All of My Published Books
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| Richard K. Holtzin (writing/publishing under the non de plume: RK ALLEMAN) |
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EMPEROR PENGUINS:
The Other Global Warming 'Canary in the Coal Mine'
Ad line: Given this lengthy novel, a chilling, yet heartwarming mystery and adventure awaits the reader. It’s also necessary to bundle up because the narrative is set in the coldest place on the planet—Antarctica. Thus, the subtitle’s inference.
Abstract: This venturesome novel about the handsome, tall Emperor Penguin species centers on a large colony of penguins soon after their brief summer feeding season ends. Thus, the autumn season begins as thousands of ‘emperors’ trek across the icy continent on a nonstop seven-day hike to their community’s inland rookery, the purpose of which is for mating. Early on in their arrival, intermittent unnerving sounds and tremors issue beneath its thick foundation, which is a first for this colony to hear, feel, and experience. One penguin among them, Aurora, later embarks on a secret mission to the far other side of the rookery to find out what causes the periodic and more frequent disturbances. He also doesn’t realize his mate, Corvus, and this season’s bright new offspring, Cetus, are secretly following his tracks. Eventually, Aurora solves the mystery. Thus, the source of the sounds and tremors. Soon afterward he is also surprised when reunited with his family. However, a new problem arises: they are marooned on a fast-moving glacier and there is little time to escape the peril before the entire penguin community on the far other side vacates the rookery. Thus, based on Emperor Penguin genetics, adults depart the rookery and depart for the open sea for the start of the three-month summer feeding season while the fledglings depart a few days later. Consequently, they will be alone in another part of the ocean for seven years before returning to their original colony, followed by another long march to the rookery. For their genus, there is no reunification with their former parents.
The other theme entailed in this novel relates scientific facts, as well as human concerns for all life forms in the Southern Hemisphere, including aquatic species. Ergo, the warming temperature and vanishing icy landscape, including the Great Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. Given this facet of the novel, scientific research and corroborated facts correlate with an ongoing climate change crisis affecting both polar caps, as well as most of the planet. Presented with such pivotal and extreme weather phenomena, the substantial explanation based on the crisis is mentioned throughout the text. In this case, footnotes at the end of each chapter. (7 x 10 format, 635 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
RES DOG TALES ABOUT PAWS AND TAILS:
Homeless Strays on the Navajo Reservation
Ad line: This common moniker, RES DOGS, implies everything pertinent about stray and homeless canines trying to survive on the Navajo Reservation. Consequently, they are all competing for the same objective: food and human kindness, and hopefully, followed by a home.
Abstract: Scores of dogs, including some that were abandoned and rudely dropped off by their former owners, their roving contingency greet visitors to Canyon de Chelly National Monument on the Navajo Reservation. Thus, the setting for this canine-friendly novel includes factual information—the good, bad, and the ugly. Seeing these amiable and persistent four-paw beggars on patrol while mooching food and snacks of any kind, these aptly-named dogs are not only constantly hungry but also desperate for human love and companionship (hint-hint). Moreover, the author’s publication not only introduces readers to a lively saga of changing canine characters, including their respective adventures throughout the narrative, but also describes situations all res dogs must confront on a daily basis. Thus, sobering and somber facts of life merely trying to survive one day at a time, especially during the cold months when visitors are relatively few. (with b-w photos 7 x 10 format, 378 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
DIETARY DECISIONS THAT ABET OR MAR THE ENVIRONMENT
Ad line: If it’s true you are what you eat, knowing where the source of food came from, and how it was produced should make some people think twice about continuing with their dietary preferences. Just saying. . .
