A New York Times Notable Book: A man sorts through the secret life of his troubled, reclusive brother in this "powerful, moving personal history" ( Entertainment Weekly).Every family has its odd character, the one who never seems right with the world. When a grieving John Vernon was charged with settling his brother's affairs, he came face to face with a life he had never suspected. His brother's house in southern New Hampshire was in a state of squalid, s...

“Both gritty and sublime” (Seattle Times), The Last Canyon tells the story of John Wesley Powell’s 1869 voyage of exploration through the Grand Canyon, the last great expedition of discovery in United States history. In this vivid novel, John Vernon intertwines two stories – that of Powell and his crew, and that of a band of Paiute Indians, known as the Shivwits, who lived on the north rim of the canyon. As the novel moves inexorably toward a violent encounter between the two groups, Verno...

All this began long before I died,” says the brain in a jar that narrates John Vernon’s second novel. The brain once belonged to Charles Cooper, a 55-year-old water engineer in upstate New York, and has been kept alive by a perfusion pump invented by the man who may have been Coop’s fatherCharles Lindbergh. Then again, maybe not. Coop’s suspicion that he is the kidnaped Lindbergh baby who never really died but instead was stolen as a child and raised by gangsters begins when, on a day li...

Adventuress, miner, home-wrecker, pauper, dreamer—the drama of Colorado legend Baby Doe’s life has inspired several biographies, a 1932 film starring Edward G. Robinson, even an opera, but never before a novel. Few lives have been so dramatic—leaving Oshkosh, WI and heading toward Colorado’s mining territory in 1879, she ditched her husband and snared silver magnate Horace Tabor, who divorced his wife to marry Baby in the “wedding of the century.” “A furiously bubbling stew of a manner of ...

On St. Helena island in 1821 a mysterious doctor removes Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis from his corpse while in the next room his loyal lieutenants brag about their dead emperor’s merciless cruelty. Fifty years later the search for this itinerant appendage leads through Victorian London to ante-bellum New York, Amherst, Massachusetts, and finally Colorado Territory, dragging in its path a promiscuous mix of French counts, love-sick poets, dandies, shady antiquarians, utopian dreamers, con men...

A myth-busting novel about America's most infamous and beloved outlaw, Billy the Kid, from a critically acclaimed historical novelistAccording to legend, Billy the Kid killed twenty-one men, one for every year of his short life; stole from wealthy cattle barons to give to the poor; and wooed just about every senorita in the American Southwest.In Lucky Billy, John Vernon digs deeply into the historical record to find a truth more remarkable than the legend, and draws a fresh, ...

The much-loved and celebrated children's story, written and illustrated by John Vernon Lord, Emeritus Professor of Illustrating at Brighton University, has been out of print for many years. Bouley Bay Books is bringing out a special, golden anniversary edition, to celebrate the fiftieth year after its original publication by Jonathan Cape in 1973.In Lewis Carroll's nineteenth century children's classic, it was a White Rabbit who tempted Alice to go down a rabbit hole, leading to fa...

"The Harvest of a Quiet Eye: Leisure Thoughts for Busy Lives" by John Richard Vernon is a contemplative exploration of the importance of leisure in our fast-paced world. Vernon invites readers to pause and reflect on the beauty of stillness and the richness of quiet moments. Through a series of thoughtful essays, he encourages individuals to embrace leisure as a vital component of a fulfilling life, suggesting that in our busyness, we often overlook the simple joys that can nourish our sou...

Once every generation there is a Chosen One, who will stand between humanity and darkness.But why is the Chosen One so often a teenager? Why do only children get swept through portals to save the fantastic world on the other side? Whose idea was it to put the fate of the world in the hands of someone without a fully developed prefrontal cortex?In Never Too Old to Save the World, nineteen authors explore what would happen if the Chosen One were called midlife. What ...

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2022Examines the largely unexplored topics in Caribbean archaeology of looting of heritage sites, fraudulent artifacts, and illicit trade of archaeological materialsReal, Recent, or Replica: Precolumbian Caribbean Heritage as Art, Commodity, and Inspiration is the first book-length study of its kind to highlight the increasing commodification of Caribbean Precolumbian ...

A tribute to the golden age of radio from veteran producer Joe Bevilacqua and comic strip artist Donnie Pitchford, The 2nd New & Old Time Radio Collection is a series of new stories and parodies featuring beloved radio characters and shows.A Joe Bev Audio Theater Sampler, Volume 1This half-hour anthology represents more than forty years of storytelling by Joe Bevilacqua, a.k.a Joe Bev, the award-winning actor, writer, producer, and director. Each half-hour...

This book honors the life and work of the late W. Barnett Pearce, a leading theorist in the communication field. The book is divided into four sections. The first section will lead with an essay by Barnett Pearce. This will be followed by sections on (1) practical theory, (2) dialogue, and (3) social transformation. In the broadest sense, these are probably the three general themes found in the work of Pearce and his colleagues. In another sense, these categories also identify three import...