Open Books: 98 books

Rarely have global battles in the war on invasive species been successful. Even tougher is fighting a mutant genetic clone of a natural counterpart on a marine coast. The first known Western Hemisphere detection of the invasive seaweed Caulerpa taxifolia occurred in Southern California, at San Diego...

A memoir in her most personal voice, Teri Louise Kelly tells us what it is like to be born in the wrong body. "Let’s forget the flounce and frills and sugar and spice; this isn’t Cinderella and there aren’t any glass slippers or pumpkins that change into carriages, but there is the...

An unnamed city, in which crime families flourish and the police pinch pennies from those with most power...Black Sails, Disco Inferno is a retelling of the classic medieval romance of Tristan and Isolde, turning things on their head by reversing the sex of the chief protagonists and placing...

Fast, furious, unforgettable and set against the backdrop of a crumbling civilization, NIGHT TRAIN follows arch-outsider Jerzy Mulvaney in an audacious account of what it means to be homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.

Located across the U.S.-Mexican border in Ciudad Juarez, Mariscal Street (otherwise known as the Boulevard of Broken Dreams) harbors Donald O’Donovan’s quintessential character, Jerzy Mulvaney, as he unsuccessfully courts the Tarantula Woman—a prostitute named Ysela with a tattoo of a tarantula...

Orgasmo is author Donald O'Donovan's autobiographical account of a long ignored writer's vow to never write again. But, alas, the vow is as destined to failure as O'Donovan's puckish alter-ego is to literary obscurity. A love letter (of sorts) to LA, O'Donovan is in rare form as we watch his...

Set in London, beginning in the early sixties and spanning five decades, I Shot Bruce follows Vijay Asunder, a rock-and-roll wannabe who, many decades after he is spurned by the manager of a singing group that eventually becomes world-famous, finally decides that he must kill the one person that symbolizes...

Ella Taylor is a young, high-powered hedge fund trader just out of treatment for cocaine addiction. On her first night out after rehab she meets Alicia Graham, a talented keyboard player in a band. Both women feel an instant and undeniable attraction for one another. It is not long after their first...

Growing up poor and within a troubled family, Marcy Harris takes a job at a hospital cafeteria, and the monotony is killing her.Then, on Christmas Day, she meets Syd McComb, a jet-cool punk rocker recently returned from a ten-year stay in Mexico, and Syd looks like all the trouble she’s been...

Often funny, always thoughtful, and surprisingly esoteric in nature, the forty-four short essays written by award-winning author David A. Ross deal with expatriate living in detail - from myth to reality, from novelty to stagnation, from glorious experiences to down-right gory experiences, and back again.

“A gripping adventure in which 13 young Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) seek to regain the honor of their band. A delightful work of historical fiction.”—Diane Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review As the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) slowly migrated into the Lake Superior region centuries ago, they...

A twelve year-old Tohono O'odham boy and his grandfather embark on a hazardous journey across Arizona's borderland desert to the summit of legendary Baboquivari Peak to seek the spirits of their ancestors. Treacherous mountain passes, ruthless drug smugglers, and the mystery of ancient petroglyphs...

Charlie Spinner has just been dumped by his trophy girlfriend, so to soothe the pain of rejection he embarks upon a night out with his two best friends, Ed (aka Nadz) and Fat Dave. Lamenting the dullness of their lives – grab bag relationships (or lack thereof), go-nowhere jobs, and of course ever-present...

Almost everybody who was born in the post-agrarian period separated by the two great wars grew up in a place whose growing pains were painfully obvious. It was into such a place that my parents moved with my brother and me in tow. Our house was small, but serviceable; our neighbors forthcoming,...