Droppers

Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. In popular imagination, these words seem to capture the atmosphere of 1960s hippie communes. Yet when the first hippie commune was founded in 1965 outside Trinidad, Colorado, the goal wasn’t one long party but rather a new society that integrated life and art. In Droppers, Mark Matthews chronicles the rise and fall of this utopian community, exploring the goals behind its creation and the factors that eventually led to its dissolution. Seeking refuge from enforced social conformity, the turmoil of racial conflict, and the Vietnam War, artist Eugene Bernofsky and other founders of Drop City sought to create an environment that would promote both equality and personal autonomy. These high ideals became increasingly hard to sustain, however, in the face of external pressures and internal divisions. In a rollicking, fast-paced style, Matthews vividly describes the early enthusiasm of Drop City’s founders, as Bernofsky and his friends constructed a town in the desert literally using the “detritus of society.” Over time, Drop City suffered from media attention, the distraction of visitors, and the arrival of new residents who didn’t share the founders’ ideals. Matthews bases his account on numerous interviews with Bernofsky and other residents as well as written sources. Explaining Drop City in the context of the counterculture’s evolution and the American tradition of utopian communities, he paints an unforgettable picture of a largely misunderstood phenomenon in American history.

Year 998 P.E. (Post Earth) Searchers have spent centuries looking in vain for signs of recovery on the Earth below, and for hospitable planets out amongst the stars. Day in, day out, analysing the endless streams of images that Oversight brings them, looking for the tell-tale green of life. Until one day, eighteen-year-old Miya sees something else. Something that shouldn’t exist on the dead planet below. Something she isn't supposed to see. Running for her life, Miya flees the Ark to the inhospitable planet below. But inhospitable doesn’t necessarily mean dead. There's life. She had seen the signs. Unless the picture was a fake, then she’ll be dead soon enough.

Self-proclaimed "politically incorrect" Republican Clay Barham has written his third controversial book about America and the ways in which current-day politics are dismantling the original idea of "a prosperous, free nation." Barham contends that the 2008 election, based on the premise of "change," was more about community interests having far more importance and relevance than individual interests. His book lists factual and historical data that is opposite of that agenda. The pursuit and aspirations of free individuals, he believes, is what has brought about the enormous prosperity that we, as a nation, have had for over two centuries. What has happened to the voices who believe in the importance of the individual? Why is America different from the rest of the world? And if "change" is inevitable, will we lose that which sets us apart? Barham investigates the reasons why, with intellectual candor and hard-core facts.

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