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Before Dawn: A Time of Testing, Humbling, Suffering, and Sacrificing
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Lady in Red Where is Your Head?
Price range: $3.99 through $16.99“Lady in Red, Where is Your Head?” by first-author Carolann deBellis, tells the story of a woman who survived a brain injury and a coma after a car accident on an icy New Jersey Turnpike in 1987, when she was 34.
Carolann had it all, the perfect life, before the accident-a great job at a hot Philadelphia salon, a passionate 12-year marriage and a wide circle of friends and family who marveled at her energy and infectious spirit.
Then, in the aftermath of the near-death accident, she lost it all-job, husband and sense of self. After learning to walk, talk and cut hair again, she faced the life-long task of going beyond recovery, beyond recreating the person she was before the accident to aspire for something better. Psychological counseling and the support of a loving circle of family and friends helped her to see that all was not perfect before the accident, helped her redefine a new Carolann, a work in progress who’s less self-absorbed and more self-aware, less controlling, and more open in her relationships with men in her life.
If it weren’t for the imperative, painful job of remaking herself physically, cognitively, and emotionally from a child-like state after the accident, Carolann might never have undertaken the intense personal journey that leads her today, at 59, to say “I thank God for my brain injury that cured me.”
More than a conventional memoir or self-help guide, “Lady in Red” stitches together Carolann’s own words, a diary that her cousin Michael Biello wrote during her coma and rehabilitation, hospital documents, notes from nurses and visitors and Carolann’s collection of inspirational quotes.
“I wrote and rewrote this book for over 20 years to help others who suffered or know someone who has suffered a brain injury,” Carolann says. Certainly, those directly or indirectly affected by a traumatic brain injury will benefit from reading her book, but so will anyone who believes it’s never too late to re-examine yourself and get to work making yourself a better person.
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Sculptor Of The North: The Evolution of a Soul
Price range: $3.99 through $8.99It was the summer of 1973, and the Vietnam War was casting its insidious shadow over the world. Caught in a riot that began as an anti-war protest, I found myself running for my life from club-swinging cops and being teargassed from pepper fogging guns at the University of Minnesota. The protest was a result of American airplanes bombing neighboring Cambodia. It was soon after the deadly shootings at Kent State University where four students were gunned down. Many students gathered at Coffman Memorial Union watching television monitors broadcasting that day’s protest-turned-riot.
It was announced that the Minnesota National Guard had been called in. Oh-oh, here we go again. Were they going to open fire on us too? I was a senior at the university and had been accepted at the University of San Diego Law School. That day’s events changed my life. No way was I going to be a part of a money-crazed system as a lawyer, so I began my journey as an artist/sculptor.
Five years later, I found myself living in a tent in the woods near Ely. After two years of tent life, I moved to an old hunting shack filled with spiders, mice, and snakes on the property I bought. It was a roof over my head. After seven laborious years of remodeling with popular logs that I fitted into a log hut around the shack, the structure burnt to the ground during the blue moon on New Year’s Eve 1990. It was minus 40 degrees. I sat in the firetruck with then chief Klun after racing to my nearest neighbor’s house, logger Buster Nicholson, where I burst through his door yelling, “My house is on fire!”
“Use the phone,” he hollered, and I did. The Ely Fire Department met me at the beginning of Mud Creek Road, and I escorted them six miles down the road and into my remote haven in the woods. It was too late. Fire was consuming everything. Glass and ammunition were exploding, and the hoses on the truck were frozen. A night to remember for sure, but if anything is going to get the motivational juices flowing, it was that.
I created a monumental sculpture 31 years later of this resolute and powerful Viking, which is now the second-tallest cement statue in the state. It was a year-long project that stands nine feet tall and weighs about 3,500 pounds. Located in Tower behind the football field, he stands with his sword rammed into the ground looking skyward for a sign from the heavens, just like I did in 1973 and on New Year’s Eve during the blue moon.
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Big Bunches At The Jam Factory: We Are Only Dead If We Are Forgotten
Price range: $3.99 through $12.99The early 1980s witnessed the rise of a devastating disease that would kill millions worldwide, including thousands of young gay men; what would become known as the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In those dark days, Keith Paulusse transformed his South Yarra flower shop, Big Bunches, into a pioneering refuge and community for young gay men, their loved ones and families.
