Once A Brat
by Marilyn Celeste Morris
Starting $17.78
Web site: Amazon.com

As one of the first dependents to be sent overseas at the end of WWII, eight-year old Marilyn Celeste Morris received her very own orders from The War Department.

"I have always had difficulty answering the question, 'Where are you from?' I have had difficulty in sustaining relationships over a long period of time. I am capable of spending a great many hours, days, even, in splendid solitude --- all can be blamed on-- or credited to --my military brat background. And it's not all bad."

Chasing Caterpillars
By Jerry A. Kyckelhahn
Web site: Amazon.com

"Chasing Caterpillars” was written to entice the baby boomers, and older and younger folks, to enjoy the sports involved in triathlon. The author, Jerry Kyckelhahn '64, is far from a life-long athlete and got a delayed start into triathlon, a delay of about 50 years. He has a degree in Civil Engineering from The Citadel and an advanced degree in Mineral Economics from the Colorado School of Mines, the result of which was a stressful life full of technical issues. His experiences and late entry into sports ultimately led to a Pan American Continental Master’s championship in track sprints and finally to a USAT long course triathlon national championship.

Cheerio and Best Wishes

This is the true story of a young boy from Posey County, Indiana, who had a dream to fly. The outbreak of World War II enabled him to fulfill that dream. Cheerio and Best Wishes is told entirely through the letters he wrote to his family and friends. Detailed narrative and commentary provide explanation and background information.

One hundred thirty-eight letters are presented in this book. It is highly unusual to find this many letters from one person, curated by his family and recently rediscovered by his son, along with carefully created photograph albums.

Mediterranean Mosaic

André Dychmann financed the theft of an ancient mosaic from a Greek Orthodox church in Cypress. He thought he had waited long enough to sell them, but he was wrong. Margaret Goldsworthy, purchased major portions of the mosaic and shipped them to the United States where the original crime was uncovered. After a lengthy trial, she was ordered to return the works of art to their original owners. She has lost her money, her art and her reputation has been tarnished. Now, she wants revenge.

Goldsworthy hires Dan King to find Dychmann, bilk him out of the money she paid and return him to the Cypriot authorities to stand trial.

Ego-Attachment, The Route Of All Suffering
by Michael Walsh
Web site: Michael Walsh Activity, Writings, Schedule

If you’ve been seeking spiritual awakening for longer than you can remember, Michael Walsh 67 will kindle a persistent, bright fire in your tired heart. Practical, encouraging, and deeply wise, this book reveals the limitations of Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta for the western practitioner, and explores the impediments to awakening that are particular to the 21st-century seeker.

In Jack's Mind
By Corie Lee Barloggi
Web site: Amazon.com

Corie Strzelewicz 85 authored this story about a day in the life of a special cat named Jack. The book follows Jack from adoption to adulthood. Beautiful and rich illustrations bring the story to life.

Corie attended school in Ankara from 1981-1985. At publication she was a 2nd grade teacher for Fairfield Suisun School District in Fairfield, CA.

What Does The Doggie Say?
Illustrated By Corie Lee Barloggi
Web site: Amazon.com

Corie Strzelewicz 85 illustrated this charming and story that encourages children to use their verbal skills through the use of onomatopoeia; words that imitate sounds. Mothers' and grandmothers' hearts alike will be touched as the family completes their game and arrives at their destination: Grandma's house.

The entry above is about Corie's first authored book, "In Jack's Mind."

Max and Myron
By Wendy VanHatten and R. David Kryder
Illustrated By Corie Lee Barloggi
Learn Please and Thank You (August 2012)
My First Day of School (January 2013)
I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me (July 2013)
Web site: Amazon.com

The "Max and Myron" series are about a boy and his cat. They are designed for young readers who are learning to read by providing sentence frames which can extend the reader's vocabulary and a high frequency word list which facilitates the young reader's word recognition. It is a great book for educators, parents and grandparents.

Buddy and Grace
By John Ciarlo
E-book Sales: Barnes & Noble and Kindle

John Ciarlo's '83 first novel, "Buddy and Grace" is about a terminally ill, retired FBI agent who loses custody of his Alzheimer’s stricken wife to his estranged daughter. He kidnaps his wife and attempts to take her to a special place, a beautiful bend in a Montana river, where they used to camp as a young family in happier times. On this journey he must overcome many obstacles, including his wife’s and his separate illnesses, the FBI and local law enforcement’s pursuit, and, most importantly, issues from his past. It is only when they do reach their special place that he realizes he has a more important task to finish in the limited time left to him.

The Last Sentry
The True Story That Inspired
"The Hunt for Red October"
by Gregory D. Young 71
& Nate Braden
Web site: Amazon.com

This account of a mutiny aboard the Russian destroyer Storozhevoy offers a revealing look at Soviet decrepitude, circa 1975. Valery Sablin, the political officer, apparently intended to sail to international waters and then demand that the Soviet authorities give him daily television and radio air time to broadcast revolutionary manifestos. Amazingly, he managed to persuade most of the ship's crew.

