The Delaney Kids: Bought and Paid For is the documentary of a personal journey of discovery—the discovery of family, of a culture, and of self. This is the heart rending tale of three siblings who were separated by a black market baby ring that, operating under state sanction as the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, stole and sold more than five thousand babies from impoverished families. This is the heart warming tale of how these three siblings found each other after fifty years. This true story examines nature versus nurture, asks the big questions about the meaning of life and death, and explores what it means to turn Irish. The Delaney Kids is essential reading for anyone interested in adoption, in Southern history, in the Irish experience in America, in existential discovery, and especially for anyone who has a heart.

When Deborah Davis was just seven years old, her mother read her a book about adoption, gently explaining to the mystified child that her origins made her special. For Davis, the revelation of this truth set in motion a consuming curiosity about her birth parents. Ultimately, it led to the author’s exhaustive search to identify and meet the two individuals who were biologically closest to her, yet had made the decision to give her away. The Delta Poinsettia is Davis’s candid, tender tale of tracking down the biological parents who went to great lengths to remain beyond her grasp. Her journey not only led her to encounters with both her birth mother and father, but it also offered a new and meaningful perspective on what it means to be family, as a daughter, a mother, and a wife. With heartbreaking honesty and arresting clarity, The Delta Poinsettia illustrates how intricately woven the fabric of family can be. It’s a stirring memoir that is certain to captivate readers intrigued by real-life accounts of complex circumstances, and those who are moved by those rare individuals who muster the strength, courage, and perseverance to get to the heart of the matter.

Personal memories of a man who showed me as a child, that there is humanity in human beings; This story is set in Drimoleague, West Cork, Ireland; from the 1950s to the mid-1960s. A small boy of four is brought from Dublin to Drimoleague, to become a farmer, however life intervenes, everything changes. All that has been learned is not fully appreciated until the arrival of the letter.

A newly reunited adoptee ponders the question, “Where do we go from here?” But before she can even attempt to answer that perennial question, she must first look within to address her own unacknowledged questions, some that have no definite answers and others in which the answers will leave her emotionally shattered. Integration of these new realities, on a level other than the intellectual, will require an introspective journey toward higher consciousness. It is a journey with no guarantees, yet one in which a soulful purpose is ultimately revealed. From the closing of one stage curtain to the eventual reopening of another, Descubiertos/Uncoverings: Growing from Adoption and Reunion reveals the behind-the-curtains personal struggle of a young woman to not only confront the mixed blessings reunion has brought her, but also the resilience to blossom like the lotus flower because of it. About the Author: Denise M. Hoffman is the author of the prequel Ocultando No Mas/Hiding No More: Unmasking Adoption and Reunion. An avid practitioner of yoga and meditation, she is passionate about using her life experiences as a human being, woman, and biracial Latina adoptee to enhance awareness and broaden conversations of adoption/reunion-related perspectives on a social, ethical, and global level. She lives in New Orleans, LA.

An intense and infuriating story of abandonment and disturbing recollections of systematic institutional abuse. This book endeavours to illustrate the emotional journey of one man as he recounts his childhood and faces the harrowing memories which continue to haunt him to the present day. This gripping story of an ill equipped Care Authority that consequently entrusted him to unfit foster parents where he found himself at the mercy of their extreme regimental control and disciplinary procedure. Desuba takes the reader through a journey of heart-wrenching abuse toward a heart-warming enlightenment. Plotting out the story of the deceptions employed by tyrannical foster carers that continued to masquerade as one of the most highly regarded foster homes of in the South of England. The onslaught of abuse that transcended throughout the period of “care” in their home resulted in the demoralisation and deep rooted sorrow, that still remains embedded in the mind, spirit and soul of a child now longing to know how the man whose reflection stares back at him in the mirror really came to be.

From the Dust Jacket: As the head of the Oracle Software Corporation, Ellison keeps his name firmly in the headlines: Recently he announced his desire to buy Apple Computer (only to change his mind just weeks later) and now he has a place on Apple’s board, alongside his friend Steve Jobs. Equally bold are his visionary ideas (the network computer, for example), his public determination to conquer Bill Gates, and his brash, yet immensely appealing personality, which has made him one of the most visible players in Silicon Valley.

