Poor Casanova! He had hoped to spend his afterlife in Hell, the post mortem place for distinguished sinners. But no such luck. He suffers in Heaven, where he is approached by three angels of the fairer sex. He falls for Marilyn Monroe, Catherine the Great and Mary Stuart. Alas, these celestial affairs end with unpleasant surprises. Fortunately, he also meets Rasputin, Edward VII of Great Britain, Louis XV of France, Augustus the Strong of Poland, and Pope Alexander Borgia. Their unabashed accounts make Casanova’s lot more bearable. Caution: this book may change your ideas about Heaven.

Poor Casanova! He had hoped to spend his afterlife in Hell, the post mortem place for distinguished sinners. But no such luck. He suffers in Heaven, where he is approached by three angels of the fairer sex. He falls for Marilyn Monroe, Catherine the Great and Mary Stuart. Alas, these celestial affairs end with unpleasant surprises. Fortunately, he also meets Rasputin, Edward VII of Great Britain, Louis XV of France, Augustus the Strong of Poland, and Pope Alexander Borgia. Their unabashed accounts make Casanova’s lot more bearable. Caution: this book may change your ideas about Heaven.

Pilzno, Poland - 1939: Walter Dombrowski, a cabinet maker,  witnesses the destruction of his village by the Nazi war machine. His beloved grandfather, Josef Thaddeus Dombrowski, dies before his eyes. After his wife, Anna, escapes to Switzerland, Walter is captured and sent to a Nazi work camp in Marburg, Germany. In Walter's eyes, it is the end of the world.    

Niagara Falls, N.Y. - 1965: Walter and Anna Dombrowski have survived the horrors of WW II and relocated to America. They

live next door to another immigrant; Salvatore Piazza and his wife, Sofia. Walter and Salvatore work as maintenance craftsmen for the Inter-Canadian Transit Corp,(ITC), where Walter is the union president and Salvatore is a steward. Driven by strong ideals, Walter will not take a backward step in fighting for the union; he is in constant conflict with his supervisor, Phil Taylor.

Walter and Salvatore are assigned to maintenance tasks on Bridge Number 7, an ancient wooden railroad bridge spanning the lower Niagara gorge between United States and Canada. Through a comedy of errors, Walter and Salvatore become trapped on the bridge; Immigration officials of Canada and U.S.A., each stationed at their respective ends of the bridge, believe the pair are trying to sneak into their respective countries. Both countries are unyielding; Canada blames the U.S.A. for allowing the pair to sneak past their gates, and U.S.A blames the Canadians. A deadlock.

When Immigration officers try to force Walter and Salvatore from the bridge, they retreat to the center of the bridge. There is a black line painted across the center of the bridge, it is four-feet wide and represents the border between the two countries. With hostile officials standing on both sides, Walter and Salvatore are trapped! In desperation, Walter claims that neither side can drive him from the black line, because neither country has full ownership of the border between two countries. Walter claims the line and names it `Dombrowski's Line'.

    Uncertain and confused, officials from both sides refer the problem to higher authority, where it is discovered there is no formal title of ownership for the line. Is it possible Walter has laid legal claim to a strip of land four feet wide and three thousand miles long? What follows is an international circus of bureaucratic folly, stirred and elevated to absurd proportion by inept politicians from both countries.

Pilzno, Poland - 1939: Walter Dombrowski, a cabinet maker,  witnesses the destruction of his village by the Nazi war machine. His beloved grandfather, Josef Thaddeus Dombrowski, dies before his eyes. After his wife, Anna, escapes to Switzerland, Walter is captured and sent to a Nazi work camp in Marburg, Germany. In Walter's eyes, it is the end of the world.    

Niagara Falls, N.Y. - 1965: Walter and Anna Dombrowski have survived the horrors of WW II and relocated to America. They

live next door to another immigrant; Salvatore Piazza and his wife, Sofia. Walter and Salvatore work as maintenance craftsmen for the Inter-Canadian Transit Corp,(ITC), where Walter is the union president and Salvatore is a steward. Driven by strong ideals, Walter will not take a backward step in fighting for the union; he is in constant conflict with his supervisor, Phil Taylor.

Walter and Salvatore are assigned to maintenance tasks on Bridge Number 7, an ancient wooden railroad bridge spanning the lower Niagara gorge between United States and Canada. Through a comedy of errors, Walter and Salvatore become trapped on the bridge; Immigration officials of Canada and U.S.A., each stationed at their respective ends of the bridge, believe the pair are trying to sneak into their respective countries. Both countries are unyielding; Canada blames the U.S.A. for allowing the pair to sneak past their gates, and U.S.A blames the Canadians. A deadlock.

When Immigration officers try to force Walter and Salvatore from the bridge, they retreat to the center of the bridge. There is a black line painted across the center of the bridge, it is four-feet wide and represents the border between the two countries. With hostile officials standing on both sides, Walter and Salvatore are trapped! In desperation, Walter claims that neither side can drive him from the black line, because neither country has full ownership of the border between two countries. Walter claims the line and names it `Dombrowski's Line'.

