Hugh Chupp and Thelma Brownlee tied the nuptial knot on May 30th, 1925 at De Leon in Comanche County Texas. Hugh was 26 years old, an eighth grade graduate, a bronc buster and a horse trainer. Thelma was 17, a junior at De Leon High School and had an ambition to be a glamorous flapper. That was the extent of their schooling, but the subsequent sixteen years would provide education. Rumors that their wedding was of the shotgun variety were proven baseless when their first son didn’t see daylight until November 22nd of 1929. The roaring twenties were in session, even in rural De Leon, and the good times rolled until Black Friday, October 25th, 1929 — and the arrival of Charles Elvin a month later. He did not cause the Great Depression, nor did the Great Depression cause him. Times got tough but Hugh and Thel were blessed with yet another son, March 15th, 1933, as they moved from one rundown shelter to another, usually when rent was due. Benny Wayne was born December 18th, 1939, and Hugh and Thel ceased production. Hugh haunted the corner on Texas Street where day labor was chancy and often non-existent. He watched as the Houston and Texas Central freight train rolled through town and envied the hobos who adorned the empty cars and went on down the tracks looking for the Promised Land. To his credit he resisted the urge to climb aboard and leave his troubles behind. Despite the hard times and the gloomy forecast for the future, the little family managed to stay together when it would have been easier to quit. As a matter of fact Hugh and Thel shared their shelter and food with Nancy Brownlee, Thel’s widowed mother. Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” was hanging tough in the eye of the hurricane. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” is one version of an old adage and the Chupp family managed to weather the storm. Grit and good humor was a major contributor to their will to hang on, and when good times crept across America in the early days of 1941 they managed to move up a rung on the ladder of success. A stroke of good fortune elevated the Chupps from day labor to tenant farming. The story is an eyewitness account, recounted here for your amusement and edification by the eldest son of Hugh and Thel. And, the story may sound familiar—you may have lived it too.

Frank Lautenberg was the embodiment of the American dream. The son of Eastern European immigrants who toiled in the factories of northern New Jersey, he rose to become a Fortune 500 CEO and eventually a five-term US senator. Yet his is not a simple rags-to-riches tale, but is rather the story of someone who used his newfound affluence and influence to improve the lives of ordinary Americans. Told by one of the people who knew him best, his widow Bonnie, Frankly Speaking reveals the political strategies that made Lautenberg one of the Senate’s most powerful advocates for the health and safety of America’s citizens. He championed seemingly minor, unglamorous reforms that made a big difference to everyday lives, from raising the national drinking age to preventing domestic abusers from purchasing guns. These campaigns earned him powerful enemies in the alcohol, tobacco, and firearms industries, and he was subjected to some of the most brutal campaign mudslinging in American history. Yet, as this inspiring biography reveals, New Jersey’s longest-serving senator was not afraid to take big political risks if it meant standing up for his principles, whether that meant opposing the Iraq War or protecting LGBTQ and women’s rights.

Beth E. Wallace married her best friend when she was twenty-seven years and ten months old. They were married twenty-seven years and ten months when she lost him to cancer. Sometimes she thought her life had ended, and sometimes she wished it would, but God had other plans for her. In Frankly Speaking About Widowhood, Beth offers a hand to Christians who are traveling the path of loss. While everybody deals with the same heartbreaking emotions when a loved one dies, Christians often feel guilty about them. Do anger, frustration, and loneliness mean you don't believe your spouse is in a better place? Have you rejected God's will? Beth gently assures you that such feelings are normal and talks about how you can allow God to help you heal . . . without trying to suppress your own grief. Adjusting to widowhood is one of the hardest things you'll do. But hearing from someone who has been there -- and made it through -- will provide the encouragement you need to begin rebuilding your life.

In Frankly Speaking, Clyde Riley tells the story of how he left the rural South as a young man, with little formal education beyond high school, relying on his energy, intelligence and personality to rise to the top of a major company in the U.S. food industry. Along the way, he met global political leaders, earned the trust of wealthy entrepreneurs and devised marketing strategies in collaboration with personalities from advertising, business and finance. Having started with few possessions or advantages, Riley has shown with his life story how much can be accomplished in American society with ordinary determination and grit.

Are you sure you can discriminate between say and tell, escape and evade? When you try to bring something back to your mind, do you remember, recollect or recall? Do you know why we must do business to make money? So, do you confess, admit, acknowledge or recognize that you must know the difference? Then this book is for you and others like you who care for the precision and clarity.

This study of the life and works of Evelyn Waugh traces the novelist's pursuit of his vocation and his long retreat from a world which he came to regard as a spiritual dungeon. Jeffrey Heath explores the paradoxical elements in Waugh's career: his quest for a refuge itself proved to be a prison and his devotion to the Augustan graces was accompanied by a lasting attraction to a Dionysiac age without restratint. The deep cleft in Waugh's nature imbued his art with the characteristic quirky complexity which has fascinated many readers, but it left him a choleric and melancholy man who never fully accepted his calling as a writer.

***This book is also available in THE BARBERSHOP SEVEN - the collected Barney Thomson novels*** Barney Thomson is a restless soul in search of a quiet town in which to settle. He thinks he might just have found it in Millport on the Isle of Cumbrae and life can at last bring him some peace. Or, at least, it might have done, but for the dead body at the bottom of the stairs, the ghost tormented for all time to go to the bathroom, the evil Chinese businessman, the disturbing package in the freezer, the mysterious cathedral, Barney's deaf, mute, hunchbacked assistant, the ancient society protecting a 2,000-year-old secret, the Vatican spies, the intended murder, the curious collective of ninety-year-old men looking for Robbie Williams' haircuts, the promiscuous vicar named Judas, the rookie exorcist, the volatile cheese sandwich, and the very outside possibility of Armageddon. And, at the end it all, twelve men will meet around a table and the very future of humanity will be decided. Either that, or they will go home for a cup of tea and a plate of chips. THE LAST FISH SUPPER is book 5 in the Barney Thomson series. Praise for THE LONG MIDNIGHT OF BARNEY THOMSON (book 1) "This chilling black comedy unfolds at dizzying speed... an impressive debut novel." - Sunday Mirror "The plot, Russian literature fans, is a modern spin on Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. The bloody ending, movie buffs, is pure Reservoir Dogs." - The Mirror "This is pitch-black comedy spun from the finest writing. Fantastic plot, unforgettable scenes and plenty of twisted belly laughs." - New Woman Praise for THE BARBER SURGEON'S HAIRSHIRT (book 2): "A mad, macabre romp with surreal characters and cutting black humour." - The Sunday Mirror "Gloriously over the top, very bloody and very, very funny." - Daily Telegraph "A novel which is both genuinely silly and a fun read." - The Scotsman "A flawless follow-up to an impressive debut, this is extremely well-written, highly amusing and completely unpredictable in its outrageous plot twists and turns." - The List "Lindsay's burlesque thrills offer no sex, no drugs, no desperation to be cool. Just straightforward adult story; fantastic plot, classic timing and gleeful delight in the grotesque. With more talent than Irvine Welsh could dream of, Lindsay has crafted a macabre masterpiece where content lives up to style." - What's On