Author Lynn Barnes admits shes known all along that shed been a little different in ways she cant explain. In her memoir, The Last Exit before the Toll, she examines her life and tries to make sense of who and what she is and how her being affects her existence. She reflects on growing up as an only child and her life now as a single, surrealist artist and Poe aficionado. Barnes recalls the events that have greatly impacted her, including the deaths of her mother and father and the suicide of her best friend, Marc. But it was the discovery that she has undiagnosed Aspergers syndrome that helped piece together the puzzle that has been her life and allowed her to come to terms with the troubling personality traits she has experienced all her life. An insightful and creative look at Barness life, The Last Exit before the Toll provides a glimpse into the sometimes frustrating and unknown world of someone who lives with Aspergers syndrome.

Charles Pierce has reached a dead end. He's got a good job and his family loves him, but he wanders through life as if he were barely there. On a business road trip, his car breaks down, stranding him in a small town in rural Virginia. While at first he greets his circumstances with irritation, Charles slowly begins to realize that this accident may be the luckiest thing that ever happened to him. His disappearance may just be his chance at a new life, and the down-to-earth waitress from the local diner might just be his second opportunity for love. That is, if the past doesn't catch up with him first.

Born and raised in the West African nation of Ghana, David, this eccentric young man travels to America in search of the American Dream, only to discover a complex labyrinth of harsh reality in which he had been caught. A thought-provoking novel that examines the friction from moral and legal perspectives, between bending the rules of a host country in response to the strict demands of personal survival instinct, and the unbending realities of the host country抯 contemporary legal tradition. In a lively recollection, the author articulates David抯 search for a piece of the American Dream with characteristic zest and humor. Culminating in a defiance of great odds into eventual triumph, David rises from the rubbles of extreme homelessness that almost cost him his life, and illustriously comes out unscathed to complete with high academic honors, a Ph.D. in business administration from an American university. A must read novel that inspires with an unusual insight into the resilience of the human spirit under the severest of adversities, reveals human frailties in the indulgence of prurient appetites, while simultaneously exposing the loopholes in the higher educational loan dispensation system.

A young man, David, travels to America in search of success, only to discover a complex labyrinth of harsh reality and success that seem evasive. A thought-provoking novel that epitomizes the struggles of the African immigrant in America, who has fallen victim to the African brain drain and caught in two worlds, where returning is almost as tedious as realizing his dreams of success in America. In a detailed recollection, Charles Addo articulates David's struggles, as he searches for ways to success. At last, David grows to realize that corruption and economic mismanagement that permeate the African political system are largely accountable for the African brain drain problem of which he has himself fallen victim. He hooks up with a friend, in an Internet-based campaign that successfully helps topple in a first-ever transfer of political power from one elected government to another in Africa, the corrupt rule of army captain Rawlings, head of a military junta that seized political power earlier. A must-read novel that inspires with an unusual insight into the resilience of the human spirit, and offers food for thought for the future crop of African leaders regarding the adverse impact of brain drain on the African continent.