Abstract: A group of nine friends meet at a posh Tucson restaurant for a fine evening meal, which denotes the overall theme of this two-part publication. Along with other topics, when they get together their respective dietary preferences are naturally discussed. For instance, some prefer meat and dairy entrees while others tend toward vegetarian or seafood selections, including one among them who is an avowed vegan. In light of the gathering’s respective food favorite preferences, there is no comparative bias or condemnation based on their selected and respective entrees. Instead, there is an ongoing amicable dialogue (actually, an implied dialectic) throughout the evening. At times, their casual discourse also centers on food sources that may either be beneficial or harmful to the environment. Voila—the import of the book’s title. Engaging, educational, and enlightening, this publication’s overall context is never preachy or biased. Thus, the reader always decides what’s best for his or her food preferences. The second half of the book is an elementary summary of Grey’s Anatomy where the author describes how all body organs and systems function (viz. using the author’s body as a creative metaphor of explanation). (7 x 10 format, 460 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
GRAND CANYON'S GEOLOGIC TIME MACHINE:
A Literary Trek Through Primordial History
Ad line: H.G. Wells’ epic Time Machine concept centered on a time-traveling machine and voyager whereas the Grand Canyon’s geologic formations also suffice as a time machine and hikers, only made from sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.
Abstract: For every step taken from the rim to the Colorado River, the average stride equates to an estimated 20,000 years. Thus, a geologic time machine that calculated the canyon’s numerous formations. This reference also serves as a metaphor for contemporary time travelers hiking into and out of the canyon. For instance, starting from an estimated 251 million years at the rim, the clock of time at the bottom is nearly 2 billion years old! (Actually, time travel equates to 1.7 or 1.8 million years based on metamorphism which is more accurate.) The author’s publication includes a comprehensive digest of geology, human and natural history, including all other relevant essentials about this peerless national park that is also dubbed one of the Earth’s “Seven Natural Wonders.” For those who do not hike the numerous canyon trails, on the South Rim, there is a relatively flat 2.83-mile (4.56 km) paved walk depicting a matching geologic timeline. As such, for every few feet visitors navigate on the timeline trail, the distance signifies one million years of the canyon’s geologic history. Walking the trail also promotes a visceral appreciation for the magnitude of geologic time. Complementing the timeline’s features, there is a series of rocks and exhibits that explain the canyon’s creation story. This easy walking trail analogy also begins the education tour-de-force for this publication. (with color photos and images 7 x 10 format, 386 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
GLEN CANYON -- LAKE POWELL:
The Wrong Damn Place to Build a Dam
Ad line: The aggressive subtitle of this nonfiction chronicle is nowhere close to an exaggeration. The fact is: Most of Glen Canyon’s estate was indeed drowned and predicted to go that way because of the porous nature of sandstone and the typical heavy heat of SE Utah’s typical semi-arid climate.
Abstract: Before being selected as the first major dam site on the upper Colorado River just above the Grand Canyon, ‘The Glen,’ as it was dubbed by hikers and river-runners who previously explored its Eden-like sandstone sanctuary was the second-longest chasm downcut by the Colorado River. Sculpted by erosion, its high-walled facade rises above the muddy river architect that created this second-longest canyon on the Colorado Province Plateau. Its unprotected estate (viz. sans national park or monument status) was essentially targeted by an overbearing bureaucracy interested only in changing this canyon into an artificial basin and hydroelectric generation station. Once the gigantic dam was completed in the early 1960s, the Colorado was literally put in reverse. By the early 1980s, two-thirds of Glen Canyon’s interior was submerged (aka “drowned”), along with an estimated three thousand archeological ruins lost forever. In its place, the longest artificial basin in North America formed—Lake Powell—formed. Ergo, a so-called National Recreational Area for boating and all other water-related usage. The author’s three-part chronicle elucidates all the essentials relegated to the before, during, and after phases. Accordingly, Glen Canyon’s relatively rapid transition from a halcyon canyon oasis to a nearly 200-mile-long outdoor bathtub became a favored aquatic playground for recreationists. After a long drawn-out battle with the likes of David Brower (the Sierra Club’s Director at the time), Floyd Dominy, the Director of the Bureau of Reclamation (or spelled Wrecklamation, depending on which side of the dam fence one favors), he preferred aquatic environs over Nature’s original chasm design. Hence, qualifying the subtitle of this factual and telling tome. (with color photos 7 x 10 format, 386 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
ANASAZI TO ANCESTRAL PUEBLOANS:
First Native People Who Settled in the Four Corners Region
Ad line: Originally, a nameless prehistoric tribal people who became stewards of the land in what would one day be part of the Colorado Plateau Province due west of the Rockies. Their fabricated lyrical-sounding name is derived from Navajo phrasing, loosely meaning “the ancient ones.”