    Uncertain and confused, officials from both sides refer the problem to higher authority, where it is discovered there is no formal title of ownership for the line. Is it possible Walter has laid legal claim to a strip of land four feet wide and three thousand miles long? What follows is an international circus of bureaucratic folly, stirred and elevated to absurd proportion by inept politicians from both countries.

A satirical parody on the life of Jeepers the Nazarene- based upon the Christian New Testament Bible. The book presents a slightly different point of view regarding the events surrounding the conquest of Judea by the Romans and the rise and fall of the “Savior” and his band of conspirators.

No Icons, Please: Cheeky Portraits from the Twentieth Century honors the idea that history is both instructive and entertaining. This anthology of the recent past offers “brief, none too reverent glances at the people who loomed large in the century we just bid adieu.” In nine colorful chapters, Ernie Plock casts his whimsical net across the waters of American Presidents, sports, film, foreign affairs, rock, television and other outposts of these ten decades. Composed in the form of short, tongue-in-cheek parables, the book questions the notion that an appreciation of history requires the digestion of mountains of words: “I’ve yet to find a satisfying reply to the question of why anyone would want to spend 5,000 words on what can be communicated in twenty.”Observing that “we are an entertainment society,” the author pays equal attention to personalities from our popular heritage as well as from “serious” history–Babe Ruth, Hillary Clinton, Humphrey Bogart, Kaiser Wilhelm, Lucille Ball, John Kennedy, Yoko Ono, Henry Ford, and any number of other celebrated figures stalk these pages. The book is divided into nine sections so that readers can more easily locate subjects of particular interest.: “U.S. Presidents,” “Third Down Batting Practice,” “Society at Large,” “Real Movies,” “Foreign Objects,” “Hitting Rock,” “Strictly Politics,” and “There’s Always TV.” As a former tennis instructor and veteran of a quarter century in Washington, D.C., Plock in the end conceded literary defeat to the mighty tugs of sports and politics. “Presidents were once politicians, too,” he observes. A concluding section, “It Gets Even Better,” summarizes what it all means and even ventures a prediction.Plock jauntily dips into the some of the little-noted or only partially answered questions of this maddening century such as the closely kept secret behind Babe Ruth’s “called shot” and Lucille Ball’s moment of truth. Other riddles of the past take their place–how did Bill Gates escape lasting doom? Why was Herbert Hoover the most underrated American President? What was the nagging question only Frank Zappa could answer? Who was Mrs. Robinson and what did she mean? How was the motor of Duke basketball tuned? Was the future kind to Linda Tripp? No Icon’s excursions offer fanciful pleasures for both the casual observer and the obsessed historian. While interpretive, the collection also bows to the factual realities of the twentieth century. An author of two books on modern German history, Plock is careful to draw his ticklish nuggets from events that actually took place “unless they are related in the conditional–or else are so patently zany as to lie beyond the pale of rational experience.”

The eight Maggio kids grew up sharing everything from their fear of wild dogs to the neighbors’ watermelon patch. Pieces of Eight takes readers into a world where sibling rivalry is a joke and watching each other’s backs is the norm. The anthology’s sixty-plus stories from their childhood (told with hardly any exaggeration) and e-mail exchanges from today (written with hardly any humor) recount poignant situations, instructive mischief, and rewarding moments. If you’ve always wondered what other families are really like or why some brothers and sisters stay close while others do not, Pieces of Eight: Still Best Friends After All These Years provides some clues along with an entertaining read and some guaranteed smiles.

The eight Maggio kids grew up sharing everything from their fear of wild dogs to the neighbors’ watermelon patch. Pieces of Eight takes readers into a world where sibling rivalry is a joke and watching each other’s backs is the norm. The anthology’s sixty-plus stories from their childhood (told with hardly any exaggeration) and e-mail exchanges from today (written with hardly any humor) recount poignant situations, instructive mischief, and rewarding moments. If you’ve always wondered what other families are really like or why some brothers and sisters stay close while others do not, Pieces of Eight: Still Best Friends After All These Years provides some clues along with an entertaining read and some guaranteed smiles.

The eight Maggio kids grew up sharing everything from their fear of wild dogs to the neighbors’ watermelon patch. Pieces of Eight takes readers into a world where sibling rivalry is a joke and watching each other’s backs is the norm. The anthology’s sixty-plus stories from their childhood (told with hardly any exaggeration) and e-mail exchanges from today (written with hardly any humor) recount poignant situations, instructive mischief, and rewarding moments. If you’ve always wondered what other families are really like or why some brothers and sisters stay close while others do not, Pieces of Eight: Still Best Friends After All These Years provides some clues along with an entertaining read and some guaranteed smiles.

