In 1954, as a twenty-nine-year-old grad student, Dick Jorgensen was selected to be one of four "ambassador" teachers in a first-ever exchange program with Japan. Jorgensen would represent the University of Michigan, where he was studying history, and would spend the next two years teaching at the University of Hiroshima, founded in the wake of the dropping of the atomic bomb on that city in 1945. Thus began an incredible journey for, as he describes himself, a Kid from the Midwest. Those two years in Japan were the start of a lifelong love affair with travel and with Japanese culture, architecture and history. While there, Jorgensen met luminaries in the fields of history, politics and education, lived with two Japanese families, and discovered new ways to reach his young students, all of whom grew up in a Japan ravaged by World War II. While there, Jorgensen visited many parts of Japan – including Tokyo, Kyoto, Kobe, Sapporo, Nagasaki and many other communities. Jorgensen treats readers to luscious descriptions of all those cities, while at the same time providing histories that deepen understanding and perspective. As a work of history, O Tomodachi (friend) provides a perspective on postwar Japan that is both historical and accessible. As memoir, O Tomodachi gives readers a wonderful sense of what it was like for a young American to go off to a foreign land, a place that had only recently been the enemy of the United States, and to open himself to new experiences and people. Jorgensen fell in love with Japan, and that love has lasted a lifetime.

O Tomodachi

Biographies & Memoirs

Jorgensen, Dick

Historical

Weeping Willow Books

In this, the second of three planned memoirs, Dick Jorgensen takes readers along on his first around-the-world journey as he travels back to the United States from Japan in 1956. (O Tomodachi, Friend, Jorgensen's first book, tells the story of his two years of teaching at the University of Hiroshima from 1954-56.) Through Southeast Asia and then the Middle East, to Europe and finally, boarding a ship for New York from Genoa, Jorgensen gives us a firsthand view of life and times in the mid-20th-century world, cluing us into the history of various places along the way, and reminding us that the world is ever-changing and subject to the vagaries of man and politics.Once back home in Wisconsin, Jorgensen takes a month or so to reconnect with family and friends, and, when an unexpected offer arrives to join the staff of The Asia Foundation in San Francisco, heads off on another grand adventure.Yuko, which means "friendship between nations," tells the story of Jorgensen's tenure on The Asia Foundation's Japan desk, and we get to skip with him down the streets of San Francisco when the woman who would become his wife emphatically says "yes." As they begin to plan their family, life takes another unexpected turn, which launches Jorgensen onto another new path, that of educator.Along the way, his love of all things Japanese grows and shapes his worldview, and also opens new doors to travel and teaching. All of which is chronicled in his third memoir, American Sensei, forthcoming from Weeping Willow Books.

Yuko: Friendship Between Nations (1)

Memoirs

Rabbi Elijah Daniels experiences more than a little anxiety when he agrees to tour Germany. His good friend, Pastor Dan Winter, assures him it will be a good experience and the Evangelical students he would accompany would benefit from a rabbi's perspective as they tour the country. The rabbi nonetheless worries about how he will respond to the nation that massacred more than six million Jews during World War II. After his arrival, though, he encounters more challenges than he bargained for. He becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a cleaning woman who lives in the institute where he is staying. A brown shirt with a yellow Star of David, his tzedakah dollar found in the murdered woman's hand, and a determined German police kommissar mean serious danger for Rabbi Daniels, who worries he might not be able to solve the mystery of the woman's death before finding himself behind bars. What does the secret group that meets on the institute's second floor have to do with it? Could the young Arab woman's murder have been an honor killing? And why is the rabbi being set up? Follow Rabbi Daniels as he searches for clues to the killer or killers, all the while tailed by a very suspicious kommissar.