Abstract: For some 14,000 years, this semi-arid region of the North American continent was seasonally visited by primordial people representing numerous tribal bands. One hunter-gatherer culture among them, the proclaimed and historically popular moniker, “Anasazi,” later returned and was the only prehistoric civilization that lived and settled here year-round (viz. likely a hundred or so years before the start of the Common Era). Closer to the late 13th century, and because of a persistent and protracted drought, the majority of these so-called “dryland farmers” migrated from the Four Corners region to present-day New Mexico. Leaving behind a plethora of archeological dwellings and villages such as Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and Aztec, it was as though they intended to someday return but that return migration never happened. This mentioned concise summary marks a well-preserved testimony of the Anasazi accredited advancement during their lengthy stay in favored sectors of the Four Corners region (viz. where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah merge their respective corner boundaries). For a little over 1,000 years, these adept hunter-gatherers had the singular advantage of supplementing their food storage year-round with productive agriculture. Namely, the “three sister crops” (viz. corn, beans, and squash). This manuscript’s concise fifteen-volume publication also interprets the Anasazi primordial history to the contemporary Ancestral Puebloans, most of whom live in New Mexico. (includes b/w maps and images 7 x 10 format, 424 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
This book cover and title has since been revised as follows: GRAND CANYON CREATION STORY: Facts, Myths, and Hyperbole Explained (however, the text is the same for both title).
GRAND CANYON’s GEOLOGIC SHRINE OF THE AGES: Facts, Myths, and Hyperbole Explained.
Ad line: Imagine a fairly flat and mundane-looking landscape for hundreds of miles in all directions, then, in a geologic wink of the eye, a deeply incised, wide, and lengthy chasm appears whose erosional sculpturing is magisterial, even somewhat otherworldly.
Abstract: Before there even was an awe-inspiring National Park and Natural Wonder in this sector of northeast Arizona and southeast Utah, for nearly 2 billion years, advancing and retreating seas, followed by relatively shorter intervals of swamps, rivers, lagoons, and, at least, one long-running desert, these environs defined a slow-changing blueprint of natural events that eventually dried out and congealed. Accordingly, one by one the stacked and mixed environmental events were entombed, the oldest at the bottom. Accordingly, a repository of numerous geologic formations preserved beneath a nearly horizontal and bland-looking landscape. Much later in time, a wandering drainage flowed into this sector of the future-named American Southwest. Downcutting its slight-curving path across the region, this relentless catalyst exposed numerous sedimentary rock formations. One formation layer at its time, the deeper the river's trench, elements of erosion set in (mostly wind and rain). Steadily honing rock face surfaces, including hard crystalline basement rocks exposed by today’s Colorado River, these facts, along with popular myths and hyperbole are explained throughout this publication. As far as the crux of the canyon’s creation story, geology takes center stage in interpretation. For instance, along with the so-called downcutting principle of the river, the continent in this wide region was steadily uplifted due to tectonic plate activity. As a result, the geologic formula—uplift with simultaneous downcutting and relentless erosion—describes how and why the Grand Canyon was created in a mere 5 to 6 million years! In other words, its foundation is composed of ancient materials turned rock formations, yet a relatively young product of design (viz. the aspects of a creation story). This publication also includes human history, archeology, ecology, lifeforms of the canyon, and miscellaneous other details such as hiking trails and tourist amenities. (with color photos and illustrations 7 x 10 format, 280 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
MAJESTIC MONOLITHS AND MEMORIALS:
Monument Valley's Iconic Visual Fantasy
Ad line: Standing on the balcony overlooking Monument Valley, some visitors swear they can see and hear a bugler’s charge led by the Duke—John Wayne. After all, he and the Director, John Ford, made many Western movies here (viz. “The Searchers,” “Fort Apache,” “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon,” and “Rio Grande,” to mention the most celebrated).