Casting From The Far Bank
by Fred Laird
Web site: Amazon.com

Fred Laird 66 attended school in Ankara from 1963-1965.

"Casting from the Far Bank," a collection of short stories with a hint of mysticism and humor thrown in. It is one man’s fond recollections of fishing experiences and an attempt to explain his obsession with the pastime.

Death By Innocence
By Thomas Slagle
Web site: Amazon.com

Product Description:
In 1969, at the height of the Viet Nam War, four American military and State Department brats spend their last year of high school on an American military base in Ankara, Turkey. Rampant drug use and innocent lapses of judgment combine to produce emotional scars that will last their lifetimes.

Tom Slagle's (1970 GCMHS graduate)second novel, "The Ark," tells the story of a wealthy recluse who leads the survivors of the apocalypse across the universe to find and seed with life a new Earth.

Slagle now lives with his wife in Knoxville, Tennessee where he is working on a third novel.

The Quigmans: Tunnel of Just Friends
By Buddy Hickerson
Web site: Amazon.com

Buddy Hickerson 76 attended his freshman and sophomore year of high school in Ankara, Turkey. He is the creator of the Quigmans and a syndicated cartoonist/humorist.

Dangerous Ground (2009)
By Scott Ritter
Web site: Amazon.com

Target Iran (2007)
Waging Peace (2007)
Iraq Confidential (2006)
Frontier Justice (2003)
Endgame (2004)
War on Iraq (2002)

Scott Ritter 79 is noted for his role as a chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, and later for his criticism of United States foreign policy in the Middle East. Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ritter publicly argued that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

Scott attended his freshman year at GCMHS in Ankara, Turkey.

Vignettes from a Year in Borneo: Local People and Conservation
By Carol J. Pierce Colfer
Web site: LuLu

In this book, Carol "Jeanne" Pierce 63, writes about her experience with her family in Danau Sentarum National Park, in the center of Borneo. She and her husband were working with communities there to manage an area of flooded forests. The book introduces the people and the area, and describes the joys and frustrations of working with NGOs, consulting firms, government and local communities.

Playing from the Heart
Edited by Robert L. Doerschuk
$19.95
Web site: Backbeat Books

Playing from the Heart is a collection of interviews published by the magazines at GPI (Guitar Player Inc.), where Bob, a 1969 graduate of Ankara High School, worked from 1977 through 1995 on the staff of Keyboard magazine. Most of the interviews in the Keyboard section were written by him.

88: The Giants of Jazz Piano
By Robert L. Doerschuk
$29.95
Web site: Backbeat Books

88: The Giants of Jazz Piano is a collection of 88 short essays on the lives of the most influential and historically important jazz pianists.

Leaving the Alamo
By Dick Stanley
$8.36
Web site: Amazon.com

Dick Stanley, a 1962 graduate of Ankara High School, wrote these stories of middle-aged Texans, combat veterans of Vietnam, who are not in prison, panhandling, or sleeping under bridges. For the most part, they’ve learned to live with the war that still goes on in their heads, although one also has murder on his mind.

Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey
Edited by Anastasia M. Ashman, Jennifer Eaton Gökmen
Starting $10.24
Web site: expatharem.com
Interview with editors (Turkish Radio Hour)

This critically-acclaimed collection invites you into the Turkey that several women from seven nations know, their experiences spanning the entire country and the last four decades in true tales of cultural conflict and discovery.

In the book is a sensitive story by Maria Yarbrough (Orhan) 72 titled, A Mother's Charms. In her story, Maria is a Turkish bride who goes through pregnancy and the birth of her daughter in Istanbul.

A Beautiful Mind
by Sylvia Nasar
Starting at $1.75
Web site: Amazon.com

Sylvia Nasar, a 1965 graduate of Ankara High School, wrote this notable biography about mathematical genius John Forbes Nash, a founder of game theory, a RAND Cold War strategist and winner of a 1994 Nobel Prize in economics. She charts his plunge into paranoid schizophrenia beginning at age 30 and his spontaneous recovery in the early 1990s after decades of torment.

Senatorial Revenge
Web site: Elmer L Snow, III

Derrick Kirk Alexander Jr. realizes that the US government has reached their tolerance level toward acts of international terrorism when he is recruited from American University to work as a deep cover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency. His role in government is so secretive that he, along with several operatives known as the "dirty boys," answer only to a US senator who has full support from the president of the United States.

OverKill ($19.95)
Revenge Served Cold (Starting $19.95)
A View From Iraq ($19.95)
by Elmer L. Snow III
Web site: Publish America

In Overkill, Detective Nicholas T. Robertson's knowledge and experience soars as his mentor convinces us all that humor can be found in the most gruesome of investigations.

