Showing all 29 results
A Better Man: True American Heroes Speak to Young Men and Women on Love, Power, Pride, and What It Really Means to Be a Man (2nd Ed.)
by Kelly Johnson $25.95
edited by Kelly H. Johnson
The journey from adolescence to adulthood is a momentous time in every person’s life. Never has this transition been more challenging than it is today. In addition to the perennial trials of peer pressure, hormones and popularity, young men and women must now grapple with a media-saturated culture that places enormous emphasis on physical appeal, material wealth and celebrity status. And, thanks to the growing number and reach of social media platforms, the cultural noise is only getting louder, making it exponentially more difficult to find reliable answers to life’s largest and most meaningful questions.
Stepping in to help fill this void, A Better Man features first-person narratives from some of the most respected and engaging men in America today. With sincerity, humor and directness, they share their experience and advice on courage, service, anger, respect, and a host of other topics. Their stories speak to our common humanity and so have the power to impact young men and women alike, inspiring them to imagine larger possibilities as they seek to define adulthood for themselves. For example . . .
Civil rights icon Andrew Young talks about what happened at the Lorraine Motel in the moments before Dr. King was shot . . . and what he learned from that event.
NBA Hall of Fame Basketball player Dominique Wilkins explains why it’s important to treat others with respect, do what you know is right and stand up for yourself.
Four-star Admiral Leighton Smith talks about learning the lesson of responsibility (and avoiding the life of a pig farmer!).
An open letter from one generation to the next, A Better Man offers young people some much-needed light on the journey to becoming who they were meant to be—showing all of us another way. A better way.
A Love Letter: My Y Story, My Cancer Journey
by Michael Roberts $15.95
written by Michael Roberts
The frightening grip of cancer uncovers strengths and weaknesses within the human spirit. For Ethan Clarke, a very personal battle with the disease reveals hidden demons that had been stifling his sexual identity and his connections with others. These demons had kept him from enjoying health and happiness and from accepting the healing powers of change.
Ethan, however, had some formidable allies to face down these foes: Ethan’s close friend, Sophie, the camaraderie found at the local YMCA, the LIVESTRONG program, the idea of one day finding love, and the human will to survive. When Ethan is persuaded to mail a letter to a fellow survivor, a sporting hero from the past, and faces the possibility of meeting this hero, he realizes he must find the strength to fight the disease and the strength to embrace hope and self-confidence.
A Love Letter describes one man’s fight against cancer, the many levels of support and community found in the YMCA, and the power of friendship.
Broken Wings: What’s Wrong With Her?
by Stephanie Fortune $15.00
by Stephanie Fortune
Broken Wings: What’s Wrong With Her? is the inspirational story of Christina Fortune, who was born with and died from complications of cerebral palsy. In her brief twenty-four years, she lived as the gentle angel her devoted mother believed her to be. Bound to a wheelchair and with no ability to speak, Christina may have been fully dependent on the assistance of others, yet she lived as a brilliant example of goodness. Her lesson to us is in the gift of her ability to inspire compassion and her demonstrated courage against illness and pain. Broken Wings not only celebrates Christina’s journey, but provides tips, insight, and recipes for those who work with and care for cerebral palsy patients.
Coming Around
by Richard Rose $15.00
by Richard Rose
While researching family history for his semibiographical opera Monte and Pinky, Richmond-based poet and songwriter Richard Rose came face to face with the fact of his ancestors' involvement in the local slave trade. As a social and environmental activist, Rose became determined to explore and come to terms with the many consequences of the injustices in which his family took part.
A story in verse, Coming Around is the companion piece to Monte and Pinky, following the life and descendants of a slave named Simon Abouette and of the Ouillechaud family, who purchase him to work on their sugar plantation in the early 1800s. Interspersed with heartbreaking lyric pieces based on historical anecdotes from across the South, Coming Around is the culmination of one man's effort to heal the hurts of the past through humility, understanding, and acceptance.
Danger on My Doorstep: The Anita Flora Powitzer Story
by Linda Schubert $3.99 – $13.95
by Linda Schubert
Berlin had been safe for Anita Powitzer for as long as she could remember. But when Hitler came to power, everything changed. Now policemen harmed instead of helped, and Anita couldn’t even talk to her best friend. Flung from her secure childhood into a fearful world, she and her family had to find a way to flee Berlin before it was too late. It was risky, and Anita had to be separated from her loved ones, but this was the only way out. Alone in a country with a language she didn’t understand, staying with people she had never met, Anita had to wait and hope her parents could join her. Would she and her family be safe?
A journey fraught with danger from Germany to Great Britain, and finally to America, this is the true story of one Jewish family’s escape from Nazi Berlin.
