More than 25 million Americans and 92 million worldwide suffer from liver disease and cirrhosis, a degenerative and potentially fatal condition in which liver cells are damaged and then replaced by scar tissue, impeding liver function. The disease is most commonly caused by excessive alcohol consumption, hepatitis, or complications from prescription drugs. Immediately after his diagnosis, James Dickerson set out to educate himself on all of his options -- and found there is hope for recovery.

Now, he offers The First Year: Cirrhosis, the first guide for patients and their families to understanding and managing this chronic condition. In clear, accessible language, the book walks readers step-by-step through everything they need to do each day of the first week after a cirrhosis diagnosis, each subsequent week of the first month, and the following eleven months of the crucial first year. From understanding causes to coping with complications, The First Year: Cirrhosis provides medically-sound, empathetic guidance. The book includes advice on treating symptoms, extending longevity, managing stress, and getting the best care possible for anyone affected by this condition.

Chips Moman's genius began in the studio, where he instituted technical innovations that forever changed the recording industry, but it expanded from there with an uncanny ability to recognize hit songs when he heard them as rough demos, and then blossomed with an unsurpassed string of hit records. He rescued Elvis Presley's career with his recordings of Suspicious Minds and In the Ghetto, and he provided Willie Nelson with one of his most memorable signature songs, Always on My Mind. Not bad for a Georgia country boy who dropped out of school in the eighth grade and hitchhiked to Memphis in search of the American Dream.

I think the Chips Moman story has provided me with the best book I have written since Colonel Tom Parker, which was purchased by Warner Bros. for its Elvis film starring Tom Hanks, says author James L. Dickerson. I anticipate great interest in a movie based on Moman's story. Small wonder. He has been called the Steve McQueen of the music business.'

By any measure-sales, multi-genre capability, number of hit records, technical innovation, artistry, etc.-Lincoln Chips Moman was the most important record producer in American history. With several hundred hits to his credit in pop, country, rhythm & blues, and rock, both from record production and songwriting, Chips Moman is legendary within the music industry. This biography is the story of his life.

Early on, Chips Moman was a co-founder of Memphis's Stax Records, along with Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton. Moman found the location for the studio, organized the recording system, recruited the early talent and produced the legendary soul music record label's first two hits-Gee Whiz by Carla Thomas and Last Night, an instrumental by the Mar-Keys.

As a record producer, he rescued Elvis Presley's career with hits such as Suspicious Minds, In the Ghetto, and Kentucky Rain. He produced music icons such as Petula Clark and Dionne Warwick. In rock and pop he is associated with the Gentrys (Keep on Dancing), the Box Tops (The Letter), Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline, Sandy Posey (Born a Woman and Single Girl ), Paul Revere & The Raiders (Goin' to Memphis), Dusty Springfield (Son of a Preacher Man), Ringo Starr (an unreleased album which the author listened to and

considers among Ringo's best; the album ended up in a celebrated court case); B.J. Thomas (Hooked on a Feeling, The Eyes of a New York Woman, and (Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Someone Wrong Song.

In country music, he produced Willie Nelson's Always on My Mind and numerous other albums; he originated the super group the Highwaymen (Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kristofferson) and produced two of their three albums; Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard (Pancho & Lefty), plus albums with Tammy Wynette, Gary Stewart, Brenda Lee and others. Moman also recorded a country album, as of now unreleased, with actor Robert Duvall, who got permission from Moman to use him as a model for the character he played in Tender Mercies, a role for which he was awarded an Oscar.

Although her mother, Naomi, and older sister, Wynonna, rose to fame as the country music duo the Judds, Ashley Judd took her own road to stardom, becoming one of Hollywood's most successful actresses. Discover the inside story of the actress who has starred in movies such as Heat, Kiss the Girls, High Crimes and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Journey wilth her as she makes the transition from actress to social activist, addressing the General assembly of the United Nations on matters of the greatest importance. Learn the horror and disgust she felt when she learned her movie career had been crippled by a Hollywood mogul who orchestrated a smear campaign against her because she would not have sex with him.

Based on unprecedented, original research and interviews with insiders, this authoritative investigative biography of Colonel Tom Parker (1909-1997), Elvis Presley's lifelong manager, includes new revelations and insights into the music industry's most notorious and mysterious manager. Investigative journalist and music writer James L. Dickerson looks at topics such as Parker's illegal entry into the United States, his work as a carny with Royal American Shows, and his management of country singer Eddy Arnold, his partnership with Hank Snow, and how he manipulated Elvis Presley and his family to seize control of the singer's career, destroying career in the process..

The book, which covers Parker's life and career from birth to his death, examines Parker's greed, his indebtedness to behind-the-scenes players in Las Vegas, his gambling addiction, and his fear of deportation played a role in ruining Elvis's career. Because Colonel Parker was always there with Elvis, gazing ominously over his shoulder, the book presents behind-the-scenes glimpses of the entertainer's career that you will read nowhere else, thanks in part to the author's personal and professional relationship with Elvis's first guitarist, Scotty Moore, with whom the author wrote two revealing books.

