Books published by Open Road Media

In the heart of the Congo is rumored to live a dinosaur called Mokele-Mbembe, or the god-beast. A handful of scientific expeditions have searched for it over the years with little success, but Nugent relied less on science than a desire to document the obscure. He made his way by dugout canoe and foot to Lake Tele, reputed home of the brontosaurus-like creature. It’s an environment little changed since the age of dinosaurs and he spent weeks paddling and trekking the area. He finally spotted a periscope-shaped object moving through the water. But when he tried to get closer, his guides threatened to shoot him, explaining that the “the god can approach man, but man never approaches the god.” Nugent’s photographs have been reprinted hundreds of times by those who believe in the god-beast. Drums Along the Congo merited inclusion on “Best 50 Books of the Year” list compiled by every major US newspaper.

Josh Pratt is an ex-con turned private investigator. Ginger Munz, a woman dying of cancer hires him to find the son she lost as a baby. The child's father is a sadistic sociopath named Moon who has vowed to kill her, and Josh's girlfriend Cass, for ratting him out. The trail leads to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and west into a no-man's land where Josh learns the monstrous fate of the stolen child.

Vacationing seaside with her parents in Rimini, Italy, young Nicole Steiner falls in love with the charming Italian nobleman, Dario Ventura. Soon after, Ventura frequently visits with the Steiners, now home in Turin. Though he returns her affection, Nicole begins to suspect that he has become her mother’s lover. The relationship is complicated by the strong tie between mother and daughter, and Nicole’s rejection of her stern father. Woven through the tale is the rich atmosphere of pre-war Italy.

Lovers and Fugitives is a spellbinding tale of suspense and love set amidst the backdrop of World War II. An inspiring tribute to the human spirit in the face of overwhelming adversity. A tender story of real people, locked in a common struggle, who redefine the word love. Saskia and her mother, Helga, cannot comprehend a world gone mad. David is alive only through incredible luck. They're never sure who is a friend and who is an enemy, right down to the breathtaking conclusion.

Solitaire is the groundbreaking memoir of a young woman growing up in the 1970s and her triumph over anorexia nervosa.

“In her inspiring, vividly composed and always faithful book” (Susan Muto), Karen Fredette describes a world where life is rich in being rather than in having. Selected as a Catholic Book of the Month, Where God Begins to Be fulfills Murray Bodo’s observation that “instead of myth fabricated from a few fragments, we have here the details—the nitty-gritty, muddy details—of a hermit’s daily living.” Karen is a “Seer who brings you along with her, joyfully” (Richard Rohr). “In deftly drawn vignettes, Karper’s story, told with simplicity and gentle honesty, is one of faith deepening, beauty awakening, and love discovered” (Gerald May).

Our History in New York covers a single year in the lives of narrator Chloe, her long-time lover, Helen, and their friends. From AIDS to the glory of Greenwich Village to romance and aging, the novel addresses time, art, mortality, and community at a century's end. The New York Times said of this nationally reviewed author: ';Abrams has a superb talent for the specific . . . She [has] her own style-a mixture of introspection, common sense, daydreaming and recollection-and controls it beautifully.' Sojourner called ';each chapter an exquisite short story.... Abrams paints... neighborhoods with the precision of the old Dutch Masters.'

For Teenagers Living With a Parent Who Abuses Alcohol/Drugs by Edith Lynn Hornik-Beer answers questions about alcoholism asked by teenagers. Included are: What causes alcoholism? Where can I get help? What do I do about the abuse? Should I stay at home? Where can I go? How can anyone expect me to concentrate in school? Why do I fight with my parents even when they are sober?

The turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s spawned a spectrum of activist movements. In spirit and action, events ranged from: gentle to violent; from Tree People to Bloody Sunday; from Community Mental Health to Black Power. This rapid stream of social and political change defined the second half of the 20th century, yet had roots in the first half.   The baby boom generation launched many movements. Unlike their Depression/WWII parents, the boomers, a large cohort of unattached, young adults, had no looming familial and social responsibilities. They had the freedom and resources for the consuming task of changing the world.

