Book One:
LUMPEN: A Novel of Prague, by Renton Praise
Not long ago, John Shirting held down a beloved job at Capone-cino’s, a coffee chain and global business powerhouse. When he is deemed ‘too passionate’ about his job, he is let go. Shirting makes it his mission to return to the Capone-cino’s fold by single-handedly breaking into a new market, and making the city of Prague safe for free-market capitalism. Unfortunately, his college nemesis, Theodore Mizen, a certified socialist, has also moved to Prague, and is determined to reverse the Velvet Revolution, one folk song at a time.
It is not long before Shirting’s grasp on his mission and, indeed, his sanity, come undone, leaving him at the mercy of half-bit mafioso, and his own shadow self.
A combination of Monster Magazine and Lord of the Barnyard, with a jigger of Confederacy of Dunces, Lumpen is a dark farce about globalism, expatriates, and coffee.
UPDATE: LUMPEN has been ‘unpublished’ from Kindle, as it has been accepted for print publication by New Europe Books. Forthcoming in February 2013.
Book Two:
STRANGE AS ANGELS: A Tale of Mood and Music
In 1985, at any given moment, there was some teenager in America sitting in front of their phonograph self-medicating with Pink Floyd’s The Wall. During that decade depression had yet to become a topic of national discussion; Prozac had yet to be widely prescribed—depression had yet to go mainstream. But the issue was being addressed in a genre of punk and new wave, which provided a substitute vocabulary for a generation that yet had to assimilate the language of depression. Bands like The Smiths, Violent Femmes, Tears for Fears, and The Cure spoke to emotional distress in a way that was unique to pop music and hastened the uptake of underground music by the mainstream.
STRANGE AS ANGELS is a memoir of teenage melancholy as well as a fan’s notes on a handful of bands in the eighties that were important in a way that record sales did not reflect. The narrative follows a year in the author’s life when the vagaries of first love and melancholy blurred into one—when songs had an urgency that seemed both profound and redemptive. STRANGE AS ANGELS is a semi-critical look at the ‘mope rock’ genre, a story of romantic obsession, as well as a defense of self-pity.
(Update: STRANGE AS ANGELS is currently undergoing a revision: I am enjoying the power to un-self-publish).
Book Three:
PETRA K AND THE BLACKHEARTS
Miniaturized show-dragons whose futures are traded like stocks, automatons with minds of their own, a palace haunted by alchemists, and a neighborhood that is home to criminals and sorcerers alike. Welcome to the world of the Black Hearts, a gang of children bound together by the need to survive in a brutal world where the powers that be are especially cruel to those who do not conform to their authoritarian rule. Based in legends of ‘magic Prague’ and in the reality of its former Socialist regime, the trilogy focuses on ten-year-old Petra K, the daughter of a shut-in mother, who becomes the master of a dragonka that everybody in the city of Pava wants to get their hands on. In the complicated world of sorceresses, gypsies, child gangs, and secret police, Petra K needs to decide who to trust, and who to betray in order to keep herself and her pet safe. But revolution is in the air, and Petra K too is caught up in its pull, becoming separated from her family, and aligning herself with the Black Hearts. During this dark chapter of Pava’s history, magic is banned and personal freedoms are stripped. Only the Black Hearts dare to defy the new dictator’s rule, selling potions to survive, while thwarting the government’s effort’s to further oppress Pava. Along with the Black Hearts, Petra K faces a murderous pack of mechanical dragonka, a phantom secret agent, and, most harrowing, her own weaknesses as she transforms from an impassive follower into a child revolutionary. Will the Black Hearts’ adventures and courage inspire the terrified population of the city to rise up again, and return Pava to a place of prosperity, where dragonka run free?
I couldn’t be happier to announce that my YA fantastical novel Petra K and the Blackhearts is available for purchase on Amazon, here.
Book Four:
THE CIVIL WAR OF JOSEPH LEDGUBER: A Diary
New as an Amazon Kindle original: The Civil War of Joseph Ledguber: A Diary, edited by 
Word Pill. This is the Civil War diary of my distant relative Joseph Ledguber. In this brief account, he writes about his journey on the ship ‘Emma’ as part of Ulysses S. Grant’s famous Yazoo Pass Expedition, and then on to Vicksburg, where he will meet his death at the hands of the Rebel Army. This edition is for Civil War buffs and researchers only. Do not expect Cold Mountain. Ledguber’s diary is filled with the daily concerns of a deployed soldier in the Union Army, describing how transport works, what the landscape looks like, and what they did for amusement. The diary and Ledguber’s life are cut all too short.