Dinosaurs in the Cornfield: Lessons Unearthed on My Grandfather’s Farm
by William B. Hardison, Jr. $19.95 – $28.95
written by William B. Hardison, Jr.
illustrated by Candice Smith
Grandpa says it best. He always does:
“Knowin’ where you came from makes you part of somethin’ larger’n yerself—and from yer beginnin’, you were meant t’ be larger’n yerself.”
For young Billy, summer means saying goodbye to city life and traveling seven hundred miles to visit his grandparents on their Tennessee farm. It means long, humid days of snapping beans, milking cows, hunting for fossils in rocky fields, and trips into town for ice-cream sodas and comic books at the five-and-dime. It means muggy nights spent on the front porch with family, the boys gathered around the big Philco radio, listening to The Lone Ranger over the low hum of crickets. But most of all, summer means time spent in the long shadow of Grandpa, a massive Welchman, keenly observant, frugal of words and actions, but rich in experience and country wisdom. On this remote patch of farmland, Grandpa’s word is law.
Now, William Hardison looks back on those summer days with nostalgic fondness and his own hard-earned wisdom. In doing so, he rediscovers deeper lessons hidden within the adventures he so often took for granted as an energetic child. And along the way, he invites you to ponder:
When you look back on your childhood, what long-forgotten treasures might you unearth?
Friday Adventures
by PV Jackson $15.00
by PV Jackson
It’s never too late for one last adventure!
Follow two sisters on an unforgettable journey through Richmond!
It’s been years since Kate and Grace went on their last “Friday Adventure” with Dad. They’ve since grown up and left home to lead their own lives. After their father passed away, both he and Friday Adventures became happy memories.
Then one day, Grace receives a cryptic letter from Beyond, and a gift package: an old laptop with a video message from Dad.
Spoken from beyond the grave, Dad has one last Friday Adventure for his daughters—an unusual scavenger hunt through the fascinating history of their hometown. From Maymont to Macbeth, Swannanoa to Hollywood Cemetery and beyond, Kate and Grace will follow clues and work together to solve the mysteries of Dad’s final Adventure. They’ll learn about their father; their city; and most of all, each other.
Labyrinth of Terror
by Richard P. Wenzel $4.99 – $16.00
by Richard P. Wenzel
Terror reigns when a string of post-op infections erupts in the sanitized halls of King’s College Hospital in London. A trio of experts—Microbiology Professor Chris Rose, Jake Evans, an American infectious disease specialist, and Elizabeth Foster, a senior agent with M15—soon realize that the offending organism is a weapon in a worldwide terrorist plot. The terrorists turn their focus on an upcoming medical-legal conference, hoping to infect hundreds and subsequently ravage the global community, as well as those very doctors who might be able to find a cure.
Author and physician Richard Wenzel takes us on a riveting, winding journey through Europe and the Middle East, unravels the science of infections, and opens a revealing window on the complex politics of medicine.
Lifeline 65: How Small Connections and Big Enthusiasm Can Change Education
by Ryan Stein and Jennifer Costa Berdux $4.99 – $28.95
by Ryan T. Stein and Jennifer Costa Berdux
After fifteen years as an award-winning educator, Ryan Stein knows this: when you make the school experience about fostering genuine human connection, students don’t just succeed—they thrive.
In this part-guidebook, part-memoir, Ryan shares the best ideas and stories from his groundbreaking educational philosophy with anyone seeking to make a positive difference in a student’s life. Lifeline 65 is as joyful as it is useful, packed full of wit, humor, and heart. Try even one strategy and you’ll find your students more engaged, confident, and eager to excel, from elementary school to college and beyond. All you have to do is begin.
Love and Other Illusions
$16.00
by Mariah Robinson
Enter the world of Jillian Barrister and those who orbit around her-Clay, David, Norma and Dr. Allison-players in a riveting drama of love and loss, happiness and anguish, innocence and guilt. It is Dr. Allison's task to study and understand his patients through the process of analysis, and Jillian is no exception-or is she? The more deeply he probes, the closer he comes to unearthing the childhood tragedy that has isolated her from herself and others, and could topple the precarious defenses of her internal world-a fragile but guarded state of consciousness in which the past is always just beneath the surface.
My Dance with Grace: Reflections on Death and Life
by Weldon Bradshaw $8.99 – $15.00
by Weldon Bradshaw
Late in 2009, Weldon Bradshaw was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, an incurable, autoimmune liver condition. Over the next two and a half years, as the disease progressed slowly and his liver and health deteriorated, his prognosis grew bleak. By November of 2012, his doctor informed him that if he didn’t receive a transplant, he’d be dead within the week.