One of the ways he’s done this is by making sure that Oracle software is everywhere you turn: If you withdraw cash from an ATM, that’s Oracle at work. If you make an airline reservation, you’re experiencing Ellison’s impact on today’s technology landscape. While Microsoft was busy putting a computer in every home, Ellison was fomenting a revolution at the office, creating faster and better databases for businesses and government agencies. Along the way, as this probing book shows, Ellison developed the skills of a ruthless businessman, who sometimes employed misdirection and half-truths to achieve the success he desired.

Ellison himself is the ultimate self-made man: He started Oracle in 1977 with a twelve-hundred-dollar investment and then doubled its sales annually in eleven of its first twelve years. But it’s not just Ellison’s business acumen that gets him in the news; if Bill Gates is known as the nerd-king of the Valley, Ellison is its Warren Beatty. He’s a daredevil sportsman who wins races with his seventy-eight-foot yacht and crewmen like Rupert Murdoch. He owns a number of fast jets that he flies at great speed, and he’s rarely seen without a beautiful woman on his arm.

Mike Wilson has interviewed more than a hundred of Ellison’s friends and enemies, and has spent an unprecedented amount of time with Ellison himself, to create a fascinating portrait of this complex businessman.

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About the Author: Mike Wilson, an investigative reporter and feature writer for the St. Petersburg Times, has also written for the Miami Herald’s Tropic Magazine. He is the author of Right on the Edge of Crazy and lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.

From the Publisher: Ranging in age from six to forty, thirty-eight sons and daughters of lesbians offer brief essays that could be valuable to like offspring, as well as to relatives and friends trying to understand the problems such children face. Homophobia, visited upon the children as well as their mothers, is the most commonly cited concern; some younger contributors feel isolated from their peers, and a couple of boys endure rejection from radical lesbian acquaintances. Despite such difficulties, many contributors enjoy close relationships with their mothers and are happy in their unconventional homes.

For older children, their own sexual orientation is an issue, and there is occasional resentment engendered by a parent’s coming out—“Growing up is a hard enough thing to do,” says one young woman.

In Different Racisms, Matthew Salesses explores the unique racism Asian Americans face, including the model minority myth, the impact of Jeremy Lin’s fame on Asian American representation in national media, and America’s perception of “Gangnam Style” singer and K-Pop sensation, Psy. Salesses’ essays (and his insightful and anecdote-filled footnotes) also give an honest and personal account of growing up as a Korean adoptee raised by white parents, all the while struggling with the many conflicts associated with double-consciousness, and reflecting on the common experience the adopted child has when he looks into the mirror and all of a sudden realizes that his skin color is not the same as his parents’.

From the Back Cover: A Dirty Little Secret is a memoir by Kevin Porreco. An exciting account about an adopted child taken into the home of two people that are not emotionally or psychological ready to provide for a safe, stable, and loving home. Always knowing of his adoption, his life long dream is to find his biological parents, and siblings. Kevin will take you on an emotional roller coaster, filled with peaks, valleys, an tight turns, on his search and discovery, all of which come at a much higher price than ever envisioned. He will share his story of abuse, resiliency, and success.

No stranger to tough circumstances, Kevin opens up to his 17 year struggle living with multiple sclerosis. A cruel and devastating disease that strikes, just as people enter the prime of their life. Having been a bi-coastal patient of some of the most respected names in multiple sclerosis research, Kevin takes the reader into his never ending search to halt the progression of his disease, along with his diligent research that leads to difficult decisions affecting his treatment and physical well-being.

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About the Author: Kevin A. Porreco is a former sales executive and freelance writer who lives in Orlando, Florida. He has lived with multiple sclerosis for over eighteen years and lectures on coping and thriving, while living with a chronic illness.

Dirty Little Secrets: As Seen through the Eyes of a Foster Child tells the true story of a young girl who is placed in a foster home when she is three years old. She is later thrust into the chaos of the New York City foster care system, which would become a long-term situation for the little girl. She would eventually reside in over 12 foster homes during a painful and scary childhood and 2 foster group homes during a difficult adolescence and young adulthood. Dirty Little Secrets also shows how foster care workers were so overwhelmed that they failed to detect the continuing incidents of abuse and neglect involving children in their care, even when the evidence was staring them in the face. At the age of 21, the young girl is cast into the world of the unknown, without anyone or anywhere to call home. She goes forth with only hope and determination to guide her. As an adult, discovery of her true self enables her to confront and overcome emotionally damaging realities from her childhood, which can no longer stay buried deep within her memory. This is the true story of her difficult life battle, but more importantly, her ultimate victory, which is her healing.

