Showing results for "tom corbett"

A Clueless Rebel - This is an hysterical reworking of the author's memoir about growing up in the decades after World War II (Originally titled Ouch, Now I Remember). Infused with great wit and honesty, the story is one that delves deep into how culture both constrains us and yet provides the foundations for growth and development if, that is, one can break through the shackles that bind us. It leaves us with many laughs and a few tears.

Oblique JourneysThis novel takes us deep into the scars left by a war that tore the United States apart in the 1960s and early 1970s, a conflict that left an indelible mark on the youth who came of age in that turbulent era. While a work of fiction, the narrative touches upon the real emotions and struggles that many young people endured as they fought to make sense out of competing claims upon their loyalty and to satisfy the dictates of their torn consciences. This was a...

Refractive Reflections can be read as a self-contained work. It also can be considered the fifth volume in the saga that covers the story of three families ... the Masoud, the Crawford, and the Connelly clans. Five books in all, Oblique Journeys, Palpable Passions, Ordinary Obsessions, Felicitous Fates, and now Refractive Reflections constitute an interrelated set of works that explore the complex evolution of these three distinct families and the rela- tional, po...

In 2014, I wrote Browsing through My Candy Store, a memoir of my career attempting to master the art of public policy. That book, though enjoying modest sales at best, was well received by my colleagues in the academy, by those members of the public who stumbled upon this classic, and by so-called book scouts who ferret out literary gems. That pleased me greatly. My intent was to develop a crossover work that might bridge both the real and the academic worlds. I tried to avoid being so tec...

Rereleased in February, this compelling story improves upon the work originally released as Casual Choices (4.4 out of 5 stars). It examines how the youth of the turbulent 1960s made personal choices about war and peace that would determine the arc of their subsequent lives. Joshua Connelly left of Canada and spent a lifetime seeking a resolution for his choice. A moving tale of relationships and redemption partially rooted partly in the author's experiences.

This book takes us back in time, to those days when an idealistic band of youthful Americans journeyed halfway around the world in response to President John F. Kennedy's clarion call to '... ask what you can do for your country.' We eagerly signed up to serve in a new program called the Peace Corps, an initiative first spawned in those exhilarating days of Camelot when fervor and innocence trumped experience and common sense. While each of us knew our decision to volunteer for service ove...

Two families, one born to privilege in America and the other struggling under the oppressive Taliban regime in Kabul, confront the demons and challenges of their separate worlds. Circumstances and serendipity bring the two together in the Panjshir Valley of northern Afghanistan just as Osama Bin Ladin strikes New York and Washington. Their unanticipated connection offers each an opportunity to discover renewed hope. From black despair, each finds a path toward achieving personal passions t...

Felicitous Fates is the third volume of a trilogy about Masoud and the Crawford families. The patriarch of the Masoud family, Pamir, was a physician who trained in England before return- ing to Afghanistan to aid his homeland and raise his children. Pamir's wife, Madeena, was a mathematician who taught at uni- versity level in the pre-Taliban era. We tend to forget that this beleaguered country once had a substantial secular population

Ordinary Obsessions: This sequel to the authors well received Palpable Passions is a compelling, multi-layered narrative that weaves together various threads of history, culture, politics, and personal relationships in a moving story of conflict and hope. Relational twists within and between two families, one American and one Afghani, along with societal challenges are played out against a background of a struggle against a religious regime in Afghanistan and against the rise of a conserva...

Jeremiah Joshua Connelly is about to retire from his academic position at the University of British Columbia. He anticipates a small ordinary affair of conventional speeches, farewell dinners, and the usual parting gifts and well-wishes. Instead, his past visits him in unexpected ways. He not only confronts people from the mists of a distant era he thought long lost but also accepts some truths about himself. Over the next week, Josh Connelly comes to terms with who he really is, with a pa...

In The Boat Captains Conundrum, author Tom Corbett completes an intellectual journey that reflects on his four-plus decades as a scholar and doer of social policy. That journey starts with Ouch, Now I Remember in which he recounts his early days growing up in a closed, working class, ethnic community from which he underwent several transformative experiences that broadened his worldview. In Browsing Through My Candy Store, the author shared his struggles while confronting many of the most ...

The author picks up where he left off in a witty memoir of his academic and policy careers in Browsing through My Candy Store. In this equally hilarious book, Tom Corbett brings us back to the postWorld War II period, where he came of age in a rough and tumble ethnic, working-class neighborhood. From a kid who showed no promise whatsoever, he underwent a series of transformative experiences from Catholic seminary training to the leader of a left-wing college group through Peace Corps servi...