Abstract: The first adopted native home of the Navajo People, Monument Valley’s awe-inspiring erosional backdrop of mesas, buttes, and totem-like pillars (aka “hoodoos”) is typically characterized as the most scenic landscape in the West. Its expansive Great Basin Desert estate and magisterial panorama are also dubbed the most popular Hollywood Western movie scenery. The author’s publication’s text explains everything about this revered shrine of the ages—from geological essentials to human and natural history—the so-called sixteen “Sandstone Sketches” include a descriptive road tour of the Four Corners region, two of the author’s backcountry treks into the vast interior, and other relevant topics, Majestic Monument Valley is one of the top-drawer tourist attractions in the Southwest. For their tribal culture, Navajos also consider the Valley’s erosional and sculpted dished valley topography their most revered geologic attraction. Hence, not just fanfare scenery for movie directors and actors. (with b/w photos and illustrations 7 x 10 format, 379 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
GLEN CANYON'S SHRINE OF THE AGES:
The “Cathedral in the Desert”
SUMMARY: Before Glen Canyon’s literal drowning in the early 1980s, its remote habitat was considered the most pastoral canyon in the Southwest. Therefore, visited by a relative few people, the focus of this publication’s 142-page thesis narrates one of the most revered backcountry side-canyon haunts that briefly appeared in 2004 due to extremely low water in upper Lake Powell.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
SELF-GUIDED ROAD TOURS OF THE SOUTHWEST:
National Parks, Monuments & Archeological Ruin
Volume I
SUMMARY: This publication’s concept is different from similar other road tour books the author wrote and published. For example, how starting from any designated tourist hub in the Southwest, typically, tourists drive from one select locale to the other in a recommended sequence (i.e., connecting the dots as it were). In this text’s two-volume series, however. tour destinations follow a similar sightseeing motif, except their respective scenic icons are listed alphabetically. Altogether, there are seventeen tourist hubs to choose from in this 2-volume publication. Consider the following example that begins and ends in Flagstaff, Arizona. If readers choose to follow the entire route from start to finish, their destinations would be presented in this order:
Sunset Crater Volcano NM /// Walnut Canyon NM /// Grand Falls of the Little Colorado /// Wupatki NM /// Painted Desert (northern environs) /// Old Oraibi –– Keams Canyon/Hopi Mesas) /// Homol’ovi SP /// Meteor Crater /// Cameron Trading Post & the Little Colorado River Gorge Overlook /// Grand Canyon South Rim via Desert View ///
For most tourists, when traveling and knowing a little or a lot about the plethora of national parks, monuments, and archeological ruins enrich the mind, this publication’s essentials equate with the maxim, “Knowledge is power!”
Read the more informative synopsis HERE .
For the Book 2 sequel, go HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
ROMANCE AND REDEMPTION IN THE ROCKIES:
A Convoluted But Coquettish Novel!
Ad line: Seduction of one’s mind, body, and spirit by way of seductive romantic schemes by a suitor to her unsuspecting friend (read, “naive”) is never without consequences. Thus, the import of this slightly racy novel.