From the Publisher: A WWII wartime romance leads to a pregnancy for the author’s mother. The Army Infantry lieutenant father marries her before their daughter is born, and he ships off to the invasion of Italy. Before long there’s a divorce and a new stepfather and the author grows up as an Army brat. Soon to be a college grad twenty years later, Victoria is curious about the birth father she doesn’t remember. Her search leads her to the military bastion that is the Pentagon and a surprise visit with Victor, now an Army Colonel. Discovering a new family is one of many interesting revelations in this true story.

A heartrending true story of child neglect resulting in abandonment by parents and grandparents,referred by the author as a “couple of four” who were always together but had no room for her. They were neither rich nor poor, sick or alcoholics, separated or homeless. Lending her to a lifelong question of “why” and “Do you love me?” The author was profoundly affected by languishing in the 1940s foster care system till the age of thirteen then left with strangers and to fend for herself. She recalls how she struggled to survive and belong and how she finds fulfillment in redemption, love and giving through the miracle of attitude and faith.

More than a memoir this book records historical events and the trials of growing up during WWII, as well as being adopted, as adoption was not spoken of so much in the ’30s and ’40s. Because my birth parents and adopted parents were friends, we all met together on the weekends. I soon had a problem learning who I was and who I really belonged to. The night before I was adopted I sang on stage with other three-year-olds the song, “Does anybody want a little kewpie—just like me?” My new parents thought it very appropriate for the occasion.

Excerpted from the book Memoir: A History by Ben Yagoda (2009, Riverhead Books): Married and the mother of twins, Walterman is shocked to discover in 1943 that she was an adopted child. Obsessed by the search for her biological parents, she has an emotional reunion with her mother, but is rebuffed by her wealthy, powerful father [Myron Charles Taylor], Roosevelt’s envoy to the Vatican [from 1940-1950]. She suffers threats and intimidation but does achieve grim satisfaction in a melodramatic confrontation with him, but her suit to establish his paternity is unsuccessful in what she argues is a miscarriage of justice. Compiler’s Note: Walterman originally filed suit for a declaratory judgment, i.e., to have the court determine a disputed fact as a matter of law. According to the Appeals Court’s decision, “The [dismissal by the trial] court was plainly right since neither the pleadings nor the proof disclose any cause of action for damages, for the establishment of an interest in property, nor is any other issue of legal cognizance involved, but only a claim for the establishment of the plaintiff’s personal status [i.e., as Taylor’s biological child].” Walterman v. Taylor, 168 F.2d 413, (2d Cir. 1948). One can only wonder how the case would have been litigated and/or concluded in a world where DNA testing could have established the paternal relationship to a virtual certainty.

From the Publisher: The heartbroken 11-year-old girl tearfully placed a blue corduroy hat on her three-year-old brother’s head, bent down, kissed him, and whispered, “Don’t ever forget me.” The words and the hat were to remain an emotional bond, as they weren’t to meet again for 20 years.

This is the poignant story of Rose Alan’s long search, against incredible odds, to find and unite her seven brothers and sisters—a testimony to the strength of the human spirit driven by the need to “belong,” to be part of a family. But it is much more. It is a story that follows a trail of divorce, foster homes, alcoholism, drugs, separation of twins, and incest. In this personal account of her experiences, the author exposes one of society’s most tragic mistakes—the mandatory removal of children from the family, not for reasons of abuse, but merely because they were poor. Poverty and ignorance were their “crimes,” and the punishment was devastating loneliness.

Ms. Alan describes fond memories of a home where there was love without luxury, but as a result of alcohol abuse and divorce (commonly accepted today), her mother was left to raise seven children. Although living as the only white family in a slum area of Minneapolis was frightening, the family still felt secure in belonging to one another. But after a year and a half of adjusting, they were uprooted, the bureaucracy having determined that the answer to their problems of food, clothing, and shelter was to move them again, but this time the four older children were sent to separate foster homes and the babies adopted. As a consequence, her mother turned to alcohol, remaining addicted for the next 25 years.

