Books published by Old Stone Press

Two years before the end of WWII, two gifted German Jewish musicians-one a Holocaust survivor who barely escaped the infamous Theresienstadt concentration camp with his life, the other the daughter of a prominent Wehrmacht general-having fled the catastrophic Nazi conquest of Western Europe, where they had been hunted and hopelessly separated, reunite in Brazil. Dieter Meister, barroom piano man extraordinaire, and scintillating chanteuse Sofie von Siegler, the subjects of Robert Arthur Neff's first historical novel, Über Alles, seize a second chance at freedom and a life together.But residual shadows from the war's conflict soon darken the skies of their bright new world. Determined parties, from a fledgling American intelligence agency to Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, relentlessly sniff out the trail of Sofie's father, hiding out in South America. As the net draws tight around Sofie and Dieter, it's impossible to tell who can be trusted. And the United States, after having assembled a military force unparalleled in history and executed a remarkable strategy for victory, turns out not to be so well prepared for the war's aftermath.

The abrupt collapse of real estate mortgage values beginning in 2008 lead to a five-year worldwide recession.This near failure of the banking system substantially increased the public's awareness about the importance of understanding what an appraiser thinks or does.Written from the point of view of the appraiser and based on real-life experiences, this book shares insights valuable to industry experts as well as the tens of thousands of people who find themselves in court because the value of something is an issue.Most of author Hank Wise's work has been as an expert witness in civil cases wherein the critical issue to be decided is ‘what is it worth?’ His clients include the U.S. Department of Justice, states, cities, counties, and many national and regional law firms.  He appraised the Everglades and Big Cypress, tourist attraction caves, wells, mountains, air rights, mineral rights, even when all parties agreed that there were no minerals, as well as the usual panoply of shopping centres, apartments, office buildings and other commercial real estate properties.It's Only An Opinion: An Appraiser in Court uses interesting and unusual cases to illustrate the appraisal process and the reasoning that makes an appraisal credible. 

A family memoir unlike any you have ever read. This book recounts the author's life journey toward critical thinking, how it began and grew exponentially over time. There is humor, happiness, adventure, tragedy and sadness, a family dealing with critical health issues and the scourge of polio, although there is much to be thankful for in the life of four brothers and their families growing up in Kentucky and then moving on to other parts of the country to share their life experiences with family and friends. It is the hope of the author that through this lens readers will be led to understand critical thinking in their lives and how they can cultivate it within their families. "The first discussion of critical thinking dates back 2400 years to the "father" of the concept, Socrates, and it has grown to mean several types of thinking. Your understanding of this true definition will grow throughout this work, so let's start simply.I believe critical thinking is stored in the brain in the same place as the will to live, the will to die and reasoning. All three require choice, by definition. To think is to compare A and B. To think critically, you must choose one or the other. Thinking is passive. Critical thinking is active. Advanced critical thinking involves thinking about an infinite number of options and choosing one. Thinking about writing a book is passive. Writing a book requires active advanced critical thinking. I think simple critical thinking is a reflex. Advanced critical thinking requires constant daily work and choices systematically cultivated." - William C. Tyler, author

AN ORGANIZED PANIC sets sister against brother, born secular humanist against later-in-life evangelical Christian. The sibling squabble underscores a serious struggle, certainly, but this is another tale told in the darkly humorous Friedmann voice--and set in the New Orleans only a native would know. The manuscript took second place in the Faulkner-Wisdom competition in late 2012 and could be her best story telling yet. Friedman will challenge you to think about our own belief system as she ....opens our conversation on the sympathetic athiest narrator.Ronald Price runs a lucrative crime-scene cleaning operation called JesusCleanup. His sister, narrator Cesca Price, is baffled: they grew up in a thoroughly secular household. When Cesca and her mother Trisha have Thanksgiving dinner at Ronalds house, a meal marked by praises to Jesus and recipes loaded with sodium from canned soups, mother Trisha has a stroke, and Cesca embarks on struggles with her brother. Cesca is a painter of national repute, and in the coming weeks she has to juggle responsibility for her mother, a coming show at the Getty, and an interview with PBS host Tevor Souriante plus a nascent friendship with her mothers doctor Michael Rosenthal. When Trisha dies, Ronald wants to use his half of the estate to buy a huge empty church to start a ministry. Is Ronald a charlatan, which means he is a crook but at least a man of reasonor is he a good Christian but no longer the man of reason who grew up with Cesca? Either way, she says no. So Ronald sues herunsuccessfullyto remove her as executrix. Two days later she does her interview with Tevor Souriante, still fuming about her brother, not knowing the camera is rolling. Bolstered by her romance with Michael, Cesca finally realizes that Ronald prizes money above all else. In the end, Ronald and Cesca will have to face each other down in court, and each will have to try to prove the other is not above board. Has Cesca libeled Ronald and ruined his livelihood and thus owes him millions? Or is Cesca right, that he dupes innocent people, and its okay to make it public? That resolved, what will the Price family be without Trisha?

