From the national bestselling novel Butterfly Weeds comes the other side of the story… about the man behind the song.

Will Stephens doesn't chase dreams outside of his small, Missouri town. He's perfectly happy with his high school sweetheart in his arms, his guitar and his quiet, summer nights. But life for Will is about to change. He's about to find out what it's like to chase a dream-one that he has loved since he first laid eyes on her.

A firefighter by day and a musician by night, Will balances his dangerous career with his weekend gigs, but his mind is never far from Julia Lang. They said their goodbyes years ago, but Will now hopes a song from their past will help Julia stop and remember a life they once shared together. His only fear is that he's waited too long to get his song to her ears.

Jam-packed with critical insights and historical context, this discussion of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia from Miller’s double perspectives-as the wide-eyed child who first read the books and an agnostic adult who revisits them-is intellectually inspiring but not always cohesive. Finding her distrust of Christianity undermined by her love of Lewis’s indisputably Christian-themed world, Salon.com cofounder and staff writer Miller seeks to “recapture [Narnia’s] old enchantment.” She replaces lost innocence with understanding, visiting Lewis’s home in England, reading his letters and books (which she quotes extensively) and interviewing readers and writers. Lengthy musings on Freudian analysis of sadomasochism, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Anglo-Saxon nationalism and taxonomies of genre share space with incisive and unapologetic criticism of Lewis’s treatment of race, gender and class. The heart of the book is in the first-person passages where Miller recalls longing to both be and befriend Lucy Pevensie and extols Narnia’s “shining wonders.” Her reluctant reconciliation with Lewis’s and Narnia’s imperfections never quite manages to be convincing, but anyone who has endured exile from Narnia will recognize and appreciate many aspects of her journey.

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In this powerful meditation on ‘the schism between childhood and adult reading,’ Miller recounts her tumultuous relationship with the favorite books of her youth, C. S. Lewis’s ‘Chronicles of Narnia.’ Filled from an early age with a distrust of the Catholic faith in which she was raised, Miller didn’t notice the Christian subtext, and when she learned of it, as a teen-ager, she felt ‘tricked, cheated.’ Combining memoir, criticism, and biography, Miller takes Lewis to task for his ‘betrayals,’ including the racial stereotyping and ‘litism that, she argues, inform the books. Yet her respect for Lewis’s talent remains; scrupulously placing him in his historical context, she crafts a nuanced portrait of the author as a sensitive curmudgeon and comes to the realization that ‘a perfect story is no more interesting or possible than a perfect human being.’

Copyright ©2008

California, 1993: Neil Collins and Adam Tayler, two young British men on the cusp of adulthood, meet at a hostel in San Diego. They strike up a friendship that, while platonic, feels as intoxicating as a romance; they travel up the coast together, harmlessly competitive, innocently collusive, wrapped up in each other. On a camping trip to Yosemite they lead each other to behave in ways that, years later, they will desperately regret.

The story of a friendship built on a shared guilt and a secret betrayal, follows Neil and Adam across two decades, through girlfriends and wives, success and failure, children and bereavements, as power and remorse ebb between them. Their bifurcating fates offer an oblique portrait of London in the boom-to-bust era of the nineties and noughties, with its instant fortunes and thwarted idealism. California binds them together, until — when the full truth of what happened emerges, bringing recriminations and revenge — it threatens to drive them apart.

Tokyo, 1940. While Japan's war against China escalates, young Yuji Takano clings to his cocooned life: his beloved evenings of French conversation at Monsieur Feneon's, visits to the bathhouse with friends, his books, his poetry. But conscription looms and the mood turns against foreigners, just when Yuji gets entangled with Feneon's daughter. As the nation heads towards conflict with the Allies, Yuji must decide where his duty — and his heart — lies.

Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young, provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it.

At first Baratte sees this as a chance to clear the burden of history, a fitting task for a modern man of reason. But before long, he begins to suspect that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to his own.