Throughout her marriage, she continued the search for her family. Finding no legal way of finding the adopted children, she resorted to posing as a welfare worker. Through sheer luck she found the adopted name of one of her younger brothers, and thus encouraged, she called every major city in the country, every unit of the armed forces, every school and adoption agency, and every church in the county of his adoption, but to no avail. At one time she pretended to be an adoption agency supervisor; at another she claimed she was an employer attempting to locate a missing employee through Social Security headquarters. She even tried to bribe a judge—failing in every attempt. Eventually, through unswerving perseverance, she did succeed, and the family was reunited.

But that was to be the beginning of a new trauma—one that brought even greater heartbreak and soul-searching; she and her brother, now a married man, the one to whom she had whispered, “Don’t ever forget me,” had fallen in love.

In 2012, at forty-three years of age, author Nathaniel Bland finally understood the phrase “let go and let God.” He realized he couldn’t make anyone love him until he first loved God and himself. Bland knew that when he felt alone, God could be his mother, father and a friend who will stick closer than any brother. In Don’t Miss Heaven Hating Your Mother, Bland shares his life story, focusing on the impact of being placed in foster care at birth, living in that situation until he was eighteen years old, and dealing with the trauma of being molested. This memoir narrates his feelings and emotions as he met his birth mother at eighteen and as he came to terms with the hate he held in his heart for her earlier abandonment. Speaking to the power of forgiveness, Don’t Miss Heaven Hating Your Mother provides insight into foster care issues and the situations children face each and every day. It shows that with God’s help, love and acceptance can be found.

Between the years of 1956 and 1967 my mother wrote to the Holt Adoption Agency. I am sure she would never have dreamed her letters would surface some 46 years later, or indeed, that she had anything to impart on the world. We never know the ramifications of our lives do we? Mother commented often to me of that her dream was to have a baby in the house always. The trouble was all she got was me—for 19 years—then she adopted two Korean children. Two years later, a natural son arrived, born 21 years after me. Later on, due to an inheritance, she adopted yet one more child. These children were her dream, her joy, and they flourished under her care. Her letters stopped in 1967. She died in 1968. During those years she chronicled the progress of the children. She described them, the sweet things children do, the challenge of making ends meet, the gratefulness she had for the agency, and indeed the letters she wrote to help make proxy adoption legal. She died and was spared knowing that her beloved children suffered at the hands on the one person they trusted the most. I intersperse my letters to her telling her our secret.

From the Back Cover: In 1972, at the age of twenty-one, John Callahan was involved in a car crash that made him a quadriplegic. As Callahan had been a heavy drinker since the age of twelve (alcohol had played a role in his crash), the accident could have been the beginning of a downward spiral. Instead, it sparked a personal transformation. By 1978, Callahan had sworn off drinking for good, and begun to draw cartoons.

Over the next three decades, until his death in 2010, Callahan would become one of the nation’s most beloved—and at times polarizing—cartoonists. His work, which shows off a wacky and sometimes warped sense of humor, pokes fun at social conventions and pushes boundaries. One cartoon features Christ at the cross with a thought bubble reading “T.G.I.F.” In another, three sheriffs on horseback approach an empty wheelchair in the desert. “Don’t worry,” one sheriff says to another, “he won’t get far on foot.”

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot recounts Callahan’s life story, from the harrowing to the hilarious. Featuring more than sixty of Callahan’s cartoons, it’s a compelling look at art, addiction, disability, and fame.

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About the Author: John Callahan (1951-2010) was a nationally syndicated cartoonist known for his frank portrayals of challenging subjects, in particular disability. Callahan, who became a quadriplegic following a car accident at age twenty-one, drew cartoons that touched upon addiction, ableism, and the absurd. He was the creator of the Nickelodeon cartoon Pelswick.

An adoptee’s story of finding wholeness by claiming all her roots and connections, even though the people she’s claiming may have serious human flaws.

From the Back Cover: There was a time when having a child out of wedlock was socially unacceptable. Many young mothers had to go away during their pregnancy to avoid moral condemnation. My birth mother was one of these. For every one of these young women, however, there was another woman desperate to start a family with her husband, yet unable to conceive. My adopted mother was one of these. I was the very lucky baby who was given the opportunity to know and love both of these courageous mothers and their spouses.

This book is an attempt to describe just how fortunate I am to have had two sets of parents in my life and a total of three siblings. It is one thing to grow up in a family and be nurtured and loved by them, but to have had two such experiences is beyond wonderful. It is nothing short of a miracle.

