This is a story of a boy growing up in a Boston suburb near where his ancestors had settled three centuries before. He attends elite private schools and Union Theological Seminary, training to be a Protestant pastor. He marries Annette and they raise four children in suburban Rochester and the inner-city neighborhoods of Buffalo, New York. They help Saul Alinsky create a mass-based community organization to empower the dispossessed. Annette teaches social work at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Always moving West, they settle in Berkeley, California. They lose their political innocence during the Vietnam War, join a commune and are blind-sided by the power of cults. The family backpacks every summer in the Sierra Nevada. Annette teaches in the University of California School of Public Health. Howard, trained now as a sociologist of religion, advises groups planning to begin new churches in West Coast suburbs. Through meditation, creative use of their imagination, and workshops at Esalen, they explore aspects of themselves that had been cut off by their East Coast upbringing. They move to Benicia, California, where Annette blocks the railroad tracks over which munitions trains pass; Howard has a compelling dream of descent into the Void. After his ten-year pastorate, they retire to Claremont, California, where Annette dies in 1997.
“Daniel Barbarisi plunges into an adventure from another era when he goes in search of buried treasure, guided only by a cryptic poem, a mischievous art collector, and the footsteps another pursuer who died on the quest… Every page draws you deeper into this no-man’s-land where fortune—or tragedy—awaits.” —Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run When Forrest Fenn was given a fatal cancer diagnosis, he came up with a bold plan: He would hide a chest full of jewels and gold in the wilderness, and publish a poem that would serve as a map leading to the treasure's secret location. But he didn't die, and after hiding the treasure in 2010, Fenn instead presided over a decade-long gold rush that saw many thousands of treasure hunters scrambling across the Rocky Mountains in pursuit of his fortune. Daniel Barbarisi first learned of Fenn's hunt in 2017, when a friend became consumed with decoding the poem and convinced Barbarisi, a reporter, to document his search. What began as an attempt to capture the inner workings of Fenn's hunt quickly turned into a personal quest that led Barbarisi down a reckless and potentially dangerous path, one that found him embroiled in searcher conspiracies and matching wits with Fenn himself. Over the course of four chaotic years, several searchers would die, endless controversies would erupt, and one hunter would ultimately find the chest. But the mystery didn't end there. Full of intrigue, danger, and break-neck action, Chasing the Thrill is a riveting tale of desire, obsession, and unbridled adventure.
An amazing adventure for three friends racing around the world searching for a great treasure. With time running out, danger, mystery, puzzles, romance, and humour keep this story moving at a furious pace. Pete, Bob, and April work together to solve the mystery while many obstacles stand in their way including other “Seekers” striving to find the treasure before them. As they discover new clues, a mysterious god-like being named Zed rewards them with amazing powers to help them in their hunt. Full of many interesting and intriguing oddities about humanity and our world, this book will be hard to put down. People of all ages should enjoy the journey.
A New York Times Critics’ Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Biography From a gifted young writer, the story of his quest to reclaim his family’s apartment building in Poland—and of the astonishing entanglement with Nazi treasure hunters that follows Menachem Kaiser’s brilliantly told story, woven from improbable events and profound revelations, is set in motion when the author takes up his Holocaust-survivor grandfather’s former battle to reclaim the family’s apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland. Soon, he is on a circuitous path to encounters with the long-time residents of the building, and with a Polish lawyer known as “The Killer.” A surprise discovery—that his grandfather’s cousin not only survived the war, but wrote a secret memoir while a slave laborer in a vast, secret Nazi tunnel complex—leads to Kaiser being adopted as a virtual celebrity by a band of Silesian treasure seekers who revere the memoir as the indispensable guidebook to Nazi plunder. Propelled by rich original research, Kaiser immerses readers in profound questions that reach far beyond his personal quest. What does it mean to seize your own legacy? Can reclaimed property repair rifts among the living? Plunder is both a deeply immersive adventure story and an irreverent, daring interrogation of inheritance—material, spiritual, familial, and emotional.
Join the hunt for love in this sizzling rom-com read from USA Today bestselling author, Lila Monroe! Perfect for fans of Tessa Bailey, Ali Hazelwood, and Emily Henry. Reeve Donovan is Hollywood’s hottest, most charmingly-stubborn director… and the last man I expected to find strolling down Main Street in my sleepy Blue Ridge hometown. Especially since last time I saw him, I was wearing (half) a slutty Lara Croft costume, and he was facedown in an Indiana Jones outfit, searching for my… buried treasure. With his tongue. Ahem. It turns out, my steamy Halloween hookup is in town chasing the location of my Great-Grandpa Earl’s missing gold… along with everyone else. The Fortune family’s wayward fortune is the stuff of legends, but I always figured it was just that: fiction. Until Reeve and I stumble on a clue that jump-starts our quest… and makes us unlikely partners in our hunt for the gold. Soon, we’re swept up in a wild race for the treasure, jostling with a reality TV crew, grumpy historians, and my idiot of an ex-husband (don’t ask). I’ve been burned in love before, and have zero intention of falling for this arrogant charmer… Except Reeve has other plans. He wants me. I want the gold. And my burning loins want… another go-around with Indy’s whip. We’re both used to getting our own way, so what happens when that way leads straight to the bedroom? And can we outwit the other treasure hunters to claim the ultimate prize? Find out in the hot and hilarious new romance from Lila Monroe! HOLLYWOOD BACHELORS: 1 The Hollywood Marriage Bargain 2 The Great British Bachelor Chase 3 The Treasure Hunt Hookup 4 The Tropical Romance Test 5 The Smalltown Seduction Plan PRAISE FOR LILA: "Romantic comedy at its best!" - Seraphim Books Reviews "A fun and flirty feel-good story that put a smile on my face!" - Goodreads “A funny rom-com that gives me all the laugh and fluff was exactly what I need. This quirky and heartwarming second-chance romance was fun, light and perfect to take me away from all the heaviness in life.” - Goodreads “Lila Monroe’s writing is a sure thing to put me in a good mood especially in the gray days… I smiled all the time while reading it and these characters made my day so much better.” - ItaPixie Reviews "I love the humor in Ms. Monroe's stories! They are outrageously funny! Add to that the romance and off the charts steaminess and you get one helluva story!" - Bibliophile Chloe "This is a great… new series. I enjoyed playful characters, the funny moments and the steamy romance! 5 Stars." Reading Keeps Me Sane Blog “Lila Monroe is an author who knocks romantic comedy books out of the park. Her books are, sweet, spicy, romantic and so funny that you cannot help but fall in love with her characters and her stories.” - Goodreads Perfect for fans of Christina Lauren, Sophie Kinsella, Ali Hazlewood, Elena Armas, Tessa Bailey, Julia Kent, Jasmine Guillory.
*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti* Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).
During a weekend trip to Ocracoke Island, siblings Judy and Stink Moody take part in a pirate treasure-hunting game, in which various clues lead them to silver coins, or "pieces of eight," hidden across the island.
Underachiever Hank Zipzer goes on an unfortunate school camping trip in a comical, kid-friendly novelization of the popular BBC series based on Henry Winkler's best-selling books. What will it take for Mom and Dad to trust Hank to go to the mall unsupervised with his friends? Cooking a family dinner — er, disaster — doesn't exactly say “responsible.” But what if Hank signs up for the school's notorious survival camp and makes it through the whole weekend? Maybe he should factor in being teamed up with his nemesis, McKelty, in a leaky tent, not to mention a desperate search for a cell phone in a field of cow pies. . . . The amiable character originated by Henry Winkler — inspired by his own childhood — comes to life in a humorous adventure set in a font designed to boost readability for kids with dyslexia.
