President Barack Obama’s half brother George tops today’s Buffet with a remarkable memoir. The father they shared was as elusive a figure for George as he had been for Barack; he died when George was six months old.
George was raised by his mother and stepfather, a French aid worker, in a well-to-do suburb of Nairobi, Kenya. He was a star pupil and rugby player at a top boarding school in the Mount Kenya foothills, but after his mother and stepfather separated when he was fifteen, he was deprived of the only father figure he had ever known. Now left angry, rebellious, and troubled, his life crashed and burned. George dropped out of school and started drinking and smoking hashish. From there it was only a short step to the gangland and a life of crime.
After George met his American brother for just the second time, he was inspired by his older brother’s example to try to change the lives of his people, the ghetto-dwellers, for the better. Today, George chooses to live in the Nairobi ghetto, where he has set up his own community group and works with others to help the ghetto-dwellers, and especially the slum kids, overcome the challenges surrounding their lives.
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Brother: A Story of Hope and Survival from Africa’s Rebel Heart
Biographies & Memoirs
Author: George Hussein Obama , Damien Lewis
A down-and-out street kid by age fifteen.
A ghetto-dwelling ganja-head by age seventeen.
A street-fighting gangster by age eighteen.
A car-jacking gunman by age nineteen.
Facing death in the world’s most notorious prison by age twenty-one.
His gang name is “The Mamba”.
His real name is George Obama.
He’s the American President’s brother.
You’ll like him.
In this brilliant autobiography, George Obama, the brother of the most powerful man in the world, tells a story that is gripping, moving and inspirational. Born into a completely different world from his brother, he was caught up in a life of crime, where lives were cheap and short, and violence was the only way a man could fight his way out of the ghetto.
But through strength and character, George Obama turned everything around – escaping the gangs and building a future for himself.
From survival to hope, ‘Brother’ tells his amazing story.
It is a book that will appeal to anyone who wants to know more about the extraordinary family of the world’s most powerful political leader – as well as day-to-day life on Africa’s meanest streets.
Horseman (Sleepy Hollow High #1)
Children’s Books > Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths
Author: Christopher Golden
Everyone’s heard the rumors about Sleepy Hollow, but no one living has heard the truth.
Shane and Aimee Lancaster are headed to a new life in Sleepy Hollow, New York, whether they like it or not. Prompted by the death of their mother, their father has decided that a few bad choices on the part of his children mean a new life in a smaller place with less crime and, hopefully, fewer bad influences.
But sometimes the best ideas bring about the worst results.
The legends about the Headless Horseman have been around for as long as anyone can remember; the story by Washington Irving and a dozen movies are just folktales, surely. Nonsense.
So why is it that as soon as the Lancasters cross the city limits strange things start to happen? There are sightings of a great black dog with glowing eyes, things moving in the woods…oh, and a man on horseback riding around and cutting off people’s heads.
The Reluctant Bachelorette
Romantic Comedy
Author: Rachael Anderson
Unknowingly cast as the bachelorette for her town’s charity event, Taycee Emerson wants out. Especially when she discovers her old teenage crush, Luke Carney, is one of the bachelors and it’s up to the viewers–not her–to decide which bachelors stay or go.
Coerced into participating, Taycee does what any self-preserving girl would do. She launches a subtle attack on Luke’s good name with the hope of getting him voted off the show. Unfortunately, Luke’s an eye-for-an-eye kind of guy, and when he discovers what she’s up to, it means revenge.
Some Things Never Change
Christian Fiction > Humor
Author: McMillian Moody
Elmo Jenkins is now a full-fledged staff member at First Church. As Assistant to the Senior Pastor, he’s responsible for designing a strategy to transition the church into the future. But trouble’s brewing and not everyone’s on board.
The whole gang is back for the bumpy ride along with some colorful new characters. Be there when Elmo surprises Bonnie on their wedding day. Tag along when Dunston finally takes Elmo fishing. Feel the thrill of riding in a red Viper with a friar at the wheel. And help Elmo figure out that creepy little statue named Ferty . . . who’s stalking him?
Luxury of Less: The Five Rings of Minimalism
Self-Help > Happiness
Author: Karol Gajda
- $2.99 List Price
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Luxury of Less is about how to live an extraordinary life without the physical and mental excess pervasive in our society today. It’s my story of deep depression and incredible happiness. It’s about true minimalism; mindset instead of the number of things you own.
The title and contents are very loosely based on The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. Karol walks you through how you can examine your life inside out through minimalism. It’s about examining not only one’s relationship with stuff but also relationships with people and relationship with one’s self.