I know there are adoptees like myself who have found a birth parent and experienced quite a different outcome than I have. To these people, I offer my hope that your adoptive parents have given you the love and the support that you needed in order to become all that you could be. The plain and simple fact is that some people should never have children. To those adoptees contemplating searching for their birth mother or father, I would encourage you to open that potentially fearful door; just be prepared emotionally for what may come of the attempt to find your roots. You might be rejected because it would create too many problems at this point in your birth parent’s life. On the other hand, you might be received with open arms and love what you find, as I did. You might also be welcomed and not like what you find. At least, however, you would know where you began. Whether or not our birth parents are people with whom we can connect emotionally, they still gave us life.

I have had relatives and good friends ask why I am writing this book. I see it as a way of honouring both sets of parents. My adopted parents died before I felt the need to find my birth mother. I pray that they are aware of how successful my search was, and of the deep bond that has developed between my birth mother and myself. I would like to think that they would not be threatened by this relationship. Though I genuinely love my birth mother, it is a different kind of relationship that we have, because she was unable to raise me. This memoir is meant to honour my adoptive parents while, at the same time, confirm my gratitude to and love for my birth mother.

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About the Author: Mary-Louise (Mel) Hinch was born in 1956 in Toronto, Ontario. Her adoptive parents, both high school teachers, raised her and her adopted brother in Timmins. Mel graduated from the University of Western Ontario with an Honors BA in English and Music, and proceeded to teach high school in Ajax and Barrie, Ontario, as well as in Brussels, Belgium. In addition to her career in formal education, Mel has worked simultaneously in other areas as well: as a professional singer, a private voice teacher, a church choir director, a choral workshop director, a music director of amateur musical theatre productions, a children’s musical theatre camp director, a performing arts groups’ tour director, and a newsletter editor. She has just retired from teaching in Barrie, where she lives with husband, soul mate, and number one supporter, Michael, and their recently rescued feline, Charlie.

William Byron Hillman has filled many roles in the entertainment industry as an actor, singer/songwriter, screenwriter, producer, director, filmmaker and published author of twelve books. In the early days of soap operas, he joined the cast of Days of our Lives for two years and later enjoyed TV shows like Bewitched and big-budget studios films such as Ice Station Zebra. He has worked at all the major studios and television networks and currently is partners in an independent motion picture and television production company. He is planning a sequel to the worldwide sensation Quigley, and is busy drafting yet another novel. He is the author of the best seller Veronique and Murray as well as the hit Rollie Kemp thriller series. The one achievement he is most proud of is how he and his wife found her adopted birth parents after a thirty plus year search. Dream Searcher is his story.

This Chapbook of poems was written by a twenty something girl. It is about the ups and downs of trying to make her own way in the World. These poems provide a different view on everything from love to loss to conquering fears.

From the Back Cover: Based on a true story, Dreams of My Mothers is a powerful account of a boy coming of age, but it is ultimately a story of the redemption and triumph of two women—mothers from the opposite ends of the world and the human condition. Their love for the same child takes them beyond the brink of their personal tragedies and pain to find transformation and life missions they could not have imagined.

Author Joel Peterson gives us a vivid and gripping story of a biracial, impoverished boy who, through the transcendent love of his mothers, rises above questions of identity, race, physical limitations, and prejudice to become a unique American success story. It touches on all the issues of who we are—as a people, as a nation, and as individuals. Dreams of My Mothers is a story particular to one person, but relevant to all. It is American, yet global. It is a story that is intensely personal, yet universal in its themes and humanness.

The individual stories engage you and the emotions engulf you. The scenes are keenly tangible and the triumphs are real.

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About the Author: Joel Peterson’s background is in corporate business, financial services, and education. He is the founder and CEO of Student Planning Services, LLC, and the managing partner and CEO of Pintoresco Advisors, LLC. Previously, he was SVP, Europe Lines of Business for Level 3 Communications, Inc., and head of global strategy and M&A for a $7 billion independent global venture of AT&T and British Telecom. Concurrently, he was also CEO of its subsidiary Internet software and infrastructure company. Previously, he was an executive director at BellSouth with responsibility for international M&A activity and certain domestic wireless M&A. Before his business career, Mr. Peterson served seven years as an active duty U.S. Navy officer.