Abstract: Early on in this narrative, the story begins in Denver with an empathetic proposal to help a dear friend regain his confidence after his disastrous breakup with a girlfriend. This despairing leitmotif is also based on a true story where the author freely admits there are no innocent characters that animate this dramatic portrayal of lovers and mutual antagonists. In summary, Ailis invites Lux Carey who just returned from Paris to move, instead, to Georgetown in the Colorado Rockies. She also admonishes he needs to take time to find his sense of lost self and depressed spirit. To wit, she proposes that he should be the caretaker for her family’s vacation home. After deliberating on her generous offer, Lux accepts. As it turns out, the residence in waiting is a charming Victorian-era mansion embellished with valuable heirlooms and priceless period furniture. Meanwhile, Ailis has another intimate reason for wanting her brokenhearted friend to move to the popular tourist town laid out below Guanella Pass: enticing an amorous affair to ensure his psychological healing. She’s also still happily married. Once residing in Georgetown, Ailis’ desirous scheme soon changes their former amiable relationship to a passionate affair she had hoped would happen but not in public. In time, Lux is also seduced by a so-called ‘townie’ (viz. a shopkeeper) with similar plans. Consequently, Kat (her fitting epithet) also has her private designs and desires for the alluring new resident-townie seemingly without a girlfriend. With this latest drama set in motion, seduction and irresistible temptation for Lux entails a developing ménage à trois affair. In fact, it’s more than a complicated predicament. And then there is Lux’s former girlfriend, Shannon, a second-year medical student, who recently decided she wants Lux back in her life. Ergo, an emotional and ethical challenge he cannot possibly resolve. Not to spoil the outcome, early on in the story, a homeless cat in town adopts Lux and moves into Skye Keep (the name of Ailis’ mansion). It also turns out to be occasionally haunted. Eventually, “GT,” Lux’s name for his feline angel-safe companion, helps resolve Lux’s baffling romantic affairs—but she is no help for his thwarted suitors. This faceted novel introduces a lively mix of social dramatics and ardor that should engage the reader’s interest, especially how everything in the proverbial end works out for Lux, as well as for the chubby cat. (7 x 10 format, 667 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
EXPLORING PEERLESS PLACES IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST:
National Parks, Monuments & Archeological Ruins
Ad line: When traveling, don’t leave home without this self-learning guidebook that’s better than a map because it’s about useful tourist information and not just directions!
Abstract: When visiting any celebrated landmarks in the American Southwest, what you see and admire is even more revealing in another sense. Namely, knowing some relevant details about its creation process and reputation, which amounts to the 5-step what-how-when-where-why factors. Whether it’s something to do with geology, relevant human or natural history, and perhaps other aspects that make the destination a must-see tourist’s destination, this 2-volume guidebook featuring nearly 90 scenic icons suffices as a personal tutor—and no gratuities are necessary! Every national park, monument, archeological Anasazi ruins, tribal and state park throughout the Four Corners region is listed in the index, including some of the most acclaimed scenic icons in the West such as Rocky Mountain and Yosemite National Parks. (7 x 10 format, Vol I 668 pages /// Vol II 659 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
A TRAVELER’s GUIDE TO NATIONAL PARKS, MONUMENTS, AND ARCHEOLOGICAL RUINS IN THE SOUTHWEST
SUMMARY: This book suffices as a companion volume to EXPLORING PEERLESS PLACES. Among other germane topics and notable scenic icons, in this equally informative publication, the diverse index includes Desert Ecology, a Geologic Lexicon, Chaco Canyon Archaeoastronomy, Ethnobotany, and the best of the Southwest’s hiking icons: Zion Narrows, Peek-a-boo-Spooky and Brimstone, Antelope Canyon, Water Holes, Blue Pool Wash, The Cockscomb, as well as a catalog of all the popular SLOT CANYONS in the Southwest.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
GRAND CANYON SELF-GUIDED TOUR:
Leaving No Stone Unturned!
SUMMARY: A scholarly 566-page anthology of geology, human & natural history, whitewater rafting through the interior of the “Great Unknown” (which John Wesley Powell later renamed, the more fitting “Grand Canyon.” This replete volume also includes Powell’s inaugural 1869 exploration of the Green & Colorado river canyon country. Procuring this well-documented text will most assuredly turn readers into know-it-all Canyon Buddhas. Thus, enlightened!
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
Book II HERE.
