In Search Of Nice Americans

How one man's mid-career crisis turned into an odyssey into the weirder side of American life. Like most of us, Geoff Steward was rocked by 2016's litany of horrors. Unlike most of us, Geoff did something about it. Turning his back on his day job as a lawyer - and the requirement to account for every six minutes of his time - Geoff set off across America in hot pursuit of bears, honky-tonk bars and, above all, nice Americans to restore his faith in the world. Armed only with his blend of waspish wit and mischievous charm, Geoff roamed from New York to Alaska, meeting ordinary Americans such as Joe le Taxi, the former NYPD police officer who was one of the first on the scene at the Twin Towers; Pam and Bob, a paranoid psychiatrist and a failed actor who once saw the back of Meryl Streep's head; and Sheriff Duke of Calhoun County, who reintroduced Geoff to the long (and armed) arm of the law. For anyone at a crossroads, contemplating a temporary or permanent career break, this hilarious travel romp offers a new hope.

One lawyer's mid-career crisis becomes an entertaining odyssey discovering the wild and weirder side of American life.

In this essential new volume, Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster, the bestselling authors of The Century, take readers on a journey through the United States, and into the great themes of American identity. In Search of America explores the most controversial and liveliest debates of the day, and then moves back in time to the earliest days of the country's founding, to answer this central question: How have the ideals and principles on which the United States was founded served us -- have they withstood the inexorable march of time?

An illustrated history of American innovators -- some well known, some unknown, and all fascinating -- by the author of the bestselling The American Century.

Born in Hungary, author Gabor Bethlenfalvay spent his early childhood under privileged circumstances that he remembers as his Garden of Eden. It was a paradise until the end of World War II. He tells of the events of joy and of tragedy in his life before and after the war in his Xlibris publication: In Search of an America: An Introvert on the Road. In this ‘tale of the road’ the author relives how he and his family fled west, just before the Red Army overran his hometown, to end up in a small village in Bavaria. There, six years of exile were spent absorbing a classical education amid the rubble of post-war Germany, until emigration to the United States became possible. Assembly lines in Chicago and in Omaha were the author's first introduction to the New World, until he found his path to Military Service. He became a paratrooper and an officer but decided to return to school to study physics. In spite of an advanced degree, doubts about his vocation pulled him back into the Army. The war in Vietnam finally impelled him to resign his commission for good and to strike out for California with his young family to study biology, a decision that led to a doctorate and a research career exploring the web of life in the soil. The repeated back-and-forth between academia and the military and between Europe and the USA helps him explore and compare religious, political, sociological and scientific attitudes and patterns of thinking in the Old and New Worlds. He learns to view his new home with critical detachment. A candid look into a colorful life journey during one of history’s most tumultuous times, In Search of an America: An Introvert on the Road chronicles how one man finally realized that the long road that led him to the fog-shrouded mountain outside his study window in San Luis Obispo was all part of his search for his personal utopia, 'an america,' that of his childhood dreams.

In 1960, when he was almost 60 years old, John Steinbeck set out to rediscover the United States, feeling he might have lost touch with its sights sounds and the essence of its people. This book decribes his travels in a pick-up truck across nearly 40 states with his dog Charlie, a French poodle.

Describes the history of the search for the first inhabitants of the Americas, discussing what has been learned through archaeological research, and analyzing controversial discoveries found at sites throughout North and South America.

A cloth bag containing eight copies of the title and a folder containing book sign out sheets.