Mr. Peterson is currently a PhD pre–doc in Education Policy and Reform at Claremont Graduate University. He earned his MBA from The R.B. Pamplin School of Business at Virginia Tech and his BA in economics from the University of Virginia. He lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife, Darleen, who is a PhD, an Associate Dean and director of a Master of Public Health program at a leading private university.

There were many reasons why G.O.A.’L launched the Dual Citizenship Campaign. The system that allowed Korean adoptees to maintain dual citizenship was not widely known by the public and the adoption agencies actively discouraged adoptive parents from attaining dual citizenship for their child. Furthermore, the adoptee would have had to choose one of the citizenships at the age of 20 or 22 (depending on gender). Additionally G.O.A.’L feels it is important to acknowledge that Korean adoptees did not voluntarily give up their Korean citizenship. Under the current Nationality Law (effective until December 31, 2010) Korean citizenship was revoked without ever providing consent for this. By introducing a law that allows dual citizenship, Korean adoptees are given a choice again. With this in mind and feeling that one has a right to obtain something that was taken from them in the first place, G.O.A.’L initiated the Dual Citizenship Campaign. The organization’s website is at http://goal.or.kr.

Echoes, Lies, and Enduring Mysteries is a psychotherapist’s memoir of adoption, discovery, disappointment, and dilemmas experienced during a year of finding and communicating with her birth mother. This very personal and perplexing story illustrates that not all reunions between biological parents and relinquished children are warm and wonderful, and that locating and communicating with one’s relatives doesn’t always provide the answers most desperately needed. In fact, unearthing life-long secrets to one’s familial heritage can be disturbing and disorienting. Raziel Bearn was no stranger to relationship complexities and emotional distress. In her decades of private practice as a therapist, she had helped plenty of clients navigate their own rough waters. For more than 48 years she hadn’t even expected it would ever be possible to pry open her adoption file, and had put the thought of searching for her own birth mother out of her mind ... until ... strangers started showing up on her adopted brother’s Facebook page talking about how much he looked like Uncle Fred. “We don’t have an Uncle Fred,” Raziel thought. And then she realized John must have made contact with his birth family!

From the Dust Jacket: In 1960, Edward Albee electrified the theater world with the American premiere of The Zoo Story, and followed it two years later with his extraordinary first Broadway play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Proclaimed as the playwright of his generation, he went on to win three Pulitzer Prizes for his searing and innovative plays. Mel Gussow, author, critic, and cultural writer for The New York Times, has known Albee and followed his career since its inception, and in this fascinating biography he creates a compelling firsthand portrait of a complex genius.

The book describes Albee’s life as the adopted child of rich, unloving parents and covers the highs and lows of his career. A core myth of Albee’s life, perpetuated by the playwright, is that The Zoo Story was his first play, written as a thirtieth birthday present to himself. As Gussow relates, Albee has been writing since adolescence, and through close analysis the author traces the genesis of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Tiny Alice, A Delicate Balance, and other plays. After his early triumphs, Albee endured years of critical neglect and public disfavor. Overcoming artistic and personal difficulties, he returned in 1994 with Three Tall Women. In this prizewinning play he came to terms with the towering figure of his mother, the woman who dominated so much of his early life.

With frankness and critical acumen, and drawing on extensive conversations with the playwright, Gussow offers fresh insights into Albee’s life. At the same time he provides vivid portraits of Albee’s relationships with the people who have been closest to him, including William Flanagan (his first mentor), Thornton Wilder, Richard Barr, John Steinbeck, Alan Schneider, John Gielgud, and his leading ladies, Uta Hagen, Colleen Dewhurst, Irene Worth, Myra Carter, Elaine Stritch, Marian Seldes, and Maggie Smith. And then there are, most famously, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who starred in Mike Nichols’s acclaimed film version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The book places Albee in context as a playwright who inspired writers as diverse as John Guare and Sam Shepard, and as a teacher and champion of human rights.

Edward Albee: A Singular Journey is rich with colorful details about this uniquely American life. It also contains previously unpublished photographs and letters from and to Albee. It is the essential book about one of the major artists of the American theater.

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About the Author: Mel Gussow is the author of books about Beckett, Pinter, and Stoppard and of Theatre on the Edge: New Visions, New Voices. A longtime drama critic, he writes about the arts for The New York Times. He has been a winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism. He lives in New York City.