Abstract: This sequel to the larger companion magnum opus, "Glen Canyon--Lake Powell: The Wrong Damn Place to Build a Dam," the suitably named "Shrine Of The Ages" was indeed a sandstone cathedral in the desert submerged inside what many visitors in those years thought was the most pristine canyon carved by the Colorado River. Deemed by Glen Canyon aficionados a sublime backcountry hike and destination, the Cathedral's idyllic milieu of erosional sculpture was indeed the holy of holies. To describe this chamber's sandstone tableau and environs, the towering back wall was embellished by striated 'desert varnish' (viz., black coating). Closer to the bottom, a makeshift altar of rock protruded from the wall, which was evenly divided by a fissure with a slender veil of water flowing through the middle. At the base, a shallow pool of clear water added to the Cathedral's silence, serenity, and solemnity.
Presented with Glen Canyon's au natural habitat before its estate was unceremoniously chosen for an artificial basin retrofit (viz., Lake Powell), dozens of similar other natural treasures were engulfed by some 500 feet of water. As for the relatively few and fortunate visitors before the lake formed who hiked a sinuous pinched corridor from the Colorado River (about 1.5 miles), most were speechless when they saw this backcountry haunt for the first time—its sandstone sanctuary was that venerable. Whispering their respective echoing comments, it seemed they were inside a colossal cathedral, sans ceiling. Such laudable praise for symbolic imagery was also likely common in those early 'dry years.'
The other part of why the author wrote this book of homage relates to his account and experience. Namely, when the upper sector of Lake Powell's depth diminished due to a prolonged drought that began in the mid-1990s. Consequently, access into Clear Water Canyon (off the Escalante) was possible for a brief window of time (Spring, 2005). He was also one of the fortunate and relatively few hikers on such a coincidental pilgrimage who stood in silence and awe of Nature's masterpiece revealed for the first time since the 1960s.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
MAJOR JOHN WESLEY POWELL:
A Faux Stage Play About the 1869 Green and Colorado Rivers Surveys
Ad line: The suggested moral of this book’s title might come down to this moot point: When writing a book that has historical significance, tell the whole story and don’t omit to select others who were also involved in the telling.
Abstract: Major Powell was a Civil War hero who later became the first explorer of the Green and Colorado River canyon country. He was also the first to navigate through the interior of the ‘Great Unknown’ in 1869, which he later renamed the “Grand Canyon.” As it turns out, there was an ensuing and longer survey two years later, which he did not mention in his renowned 1875 publication. So begins the controversy many years later when one of the oarsmen from the second expedition confronts the major in the 1920s, which is just before Powell’s demise. Thus, and for the first time, the public is also aware there was indeed another survey that Powell commanded. Given the author’s tell-all publication, the complete and factual account centers on the so-called three diarists from the 1869 expedition, each of whom recites his respective daily “river Now Hear This!” observation reports to an unseen audience. They are also not aware of each other’s presence reading aloud on the same platform. Thus, a faux stage play recital based on their journal entries. There is also a fourth speaker, the so-called Greek chorus, who provides additional commentary on both expeditions, as well as other incidental specifics. To be sure, the crux of the play performance is not only a verifiable testimony about the major’s expeditions but also intended to clarify his initial manuscript and reason for focusing solely on the first exploration. (Despite the fact his purpose or blunder was not appreciated by some critics, he later apologized for the literary gaffe but never explained his reasoning). Included in this publication is a capsule summary of late 19th-century history when the West was initially explored by people representing all lifestyles—frontiersmen, trappers, explorers, soldiers, scouts, politicians, and settlers. In view of this historical controversy, Powell is still considered one of the great Western explorers. (includes b/w photos and paintings 7 x 10 format, 393 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
TRANSFIGURATION: WHEN I SEE THE TREE, I AM THE TREE!
Ad line: When you want to be alone with Nature, yet not alone because you sense you are intimately connected with its process at another level. Thus, an esoteric tie-in that summons a two-way synchronous awareness.
