionaries’ present condition, it was obvious that their return to work in Menz was very unlikely. The young men saw that their turn had come. As they talked with the missionaries, the torch was passed. “Until now you’ve been teaching us the Bible and sharing Christ with us. We understand that you may have to leave, but God has shown us that we’re to share the Gospel just as you have. You can be sure that we’ll remain strong in Jesus because of your witness.” With these words the young men said goodbye. Before they left, arrangements were made for these four from Kaya to take with them all of the Bibles and medicine that they could carry. They would return later for the rest. The missionaries were allowed to leave on the following day on condition that they return immediately to Addis. Six weeks later, in June 1977, all Southern Baptist missionaries left Ethiopia. We had been there exactly ten years. In the beginning, when people found out that we intended to work in the back hill country of Menz, they simply clucked their tongues in disbelief and dismay. No foreigners had ever lived there and no person who left ever returned by choice. The most optimistic said that it would be at least ten years before anyone would trust us and become friends. But the chain of circumstances in our getting permission to work in Ethiopia, and in Menz in particular, dispelled any doubts we might have had. The Lord’s leading was plain and we never seriously considered turning back. The first few years flew by as we struggled to learn Amharic, build our homes, and get a feel of the culture and customs. The Ethiopian government gave permission for Southern Baptists to begin work on condition that we establish a community development program in Menz—an almost totally undeveloped area. Thus, as missionaries, we began some rather unusual programs: rug weaving classes, bridge building, high altitude crop experimentation, and mobile medical and veterinary clinics. At the same time, we began to get acquainted with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in “the oldest Christian empire.” Exotic sights, sounds and smells assailed our senses as we attended early morning mass each Sunday. Religious holidays were particularly interesting and colorful. With our increased understanding of the people came a growing love and concern for those so long isolated in a spot time had forgotten. Because the 10,000 foot high plateau of Menz is cut to ribbons by huge gorges every few miles, the world has passed it by. It remains virtually unchanged from centuries past. Its people live very simply—most just one crop failure away from starvation. A worse threat though, is the danger of being killed or injured in one of the frequent family feuds over land, or by a thieving neighbor. The more we learned, the more we came to appreciate people’s comments of skepticism and downright disbelief about the advisability of our mission work in Menz. Yet the Lord displayed his wisdom through our ignorance. In ten years he accomplished greater things than we dared dream of seeing in a lifetime. For six years we sowed the seed with no visible harvest. Yet we continued sharing God’s word in faith, claiming the promise of Isaiah 55:11 that God’s word would not return void but would bring forth fruit. Then came the first fruits and the battle began. As more of the harvest ripened, the battle raged more fiercely. Each time the enemy sent his fiery darts, the Lord miraculously cared for his own. And with each victory the harvest multiplied and the body grew a little stronger. Over and over we relived the days of Acts with Paul and the disciples as we were in the midst of spiritual warfare in Menz. The testimony of their having been through it before and of God’s faithfulness, provided us with strength to stand against the enemy and kept discouragement from overcoming us when things seemed darkest. God is alive! He has won the victory over Satan through Jesus Christ. He works today as he did two thousand years ago and this book is a testimony of his hand moving in one small part of the world to bring people out of darkness into light.Once again God fulfilled his promise of Matthew 4:16: “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned.” My hope is that this book will encourage believers who are facing persecution today. I trust it will reenergize those who have grown weary or cold in their Christian walk. Above all I pray that any who have not experienced God’s love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ will discover it firsthand through this amazing story. Lauralee Lindholm

Out of Darkness, Into Light: Dramatic Saga in Orthodox Highlands of Ethiopia

Religion & Spirituality

Lindholm, Lauralee

Christian Books & Bibles

Goin' Up To Cripple Creek is historical western fiction of the Colorado, Cripple Creek Mining District, and the men who established it, and mined its gold. The time period is from the discovery and settlement of this alpine valley, through the establishment of the town of Cripple Creek, to the fires of 1896. This is the first work in The Gold Trail Series. Filled with action and romance, it is a well researched and historical fiction of an exciting time. Starting with the settlement by Levi Welty, and the discovery of gold by Bob Womack, it tells the story of the establishment of the District. A vivid picture of the community, inner workings, and social life emerges. A young mining engineer, Steven Marks, arrives from abroad and is robbed of his money on the road into the new town. With the help of kindly, hard drinking Bob Womack, he is able to establish himself with employment at Guyot's Assay Office, where he becomes acquainted with Winfield Scott Stratton. He meets and falls in love with the independent Elizabeth Yates, who owns a restaurant on the main street. She has made an enemy of Soapy Smith, and a tangled relationship with Steven is complicated by the arrival of her first husband. As the city grows, bad elements of greed, and intemperance, tear the social fabric of the close knit early town. Purged by fire, a community is brought together.