Clare: Her Light and Her Song is a vivid portrait of a strong woman who scandalizes family and friends to follow her beloved mentor, Francis of Assisi, in a life of joyous poverty. Thoroughly researched, this biography faithfully depicts Clare as seen by her contemporaries, including cardinals and popes. Her story is enriched by accounts of the wars, political intrigues, and towering figures of the tumultuous thirteenth century in which she played a significant role. The first woman to receive Papal approval for her own Rule of Life, Clare continues as a model for women of the twenty-first century.

Ms. magazine called Charting by the Stars ';a memorable account of growing up about the ways we invent and reinvent ourselves reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing.' Linsey Abrams' passionate and eloquent first novel chronicles one girl's coming of age, from a 1950s childhood into the '60s world of New York. Her love affair with another woman begins a profound shift of identity and world. The New York Times said of this nationally reviewed novel: ';Abrams has a superb talent for the specific.... She [has] her own stylea mixture of introspection, common sense, daydreaming and recollection-and controls it beautifully.'

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Pythagoras taught that the simple counting numbers are the basic building blocks of reality. A century and a half later, Plato argued that the world we live in is but a poor copy of the world of ideas. Neither realized that their numbers and ideas might also be the most basic components of the human psych: archetypes. This book traces the modern evolution of this idea from the Renaissance to the 20th century, leading up to the archetypal hypothesis of psychologist C. G. Jung, and the mirroring of mathematical ideas of Kurt Gödel.

The Fossils of Iowa field guide is written primarily for amateurs in geological exploration and collecting. Robert Wolf provides a comprehensive coverage of more than 150 sites in Iowa and adjacent areas of Minnesota and Nebraska with the types of fossils that can be found and precise directions. Excellent illustrations by Carol Ann Ratcliff aide in identification. For an update in site conditions and geological names since the book was first published contact the author at midnightwriter@frontiernet.net.

';A biography of great immediacy.... There are many sections of great poignancy, many funny things, many of electric intimacy and candor... there is spellbinding power, never more so than in describing Cheever's death, pages that are both terrible and deeply moving; one is losing an old, beloved friend.' James Salter, Los Angeles Times Book Review ';John Cheever: A Biography is clearly an indispensable book. Donaldson moves gracefully from the personal to the literary.... Solidly researched and entirely readable, admiring of the writer and knowing about the man. Stuffed with fascinating anecdotes. It's a gut-wrenching story. Donaldson tells it straight, without embellishment, and our attention never strays.' Dan Cryer, Newsday ';A coup of investigative reporting.' Publishers Weekly ';Both erudite and earthly. What emerges is a rich tapestry that gives the reader extraordinary insight into the workings of a master storyteller's mind.' Jean Graham, New York Daily News ';John Cheever: A Biography by Scott Donaldson is as readable and ';unputdownable' as any thriller.' T. Coraghessan Boyle ';A revelation. What a triumph.' Frederick Exley ';Donaldson has set a high standard that other biographers will find difficult to equal.' John Blades, Chicago Tribune

Archibald MacLeish was the winner of the 1993 Ambassador Book Award for biography.

The Literary Legacy of Rebecca West is the first book to explore the entire corpus of her extraordinary seventy-one year writing career. The general introductory studies of West are outdated and do not take into account her posthumous publications, or her large literary archive of unpublished letters and manuscripts. Previous scholarly books have chopped West up into categories and genres instead of following the evolution of her career.

This is the only comprehensive, annotated bibliography of writing about biography. Rollyson, a biographer and scholar of biography, includes chapters on the history of biography (beginning in the Greco-Roman period and concluding with biographers such as Leon Edel and Richard Ellmann). Ample sections on psychobiography, the new feminist biography, and on biographers who appear in works of fiction, are also included. Cited in many recent books on the genre of biography, Biography: An Annotated Bibliography, is an essential research tool as well as a clearly written work for those wishing to browse through the commentary on this important genre.

Martha Gellhorn died in February 1998, just shy of her 90th birthday. Well before her death, she had become a legend. She reported on wars from Spain in the 1930s to Panama in the 1980s, and her travel books are considered classics. Her marriage to Ernest Hemingway, affairs with legendary lovers like H. G. Wells, and her relationships with two presidents, Roosevelt and Kennedy, reflect her campaigns against tyranny and deprivation, as well as her outrage at the corruption and cruelty of modern governments. This controversial and acclaimed biography portrays a vibrant and troubled woman who never tired of fighting for causes she considered just.