Through it all, Weldon remained steadfast to the promise he’d made his family at the outset of his illness: he would be there to dance at his granddaughter’s wedding.
A high school cross country coach and lifelong athlete, Weldon was accustomed to tests of endurance, spirit, and drive. But nothing could have prepared him for this—the race of his life. It would be a race against time and chance and hopelessness in the face of devastating odds. It would be a race for a miracle.
Once Upon a Fable
by Mariah Robinson $4.99 – $25.95
by Mariah Robinson
Once Upon a Fable is a lively collection of seven compelling and comforting tales with 20/20 vision. There’s a solid marriage verging on the rocks; an abandoned baby raven and a family of field mice; a precocious little boy, his strong-willed nanny, and his amazing best friend; an unyielding politician’s moments of reckoning; a bridge whiz millionaire who chooses his partner; a mantis of distinction and a beyond-the-coop hen who cross paths, and last, an exotic Hollywood-bound duck of color who gets her wish. Mariah Robinson has drawn a collection of fast-paced, age old dramas of memorable life events, enduring love, envy, animosity, infidelity with a twist, and a host of bittersweet tosses and turns--all set in fanciful plots. This unforgettable cast of characters is sure to capture your heart and set it spinning.
Pollyanna Gay
$12.99 – $23.95
written by Jer Long
August Applegate is sixteen years old, and he’s known he’s gay for eleven of them. But in 1963, life in a small Appalachian hamlet doesn’t offer many opportunities to learn what that truly means.
That is, not until August spends one magical—if tumultuous—summer at Buck’s County Theatre Camp. There, he steps behind the curtains that shield the gay world from view and enters a bewildering universe of heated flings, dramatic breakups, and unspoken rules that leave his head spinning. Or perhaps that’s just his bunkmates: Pete, beautiful, charismatic, and secretive; and Farley Fairfield, chaos incarnate, who seems to hate August no matter what he does.
Thus begins a journey of many years, as August leaves camp and returns home to his loving, dysfunctional family; completes high school; attends college; survives life (once again) as Farley’s roommate; and finally sets out to build a life on his own terms. Navigating the uproar of the 1970s and into the next decade, August witnesses the defiant joy of the gay rights movement and the creeping dread of the AIDS crisis. Yet even amid the waning of old friendships, the withering of old loves, and the unspoken traumas that hold his family in their codependent orbits, the one thing August can’t get rid of is his tender, trusting “Pollyanna” heart.
But August’s stubborn optimism is more than just a chic set of rose-colored glasses. In fact, it might be the only pillar to which his loved ones can cling amid the relentless tides of fate. . . .
Remembering for Both of Us: A Child Learns about Alzheimer’s
by Charlotte Wood $12.95 – $18.95
written by Charlotte Wood
Tasha loves her grandfather, and she knows that PaPa loves her. But lately, PaPa has begun to forget things. He’s often confused and upset. Sometimes, he doesn’t even recognize his own family. How can Tasha’s grandmother help her see that while PaPa is changing, his love for Tasha has not?
Remembering for Both of Us is a touching story of a child’s first glimpse of Alzheimer’s and a reminder that ties of the heart transcend age and illness.
Richmond’s Unhealed History
by Ben Campbell $5.99 – $30.95
written by Ben Campbell
In a detailed look at the history of Richmond, Benjamin Campbell examines the contradictions and crises that have formed the city over more than four centuries. Campbell argues that the community of metropolitan Richmond is engaged in a decisive spiritual battle in the coming decade. He believes the city, more than any in the nation, has the potential for an unprecedented and historic achievement. Its citizens can redeem and fulfill the ideals of their ancestors, proving to the world that race and class can be conquered by the deliberate and prayerful intention of honest and dedicated citizens.
Save the Trees
$15.95 – $26.95
written by Leslie Eva Tayloe
illustrated by Lintang Pandu Pratiwi
Ronnie loves trees. So when strange vines appear all over town, strangling the trees and making them fall over, he jumps into action right away! But Ronnie’s just one kid, and even with friends and family helping to pick, pull, and pluck the vines, they just grow faster every day!
If he really wants to save the trees, Ronnie will have to get the whole town to help out . . . before it’s too late!
Simon and the Worry Watch
by Susan M. Brown $13.95
written by Susan M. Brown
illustrated by Tara Friel Swinford
Simon is excited about his first day of preschool, but he is also a little bit worried! All day long, Simon worries. He worries that he might not have a friend. He worries that he might not find the bathroom on time. Most of all, he worries that he will miss his mom. Luckily, Simon’s mother has a plan to make the worries go away . . .