Abstract: A meditative prose and poetry literary portrayal that intimately unites the viewer with the landscape, both objectively and subjectively. To put it another way: given such a worldly and transcendental awareness, the observer simultaneously becomes the observed. In exchange, the temporal aspect melds with the eternal, thereby resulting in a personal state of Oneness. Composed in two parts, the literary portrayal throughout this treatise on Nature relishes a late Autumn day’s promenade. Quoting a popular metaphysical adage—When I see the tree, I am the tree— this abstract modification speaks volumes to the reader. The first half of the text is scored with black-and-white pictures espousing rhyme and meter while the second half expresses vivid prose and imagery. Both writing styles denote the author’s conscious and subconscious musings over a forested countryside where the changing light of day alters the ambience almost from minute to minute. Correspondingly, the reader’s changing and reflective mood throughout the walkabout promises to be a sine qua non-transformation of spirit. (7 x 10 format, 187 pages)
Now Hear This! In addition to the Amazon website books for sale, THIS BOOK IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE BARNES AND NOBEL WEBSITE AT A SLIGHTLY BETTER PRICE.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
LIFE-CHANGING FLIGHT PLANS:
A Fateful Quest And Fall From Wings
Volume 1
SUMMARY: Based on a true story where all the principals’ names are changed to protect the not-so-innocent, this 2-volume tortuous novel entails a momentous crash in a WW-II vintage aircraft. As a result, one of the two friends & pilots onboard experiences a transcendental release from his physical body just before that fateful incident, only to return to the cockpit seconds before it nose-dives into mountainous terrain. After their last-minute rescue many hours later, the critically injured pilot arrives DOA at the hospital but is revived. From there, the dramatic storyline centers on his physical & psychological challenges of recovery, as well as a haunting metaphysical & transcendent search for answers. Specifically, why an alluring white light appeared & encompassed his essence beyond the doomed aircraft. Seemingly extinguished in a nanosecond, he felt the weight of his body again but desperately wanted to return to the beguiling radiance that abruptly extinguished. Disoriented, his punishing fall from wings was akin to an ongoing hellish nightmare. Some six weeks later, he returned to Denver for more operations and was not the same easygoing person he used to be. Consequently, sensing no interest in his marriage & alienated from the pilot & best friend who saved his life while waiting for rescue. Moreover, the former successful teaching & flying career he aspired to & loved was replaced by a new quest: Why did he choose to return to the rigors of a traumatic temporality instead of continuing with the rapture of an engulfing white light while sensing he was about to meld with eternity?
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
Please note: This 8.5 x 11 format is now offered in the 7 x 10 format and is now a four-volume sequential miniseries:
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
SO FAR, ALL THE RIGHT TURNS
An Eclectic Memoire
SUMMARY: A memoir publication of life-chapter excerpts from most of the author’s published manuscripts that define a diverse lifestyle without forethought. More akin to changing occupations, coincidences, and life experience, this book’s apposite title qualifies the manuscript’s endorsement and assertion. Hence, a changing life process of varying and different events and circumstances that enriched his essence and livelihood given every respect, which, of course, includes the good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly, but mostly the good.
Postscript: the ‘’ phrase amounts to the author’s acknowledgment of how his choices and decisions in the life process were for the best, despite some of the challenges and misfortunes along the way.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
S.T.E.M. education need not entail the usual projects geared to a few hours or a few days. Instead, we offer High School students a one-year-long S.T.E.M. Laboratory class at no additional cost to the school, much less the student. This is especially the case given our patent endorsement that includes all S.E.S. levels. The only requirement needed is an Internet connection, which most schools already have. With a computer lab set-up in place, the S.T.E.M. class runs either as an elective or preferably as a typical High School technology class. In this light, students learn and use website development, word processing, spreadsheet, slideshow, drawing, and social media tools.
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
Kindly note: This textbook is only a rough first draft. We have converted the textbook into a website that can be found here: https://www.stemadventuresinouterspace.com
In this tale of redemption, a contemporary superhero has the huevos to try and take down a mass–murdering techno–terrorist. This action–packed adventure follows the proud young ancestor of the original de la Vega family who now lives in the 21st century.
Viva El Zorro!
Read the more informative synopsis HERE.
TO RESERVE A COPY: The Amazon website features the paperback format.
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