Journey Home is the story of Tamara Woodson, who lives in the American West in the 1880s. She is smart and sassy, and has a mind of her own. Like many black families of that era following slavery, her family traveled west and founded their own town. Tamara Woodson is at a turning point in her life. She begins a journey of self-discovery that reveals important connections to her ancestral past. Prompted by her ambitions and experiences, she prepares herself for an uncertain future. At one point, Tamara's fears are expressed in a dream that intertwines a Nigerian Yoruba folktale. She learns to interpret important symbols. At another, Tamara learns about the Apache Indian culture from a girl who is preparing for her own elaborate coming of age ceremony. Exposure to these two cultures helps Tamara validate the values and traditions of others as well as her own. As she matures, Tamara learns to let go of her own fears and to rely on her inner strength. Journey Home is book one in the juvenile historical fiction series, "Passage to Womanhood."

The deeply personal story of Odie Hawkins's journey, from ';the poorest of the poor' childhood in Chicago to Hollywood screenwriterand the people who deeply mattered. A tough, touching autobiography.

Odie Hawkins utilizes the same thrust, power, and creativity that made Ghetto Sketches his first bestseller. He has moved the focus from Chicago to Los Angeles; and once again, he has populated his stories with unforgettable charactersthe telephone freak, the tenants of Mrs. Solomon's apartment building, and a few surrealistic types. The Secret Music we all hear is echoed within these stories...

Portrait of Simone is the poignant story of a young soldier stationed in the Deep South, in the recent past, and his romance with a woman nearly twice his age. Simone is mysterious, alluring, charming, complex. The author brings us the story of true love, love that grows deeper with the passage of time, and pays tribute to the woman known as Simone.

Midnight offers us a sensitive view inside the soul of a young African American gangster who is influenced by an older man, a convict, to look into his African side. ';You may not be what they've told you that you are, over here. When you check out where we came from.'

An enchanting intro to a collection of unforgettable characters. Bobo, Burks, Leo (sometimes, when into imaginative self-hatred, alias Tony De Medrow), Billy Woods, Herb Cross, Bruce, Mooney, Johnny Fox, Bernard Kelly, and a few others who lived in the same neighborhood and hung out on the same corners. Some of the less informed thought we were a ';gang' because we spent a lot of time together, but that was the result of them being unable to penetrate the esoteric haze surrounding our relationships. There were times, to be honest, when we didn't know what was happening either.

In the postWatts Rebellion 1970s, Chester L. Simmons takes up the study of martial artsHapkido and Tae Kwon Do. Author Odie Hawkins, using his special blend of wry humor, incisiveness, and sensitivity, takes alter ego Simmons through that experience, as well as a series of misadventures writing movie and television scripts for Hollyweird studios.

Let Chester take you on a journey through Spain in his search to find himselfand write about it. He hooks up with ';El Encanto', a star-crossed matador. Then back to the States, where he meets and marries the love of his life. A honeymoon in West Africa leaves them yearning for a place they've never known, but feel is their home...

Chester L. Simmons, nicknamed ';The Great Lawd Buddha' by his hip constituents because of his almond shaped eyes and his generous tummy, is one of those delightfully free spirits that life gives the world now and then. With his storytelling he sometimes fuses reality and creativity into a seamless possibility; or seamless possibilities. He has been known to bend the truth, if the truth was not creating the right kind of life-vibe for him.

Henrik Malan was the South African secret agent who devised the plan to have the Black American ghettos destroy themselves by supplying them with a cheap but highly addictive drug known on the streets as ';Ghetto Blaster.'

There was no sharper con man on the streets of Chicago than Elijah Brookes. Women were his preferred preybut no mark and no bankroll was safe when Elijah was on the prowl. Cool, beautiful Toni warned him, ';Elijah, brothers be playin' games so hard sometimes they don't know when to stop. You know what I'm sayin'?' Elijah Brookes had to learn the ultimate lesson the hard way. So many games to be played, so little time.

Monday evening comn' downthe dreariest day of the week anywhere, but especially in the ghettos (yea, y'all, they still there) where people have taken their hangovers and other symptoms of a fast weekend to their individual plantations around town (if they're lucky enough to have one) return to their shacks for four/five more days of clock punching and locksteppin' before the Eagle flies. Then was then and now is now. What's the difference?