Written by a mother and longtime classroom educator, Simon and the Worry Watch is a fun story for kids and a helpful tool for parents, caregivers, and teachers of young children venturing out into the world for the first time.
Sister Cities: A Story of Friendship Between Virginia and Mali
by Ana Edwards and Robin Poulton $4.99 – $19.95
by Ana Edwards and Robin Poulton
Most early African Virginians came from the lands of the medieval Empire of Mali, founded by the original Lion King. Since the first Africans arrived in 1619, Virginia’s history has been linked to Africa and to Mali. Virginia's culture is filled with West African music, food, and other influences—including slavery and colonial domination. Both cities have a victims’ cemetery.
Sister Sorrow, Sister Joy
by Mariah Robinson $4.99 – $29.95
by Mariah Robinson
Ann Cabot, upscale art gallery owner, is struggling to find a pathway to lasting happiness while coping with the sorrows of relinquished love. There is George, her kind but stifling boyfriend, and Max, her intelligent but corrosive ex-husband.
Enter the Pied Piper—Maggie Lambert—Ann's newly commissioned and exquisitely gifted art conservator. Charismatic, enigmatic, and abrasively tough-minded, Maggie awakens something foreign and insistent in Ann that promises a new freedom.
Deeply wise and deftly written, Sister Sorrow, Sister Joy is about the risks of love—with all its joy, sorrow, and uncertainty.
Six Revolutionary WOW Factor Women
$8.99 – $13.95
written by Heidi Hartwiger
WHAT EXACTLY IS THE WOW FACTOR?
It’s a special quality tucked down deep inside you, which comes out when a problem needs solving. It might come from love, courage, or perseverance. Whatever inspires it, it is the part of you that says, “Watch Out World! I can deal with this.”
In this book, you will meet six strong, determined, independent women of America’s Revolutionary period—among them an extraordinary schoolteacher; an enslaved woman who went to court and won her freedom; a clever mother who took on six Redcoats on her own; an Oneida maiden who braved a blizzard to save Washington’s troops at Valley Forge; a sixteen-year-old girl trapped in a fort under siege; and even a president’s wife, hauling important documents from the burning White House—all of whom found their WOW factors within a few years of each other!
Who knows? As you explore their stories, you might just discover your own WOW factor!
Slow Dying: The Bosnian War Prison Camp at Visoko Diary and Testimonies
by Milenko S. Milanovic $15.95
by Milenko S. Milanovic
Following the Bosnian War and his immigration to the U.S., Serbian refugee Milenko Milanovic would awaken from horrifying dreams—vestiges of his eight-month imprisonment in the Bosnian war camp at Visoko. For years, Milenko’s memories remained suppressed, but his experiences lived on in the loose-leaf diary he had kept hidden in the lining of his jacket. After his release, he compiled these notes into the book that would become Slow Dying, a harrowing volume that details his capture and subsequent internment—the starvation, beatings and death. This fourth edition presents his diary in English for the first time, accompanied by contributions from his fellow prisoners and Milenko’s own reflections on his imprisonment and life as a refugee. It offers a poignant and compelling story of personal survival during one of the most brutal conflicts in recent history.
The Fourth Branch of Government: We the People
by Jack Trammell, PhD and Guy Terrell, MS, PMP $7.99 – $16.95
by Jack Trammell, PhD and Guy Terrell, MS, PMP
With the explosion of social media and the Internet, practically everyone in America has instant access to the news and a greater ability to follow what is happening anywhere. As a result, we are a culture and a nation that is bombarded with information. However, we are coping poorly with that assault and using an outdated framework for our governance. Many people feel disconnected from the very mechanisms and people who are supposed to represent their interests. The Fourth Branch of Government is about updating the framework of our democracy. It is a movement whose time has come, and one that the Founding Fathers envisioned. This book outlines a roadmap for how change can be facilitated, as well as a rationale for why it is absolutely necessary and urgent. The only way to update our democracy and make it relevant to the 21st century is to call for a Constitutional Convention. In that forum, we can consider changes like eliminating the Electoral College, or implementing e-voting—perhaps even changes leading to a broader and more direct participation in our governance, the Fourth Branch of Government.
The Wondrous Wizdom of Oz
by Christine Whitehead $2.99 – $15.00
by Christine Whitehead
The Wondrous Wizdom of Oz: A Spiritual Odyssey, is a fresh look at the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz--a classic that has much to teach us about life, about ourselves, and the choices we make. Dorothy and Toto's incredible journey home never grows old. But where exactly is home? Author Christine Whitehead teaches that our own yellow brick road can lead us home to a world of discovery, joy and personal fulfillment. Along this illuminated path, we meet some of the Earth's most enlightened journeymen-from Nelson Mandela to John Lennon, Anne Frank, Elton John, Jesus and Buddha, to the Zen masters. Their words of wisdom, along with Oz, Dorothy, and her companions, remind us that we, too, are wise, courageous and loving, if we only listen to our spirit.
