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THE RECOLLECTION

It’s a winter’s day, perhaps the last day of an old man’s existence.

Matt “Tug” Cutugno has lived a good life, that of a hard working family man. He has earned the right to a happy ending; he wants a pat on the back for a job well done. But just where is his reward?

Tug’s wife and children are gone and his dreams of a future are now memories of his past – the war; getting married and raising a family; his days as a working man.

His present is filled by winter barbeques of grilled kielbasa for breakfast, grilled chicken for lunch and grilled zucchini and hot dogs for dinner.

As he sits on his lawn chair in the snow-covered backyard of the home that he built himself, a menagerie of wonderful people visits this extraordinary everyman who is not searching for himself, but who is seeking the meaning of what he accomplished in this life.

And with each visit from his wife, his children, his friends and neighbors, his war time buddies, the story of this brave and unsentimental man unfolds so that the past and present merge into something that can be called the truth of an entire generation of men who fought in World War II.

THE REVIEWS

“The Winter Barbeque is an exceptional work - a bittersweet journey of years, traversed in hours, while melting the boundaries between memory and reality.”

-- M.L. Martin
Editor-in-Chief, “The Hilltop Observer”

“The Winter Barbeque is an extraordinary and vivid memoir about the best that there is in a father. The author's honest and sympathetic style makes this an enormously rewarding work." 

-- D.S Lliteras, author of “Thieves of Golgotha” and “The Master of Secrets”

THE AUTHOR

Matt Cutugno's plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles, and in regional theaters. He is a frequent contributor to the short story anthology, “In Good Company,” and his essays have been featured in various literary publications. THE WINTER BARBEQUE is his first book. He lives in California with his wife Lily.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Written by Herself

Is there life after death? Is God real? Is there sufficient reason to live by faith?

Dr. Mary Neal's walk with God has been both ordinary and extraordinary, brimming with the gift and privilege of being touched by God in visible and very tangible ways. She is a practicing orthopaedic surgeon, a wife, and a mother who has experienced joy as well as great sorrow, including the death of her beloved son. She personally experienced life after death and, despite her scientific training, she believes the answer to each one of these questions is a definitive yes.

She drowned on a South American river and went to Heaven. She conversed with angels. She returned to Earth, in part, to tell her story to others and help them find their way back to God.

In this book , Dr. Neal shares the captivating details of her life in which she has experienced not just one miracle, but many. Her story is both compelling and thought provoking. Her experiences provide confirmation that miracles still occur, shows how God keeps His promises and why there is sufficient reason to live by faith. Dr. Neal's message is fundamentally one of hope.

Pam Smith is a Long Island housewife who spends her weekdays preparing for her husband Jack to return every weekend from the city. Their life is a perfect picture of Americana, a modern Norman Rockwell painting of success, comfort, and the love of family and friends. Then, on a Saturday that seems no different than any other, tragedy strikes and Pam faces the greatest challenge of her previously charmed life. A riveting plot, shocking twists, and almost unbearable tension mark Suzanne Jenkins’ debut, a heart-wrenching examination of lives suddenly and irrevocably torn apart. On his routine weekend trip home, Jack has a heart attack on the train and Pam soon finds herself on a trip to identify his body. Theoretically, this should give her some form of closure, but instead it is the moment her life takes an unexpected trip down the rabbit hole of intrigue and past sins come shockingly to life. Pam must confront a series of revelations that unmask a life she realizes she only thought she knew, and the losses and disappointments she discovers give color and understanding to a man markedly different than he appeared. Uncovering secrets and betrayals far worse than her most vivid nightmare, Pam retreats to their meticulous Babylon beach house, the one refuge she has to put the pieces of her life together and move toward ultimate forgiveness. A fascinating, multiple point of view character study about confronting mistakes and omissions in life, Jenkins’ novel demonstrates the devastating consequences of our actions and how they can reverberate through generations. But it is through forgiveness that Pam finds redemption and strength, eschewing the option of victimization for one of power and, ultimately, personal peace. Affecting in its fast pacing and spare, evocative prose, Pam of Babylon is a powerful reminder for us all to strive to be better people.

The Widow's Son was selected as a FirstNovelFest Grand Prize Winner -

Enjoy the music, politics, fashion, televison and movie fare of the 1960s. Did you know that 2 days before the blizzard of 1967 that brought the Midwest to a halt, it was a balmy 65 degrees? Or that Wild Thing by the Troggs kicked the Beatle's Paperback Writer off the top of the pop charts? Or that Gomer Pyle USMC replaced the Dick Van Dyke Show? These details unique to 1966 and 1967 also include the Apollo 1 disaster, what young men did to avoid the draft and Vietnam, and President Johnson's conclusion in 1966 that the Vietnam War had been as good as won. All of this incredible history, accurately researched and woven into this incredible story without a seam, presents a historic backdrop for a powerful tale of survival - and the detemination of a neighborhood filled with beloved nuts and bolts who go beyond the call to save a broken family. And it all begins with these words of a child's lament - When I hear the news I want to jump on the dining room clock and make time go backwards . . .