In Revenge Served Cold, detective Victor Dolan follows Nikita Androse to Louisiana, acting as her personal bodyguard. "Vic" is determined not to let anything come between he and Nikita; even a stalker’s bullet that brings Dolan to the brink of death. In New Orleans, Dolan meets up with an old friend who practices voodoo and has the morals of a cobra.

A View from Iraq relates the untold stories of several members of the United States Armed Forces and civilian support personnel whose personal acts and bravery were not previously reported.

In 2003, "Corky" Snow 61 provided personal protection services during the reconstruction of Iraq. As a security coordinator with KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, Snow worked in numerous high-risk positions throughout Iraq, including Mosul, Baghdad, Tikrit, Balad, and culminating at Camp Anaconda. After surviving roadside attacks, and well over 150 incoming mortar attacks, he has something to tell.

Search for the Flaming Chalice
by Robert Shaw Kesler
Starting $9.95
Web site: http://www.thatcherforest.com/

Thatcher Forest Publishing is a company comprising one guy who makes and sells his own stuff. For years he did business with mail order catalogs, wholesalers, library distributors, and people willing to buy directly from the trunk of his car. Now, Bob Slentz-Kesler 86, is finally venturing into the online marketplace. Bob worked as a middle school English teacher and a librarian.

Search for the Flaming Chalice is his first novel for young people. Bob combines humor and magic in his fantasy story of three martens outwitting a sorcerer.

Sylvia, Rachel, Meredith, Anna
by Robert Slentz-Kesler 86
$14.95
Web site: Amazon.com

A week after discovering his fiancée's infidelity with a Rhodes scholar from Brazil, and two days after graduating from Monroe Hill College with a degree in cello performance, Gerard Kelderman--the son of a Flemish master diamond cutter--enters the army as an enlisted parachute infantryman.

"Slentz-Kesler writes compassionately about each of his characters, and refuses overly simple explanations for the various kinds of trouble humans manage to stir up for themselves." ~~ C. Tourino

Cows in the Corn
by R. George Seay
Starting $22.24
Web site: Amazon.com

Rich Croucher 64 is the author of this book. He passed on July 8, 2007. Additional information is available on our In Memoriam page.

Reviewer: Ken Wooden "Child Lures, LTD"
This novel is excellent reading with a finely woven story and a host of exceptional characters. The book is difficult to put down and easy to read more than once, as your thoughts begin when the book ends. Prepare for a thunderstorm of emotion that entertains while delivering a powerful message. Laugh, cry, get angry, be happy...cheer. Cows In The Corn has it all. I highly recommend this book for personal enjoyment and group discussion, but caution that it is not a novel for children of high school age or below.

Jill Jonnes 70, who attended school in Ankara, has released her sixth book, Eiffel's Tower. You can read about late 19th century Paris, with its global cast of millionaires, royals and potentates, artists, inventors, courtesans, engineers, and showmen, each determined to outshine all rivals at the Exposition Universelle, where Gustave Eiffel’s 1000-foot tower heralded the 20th century.

Additional books by Jill:
• Conquering Gotham. This book follows the construction of Penn Station and its tunnels.
• Narcs, and Pipe Dreams
About dying cities, drugs, and American failure.
• Empires of Light
An account of the visionary inventors, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse.
• South Bronx Rising
Chronicles the rise, fall and resurrection of the Bronx.
• Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams
A history of America's Romance with illegal Drugs.

Learn more at Jill Jonnes

Who Are The Turks?
by Justin & Carolyn McCarty
Free eBook
Website: Ataturk.com

A curriculum guide aimed at understanding the state of Turkey---its history, its evolution, its culture and its literature.
Some material appeared in the original 1992 edition, but much has been revised and updated. Excellent photographs and illustrations. Extensive history and literature lesson plans.

Turkey--Bright Sun, Strong Tea
by Tom Brosnahan
$15.95
Web site: Turkey Travel Planner

A humorous travel memoir, tells how Brosnahan got involved with Turkey as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in the 1960s. Included a lot of background information on Turkey and the Turks so that it would be a good airplane and end-of-the-day reading for anyone going to, or traveling in Turkey.

Click here to order your personally-inscribed, autographed copy online (ISBN 0-9767531-0-3, 304 pages, US$15.95).

Scotch and Holy Water
by John D. Tumpane
Web site: Amazon.com (available from $9) or
St. Giles Press POB 1416 Lafayette, CA 94549

Tumpane, an American company, held Base Maintenance Contracts in Turkey providing many of the basic support functions at TUSLOG installations.

"John D." provides an account of his life and escapades in this book. "Anyone who has any interest in or connection to Turkey should read his insightful book," Muharren Sev.

Our own Ebru Craft 89, "I first read this book after finding it [in] my father's library when I was 18. I read it as almost his own stories from his stationing there earlier on."

John died in October 1997 and this book is no longer in print so snatch this one up while you still can.