Wrecker
by Summer Wood

About WRECKER

         It’s June of 1965 when Wrecker enters the world. The war is raging in Vietnam, San Francisco is tripping towards flower power, and Lisa Fay – a young innocent from a family farm down south – is knocked sideways by life as a single mother in a city she could barely navigate on her own.
         Three years later, she’s alone again. Kids aren’t allowed in prison. And Wrecker, scared silent, furious, and hell-bent on breaking every last thing that crosses his path, is shipped off to live with distant relatives in the wilds of Humboldt County...

From the author's Q&A:

"In spite of being set in the weed capital of the west, it’s not about that culture at all. It’s about the thorny path and sweet rewards of raising a kid. It’s about love in a world where not everything is perfect – some mothers land in prison, some friends disappear into the woods – but where, in spite of its tendency to break your heart, love is the only thing that has a shot at saving you."—Summer Wood       

Praise:

"A wonderful portrait of a California long lost, but still alive here. Wrecker will wreck your heart and then put it back together again."—Susan Straight, author of Highwire Moon

"A love song to well intentioned, wholly dedicated, and deeply flawed motherhood. Wrecker is a big-hearted, big-loving, compassionate book."—Pam Houston,author of Cowboys Are My Weakness

More of This World or Maybe Another By Barb Johnson More of This World or Maybe Another is a collection of award-winning stories about four outsiders whose unruly lives intersect on the back streets of New Orleans. From the rural Gulf Coast to a rough-and-tumble neighborhood known as Mid-City, the stories in More of This World or Maybe Another pulse with an anxious inner life set down in the chaos of the street. Closely linked tales introduce readers to teenaged Delia, who experiences first-love jitters atop an oil storage tank where she tries to work up the nerve to kiss a girl. Dooley's music career takes off when he moves to the city, but some devastating news points to divorce and an impulse buy ends in tragedy. A sensitive alcoholic named Pudge survives his fat-boy childhood with an abusive father and then hides out from his own son, Luis. On the eve of his confirmation, the fatherless Luis drugs his mother's boyfriend. It is a Mid-City laundromat that serves as home base for this cast of powerfully drawn characters who must all unite to save Luis from a violent end. Funny and haunting by turns, Johnson's unforgettable characters are driven by something fragile and irresistible, a sputtering drive to love and be loved. —From Harper Collins' Reading Guide. Become a fan of More of This World or Maybe Another on its FB page. Visit AROHO's Store and send a signed copy of More of This World or Maybe Another as a gift!

Fun Home: An American Tragicomic By Alison Bechdel “Brave and forthright and insightful — exactly what Alison Bechdel does best.” -- Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina Alison Bechdel...has been a careful archivist of her own life and kept a journal since she was ten. Bechdel grew up in rural Pennsylvania. After graduating from Oberlin College, she moved to New York City, where she began drawing Dykes to Watch Out For in 1983 — "one of the preeminent oeuvres in the comic genre, period" (Ms.). The strip is syndicated in fifty newspapers, translated intoseveral languages, and collected in a book series with a quarter of a millioncopies in print. Utne magazine has listed DTWOF as "one of the greatest hits ofthe twentieth century." … In Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Alison Bechdel is finally telling her own story. - courtesy of Houghton Mifflin   BUY NOW         Go to the AROHO Store With your purchase you'll receive: A signed copy of Fun Home: An American Tragicomic Interview, discussion, and study guide

American Smooth By Rita Dove In American Smooth, "Dove deftly uses ideas as the springboard for plunging into feelings and experiences in a search for the individual stories that reveal greater universal truths." -- Janet St. John, Booklist Rita Dove, former Poet Laureate of the United States, is the recipient of many honors, among them the Pulitzer Prize, the National Humanities Medal, and the Heinz Award. In 2006 she received the coveted Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service, and in 2008 she was honored with the Library of Virginia's Lifetime Achievement Award. Rita Dove is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she lives with her husband, the writer Fred Viebahn. Please view our discussion guide, or visit http://people.virginia.edu/~rfd4b to learn more about Ms. Dove.

What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison By Camille Dungy "Dungy shares...her sharp, clear and honest ear and her unswerving commitment to the voice life. She is a brave poet writing true poems and I salute the music and courage of her work." --Lucille Clifton Camille T. Dungy was a finalist for the PEN Center USA 2007 Literary Award, and the Library of Virginia 2007 Literary Award. Dungy is Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University. Editor of Black Nature: A Poetry Anthology, she is co-editor of From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great, and assistant editor of Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade. Please view our discussion guide or http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/camille_t_dungy to learn more about Ms. Dungy.

Book Club Selection
Summer 2008

MUST HAVE Reads For Summer!

	And She Was By Cindy Dyson "In a tense interplay between past and present, And She Was explores Alaskan Aluet history, taboos, mummies, conquest, survival, and the seamy side of the 1980's in a fishing boomtown at the edge of the world."
	One For Sorrow, Two For Joy By Elise Juska " Juska's delicate touch and note-perfect writing that allow her to gather the threads of the shrewdly observed details and weave them around her vivid characters, making One for Sorrow, Two for Joy a memorable, rewarding pleasure." -The Philadelphia Inquirer

Discover two very different places

~Ireland & Alaska~

through the eyes of characters

reconnecting with their past.

Cindy Dyson is the author of eight books for young adults, Cindy Dyson grew up in Alaska. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, Backpacker, First for Women, Women's World, and other publications. She now lives near Glacier Park, Montana. Visit Dyson's website for more information about the author

Elise Juska grew up outside Philadelphia and attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where she majored in English and won the Hawthorne and Sinkinson Prizes for her short stories.She completed her Master's in Writing at the University of New Hampshire in 1997, receiving the Lt. Albert Charait Award for best short story.She now lives in Southwest Harbor, Maine, where she is at work on a new novel. Visit Juska's website for more information about the author

We would like to thank Harper Collins and Simon & Schuster for partnering with us in showcasing Cindy Dyson and Elise Juska's work.

Book Club
selection
Fall 2007

"Lesley Hazleton tells the story of the real-life, flesh-and-blood-and-brain female whose name has been, for the last 3,000 years, shorthand for Bad Girl. Was Jezebel really 'bad'? Or was she, like so many forward-thinking women after her, simply feared as a foreigner, reviled as an infidel, destroyed as a deviant? Read this book and find out."

-Rebecca Brown, author of Gifts of the Body

There is no woman with a worse reputation than Jezebel, the ancient queen who corrupted a nation and met one of the most gruesome fates in the Bible. Her name alone speaks of sexual decadence and promiscuity. But what if this version of her story, handed down to us through the ages, is merely the one her enemies wanted us to believe? What if Jezebel, far from being a conniving harlot, was in fact framed?

Lesley Hazleton's previous book is Mary: A Flesh and Blood Biography of the Virgin Mary, a moldbreaking blend of in-depth research and historical imagination. British-born, Lesley lived for thirteen years in Jerusalem, where she worked simultaneously as a psychologist and as a reporter for Time Magazine. A member of the AROHO retreat faculty in summer 2007, she helped the participants exceed their own writing expectations.

A Gift of
Freedom
Success Story

"Without a Map tells an important and perceptive story about loss, about aloneness and isolation in a time of great need, about a life slowly coming back into focus and the calm that finally emerges. Meredith Hall is a brave new writer who earns our attention."

-Annie Dillard

"The AROHO Book Club discussion and study guides were created to enrich the solitary reader's experience and inspire more readers to create their own book clubs. They have been written and compiled by the AROHO Literary Committee: Kate Gale, Meredith Hall, and Mary Johnson. The guides include an author interview, a discussion guide, and a study guide."