Based on the real life loss of the author's father, Bruce Steinberg brings his passionate tale home as told through the eyes of his oldest brother - a child on the cusp of manhood who does not easily take to wearing the crown of New Man of the House.

The moment 12-year-old Jeremy Rosenberg witnesses his father's death, Jeremy loses the world he assumed would last forever. With a young brother expecting their father to yet come home, a sister blaming herself, and a mother falling toward isolation, Jeremy is sent fatherless into the world just as he enters adolescence. Beautifully and memorably set in mid-1960s Chicago suburbia, The Widow's Son is launched on a devastating moment. But this tale of misguided efforts and accidental triumphs of children forced into adult emotions creates a humorous, poignant novel. The reader's laughter and tears are sure to flow together to the last page as Jeremy battles to make his family into a family once again.

Author Bruce Steinberg also writes under the name B.R. Robb, and is the author of River Ghosts, a critically acclaimed novel for your review under Amazon.com's Look Inside program. You may contact the author via brucesteinberg6@aol.com. Also watch Batavia High School Junior Ethan Mole perform a monologue memorized from three pages of The Widow's Son: youtube.com/watch?v=o4VUuTSh9VM

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." --Randy Pausch

A remarkably frank, deeply moving, and inspiring memoir by Jai Pausch, whose husband, Randy, wrote the bestseller The Last Lecture while battling pancreatic cancer.
 
"Jai is such a giver that she often forgets to take care of herself," Randy Pausch wrote about his wife. "Jai knows that she’ll have to give herself permission to make herself a priority."
     In Dream New Dreams, Jai Pausch shares her own story for the first time: her emotional journey from wife and mother to full-time caregiver, shuttling between her three young children and Randy’s bedside as he sought treatment far from home; and then to widow and single parent, fighting to preserve a sense of stability for her family, while coping with her own grief and the challenges of running a household without a partner.
 Jai paints a vivid, honest portrait of a vital, challenging relationship between two strong people who faced a grim prognosis and the self-sacrificing decisions it often required. As she faced life without the husband she called her “magic man,” Jai learned to make herself a priority to create a new life of hope and happiness—as she puts it, to “feel a spark of my own magic beginning to flicker.”
     Dream New Dreams is a powerful story of grief, healing, and newfound independence. With advice artfully woven into an intimate, beautifully written narrative, Jai’s story will inspire not only the legions of readers who made The Last Lecture a bestseller, but also those who are embarking on a journey of loss and renewal themselves.
 

Everyone deserves a second chance.

Jack "The Cannon" Kennedy thinks he's living the American Dream. A fancy house in the Houston suburbs. A promising career. And a loving wife who tolerates his long hours and selfish ways.

In one horrific instant, he loses his wife. Then his job. Then his hope. And that just leaves Kellen, the young son Jack hardly knows or understands.

Jack realizes he must reconnect with Kellen or they'll never get past their shared grief. But Jack's biggest obstacle is staring back from the mirror.

Desperate to reach Kellen, he turns to baseball, the game he once loved. With Jack, a win-at-all-costs former star pitcher, coaching his son's Little League team, what could possibly go wrong?

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.

For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.

Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger?

Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final “class”: lessons in how to live.

Tuesdays with Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world.

It’s been ten years since Mitch Albom first shared the wisdom of Morrie Schwartz with the world. Now–twelve million copies later–in a new afterword, Mitch Albom reflects again on the meaning of Morrie’s life lessons and the gentle, irrevocable impact of their Tuesday sessions all those years ago. . .

A retired medical reporter for The Pueblo Chieftain in Colorado, the author looked into evidences w in medicine and the Bible that show we're more than a body.
      The book is about serious matters, but truths are introduced in an easy to read and interesting manner with faith-filled illustrations, quotes and anecdotes.
      The book discusses the wonder of who we are, how we know we're more than a body, how we determine truth about the eternal, the wonders of life itself, discoveries of regenerative medicine, the dying process and how brain death is determined, where we go at death and why we still will participate in the resurrection, along with what we will do in heaven.
 Each chapter has a question and answer section for discussion or contemplation. The book is a good Bible study guide not only for grief support groups and those who have a serious chronic or terminal diagnosis, but also for those curious about the future, those who fear death, those who need their faith strengthened, people who don't know Jesus, and individuals who give them counsel.