Non-Fiction

Getting It Wrong : How Black Public Intellectuals Are Failing Black America
by Algernon Austin

Black public intellectuals, from liberal to conservative, are all talking about how black America is degenerating culturally. But there is little concrete evidence for this conclusion. In most areas of life, black Americans have made significant positive progress since the Civil Rights era.

Blacks are still economically worse off than whites, but black poverty has declined and the black middle class has grown since the 1960s. More blacks graduate from college today than ever before. Black communities are much safer now than during the peak crack epidemic years of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The black teenage pregnancy rate has fallen dramatically since the 1960s. All of these facts contradict the assertions of black cultural decline.

While negative images of blacks abound in American popular culture, there is no evidence that these images accurately represent most real black Americans. In Getting It Wrong, sociologist Algernon Austin carefully examines the data on black Americans and separates myth from fact.

This inspiring account of adoption, reunion, and heritage from Thomas Brooks provides a timely and provocative perspective on multicultural families and powerful insights on overcoming racism and poverty.

Brooks grew up as the only child of a struggling single mother in inner-city Pittsburgh. He was battling racial stereotypes at school and searching for a place among his peers. Then he was told at age eleven that he was adopted. Brooks had actually been born to a white biological mother who descended from Lithuanian Jews and a black Kenyan foreign student father.

Years after that stunning revelation, Brooks escaped the ghetto and traveled to search for his heritage. He found his biological mother in London with his previously unknown British siblings. He then located his biological father and extended family in Nairobi. His international search and the resulting reunions have profoundly affected three families in the United States, England, and Kenya.

Made a Difference for That One: A Surgeon's Letters Home from Iraq
by Meredith Coppola

This book offers a perspective on the war in Iraq that has not emerged in the newspapers or on television. When Air Force pediatric surgeon Christopher Coppola was deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he did not know what he would find in the war zone. His letters to family and friends document his experiences over four months service at a military support hospital as well as his journey home. Each new day brought challenges to the skill of the dedicated surgical team saving the lives of our brave troops on the battlefield. This gritty, ground-level account of both the suffering and heroism in the faces of the injured soldiers and civilians is a testament to the heart of our shared humanity.

A portion of the cost of this book is donated to the Fisher House Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that helps veterans and their families by providing a home away from home, allowing family members to be close to military members when they are hospitalized for treatment.

Aging Artfully
by Amy Gorman

Aging Artfully is a photo-documentary (100+ photos) of twelve remarkable San Francisco Bay Area women, aged 85-105, all actively engaged in the arts.

In a world full of negative aging images, Aging Artfully movingly documents the fact that old age can be a fulfilling time of creative expression and gratification—not of inactivity and loneliness.

Through insightful oral histories, Gorman skillfully unfolds the life and creative process of each artist. From tap dancer Dorothy Takahashi Toy, 88, to sculptor and doll maker Madeline Mason, 104, these women’s inspirational lives are filled with music, art, dance, song and story.

The Power of Face Reading
by Rose Rosetree

Open your heart with Rose Rosetree's amazing system of Face Reading Secrets® . Her update of the 3,000-year-old art of physiognomy can help you to be a better communicator, be more persuasive and make more friends. And did we mention have more fun? Let Rosetree take you on a wild and joyous ride around face parts you may never have seen before, like ear position and nostril shape

Wrinkles Are God's Makeup
By Rose Rosetree

The first book to explore how faces change over time. Step-by-step, learn how faces reveal secrets about work, power, money, sex and much more. Lavishly illustrated, and spiced with Rosetree's irreverent humor, this book is enormous fun and a joyous celebration of free will.