The Rabbi Wore a Fedora (Rabbi Daniels Mysteries)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Gross-Schaefer, Arthur

Mystery

Rabbi Elijah Daniels is invited to a Native American sweat lodge ceremony, where he meets and befriends the leaders of the nearby Antchu community. When a spiritual elder confesses to the murder of his wife, the tribe asks the rabbi, who is also an attorney, to take his case. The rabbi's concern over the ethics of representing a confessed murderer fades when the evidence against the elder doesn't seem to add up. Something's amiss, and the rabbi finds himself risking his reputation and even his life to find the truth.

The Rabbi Wore Moccasins (Rabbi Daniels Mysteries)

Literature & Fiction

United States

Women over fifty are "the invisible woman" in American culture. In a society that reveres youth - and particularly young, sexy women - women over fifty fade into the shadows. Yet, for many women at mid-life, this is a time of flowering and coming into one's own, sexually and otherwise. Many older women love sex and crave the intimacy it provides. For every story of a harried mother who turns her husband away at night, or the older woman who long ago lost her libido, there are legions of others whose sex drives match those of men.
A recent study found that sixty percent of women fifty to fifty-nine were sexually active, that almost fifty percent of women in their sixties were sexually active, and nearly thirty percent of those over seventy were sexually active. So, why is so little attention paid to sex and intimacy among women in later life? Other than a smattering of magazine articles and some academic books, very little has been written about women, sex and intimacy. Oh, there are plenty of how-tos: advice on vaginal dryness and pain during sex and erectile dysfunction. But there is a dearth of work written by women about their sexual experiences after fifty.
This collection of essays and poetry is meant to bring sex after fifty for women into the open, to proclaim that it is important, it is natural and healthy and, for some women, it is absolutely necessary. Unmasked will surprise, inform, and--it is hoped--encourage all women of a certain age to (re)discover their sexuality.

Unmasked: Women Write About Sex and Intimacy After Fifty

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Women's Health

Today's educational system is broken, an archaic process based on a colonization that is both dulling and ineffective. We need to tap into the creative souls of children, listen to them, and acknowledge that students and teachers alike are suffering. If we approach educating our children from a life- and soul-affirming place, they will begin to thrive. 
Teachers, administrators, and parents are all asked to buy into this colonizing model by a compulsory government school system, and shifting it will require an awareness described in the field of liberation psychology: a clear vision of what damage the current system might be doing, and a vision of the common aims of all who wish to educate children as free thinkers from a position of love and secure relationships above all.
We can do this through an educational system that focuses on the development of the whole child, one that allows for attachment, relationship, and love in education, factors that are known to be primary in the developing child.

Listen to the Children: How Empowering Students Can Fix Our Broken Schools

Education & Teaching

Pulice, Stacy

Schools & Teaching

In early 1966, Dr. Guy Clark received orders to go to Vietnam, and upon arrival that June was assigned to be a flight surgeon at Cam Ranh Bay Air Force Base, on the South China Sea. Thus began a year-long assignment that would find Clark flying more than ninety bombing missions over Vietnam in the Phantom F4-C, plunging deep into the Viet Cong-infested jungle with a gaggle of Republic of Korea Marines in search of the remains of two lost Phantom pilots, and tending to the medical needs of the pilots he flew with.
Sharkbait, A Flight Surgeon's Odyssey in Vietnam tells these stories and more, including Clark's survival of "Jungle Survival School" in the Philippines, and temporary assignments at Vung Tau (the "Riviera" for servicemen in Vietnam), Binh Thuy, and other Air Force outposts in Vietnam. Along the way, Clark introduces readers to arrogant and clueless military brass, and courageous pilots who day after day fly into the danger and uncertainty of a war that was becoming increasingly unpopular at home.
Guy Clark's experiences as flight surgeon and doctor to the pilots who flew bombing missions every day were very different from the ground troops and helicopter pilots, many of whom have written eloquently about their own war experiences. Clark was a physician who dreamed of high adventure, and flying with the Phantom F4-C pilots was the ultimate high.