Sally Hazelet Drummond is believed to be the first female graduate of the Hite Art Institute with a masters in painting in 1952. It was during her study at the University of Louisville that she further explored Abstract Expressionism, a style that started only a decade earlier in the 1940s. In 1953 Drummond, a second-generation abstract expressionist, joined the epicenter of the movement as a member of the Tanager Gallery, one of the leading Tenth Street artists' co-ops. In the midst of figures such as De Kooning, Reinhardt and Rothko, Drummond refined her style into the ­­­­dotted starburst patterns that she continued to develop over the course of her life.While Drummond has been described in several genres, ranging from neo-pointillism to op-art, her work and the exhibition itself is firmly rooted in abstract expressionism. Drummond herself described the movement as a kind of iconoclastic fervor. While history has remembered Abstract Expressionism as being a definitive style characterized largely by wall sized canvases swabbed with gestural marks of the artists, contemporary writers provide a much larger perspective that typifies the avant-gardism of the movement.Drummond's artistic career from her Tanager days to date has been a deepening study into her understanding of abstract expressionist practice. However, as the oeuvre of her work has demonstrated, her explorations into abstraction proffer a different albeit not unfounded view of the art movement. Drummond's views on spirituality and community serve as a foil to much of the machismo and individualist psychology of the abstract expressionist artists. Additionally, Drummond's use of easel scale, unrestrained use of color and deliberate art making process offer a reframing of the accepted tenants of abstract expressionism. Drummond's art and her journey into abstraction is also deserving of the self-same description, an iconoclastic fervor.The exhibition of her art, ranging from the 1940s until 2010, is on display in Gallery X at the Schneider Hall Galleries from November 19th until December 18th, 2015. An accompanying catalogue, Iconoclastic Fervor: Sally Hazelet Drummond's Road to Abstraction, is also available for purchase from John Clark at Old Stone Press at (502) 693-1506, john@oldstonepress.com

Dieter, the orphaned son of a music professor, becomes the resident “piano man” in a pub favored by students and Nazi military personnel.Sofie is the indulged daughter of a prominent Wehrmacht general and a graduate music student at Berlin’s finest university. She serves as her father’s hostess in his elegant home on Wilhelmstrasse, which is frequented by prominent leaders of the Third Reich. Sofie enjoys the new popular music being written and performed in America – but banned from most German halls. She and her fellow students regularly visit the pub where Dieter plays. This leads to an invitation to Dieter to tune her piano in the Wilhelmstrasse residence, and an unlikely alliance forms between the two young people.They learn that each had a Jewish mother. Dieter’s is deceased and Sofie’s remains in her native Poland where she is a senior operative of the SSW, Poland’s European intelligence-gathering network. When The Oster Conspiracy, an attempt on Hitler’s life by some of his military officers, is uncovered, the blanket of suspicion comes dangerously close to Sofie’s father and the young couple are forced to flee secretly to Prague, Czechoslovakia. There they are relatively safe until a minor Gestapo operative becomes suspicious of their identity and begins to delve into their backgrounds. This intensely captivating tale leads to Theresienstadt, Germany’s most unusual concentration camp, where musicians were forced to perform for their Nazi tormentors.