Books published by Full Court Press

Thirty-year-old Johnny Romano wants to be taken seriously, but the choices he makes-a one-man production of Waiting for Godot, a monumental sneeze in a cold syrup commercial, and a thirty-thousand-dollar gambling debt to Salvatore "Sally Toast" Tosterelli-have sabotaged his acting career. His bad decisions have, more importantly, put his four-and-a-half-year relationship with a woman he truly loves-soap opera star Laura Winters-on the edge of a cliff. Through a botched car theft, Johnny meets Virgil Shepherd, street person and sometime porter for a bar on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village. Scribbling his poems on napkins from Dunkin Donuts, Virgil is convinced that he is the Roman poet who guided Dante through Hell. Johnny is convinced that he is crazy. But as their lives converge, Johnny begins to suspect that the mysterious Virgil may actually have an agenda of his own. Set ten days before Christmas in 1997, Two Nickels follows this very unlikely pair through Manhattan (and a few choice spots on Staten Island) as they head toward the answer to a question that Johnny has done his best to avoid: What does it take for us to forgive ourselves and begin to heal?

Chief Inspector Maurice Clavel of the Paris criminal brigade has planned a relaxing Sunday when he's called to investigate a bizarre crime in the upscale Sixth arrondissement, where a young American has been viciously assaulted for no apparent reason. Ably assisted by Claire Simon, his very bright and alluring junior officer, by an American investigative reporter she becomes romantically involved with who is a close friend of the victim, and by a string of obscure clues-including shreds of pipe tobacco and photographs of twentieth-century Fauve paintings-Clavel methodically uncovers a very dark reality lurking beneath the gleaming surfaces of the city's genteel society. That includes its legendary art establishment, where even the work of artists one has never heard of can sell for astronomical sums, where the line between homage and forgery gets blurred, and clever people have constructed hidden scams that are notoriously difficult to reveal.

This is my closureThe result of years spent writing instead of healing,This is my soul finally having a resting placeMy lungs being free of the words that kept me from breathingAnd my heart once again pumping blood instead of ink.This book is who I used to be.Take these poems as they are and on their own terms, travel the roads the young woman who set them down has traveled, and you will be altered by being with them.Liat Silver is a twenty-year-old Communications student. Though she has been writing since the age of ten, this is her first published work. Writing poetry helped her find her voice and overcome the challenges of her teenage years. When not writing, she enjoys reading, typing out her thoughts on her vintage typewriter, and spending time with friends and family.

Say hello to Jesse, a teenage boy with curly brown hair, living in Hawaii with his adoptive mother, Nanney. He''s very close to Lani, a lovely girl who shares similar interests, and Dolphino, a star dolphin who has escaped from the Ocean World Theme Park. But who are Jesse''s real parents, and what''s happened to them? Are they still alive? Does he have any brothers or sisters? And if he does, what part will they play in his future?How would you like to win a Three-Year, All-Expense-Paid Vacation Anywhere on Planet Earth? That''s exactly what happened to Jesse''s parents, who are living on the Planet Plethoria, far beyond our galaxy. A long time ago, they won the grand prize in a dangerous space-race competition and chose Hawaii as their destination. How did they get there? How did they return to Plethoria-and why was Jesse left behind on Earth? Will they ever see him again?Adventurous boys, great friends, a very talented dolphin, loving parents, intergalactic travels-and all kinds of villains-are intricately connected in this science-fiction story that''s out of this world!

This book, by a widely experienced clinical psychologist, is a gentle invitation for readers to move through the many shades of absorbing a loved one's death, and provides those who are grieving, or anticipating loss, with a compassionate companion on one of the most difficult journeys of a lifetime. Organized into fifty-two sections, one for each week of the first year of loss, it offers meaningful reflections, meditations, and journal prompts to guide the reader along his or her path-including finding acceptance, inner healing, personal rituals, and much more. While supporting and comforting the reader through the acute and disorienting path of grief, Dr. Schmidt makes clear that it may take time to enter this difficult process after a loss and is not likely to end after marking the first anniversary. The book continues as a powerful resource for guidance and solace for as long as the reader needs it.

When the author of Searching for Grace realized she needed to face her fears about the Covid-19 pandemic, she decided to create a scroll fifteen inches by thirty feet exploring the Hebrew alphabet, and she dedicated this work as a prayer in action for those who needed prayers during this time. This book offers one aspect of that scroll-the Zohar story of God deciding which of the twenty-two letters will be chosen to initiate the creation of the world. The story appears in Psalm 119, which lists eight verses for every letter of the Hebrew alphabet, as well as some of the energetic qualities that each letter expresses.  The author hopes to remind us that the world remains beautiful even in such troubling times.