Sharkbait: A Flight Surgeon's Odyssey in Vietnam

Clark, Guy S

Leaders & Notable People

Something is killing fetuses before they are born--a scourge affecting people around the globe, and scientists can't find the culprit. At the same time, a strange sickness is causing organ failure among healthy people. 
Veregro, the world's primary provider of seeds and fertilizers, and one of the most effective generators of food throughout the world, is offering a million dollars to anyone who can discover the causes of these two mysterious killers. Except...Veregro's own seeds and fertilizers are the cause, fifty years after they were put into widespread use. Now the Fourth Generation is dying. 
Charlotte Winters, once one of Veregro's lawyers, is the leader of a Shangri La in far Northern California--a community that grows its own food. It has never used Veregro seed or fertilizers, and the people who live at The Orchard are healthy and safe. 
When one of Veregro's lab techs uncovers new research that directly incriminates Veregro, he takes it to Veregro's PR director, Walter Conroy, whose own research twenty years before pointed to Veregro. Walter takes it to the CEO. The next day, the lab tech is dead.
Walter realizes he's in danger, and seeks out Charlotte to try to stop Veregro before more people die. But Walter and Charlotte are in the company's sights. Will they be able to convince the world that Veregro's own products are killing fetuses and people? Or will the CEO manage to silence them?

The Fourth Generation

Mankovitz, Roy Jack

Mankovitz, Alan

Thrillers & Suspense

Sparks fly when Callie Winwood comes face-to-face with Will Tremaine, the man she fell in love with and thought she'd marry twenty-five years earlier. A chance encounter in a hospital emergency room reignites the feelings they have harbored for each other for more than two decades. But their journey back to one another is anything but simple. In the two years since the death of his wife, Joanna, which he believes he caused, Will has devoted himself to caring for his young son and daughter. As Will and Callie wrestle with their own personal histories of love and loss, they must also navigate the complex emotions of Will's children, who still grieve for their mother. At the same time, they must struggle with Joanna's family, who will do anything to avoid facing the truth about their own lives. Callie and Will come together at last, but their happy ending is short-lived. When a scandal threatens to unravel their respective families, they put their children above all else and agree to separate for good. That is, until an unexpected ally intervenes on their behalf. A Foolish Consistency explores the dynamics of families in crisis and the emotional damage wrought by unacknowledged fear and grief. Yet it is also a passionate love story and a testament to the power of hope, the importance of forgiveness, and, ultimately, the joy of redemption.

A Foolish Consistency

Weir, Andrea

What if there were another world, almost like ours, but not quite? It brushes up against us, like the tail end of a dream, but stays just barely out of reach.What if you found a way to go there?Billy Boustany stumbles upon the ability to slip into a surprising new version of his sleepy midwestern city. He begins a journey that is most fun he's had in years. Then it turns into an obsession that upends his life, his family, and everything he knows.A Universe Less Traveled tells Billy's story, framed by tales of other accidental travelers to this mysterious city, and provides a glimpse into an alternate history of the twentieth century.Looking for an escape from the troubles of his failing business, Billy discovers a teeming metropolis with iridescent skyscrapers and throngs of immigrants and tourists from all over the world. As he explores, he meets peculiar allies and experiences raucous celebrations. Billy questions his sanity as he struggles to make sense of this bizarre world. Though he fears screwing up his adventure, he lets his college student daughter in on the secret. Together they go further into this amazing place, until they reach the ultimate destination, a magnificent city of Native Americans that has sprung up at an ancient site. There she begins a relationship with a handsome young man with a startling plan.Billy also meets a formidable enemy - the Knights, a shadowy organization with a mission to keep people like him out of their world. They reveal how the two worlds diverged a century ago and warn him to stay away at all costs.When his daughter disappears at the hands of the Knights, Billy and his wife go on a frantic search to find her in the other city. It leads to heartbreak, then to a new beginning.

A Universe Less Traveled (Intersecting Worlds)

von Schrader, Eric

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