In the not too distant future, parents have the option to "genetically design" their offspring. As a result most of Danny's classmates have been given every genetic advantage their parents could afford. Unfortunately for Danny, his parents had him "naturally" and he does not possess these enhancements. This is what earns him the misguided title of "Dirtbag". Danny understands more than anyone about the reality of being yourself and how you look or the abilities you have don't necessarily make you a better person.

Rich Zubaty relates his adventures living and loving his way through 25 countries. Romance is glorious and frightening, stimulating and enervating, loud and quiet – a rare atmosphere beyond pleasure and pain. Romance is not about "feeling", it is about "being". It is about cooking monkeys on a balsa fire in the Peruvian jungle, catching sharks in a too-small boat, landing on uninhabited coral atolls, scraping bat droppings from your hair in a Honduran cave, cooking a slab of tuna on a beach in Marseilles, having raw animal sex with Asian girls in Paris and Thailand, singing Christian hymns with brown kids on the shore of a turquoise lagoon. Forgoing food and drink, radio, TV, speech, smoke – any and all sense distractions – on a ten day forest retreat in a Thai/Buddhist monastery – coming face to face with your demons. Romance is watching kangaroos scamper away from the lush grass around your garden when you go to pick tomatoes in New South Wales, burning your draft card and leaving the country when your government has lied to you, watching a young girl herding geese from your train window rolling across the golden plains of Slovakia, watching the swallows swarm around medieval castle turrets on the cliffs of Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia.Romance is escaping Prague hours before a Russian invasion, watching the birth of your son in a wood stilt hospital in Hawaii, and watching your daughter born on a mattress on the floor of the house you made with your own hands – a house you built with your brother, sleeping in a tent in the mud and rain, during the months of construction. Planting her placenta beneath a lime tree seedling and watching it, and her, swell with life.Romance is living with petty thieves in Paris and London, working as a ticket-taker in a strip club in Soho, stealing carrots from the Covent Garden market to survive, ordering a burger at Wimpy’s then sneaking out without paying, living with an English woman with a black baby who rips off all your money in a hash deal gone awry, flying from London to Toronto and sneaking across the U.S. border knowing the F.B.I. is looking for you.Romance is tracking rabbits in the snow, catching a live pheasant with your hands when it thought it was hiding, huddled in a clump of grass. Romance is catching a tail-dancing 200 pound blue marlin off the Kona coast of Hawaii, and another one off Bimini.Romance is falling in love again and again and again, so many times that it becomes obvious you don’t know what love is. And don’t care. Romance is being married to a woman who eats your soul...And then there's more.

"From the Housetops" by George Barr McCutcheon is an American novel and a leisurely read, focused on the emotional relationships of a small group of upper class protagonists. The issues concern money, love, self-sacrifice, and euthanasia. The author creates moral dilemmas as his characters navigate life and then follows those characters as they struggle through them. Readers young and old are able to see themselves in these characters, no matter when they read the book.

This book presents a compelling account of atomic development over the last century that demonstrates how humans have repeatedly chosen to ignore the associated impacts for the sake of technological, scientific, military, and economic expediency. In 1945, Albert Einstein said, "The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind." This statement seems more valid today than ever. Romancing the Atom: Nuclear Infatuation from the Radium Girls to Fukushima presents compelling moments that clearly depict the folly and shortsightedness of our "atomic mindset" and shed light upon current issues of nuclear power, waste disposal, and weapons development. The book consists of ten nonfiction historical vignettes, including the women radium dial painters of the 1920s, the expulsion of the Bikini Island residents to create a massive "petri dish" for post-World War II bomb and radiation testing, the government-subsidized uranium rush of the 1950s and its effects on Native American communities, and the secret radioactive material development facilities in residential neighborhoods. In addition, the book includes original interviews of prominent historians, writers, and private citizens involved with these poignant stories. More information is available online at www.romancingtheatom.com.

“Bloodknots is a truly singular and remarkable book of stories. Lyrical and disturbing, this is the work of a writer of unmistakable talent.”—Joan Silber, author of Ideas of Heaven, a National Book Award nominee “Bloodknots is a marvelous collection peopled by unforgettable characters.”—Nalini Warriar, author of Blues from the Malabar Coast and a McAuslan Book Award winner A collection of beguiling stories from an American writer who excels at depicting the family ties that bind: fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters whose connections to one another are as fragile as they are irrevocable. Stubbornly honest, and imbued with a sensibility that speaks to the author’s Jewish heritage, Ami Sands Brodoff writes with authority, passion, and razor-sharp detail about identity and the longing for human connections in the face of loss and exclusion. Her stories evoke the delicate familial weaves of Alice Munro, exposing the raw nerves of shattered lives redeemed by the willingness to forgive. Written close to the senses, Bloodknots penetrates to the core. Ami Sands Brodoff is from New York and also lived in Princeton, New Jersey, before relocating with her husband to Montreal, where she writes and teaches creative writing. Her work has received a Pushcart Prize nomination and has been anthologized in numerous journals and book collections. Her first book, Can You See Me?, received wide acclaim, including a rave from Publishers Weekly.

Simmy the Rat learns a lesson about bullies and how to improve the world around him with kindness.