Goin' Up to Cripple Creek

Genre Fiction

The title of this book was inspired by the headline on the back cover: “Tulia’s streets cleared of garbage.” A massive narcotics operation swept up 15% of the African American population of this town in the Texas panhandle. It was designed to get “trashy” people off the street. That’s how Tulia’s respectable folk characterized their famous sting and I believed them.Like any good story, Taking out the Trash is riddled with conflict. There is the conflict between the supporters and critics of Tulia’s big drug bust that you would expect. But most of the fireworks went off inside the rough-and-ready coalition on my side of the fight. My colleagues may wish I had kept some of the potentially embarrassing details to myself. If the differences I chronicle in this book were primarily a clash of strong personalities they wouldn’t merit as much attention as I have given them. But the conflict was never personal; it was philosophical. Sting supporters faced a dilemma. They could admit that Tom Coleman, the undercover agent paid to buy drugs on the poor end of Tulia, was an unreliable lost soul; but that would have meant tossing every indictment. Alternatively, by covering up Coleman’s dirty little secrets, they could preserve the fruit of 18-months of labor and eight jury trials. Either way, you couldn’t be honest about Coleman and support the sting.The people on my side of the fight wrested with a similar problem. Mere victory in Tulia had little monetary value. To make the bad guys pay you had to file a civil rights lawsuit, and that meant claiming, without nuance or equivocation, that the sting was racially motivated. Racism couldn’t just be part of the motivational mix; it had to be the heart and soul of the operation. Sting opponents had to portray Tulia as a pestilent vestige of the Jim Crow South. Racism was clearly a feature of the Coleman operation. But the good people of Tulia weren’t trying to run off African Americans; they were trying to fix their community’s drug problem. If that sounds naïve it is a distinctly American brand of naiveté. None of the men and women who sat on eight Tulia juries witnessed a single sting defendants using or selling drugs. Jurors and defendants occupied parallel social worlds. But none of that mattered. It was common knowledge that “those people” were part of Tulia’s drug mess. This logic doesn’t withstand careful scrutiny, but it’s vintage Americana.Having lived a good portion of my adult life in small Canadian and American towns, I knew there was nothing atypical or particularly antiquated about Tulia’s white community. If racism was at work in the Coleman operation (and I had no doubt that it was), we were witnessing a contemporary and ubiquitous species of bigotry.If Tulia was simply trying to run off its trashy black folks, would Middle America object? Could you attract media attention to that a story like that? And if no one was concerned about Coleman’s victims, why would they care about his credibility issues? This conundrum divided our unwieldy coalition from the beginning. People like me were part of the problem, of course. Winning was never enough; we wanted the truth. How could we expose the dark side of America’s drug war by telling white lies about Tulia? You won’t find much polemical argument in this book. The moral, to the extent there is one, emerges from the narrative. The discord of a morally ambiguous story is unresolved; all the loose ends are left dangling.Technically, this book is a work of narrative non-fiction; not a novel, exactly, but a book of true stories that open up the soul of a community. The dialogue is based on notes made during, or shortly after, actual conversations. I talked to everyone in Tulia that would talk to me. I wanted to get the story from a multitude of angles. I spent a lot of time in the Tulia library poring over back issues of the Tulia Herald. The quick and the dead both get their say. If you don’t know what was going on in Tulia circa 1959 or 1979, you are sure to misread the events of 1999. The Coleman fiasco was decades in the making.There is much in these pages to offend readers on both sides of our great American culture war. Social conservatives will protest the coarseness of the language; progressives will decry the use of dialect. Mea Culpa! But if you fiddle too much with the lyrics you lose the melody. Viewed from the outside, “Tulia” was a simple story. But for the folks living close to the action (on both sides of the conflict) everything was messy and exceedingly painful. Taking out the Trash has plenty of tender, poignant and hilarious moments; but the sturm und drang never let up. I invite you to take a deep breath and step inside Tulia, Texas. May this story change your life as it has changed mine.Alan Bean Arlington, Texas December 1, 2009

Taking Out the Trash in Tulia, Texas

History

BEAN, Alan

Americas

The Kenya Diaries

Garris, Dalen

World

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