Paulusse promised his friends that their journeys would not soon be forgotten. Big Bunches at the Jam Factory is their tale, a chronicle of the personalities and events that made Big Bunches a vibrant hub of community activism, spirit, and perseverance. It is also a tale of Paulusse’s own travels, both physically and emotionally, from San Francisco in the heady days of the HIV/AIDS crisis, to the bedsides of dying friends back in Melbourne.
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The Going Was Good: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life
Price range: $3.99 through $12.50Spanning the decades from 1934 to 2020, The Going Was Good: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life follows the life of author David Buisseret from his early childhood to his life in retirement. Woven within the text, Buisseret recounts many historical events and trends, not only as a historian, but as someone who experienced the many changes and challenges of the times. Simultaneously, he expounds upon how these events affected his life, both professionally and personally, as well as the lives of his family.
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Selectively Lawless
Price range: $3.99 through $10.99This is the story of the son of a sharecropping lay minister who, at age 14, walks off the Texas cotton field his family is working on and tells his brother he is never picking cotton again. For the next 18 months he travels halfway across the country and up the Pacific Coast honing his skills as a gambler. At the end of that time he returns to his family driving a new Buick Roadster with $18,000 in his pocket. The money bank rolls his bootlegging enterprise.
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Lessons from the Mahaw Bog
Price range: $3.99 through $8.99This story of a woman’s journey was written to inspire people to achieve great things. She feels that all who want to achieve great things must set goals and exhibit tenacity, perseverance, and sacrifice in working to achieve those goals. She feels that people should actively pursue their goals regardless of the pitfalls, hurdles, and roadblocks they might encounter in the pursuit of their dreams.
Crippled by socially imposed limitations that were a product of that time, she found creative ways to circumvent those challenges and use the resources
available to her to make a difference. She believed that if you empower yourself, you can improve the world by helping others.
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Princess Diana 2020: A Quest For Love
Price range: $3.99 through $10.99The Princess Diana story lives on.
Diana’s youngest son, Prince Harry, now 35, made headlines in late 2019 by saying his “greatest fear” is that because of several years of tabloid bullying of his wife Meghan Markle, she is being hounded like his mother was, and “history may repeat itself.” The royal couple had just sued a London tabloid for publishing Meghan’s private letter to her estranged father that fans the flames of their personal family feud. Prince William echoes his brother’s fear for Meghan’s and his wife Kate Middleton’s mental and physical health and safety.
Other Diana biographers have told pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of who she was. This book puts all the pieces together for a more comprehensive emotional portrait of the beloved but enigmatic Princess 22 years after her tragic and unexpected death at age 36 in 1979. We learn more about her through knowing about the thirteen men who were in her love life as she was on a quest for love all her short life.
We also learn about a woman who was Prince Charles’s “other mistress,” besides Camilla Parker Bowles, whom other biographers have not mentioned.
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Life Struggle of a Vietnam Veteran: Out of the Vietnam War
Price range: $3.99 through $10.99This book is all about personal life experiences, which aims to inspire people. This book is made out of the realization that you should share your story to the world so that when you die, people will know about you, and your story will serve as an inspiration to other people.
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More Than A Conqueror
Price range: $3.99 through $11.99Life was different back in the day. Community was vital. Childhood antics, teenage exploits, and the challenges of young adulthood revealed I didn’t know what I thought I knew. Through all of this, the greatest influence of my life was my mom. She helped me process the good and the bad. Instead of being one-dimensional live, love, and laugh with the great intention and anticipation of more. As she is no longer with me her words and laughter linger on, and I am emancipated. I learned that the greatest gift of life was and truly is love; unpretentious, nurtured, and existing to be shared with others.