The premise of Goal-Oriented Medical Care is that, prior to consideration of strategies, the health care team must understand the patient''s personal health goals and priorities. While intuitively obvious, addition of the goal-clarification step changes the focus from problem-solving to goal attainment, forcing a reconsideration of the meaning of health and the purpose of health care. It elevates the role of patients in decision-making, broadens the range of strategies, encourages individualization and prioritization, and creates a conceptual framework for true person-centered care. And while the idea is deceptively simple, it provides a blueprint for the transformation of health care systems trying to adapt to changing health concerns, scientific and technological advances, health and health care inequities, and rising costs. This book was written primarily to introduce goal-oriented medical care to physicians and other health care professionals, but it should be of interest to health care administrators and policy-makers as well.

The story of a young immigrant's struggle to find his real place in the world.

Meet Cristina—a little girl who lives in Perugia, a medieval city in central Italy. She leads a magical life there, where her imagination is free to roam the old stone streets lined with shops and churches.That world is suddenly shattered when her parents tell her that the family needs to move an ocean away—to America.Follow Cristina across the Atlantic Ocean to a new adventure in a new world. She turns her sadness into curiosity as she discovers the majesty of the ocean and finds new friends and family in New York City.

The clear-eyed, self-aware reflections of a seasoned American journalist on the steps (and missteps) of a dedicated life.

This is the story of a successful English professor’s ten-year marriage to a much younger Nigerian woodcarver whose motives for marrying her she has chosen not to investigate. It’s her second marriage, and she has determined that singleness is not a state she would willingly choose over being the wife of a charming, good-looking man who has grown up in a small Nigerian village and followed generations of woodcarvers in his family.Married life for the two involves living on two continents—and, Kate Ellis learns, life on her new husband’s side is not monogamous. While the discovery is initially painful, she does not regret the gamble she took in joining her life to his. She comes to believe that what matters is not the fall itself but how one looks back over it.When she does this, she sees an adventure that has left her with a closet full of beautiful Nigerian clothes and a vividly poignant story to tell of the vast differences that underlie an intimacy between cultures that our recent historical and economic globalization has brought into being.

When Nathaniel Norton—who had studied law at Yale but became the head of the real estate department of Met Life instead—bought a house in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1908, he may or may not have imagined that his family would occupy it uninterrupted for four generations.  To us, it’s inconceivable.  It wasn’t unheard-of then.This book describes in intimate, highly readable detail what being in such a family was like.  It is a very old family.  Norton was born in 1839, a century before the author.  “In 1639,” she writes, “a Thomas Norton, or Norville, emigrated from Guilford, England, to Guilford, Connecticut. . . .  Six centuries before that, in 1066, his ancestor Le Seigneur de Norville had sailed with William the Conqueror from Normandy to England. The Seigneur, a constable, had married into the house of Valois.  Those were my maternal ancestors.  My paternal ancestors also came to England with William I, in particular Robert of Meulan, whose surname was Beaumont.  Another line of Nortons descended from Baldwin I, Count of Flanders, who married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald and great-granddaughter of Charlemagne, and produced Matilda, later the wife of William the Conqueror.”  This history has contributed profoundly to the habits of mind, the sense of graciousness, and the dry wit of successive generations of the Norton, Hazelton, and Beaumont families.  And it achieves a rich, incisive expression in the hands of Natalie Beaumont, author of The Short Side of Paradise (Full Court Press, 2015), an earlier memoir in the same breezy, nonchalant narrative style.

Jim Gold has been an indispensable voice in the international folk dance community as a folk dance teacher,choreographer, and musician. He is also the president of Jim Gold International and organizes folk tours to such exotic countries as Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Norway, Albania,Romania, Argentina, Cuba, Hungary, Croatia,Slovenia, and Ireland, and more. This book is a product of extensive research into the languages, cultural histories, and folk dances local people have performed for centuries. Mr. Gold intends it as the first reference work of its kind-a repository of movements and dance steps, captured in his choreographies,created over many years. To help you learn these dances, each choreography includes a YouTube video link.

In struggling to save her beloved dog's life as the town she's living in attempts to kill all its dogs, a young girl discovers the meaning of courage.

CAROLETURBIN’S SOUVENIR COMBINES vivid writing, photographs, and art to tell the arresting story of growing up in Queens, New York, in the1940s and ‘50s with a distant mother and a mercurial father who sold souvenirs of New York to retail shops in Times Square and Chinatown. Finagler,practical jokester, gambler, and later magician—he could swing from angry rejector to loving parent. The author escaped for two decades to Europe and California,becoming an artist, feminist, and historian. Much later, when he was an old man and she was middle-aged, she realized that he’d encouraged her art by advising, “If you’re afraid, draw it,” and that she shared his strong emotions and determination. She drew images of plumbing that conveyed her visceral childhood fears and made peace with him, drawing his portrait on his deathbed.