IT HAD ALL GONE TO HELL SO QUICKLY… Wilson shot a glance over his right shoulder at San Ramón. In addition to the blinking of anti-aircraft artillery guns, he could see clouds of smoke on the field from the numerous Slash hits. Breathing through his mouth, he concentrated on getting fast and maintaining a slight climb. Bright fireballs of AAA shot by him in groups of three and four, orderly trails from low to high. His body was tense, ready for impact.

He felt and heard the thud behind, on his right.

Terrified, he twisted his body in the ejection seat to see what he could, pushing his helmet and goggles with his left hand to see over his wing. Through the narrow field of view of the goggles, he sensed flickering behind him. He then felt the airplane yaw right. Both were signs he had lost thrust on the right side.

Sonofabitch!

UNARMED OVER HOSTILE TERRITORY… For a moment Wilson froze and looked at the white-helmeted pilot who sat high on the nose of the colossal fighter. Across the small void, he saw the pilot’s eyes peer over his mask. Dark, chilling eyes… Wilson kicked right rudder to slide closer and jam any chance for a bandit gunshot. When the bandit pulled all the way over, almost on its back but in control, he cursed in frustration at what he knew was coming next. The hostile fighter reversed over the top in a negative-g maneuver, his nose tracking down on Wilson like a falling sledgehammer in slow motion. Horrified, Wilson realized he faced an imminent snapshot. With the little air speed he had, his inverted his Hornet to avoid the attack. His aircraft still rolling, Wilson saw that the monster had another weapon at its disposal…

Raven One places you with Wilson in the cockpit of a carrier-based FA-18 Hornet… and in the ready rooms and bunkrooms of men and women who struggle with their fears and uncertainty in this new way of war. They must all survive a deployment that takes a sudden and unexpected turn when Washington orders Valley Forge to respond to a crisis no one saw coming. The world watches — and holds its breath.

Retired Navy Captain Kevin Miller fills his novel with flying action and adventure — and also examines the actions of imperfect humans as they follow their own agendas in a disciplined world of unrelenting pressure and danger.

The trouble with a machine capable of independent self-adjusting operation is, of course, that it may get out of adjustment in a way it decides to maintain—and you can’t change!

The world came to an abrupt pause and what came next forever changed the world. My parents, gone. My friends, gone. Everyone gone, except were they really, gone? Day’s ticked by moving forward but when the sun descended, and darkness crept in; something dangerous, hungry and terrifyingly manic arose. I wanted to hide away but a strong pulling sensation left me no choice. I was needed and to survive I would have to face my fears. I would have to leave the old me behind and enter a world full of unknowns. Through pain and darkness, I emerged and became something new. Would I be able to save them before it was too late? Before they met their demise… I woke with a start and felt pain and agony spread through my body like nothing I’ve ever felt. My body was burning from the inside. A fire flowed through me like a raging river. The fire racing through every vein in my body. My heart was a bomb. Only this bomb was set on repeat, exploding over and over. My entire body was being blown to pieces. The pain was unreal and worse than any nightmare I could have imagined. A steady stream of blood drained out of my nose, eyes and ears. I coughed, and blood exited my mouth. I knew this wasn’t good. I was dying, slowly and painfully death had come for me. Then for the briefest moment in time, came complete darkness and paralysis. I felt nothing. I was nothing. I longed for these moments. I didn’t know where I was or how long it had been. I only knew I was alone and longed for an ending…

Varis Diri (Waris Dirie) pasakoja sukrečiančią gyvenimo istoriją. Vos dvylikos ji pabėgo iš suplanuotų savo vestuvių ir gimtųjų namų Somalyje. Po ilgų klajonių vargšei merginai nusišypsojo likimas ir ji tapo pasaulinio garso manekene. Tai buvo ir nuostabus sapnas, ir didžiausias košmaras. Pasiekusi savo karjeros viršūnę, per vieną interviu garsus supermodelis išdrįso prabilti apie mergaičių lytinių organų žalojimą, vykstantį daugelyje Afrikos genčių. Ji pati patyrė šį žiaurų ritualą sulaukusi vos penkerių.