Barry Rachin: 49 books

Professor Harry Portman, chairman of the English Department, teaches an elective titled Masterpieces of European Literature at Overland Community College. When a student agitator disrupts his class, life begins to mimic art, assuming the tragic trajectory of a Turgenev novella.

Gabe and Marie share a mutual disgust for the light-skinned Negro who never cleans up after her Great Dane at the Oak Knoll bird Sanctuary. For the lonely widower and lesbian thespian, their meeting is a textbook case of Jungian synchronicity, a serendipitous wink from the cosmos.

Bartholomew Schroeder, a recent widower and retired plumber, can sweat pipes and fix broken toilets, but, on a weekend excursion to Martha's Vineyard, can he mend a teenage girl's broken spirit?

Nadia Rasmussen, the reference librarian at Brandenberg Public Library, is discovering that true love can be found at the Hoxie Feed and Grange just as easily as at the cheesy dating bars.

Seventeen-year-old Sonny Gossage is infatuated with Naomi Shamir, the Israeli woman who lives down the street. He wants romance; all she can offer is a plate of hummus and occaisional babysitting job.

When Ronda Wickford, the assistant manager of Brandenburg’s ShopRite Supermarket, inadvertently hires a middle-age man with a PhD in philosophy to run the fresh produce department, weird things begin to happen. As events unfold, she learns a thing or two about Wittgenstein’s linguistic theories, common decency and how to fix a leaky faucet.

Misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance – Jason Flanagan needs to make restitution for a crime committed fifteen years earlier. Problem is, the moral indiscretion isn’t punishable in any court of law.