Other books that might interest you

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  A Bit of Luck - Alternate...

  Lisa Mangum

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  “Twenty SFF authors reimagine famous moments from history in this anthology of what might have been.” —Publishers Weekly History may be written by the victors, but it is not always written in stone. Often the difference between a win or a loss comes down to the smallest moment, the smallest shift. A bit of luck. This anthology of twenty alternate history short stories revisits several of those pivotal moments and imagines what might have happened if things had gone just a little bit differently. The authors have drawn upon the whole timeline of history to tell stories of Scottish kings and Russian czars who lived instead of died, of wars whose outcome hinged on one person’s single choice, and of inventions that might have changed the world. The collection is filled with familiar figures—including Billy the Kid, Vlad Dracula, and Jack the Ripper—as well as stories exploring two very different fates of the Roman Empire. The anthology also includes an alternate history from the fictional world of The Great Gatsby. Some stories look at events that have not yet happened, and a few blur the meaning of time itself. History can be surprisingly malleable if we simply look at it in a new light.A Bit of Luck is the ninth anthology edited by Lisa Mangum and published by WordFire Press. Profits support the Don Hodge Memorial Scholarship fund for the Superstars Writing Seminars."This anthology is a must for lovers of fast-paced short stories with a historical and fantastical bent." —Booklist

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  Still No Word from You - Notes...

  Peter Orner

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  A new collection of pieces on literature and life by the author of Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the NBCC Award for Criticism 
   
   
    
  From the acclaimed fiction writer about whom Dwight Garner of the New York Times wrote, "You know from the second you pick him up that he's the real deal," comes Still No Word from You, a unique chain of essays and intimate stories that meld the lived life and the reading life. For Orner, there is no separation. Covering such well-known writers as Lorraine Hansberry, Primo Levi, and Marilynne Robinson, as well as other greats like Maeve Brennan and James Alan McPherson, Orner's highly personal take on literature alternates with his own true stories of loss and love, hope and despair. In his mother's copy of A Coney Island of the Mind, he's stopped short by a single word in the margin, "YES!"—which leads him to conjure his mother at twenty-three. He stops reading Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring three quarters of the way through because he knows that finishing the novel will leave him bereft. Orner's solution is to start again from the beginning to slow the inevitable heartache. 
   
   
    
  Still No Word from You is a book for anyone for whom reading is as essential as breathing.

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  Ali's Well That Ends Well -...

  Ali Wentworth

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  New York Times bestselling author Ali Wentworth offers a comedic look at family, friendship, and lessons learned during the Covid-19 pandemic in her new collection of laugh-out-loud comic vignettes. 
  Like many, Ali Wentworth spent the pandemic seesawing between highs, lows, and baking an unnecessary amount of chocolate cake. Between binging every tv show in existence to conquering TikTok to becoming a (semi) empty-nester, Ali experienced her share of turmoil (including an early case of Covid), but she also grew a little, learned a lot, and found comfort in some unexpected people and places. 
  In Ali’s Well That Ends Well, Wentworth turns her gimlet eye to the year no one saw coming. With her signature irreverent style, she shares the most hysterical, absurd, and sometimes trying episodes that her family endured during the terrible global pandemic. Thoroughly relatable, absolutely charming, and filled with moments both hilarious and poignant, this terrific collection once again showcases the comedic genius of a beloved star who is “the girlfriend you want to have a glass of wine with, the one who makes you laugh because she sees the funny and the absurd in everything"" (Huffington Post).

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  The Pledge to America - One...

  Drago Dzieran

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  Retired Navy SEAL Drago Dzieran takes listeners behind the scenes of his incredible life, from an impoverished childhood in Communist-controlled Poland to his time as a political prisoner, to his twenty years as a member of the United States military's most elite fighting force. 
   
   
   
  Everything I have, I owe to America—the greatest country in the world. 
   
   
   
  I have been fighting oppression and defending freedom my entire life. When I became a United States citizen, I felt it was my moral obligation to give back to this country and the people who had given me freedom. I wanted to serve my new country in the best capacity I could, so when the first Persian Gulf War broke out, I decided to join the military. During my Navy career, I performed over one hundred combat direct action missions in Iraq from 2003 to 2005. 
   
   
   
  My chance to live as a free man is only possible because of the ideals the founding fathers fought for and that have been carried forward to this day by Americans. 
   
   
   
  Every person has a voice, and every voice matters. I will continue to encourage others to get involved, stand up, and preserve and cherish the freedom and liberty we have in America.

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  Maya Blue - A Memoir of Survival

  Brenda Coffee

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  MAYA BLUE: A Memoir of Survival is Working Girl meets Taken, a true story of love, cocaine, abduction, and survival, and in the end, Brenda Coffee is the last one standing. Recipient of the coveted Kirkus starred review and nominated for the prestigious 2025 Kirkus Prize, MAYA BLUE is a memoir that reads like a thriller, a compelling, fast-paced story that underscores the power of our voice.  
  "It was a fairy tale until it wasn't... " For a long time, that's what successful businesswoman Brenda Coffee told herself whenever she dared to look back on her twenties and thirties. The memories of what really happened were hidden in the back of her emotional closet.  
  At twenty-one, Brenda did almost anything her charismatic and powerful older husband, Philip Ray, wanted. Regardless of whether it was dangerous, adventurous, sexual, or illegal, she wanted to be the one woman he couldn’t live without. With unflinching honesty and written and narrated in first person present, Brenda pulls the listener into the life she once lived—and all the secrecy, madness, trauma, abuse, and danger that came with a brilliant and revered husband who learned to make cocaine in the basement, and after his death, when Brenda was taken at gunpoint in Guatemala.  
  The author has narrated this powerful and moving memoir, and at times, she breaks down in tears. MAYA BLUE is an inspiring reminder of our universal capacity to survive the unspeakable.

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  The Green Mister Rogers -...

  Sara Lindey, Jason King, Junlei Li

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  Fred Rogers was an international celebrity. He was a pioneer in children's television, an advocate for families, and a multimedia artist and performer. He wrote the television scripts and music, performed puppetry, sang, hosted, and directed Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for more than thirty years. Rogers' direct, slow, gentle, and empathic approach is supported by his superior emotional strength, his intellectual and creative courage, and his joyful spiritual confidence. 
   
   
   
  The Green Mister Rogers: Environmentalism in "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" centers on the show's environmentalism, primarily expressed through his themed week "Caring for the Environment," produced in 1990 in coordination with the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day. Unfolding against a trash catastrophe in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, Rogers advances an environmentalism for children that secures children in their family homes while extending their perspective to faraway places, from the local recycling center to Florida’s coral reef. Ultimately, Rogers cultivates a practical wisdom that provides a way for children to confront the environmental crisis through action and hope and, in doing so, develop into adults who possess greater care for the environment and a capacious imagination for solving the ecological problems we face.

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