Glenn Cheney arrived in Kiev during those first days when the Soviet Union ceased to exist and Ukraine was reborn. Almost immediately he found himself talking with scientist, journalist, refugees, engineers, top-level government officials, doctors, environmentalists, parents of sick children and people living just a few kilometers from the Chernobyl complex. He heard stories about the disaster that went far beyond what had appeared in the Western press. The reports of atrocities, epidemics...

Thanksgiving is not a book about a holiday. It s about something that a few dozen survivors did after a year of suffering, death, struggle, and courage.They bowed their heads to give thanks.The Pilgrims journey began as a joint venture of business and religion, but soon it became a matter of survival.With 102 men, women, and children packed into a dim, wet space below the main deck, the Mayflower set out on a terrifying 66-day crossing of the Atlantic. They ...

Sister Diane DalleMolle and Sister Barbara Staley arrived in Swaziland at the height of an HIV epidemic that today afflicts a third of the population. Under under extremely difficult conditions in the harsh, semi-arid outback, they managed to establish a clinic, care for over 100 orphans, install a municipal-scale water system, and in so many ways achieve the impossible. This is the story of their work, the people they work with, and a country that is on the brink of extinction.

For almost a hundred years, a nation of fugitive Africans, Indians, whites, and mixed races fought off the world’s most powerful empires in a struggle to survive in freedom. Over the span of the 17th century, the Quilombo dos Palmares melded several cultures to form its own language, religion, government, values, and way of life. Its population may have exceeded 20,000. Its last king is believed to have been an educated descendant of slaves. He took the name Zumbi—Lord of War—and b...

A collection of newspaper columns and editorials by Glenn Alan Cheney published between January 2020 and August 2021. In a warm, human, often humorous style he discusses such topics as penmanship, couches, covid, a Model T, a hermit, golf, statues, mascots, elections, history, litter, skunks, dogs, the Mayflower, and much more.

A wide-ranging collection of poems and aphorisms by an American writer and public policy scholar born in California in the 1950s and raised in the American South and Pacific Northwest. Topics include faith and its loss, nature and the environment, war, social justice, friendship, teaching, chronic pain, mental health, and the struggle to communicate with others when ordinary words fail. This is a collection that can be read in any order or sampled a little at a time, and it can be revisite...

Sister Leonora Brunetto lives and works in Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso. In 1978, rainforest covered the region. Today, cattle pastures stretch to the horizon, their unshaded grass rippling with heatwaves. Ranches of tens of thousands of acres benefit single families who have no title to the land. Nearby, scores of families camp in ramshackle huts, awaiting the land they are entitled to. but may not get until the land is dead.    With Brazil’s federal government ...

Translations of 21 short stories by Machado de Assis, with Portuguese and English on facing pages. Most have never before appeared in English. Translators include Laura Cade Brown, Krista Brune, David George, Linda Ledford-Miller, Ana Lessa-Schmidt, Nelson López Rojas, John Maddox, Adam Morris, Rex P. Nielson, Leila Osman, Marissel Hernández Romero, Steven K. Smith, Lisandra Sousa, Luciana Tanure, and Nelson Vieira. Stories include Nuptial Song, Among Saints, Xerxes’ Tears, Cabriolet Anecd...

Brazil's Estrada Real — the Royal Road — was constructed in 1697 to bring the gold and diamonds from the mountains of Minas Gerais to ports at Rio de Janeiro and Paraty. The road is still there, winding through the mountains, passing through villages and towns once opulent, now in decadence. Glenn Alan Cheney hiked up the road for two months to write about its history, geography, culture, and people.  Life along the Estrada Real is still very much in the 19th century. Wo...

Ysa should have known better.She shouldn't have believed Kit. Shouldn't have gone up the Amazon with the Gumball King. Should haven't let a Mundurucu take up her up a river in a canoe. Shouldn't have ventured alone into mining camp.Kit should have known better. He shouldn't have taken women into Amazonia. Shouldn't have taken a hippie-chick and 20,000 porpoises up in an airplane. Shouldn't have played bridge with an underground lumberjack. Definitely shouldn't have trusted ...

Nuclear Armageddon is on the BallotThe leading candidate for US President is certain God has chosen him to bring on The Rapture by launching nuclear war. His march to the White House is unstoppable. Journalist Dan Jessup finally unearths the candidate’s virulent past, but if he reveals it, his pregnant wife and son, now being held hostage, will be murdered. Meanwhile, Lt. Greg Pangborn, a tech officer in a rogue military faction, is beta-testing how the US might...