From the Publisher: Noah Stone and Tom McGee were both declared child geniuses. Noah and Tom never knew each other, yet their stories are alarmingly alike. Both survived decades of drug addiction while institutionalized most of their lives in mental hospitals and state prisons, their mental abilities and sense of humor still remarkably intact. Noah’s adoptive parents told him he was part Native American and that they purchased him when he was age 3, for $350, at the 8 Ball Cafe. Tom’s adoptive parents told him he is part Hispanic, Asian and Caucasian and that they found him in foster care when he was age 5. Noah and Tom have lived behind an 8-ball, trapped inside their own brains where children hide, their birth families a vague shadow memory. The tangled web of their lives and the results of their searches for their birth-families is a study on what was and still is wrong with America’s foster care, adoption and prison systems.

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About the Author: Lori Carangelo is president of Americans For Open Records (AmFOR), a family rights network she founded in 1989, and through which she has helped facilitate over 10,000 reunions for adoptees and their birth families, without fee. She has served as data source to the Hague Intercountry Abduction and Adoption Treaty Conferences and the United Nations “Rights of the Child Project.” She is listed in Marquis “Who’s Who of American Women, 1999-2000.”

From the Dust Jacket: In 1902 an illegitimate daughter was born to Albert Einstein.

In 1903 she vanished.

Her disappearance was so successful that her very existence eluded Einstein scholars for more than eighty years. The discovery in 1986 of early love letters between Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić, the woman who would become his first wife, revealed the birth of the child named Lieserl. But after a 1903 letter, there is no more mention of her. With nearly nine decades between the birth and our knowledge of the birth, and with scant clues as to the course of her life, the fate of Lieserl Marić Einstein remained a mystery.

What happened to Einstein’s daughter? Did she die of the scarlet fever mentioned in Einstein’s last letter about her? If so, why is there no death certificate—or even birth certificate—where one might expect to find such documents? Was she adopted, as some scholars have contended? If so, why was there not even a whisper of her in any of the mythology that proliferated around one of our century’s most legendary figures? And why, so many years later, were those close to the Einstein and Marić families still reluctant to speak about her?

In many respects, the story of Lieserl is inextricably linked to that of her mother, Mileva Marić, whose own story, as author Michele Zackheim came to learn, was vigilantly guarded for generations by her extended family in Serbia, whose confidence Zackheim had to earn before they would part with family secrets.

After five years of travel to Serbian villages wracked by years of strife, painstaking forays into the labyrinth of Central European record-keeping, and hundreds of kitchen-table conversations; after following every lead and every flicker of intuition, and with the support of an international network of women, Michele Zackheim, in this mesmerizing account, has answered the question of what became of Lieserl Marić Einstein. Bound to be controversial, stunningly dramatic, Einstein’s Daughter is more than the story of its conclusion; it is a story of the century—of fame and obscurity, love and betrayal, pretenders and protectors; of legends, lies, promises, and unbearable truths.

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About the Author: Michele Zackheim, a writer and visual artist, lives in New York City. She is the author of Violette’s Embrace, a novel.

From the Dust Jacket: Eleanor’s Rebellion is the extraordinary story of a man who discovered in middle age that almost nothing he had grown up believing about his parents was true.

When at the age of forty David Siff learned—in the first of a series of shocks—that he was adopted, he began a roller-coaster journey into his family’s past. He discovered that his biological father was not the man who had raised him, but someone he had never met: the actor Van Heflin. He discovered that he had been born out of wedlock, placed in an orphanage at birth, and subsequently adopted by his own mother. He learned that his mother had not been the contented homebody he had believed her to be. He discovered the ambitions and frustrations of the woman who had given birth to him—the adventurous, rebellious young Eleanor, in determined pursuit of a new and better world and an acting career, who suddenly detoured into marriage for the sake of her child. He discovered the roots of his puzzling behaviors, casting his own acting career in a new light.

In his account of the fascinating and rocky process by which he finally came to know his mother—moving from shock to bitterness to an increasingly profound appreciation of her life—David Siff has given us a heartfelt and enriching book.

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About the Author: David Siff teaches writing at the Writers Studio. Under the name David Falkner he has been an actor on and off Broadway, in national touring companies, on television, and in films. More recently he has been a journalist, writing for the New York Times and other national publications, and he is the author of several books on sports. He lives in New York City.