Most Popular Books by John Tessitore

Real-life stories of struggle, achievement, victory, and sometimes loss that are an ideal companion for history, social science, language and geography studies. The Extroardinary People series is the perfect starter for students who want to know more about the people who shaped their world, focusing on the unique histories of people from every culture, and every walk of life.

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Well written, clear explanations. A good overview of complex subjects. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

A comprehensive biography of the only boxer crowned Heavyweight Champion of the World three times.

A biography of the Ghanaian statesman who was elected Secretary General of the United Nations in 1997.

We Are Becoming Unbound is a long poem about living in transition...personal, cultural, and spiritual. A carnival of recurring images, literary and pop references, and personal revelations, it is the portrait of a man trying to find meaning in disorder, becoming unbound in order to become something better, freer, and, ultimately, whole. I scribbled my way through dozens of notebooks, for years, before I started to undo real damage, the violence of defining my character. So much easier to spill today and see what happens later.

Describes the life of author John Steinbeck, who penned "The Grapes of Wrath" and "The Red Pony."

Describes the life and character of F. Scott Fitzgerald and how his writings had an impact on the Jazz Age.

Parchment: A Prayer Quartet is a collection of five poems, each a yearning for spiritual renewal in a troubled age. Inspired by (but not beholden to) the outcasts, beats, and mystics of the American past, it is an urgent, lyric and sometimes-ironic plea for better angels. To do this now is insanity, I know, a prayer for a prayer-less century (so far), but is it crazier than relying on the knowledge of history? Is it crazier than denying all progress? It it crazier than preferring the darkness of the past?

Leaving home, getting lost, returning changed. My City of Yesterday reimagines a traditional narrative for modern times...echoes of Odysseus in the American suburbs. Its flawed hero is an ordinary, middle-aged man sinking "in chaos, in failure, in poetry," only to re-surface later, weakened but wiser. I read the signs the way the ancients read the constellations, always leading away from here.

Stuck in an airport, waiting among strangers, missing connections, nursing a weak drink and a tired mind that has too much time to think...It's just another a day in Terminal D, a stream-of-consciousness poem about the self persistent, the self unshakable, the paradox of one..."to be particular and also limitless." So here I am again, resident in familiars: departures follow arrivals until we stop for a while, take stock of our gains and losses, and then continue on.

All the Lonely American Roads is a poem about starting over. What do we take with us? What is worth saving? What is important to us as people with complicated lives-families, jobs, desires? Which lessons from the past, which stories, which myths? An interrelated series of lyrics, fragments, songs, and dialogues, it is a portrait of a man, and a culture, trying to find a new way forward. I leave to find my love again. I will scatter myself as I go.

A biography of the acclaimed American writer whose childhood and adult experiences became common themes in his stories and novels.

An annual publication of the United Nations Association of the United States America. The six sections cover dispute settlement and decolonization, arms control and disarmament, global resource management, human rights and social issues, legal issues, and finance and administration. Annotation copyr