Pittsburgh Jazz documents the almost forgotten magic created in the city of Pittsburgh by a host of artists, uptown inner city streets, and jazz joints that served patrons from a menu packed full of delightful music. The magical improvised songs, compositions, and unique styles of hundreds of those who were born, raised, or influenced by what occurred in the smoke filled clubs, bars, restaurants, and theaters is difficult to comprehend. And yet, every jazz artist in the world was attracted...

The Bulldogs of Westinghouse High School were a legend in mid-century Pennsylvania as perennial Pittsburgh city football champs and much-feared exhibition-game opponents for elite, outlying Western Pennsylvania steel-town teams where many greats like Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, and Joe Montana were trained. Supported by his "winning" record, the Bulldogs' head coach of this era led national clinics on how to condition young players.Then there were his Bulldog players, some highly tal...

Pittsburgh is a working city, in no small part thanks to its strong African American community. As an integral stop on the Underground Railroad, many enslaved people traveled through Pittsburgh on their way further North, and many still decided to stay. During the Great Migration of the early 20th century, Pittsburgh was again a main destination for African Americans from the rural South; approximately 95% of these men became steelworkers. There was never one centralized neighborhood where...

Thomas Wyatt dreams of a future with his first love in Colonial Boston. She suggests he become a doctor. He wants to improve his standing with her wealthy parents, and for her he works his way from berry patch to the halls of Great Britains finest medical school. Just before he is to make the long voyage, he is shattered by her admission that her parents have arranged a marriage for her with a wealthy Tory merchants son. He regretfully leaves his family behind to secure some sort of future...

Joe Stallings has woman trouble. Stacey, his pathologically controlling, unfaithful ex-wife, is stalking him. She wants revenge and is hurling threats. At the same time, hes trying to finish his PhD in applied genetics by analyzing an ancient skull, one of forty or fifty gleaned from a cave near Lovelock, Nevada.Joe is determined to find out where the giant man came from and when he lived by researching the DNA. He joins forces with Penny Echeverria, assistant director of the Winne...

Born at the end of the nineteenth century, David Mendy comes from the upper Thames valley in England, a place haunted by memories and customs thousands of years old. These include the good mans croft, an untilled patch reserved for the lands spirit and rumored to have been the site of child sacrifice. Davids family legend also includes ties to stone ruins next to the local good mans croft. But as a lad, he is warned to stay away from the areathat it was to be left to the devil.Davi...

Theres a bit of bad history between Master Henry Barrowby, a member of the Commons for Bedfordshire, and nobleman Lord Lavenham. Barrowby was once engaged to Mary Swanford, whose familys land bordered his. But Lavenham stepped in and seduced Mary, leaving Barrowby heartbroken.While helping Master Easterling, a wealthy London goldsmith, purchase church land seized by Henry VIII, Barrowby meets Easterlings daughter, Mary. Ironically, Lavenham is now courting Mary Easterling, a beauti...

Ballroom dancing frees Michael Renard from his insecurities in social and academic situations. He marries Alice, a pretty librarian searching for a better life. Their marriage is soon interrupted by the drums of World War I. Michael joins the Royal Artillery initially becoming a sergeant. Meanwhile, Alice is swept off her feet by a handsome debonair man pretending to be upper class, a toff. A promotion to officer permits Michael home leave. He discovers the situation and exposes the sham toff...

With Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis established himself as the bad boy of twentieth-century British letters. Later he became famous as another kind of bad boy, an inveterate boozer, a red-faced scourge of political correctness. He was consistent throughout in being a committed enemy of any form of “right thinking,” which helped to make him one of the most consistently unconventional and exploratory writers of his day, a master of classical English prose who was unafraid to apply himself ...

Still sassy, Doris Gregory takes the reader back over seventy years to the time when she broke with tradition, first by publicly challenging the University of British Columbia’s discrimination against women, and then by joining the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. Her memoir allows us to travel with her across the Atlantic at the height of the U-boat infestation and to take refuge in underground shelters while bombs fall on London. Unlike most memoirs of the war that focus on battles, Gregory ...

A British Royal Air Force glider pilot recounts his service, capture, imprisonment, and escape during World War II in this gripping memoir.This is the remarkable true story of a young army glider pilot's experience of the last days in the defence of Arnhem Bridge, his eventual capture and then escape to be adopted by the Resistance, the hair-raising journey through occupied Europe and his eventual return to the UK.After capture Freeman was first taken to Apel...

"I love old-school baseball,and I also love the way people who've spent a lifetime in the game talk about the game. I tried to combine those things in a story of suspense. People have asked me for years when I was going to write a baseball story. Ask no more; this is it." --Stephen King Even the most diehard baseball fans don't know the true story of William "Blockade Billy" Blakely. He may have been the greatest player the game has ever seen, but today no one remembers his name. He was th...