Tag: books

Stetson Jeff Kicks around in Amish Country

The adventures of Stetson Jeff Stetson, co-written by Justin Fike and myself, are finally becoming available in paperback. After cruising to the top of Amazon’s list this summer in the Satire category, with 1000 downloads plus in under a week, jumping ahead of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for a while, the first Stetson Jeff Adventure, Beatdown in Bangkok, has garnered rave reviews. While the second book, Mayhem in Marrakesh, only has one review posted as I write this, we feel that Stetson Jeff’s saga really comes of age in Pandemonium in Paradise. Set in Pennsylvania Amish country, this last book escalates Stetson’s growing awareness of a crime syndicate called A.S.P. with hilarious results.

As the end of the year approaches, our writing team decided to run a Kickstarter campaign to do pre-sales for the roll-out of the paperback, which includes all three of the books above in one volume. You’re going to love it! Check out the Kickstarter here.

If you’re still not sure you want to support the Kickstarter project, and want a free sample first to see if this is your kinda thing, you can get Beatdown in Bangkok for free by signing up for our email list here.

 

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Writer’s Group: We are writing books

Just a quick encouragement for the people in our writer’s group (see writer’s group page in sidebar).

Yes. We are writing books. Last week we got an update from Justin, whose goal was 8000 words this month. He wrote 8100 in spite of duress. Tim also chimed in on his goal of 4000. He wrote about 5000. And on my goal of 10,000 I had written 14,400. 6100 of those were on my novel, which really feels like a side project while I finish The Art of Motivational Listening, but when that book is done, it’s going to feel really good to have the next novel moving along even if it’s at a fairly slow pace.

Because we are committing to write words every month, we are, therefore, indeed writing books.

If you’re in the writer’s group (next meeting is Oct 22 at 8 PM Eastern) please hit us with a comment on how the week went!

Double Book Review: Race in the USA

The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis: humongous poor black kid in Memphis taken in by rich white family becomes NFL player, not without trouble.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the story has to do with the psychological and learning ability evaluation Michael Oher was given at age 18. After the age of 16 his academic efforts moved his IQ from 80 to 110. In other words, he moved from the have nots to the haves. After age 15. Also, I learned that he is very big and strong. The social implications of this story are more interesting than the sports story.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

Race and education levels in Baltimore. When a woman dies in 1951, her cells are already reproducing in labs around the country – a huge scientific breakthrough. It leads to the invention of the polio vaccine and much more. But her family doesn’t know what’s happened with her cells for over 20 years. Communication issues leave this family confused about what’s happened to their mother for fifty years.

Both books are bestsellers. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a must-read for those who want to understand race relations. The Blind Side is a good book too, but is going to appeal to football fans more.