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Parables for Purposeful Walk
Price range: $3.99 through $21.99Parables For The Purposeful Walk follows in the tradition of Jack Worril’s first two books, “Parables for Plain People” and “More Parables for Plain People,” offering brief devotional messages for daily encouragement and inspiration. It was in the metropolitan Atlanta area that he made his living, raised his own family, carried out his various ministries, and witnessed the events and news items that have served as the basis for his writings. Since 2012, Jack’s ministry opportunities have expanded to include medical and evangelistic missions to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Myanmar and Brazil, as well as several local Mission projects. Each of these personal experiences has added new perspective to the concept of walking the Purposeful Walk, and contributed to the enrichment of Jack’s observations of the working of God in the everyday lives of those with whom he has come in contact. The result is a collection of articles composed with the objective of focusing the readers’ attention on the Presence of God in each day’s events, whether personal, local, or worldwide. Jack’s desire is that these Parables will serve to give encouragement, guidance and inspiration to each one who engages in the purposeful walk through life.
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The Miracles in the Life of Abeth
Price range: $3.99 through $9.99Dear Family, Members of the Prayer Group, and Friends: My heartfelt thanks for your purchase of this book and the contributions for this worthy cause! It will take the Mission to the next level in making a difference in people’s lives and the future of the Mission Rosary Prayer Group. You and your families will always be remembered in my prayers as I go through this journey of propagation of faith with the Mission Rosary Prayer Group. This had become my livelihood and it definitely changed my life and my priorities to serve Our Lord Jesus. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary had impacted my life and so many others that I had to share it with the world. I authored this book to open my life, my love, my heart, and I even poured tears along the way. This book will benefit the Abeth Foundation, the descendants of this prayer group.
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Aloha Nui Loa: A Pineapple Plantation Story
Price range: $3.99 through $24.99It was going to be a great summer on O’ahu, enjoying, working, a part timr job, while relishing time off from college life on Maui. Yet culinary student Eden Andres didn’t foresee that her return to her beloved plantation home, after two years away at school, would change the direction of her life. In Aloha Nui Loa, local girl Eden Andres Meets Ben Alexander. She is the daughter of the union representative, and he is the son of the chief stockholder of the corporation which owns the pineapple plantation where her father is employed. They couldn’t be more contrasting in their backgrounds and lifestyles. But frequent encounters cause sparks to fly, and with more lengthy time spent together, love blossoms.
As their relationship deepens, Eden and Ben must face what seem like insurmountable obstacles to their happiness. Ben has ghosts from his past that will challenge the trust and respect they have for each other. It will take a steadfast belief in their love to weather the impending storm in their paths. Will love conquer all?
Aloha Nui Loa paints an accurate and insight picture of pineapple plantation living in Hawaii in the mid to late 1900s. Manu details are provided that could only be known to someone who lived them. This is part pf the real Hawaii, and you’ll be grateful to have an inside view.
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Captain Jack Goes North To Alaska
Price range: $3.99 through $13.99Captain Jack is an old geezer who creates the life he hopes to live before he dies. He is generous to a fault, bribes his family, his employees and their proposed marriage partners to go north, convert to Christianity, and join and eventually own his newly acquired business shipping freight among the islands of Alaska. He is a successful author, an accomplished craftsman, a builder and a man whose hard work, courage, generosity and greatly inflated self-image impacts an Indian village, a town, assorted small businesses and three generations of his family. With plenty of time to spare before he kicks it, the bucket is emptied.
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Like The Moon, Mr. Purple
Price range: $3.99 through $39.99God creates the human families and grants them the ability to weave stories of their own existence. The Morada Clan of Bicol, therefore, as any family in the world, cannot claim a monopoly on life’s blessings and crucibles. But let me tell our peculiar stories just the same.
We are neither perfect, nor are our stories grandiose, but it’s our imperfections and their simplicity that make our stories more compelling and relatable. Even before the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, we told ourselves that someone had got to narrate them, or they could lapse and fade into insignificance and oblivion. That’s how and why my role came into being.
At work in Texas, they called me Mr. Purple. from an obscure corner of the Third World came this educator with his bio, love affair, work exploits, bittersweet memoir, and family history replete with actual events and genuine people, rolled into one. With the pandemic as standpoint, here is a look-back at the itsy-bitsy events that form the collective tale of my family and me – and my pursuit of the American Dream.