An inspiring reflection on the truly important things in life.
Firecracker
Fantasy > Paranormal & Urban
Author: Charles R. Verhey
A team of eccentric psychics who assist local authorities with difficult cases has reluctantly hired Aideen Cassidy, a timid pyrokinetic who has managed to accidentally burn to rubble every building she’s ever worked in. “It takes some real power and talent to melt a slushy machine.” Now, after months of scraping by on the last of her savings and spending every day terrified of her own gifts, she’s being given the chance to prove her worth. To be accepted for who and what she is.
But there’s more happening behind the scenes than anyone realizes, and Aideen soon finds herself caught in a conspiracy of evil monsters and dangerous assassins that dates back over six hundred years.
All she wanted to do was fit in. Now the lives of her new friends depend on her talents for fiery destruction…
Getting to No: How to Break a Stubborn Habit
Christian Living > Personal Growth
Author: Erwin W. Lutzer
Everyone is familiar with the cycle: We decide to break a bad habit once and for all. We may even experience some short-term success. Yet almost inevitably, we fall back into that undesirable behavior and the frustrating process starts all over again. The experience can leave us feeling powerless to make changes in our lives.
Popular author and pastor Erwin Lutzer believes it is possible to break the cycle of addictive behavior. Filled with biblical insight, Getting to No: How to Break a Stubborn Habit takes an honest look at the temptations lying beneath the surface of every bad habit. Lutzer examines tough issues—such as why temptation exists, what purpose it serves in our lives, and what happens when we fail again—and provides practical tools that will help you find freedom from bad habits for good.
Before I Forget
Genre Fiction > Family Life > African American
Author: Leonard Pitts
- $9.99 List Price
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This powerful novel of three generations of black men bound by blood — and by histories of mutual love, fear, and frustration — gives author Leonard Pitts the opportunity to explore the painful truths of black men’s lives, especially as they play out in the fraught relations of fathers and sons. As 50-year-old Mo tries to reach out to his increasingly tuned-out son Trey (who himself has become an unwed teenaged father), he realizes that the burden of grief and anger he carries over his own estranged father has everything to do with the struggles he encounters with his son. Part road novel, part character study, and part social critique, and written in compulsively readable prose, Before I Forget is the work of a major new voice in American fiction. Pitts knows inside and out the difficulties facing black men as they grapple with the complexities of their roles as fathers.
Abduction (Dr. Paul)
Science Fiction, Fantasy & Scary Stories
Author: Dr. Paul, David Hartman
David Hartman went missing for over a year, when he returned he had no recollection of the lost time. Through regressive therapy every moment of his unusual experience was recalled. Travel with him on his exciting adventure as he interacts with aliens and other worlds. This 2nd edition includes an extra, the transcript of an interview with Mr. Hartman.
Dr. Paul is a mental health therapist who specializes with patients who claim to have had extreme paranormal experiences. Some of his patients have allowed Dr. Paul to edit and publish their experiences.
The Broke Brothers’ Revolution
Literature & Fiction > African American
Author: J. Shawn Durham
Carlos Tyrone is pissed. More specifically, he’s pissed with his awful live-in girlfriend/baby-mama, Lola, who has become ungrateful, unloving and increasingly irritable. Seeking an outlet to vent this frustration, the newspaper columnist writes a piece that plants the seeds for Carlos’ makeshift protest movement against patronizing women: The Broke Brothers’ Revolution. Carlos soon recruits his friends Gent, Oscar and Daniel to The Broke Brothers’ Revolution and attempts to draw attention to his cause with his newspaper column and through the use of the group’s website.
And that’s when the fun begins. The quartet takes aim at society’s women-centric conventions: ladies’ night club promotions; female-biased discounts at restaurants and bars; the gesture of buying women’s drinks and male-bashing in the media. Do they have a point that modern women’s expectation of male chivalry is out of whack, or is their frustration misguided?
Sun Kissed
Teen & Young Adult > Romance > Paranormal & Fantasy
Author: Skyla Madi
For Ruby Moore life doesn’t slow down. It’s just one roller coaster ride after another and when the higher power comes to visit, Ruby’s world is shaken to its foundations. He offers her a job and if she wants to protect those she loves, she has no choice but to accept it.
Face to face once again with love, loss and death Ruby is being forced to sacrifice her own freedom in order to protect her world from the clutches of the evil vampires and if she fails, her loved ones will have to pay the price.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2