Frank Carlson Library

A Town Called Forget is Anne of Green Gables turned on its head. But in this tale it is not an over-imaginative redheaded orphan that takes center stage but the off-beat town itself, full of individuals that should be restrained if not medicated. And the poor heroine of this yarn, banished to live with her Aunt Lily whom her parents have never publicly recognized, has to navigate the delicate balance between her aunt's sanity and neuroses. Amid adventures...

Allegory should be compared to a tour through the mind of one Clifford C. Chase, a confused "drop out, cop out and a loser." It is a trip through a surrealistic world of fantasy colliding with touches of reality. After reading the second page of a letter to a commissioner, the reader is introduced to a man with no past to speak of. His present life is in shambles and his future only seems to lead to a dead end to the point that he feels that suicide...

Decimus Junius Juvenalis, known as Juvenal, is one of the greatest satirists and moralists in history. His works, of which sixteen are preserved, are scathing and unapologetic in their presentment of Rome and its citizens. Juvenal is also revered as a social historian for his vivid depictions of Latin life. He wrote his satires between 100 and 127 AD, and although his volumes of poetry were lost for several centuries, his rediscovered works introduced...

What are you served for dinner while in the company of a lecherous reverend, an aging beauty queen, a gay lottery presenter, a guru, a shrink, a few reporters, and an odd assortment of South African parodies? Why, dinner of course! The rest is just dessert!This novel takes a quirky look at South Africa, its inhabitants, and the comedy that is politics. This is what some real South Africans are like. Some you may like, and they will be back in their...

Excerpt: "Ever since we first commenced housekeeping, I cannot say the creatures have let me know one day's perfect peace. A more indulgent master and mistress I am sure they never could have had. For myself, if they had been my own children I could not have looked after them more than I did-continually instructing them, and even sometimes condescending to do part of their work for them myself, out of mere kindness, just to show them how; and never...

From the story's inception, CIA Agent Satchel X. Gilespie (one L) is smack dab in the middle of a pristine Georgia forest trying to uncover a stash of illegal weapons, which he hopes will jump-start his foiled career and return him to prominence within the agency. To put it mildly, this is no easy task because Gilespie (one L) has as his one main goal: the prize capture and incarceration of top Mafia don, Capulet Benvolio.

With its satirical and semi-journalistic style, Chewing Gum is an existential quest to understand how a society exists beneath a repressive dictatorship. The rhythmic act of chewing relentlessly continues as individuals, time and land turn to waste. In this debut novel, no one escapes the critical gaze of a writer who witnessed first-hand the brutality of Gaddafi's regime. At times downright funny and at times poignantly sad, Chewing Gum depicts the...

Think of an event that rocked your world so much you felt like your life was spinning out of control. Did you feel like nothing made sense? Did you feel hopeless? Carmen suddenly finds herself thrust into a world of uncertainty swirling around her. After being torpedoed with a career killer, Carmen struggles to understand how everything she's ever worked for could be swept out from under her. Recounting events throughout her entire working life, from...

Welcome to Columbus, Ohio, winner of the Smart City Challenge and home to countless public servants, such as Ellen Matthews, a Software Engineer with spunk and a wayward car. After Ellen uncovers election tampering on Primary election day, telling anyone about it isn't as easy as it seems, and powerful special interests are trying to kill her. On the run, Ellen and her longtime boyfriend, Zach, team up with some quirky characters to try to mobilize...