It takes a lot to get a soap opera on daytime television.  It takes even more at night to keep the show on the air.  For example the cast of characters might include a twenty-something network executive who is really a Michael Jordan wanna-be who only goes to show white guys can’t jump; a daytime head of television who is a dinosaur with one foot in the tar pit yet the other one on the pulse of what America will swallow, wash, and powder; a director who has confessed on a talk show that he has a sex addiction, yet can’t manage to corral the young starlet who is determined to get her plastic surgery paid for by sleeping to the top; a head writer–maybe two-who could win an Emmy if only she/they would simply put her/their fantasy life into the show’s scripts; and a whole bunch of actors who somehow keep millions of viewers hooked each day, even though the ego and petulance of these whole bunch wouldn’t fit into the state of Texas.

Oh, and did we forget to mention a couple of dead bodies?  Or is it one body killed twice, or maybe two people in the same body dying once?  Certainly the soap opera “Laguna Beach’ is just like a novel.

Yet this story is up close and personal and political.  A close look at network television and its continual battle between Business–we need to cut costs–and Show–a few more dollars and we’ll have ART!!  A personal romp written someone who’s been there, done that, and lived to cash the checks.  A novel that is about an addiction that is as American as, well, soap operas.  A bonfire of vanities and loyalties and millions of people who only watch from closets.

It takes a lot to get a soap opera on daytime television.  It takes even more at night to keep the show on the air.  For example the cast of characters might include a twenty-something network executive who is really a Michael Jordan wanna-be who only goes to show white guys can’t jump; a daytime head of television who is a dinosaur with one foot in the tar pit yet the other one on the pulse of what America will swallow, wash, and powder; a director who has confessed on a talk show that he has a sex addiction, yet can’t manage to corral the young starlet who is determined to get her plastic surgery paid for by sleeping to the top; a head writer–maybe two-who could win an Emmy if only she/they would simply put her/their fantasy life into the show’s scripts; and a whole bunch of actors who somehow keep millions of viewers hooked each day, even though the ego and petulance of these whole bunch wouldn’t fit into the state of Texas.

Oh, and did we forget to mention a couple of dead bodies?  Or is it one body killed twice, or maybe two people in the same body dying once?  Certainly the soap opera “Laguna Beach’ is just like a novel.

Yet this story is up close and personal and political.  A close look at network television and its continual battle between Business–we need to cut costs–and Show–a few more dollars and we’ll have ART!!  A personal romp written someone who’s been there, done that, and lived to cash the checks.  A novel that is about an addiction that is as American as, well, soap operas.  A bonfire of vanities and loyalties and millions of people who only watch from closets.

As a tribute to George Orwell, this little story looks at how different things could have been if only the animals had believed in the seven noble ideals • Fighting the just war • Democracy, equality & fraternity • Progress and enlightenment • Justice always triumphs • Nothing but the truth • Viva free enterprise • Never lose faith

This is a book that in a humorous way depicts everything we all had to go through to get where we are in our game today. It is guaranteed to make you laugh as you recall some of the times you had to get out of an impossible sand trap, when you wanted to throw your clubs in the water because you had just dubbed your drive into the same place. It reminds you that how bad a shot you come up with, you can't get arrested for it.

This book in addition to the fun passages, is loaded with good tips and advice from what the pros have said in their magazine interviews. Read them and use them wisely and watch your game improve each time you go out to play. It also has caricatures drawn by the author, Jack Lane, who was the artist who drew celebrities at the Hollywood Brown Derby for many years. They are of some of the greatest of them all, Tiger Wood, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Chi Chi Rodriguez, and Greg Norman. This is one that you will find you can't use up all your smiles in a lifetime.

This is a book that in a humorous way depicts everything we all had to go through to get where we are in our game today. It is guaranteed to make you laugh as you recall some of the times you had to get out of an impossible sand trap, when you wanted to throw your clubs in the water because you had just dubbed your drive into the same place. It reminds you that how bad a shot you come up with, you can't get arrested for it.

This book in addition to the fun passages, is loaded with good tips and advice from what the pros have said in their magazine interviews. Read them and use them wisely and watch your game improve each time you go out to play. It also has caricatures drawn by the author, Jack Lane, who was the artist who drew celebrities at the Hollywood Brown Derby for many years. They are of some of the greatest of them all, Tiger Wood, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Chi Chi Rodriguez, and Greg Norman. This is one that you will find you can't use up all your smiles in a lifetime.

Magic mushrooms can affect.Religion was left to self discovery. With adolescent years spent racing bikes and cheating death the author met many strange circumstances. He tried illicit substances leading to his breakdown on his 33rd birthday. He was diagnosed as Bi-polar (Manic-Depressive) and wants to take you down the road of his manic delusions, in verse. A parody you will never forget! A parody that might make you think about taking another hit. Take the journey lf discovery with a more tangable view of the world, leading to the finding a far more Greater being truly exists. It will grip by the page and will keep you mesmerized to the very last. Don’t read if you are wise!A fictional truth.