Turnpike Confidential
$19.95
written by Neal Savage
Richmond, Virginia, fall 1956: World War II veteran Eddie Bostic earns his living as a locksmith. It’s an honest trade and one he takes pride in, something he can’t say about his days as a cop or private eye. After quitting the force and getting blacklisted as an investigator, Eddie is now as far away from all that as possible. The only problem, he’s being evicted from his shop and can’t afford to lease a new place.
When summoned to the downtown offices of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike Authority, he learns it’s not about eviction or a locksmith job. The word is out that Eddie does side jobs as an unlicensed investigator. When the Authority offers him enough cash for a new shop in exchange for some of his side work, Eddie is ambivalent. They’re no friend, and this is no favor. Eddie’s choice will take him down a dark road toward deceit, betrayal, and murder.
Against a post-war Southern backdrop, this journey includes an encounter with a young Martin Luther King, Jr., the keynote speaker at a local conference. Several other scenes are set inside the liminal spaces of Richmond’s Black district, Jackson Ward, before the wrecking ball came calling. Turnpike Confidential is an explosive story of race, history, and injustice in a city that will be changed forever.
Twinings: Poems at Eighty
$6.99 – $14.95
by Julie Fritz
This gathering of poems from Julie Fritz’s lifetime of attention will give readers a chance to travel back in their own memories too, bringing with them the probing questions and insights she has generously shared in this heartfelt collection about a life well-lived.
Uncle George and Me
by Bill Sizemore $4.99 – $26.95
by Bill Sizemore
In Uncle George and Me, author Bill Sizemore tells the story of his slave-owning Virginia ancestors, their slaves, and those slaves’ descendants—a story that lay buried by a century of denial and historical amnesia. Its threads run through the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the struggle for civil rights, and the crippling legacy of slavery that still plagues the nation today. In microcosm, it is the story of Virginia and the South. In telling it, Sizemore hopes to advance an essential, if painful, national conversation about race.
When Soldiers Cried: A True Story About Vietnam
by David Shea
by David Shea
By the summer of 1967, the nation’s Selective Service System was fueling the largest military build-up since World War II. Hundreds of thousands of young men, many too young to legally drink and vote, were inducted to wage an ill-fated war in Vietnam. Written as a narrative history, this story is a lasting tribute to those who answered the call and paid the ultimate sacrifice [in the face of improbable odds.]
Based on actual events, this book provides a unique, behind-the-scenes account of [the draft and how the Vietnam War was actually conducted and fought. Although many of the scenes are shockingly vivid and the language is often raw, they have been included to describe] the real conditions the young draftees had to endure. Woven throughout the pages of this book are the tragedies of loss and the instinctive drive to survive and rebuild.
Sadly, many of the men depicted in this book are among the over fifty-eight thousand fallen soldiers whose names are engraved on the hallowed, granite panels of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. Countless more were wounded or suffered from [haunting,] psychological problems, withdrawal, depression and suicide. In many ways, the sacrifices paid by their families were even greater.
To respect the privacy of the surviving families, many of the names in this book have been changed in order to protect their true identities.
To order this book at the sale price, please contact us at ceci@brandylanepublishers.com.
Wisdom Builds Her House
$8.99 – $18.95
written by Carole Duff
Wisdom Builds Her House is the true story of a woman who comes face-to-face with her past when she reads the journal of her husband’s deceased daughter, a girl she never met. Curiosity leads to self-inquiry and haunting parallels between Carole and Gretchen: inexplicable disruptions from when they were five; mental illness episodes starting at sixteen; troubles in college; rejection in love—secrets hiding in their closets. While building a new house in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband, Carole reads the journals, which lead her to uncover the never-spoken truth about the violent crime from her childhood, all resulting in a crisis of faith.
Writing Our Way Out: Memoirs from Jail
by David Coogan $16.95 – $30.95
by David Coogan
Detailing the formative and transformative memories of ten men, Writing Our Way Out is the creative culmination of a writing class that began in the Richmond City Jail in Virginia, and grew into a journey to re-entry. Compiled in a narrative by their teacher, Dr. David Coogan, these stories explore the conditions, traps, and turning points on the path to imprisonment in modern America, as well as the redemptive and rehabilitative power of memoir.