Hollywood superstar Nicole Kidman, a breathtaking beauty and versatile performer, is ranked by most movie insiders as one of the top actresses of her generation. But, for years, her professional success was offset by her mother's battle with breast cancer and a shattering divorce from Tom Cruise, with whom she had adopted two children.

The divorce turned her world upside down. She eventually landed on her feet, but the years in between were chaotic and marked by poor relationship and career choices.

Born in Hawaii and raised in Australia, Nicole was an awkward child who did not blossom until her teen years. Supported by activist parents (her father is a well-known psychologist in Australia) she quickly became an award-winning ing nue in Australia. Her role in the acclaimed thriller Dead Calm grabbed the attention of moviegoers as well as that of Tom Cruise, who asked her to audition for his upcoming film, Days of Thunder.

By the 1990s, Tom and Nicole had married and Nicole was appearing in one movie after another. Her breakthrough role came in 1995 with To Die For, in which she played the role of a television weathergirl who kills her husband. Several releases later she co-starred with Tom in the sexual psychodrama, Eyes Wide Shut, directed by the legendary film director Stanley Kubrick. The film generated a firestorm of publicity, primarily because of its graphic sexual content. With shocking insight, this book takes you behind the scenes while the movie was being made.

For two of her recent films, Paperboy and Fur, Nicole returned to two of her favorite themes--infidelity and sexual exhibitionism. Both films brought comparisons to two cutting-edge relationship stories, To Die For and Eyes Wide Shut.

After a string of disastrous relationships, including romances with rapper Q-Tip and musician Lenny Kravitz-she fell in love with country star Keith Urban and they married in 2006 after a courtship of about a year. She had a child with Keith and then had a second daughter with the help of a surrogate mother. Today they live in Nashville, Tennessee, far away from the glitter of Hollywood.

For over one hundred years, Memphis, Tennessee, has been the center of musical innovation for American popular music. From W. C. Handy to Alberta Hunter and Lil Hardin Armstrong, in the early years, to B. B. King in the late 1940s, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis in the 1950s, to Otis Redding, Booker T. and the MGs, and Al Green in the 1960s and early 1970s, Memphis music sizzled with a level of creativity unrivaled in the history of American music.

For five decades of the city's marvelous music history, author James L. Dickerson was at ground zero as a Memphis journalist, magazine publisher, and radio syndication owner, who had unparalleled access to many of the music greats of the latter half of the century.

Originally published as Goin' Back to Memphis, this book was a finalist for the prestigious Gleason Award, previously given out annually by Rolling Stone magazine, BMI, and New York University. Memphis Going Down is an expanded and updated edition with additional text and photos.

Memphis Going Down is told in the words of the record producers, performers, and songwriters themselves as they reflect on their lives and music and its impact on popular culture. You'll hear legendary record producers such as Chips Moman, Willie Mitchell, Sam Phillips, and Jim Stewart talk about the ups and downs of the industry. And you'll hear the artists themselves: Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Al Green, Bobby Womack, B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Rufus Thomas, members of the Box Tops, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds go one-on-one with the author in an effort to understand the mysteries of Memphis music.

Chips Moman's genius began in the studio, where he instituted technical innovations that forever changed the recording industry, but it expanded from there with an uncanny ability to recognize hit songs when he heard them as rough demos, and then blossomed with an unsurpassed string of hit records. He rescued Elvis Presley's career with his recordings of Suspicious Minds and In the Ghetto, and he provided Willie Nelson with one of his most memorable signature songs, Always on My Mind. Not bad for a Georgia country boy who dropped out of school in the eighth grade and hitchhiked to Memphis in search of the American Dream.

I think the Chips Moman story has provided me with the best book I have written since Colonel Tom Parker, which was purchased by Warner Bros. for its Elvis film starring Tom Hanks, says author James L. Dickerson. I anticipate great interest in a movie based on Moman's story. Small wonder. He has been called the Steve McQueen of the music business.'

By any measure-sales, multi-genre capability, number of hit records, technical innovation, artistry, etc.-Lincoln Chips Moman was the most important record producer in American history. With several hundred hits to his credit in pop, country, rhythm & blues, and rock, both from record production and songwriting, Chips Moman is legendary within the music industry. This biography is the story of his life.

Early on, Chips Moman was a co-founder of Memphis's Stax Records, along with Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton. Moman found the location for the studio, organized the recording system, recruited the early talent and produced the legendary soul music record label's first two hits-Gee Whiz by Carla Thomas and Last Night, an instrumental by the Mar-Keys. As a record producer, he rescued Elvis Presley's career with hits such as Suspicious Minds, In the Ghetto, and Kentucky Rain. He produced music icons such as Petula Clark and Dionne Warwick. In rock and pop he is associated with the Gentrys (Keep on Dancing), the Box Tops (The Letter), Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline, Sandy Posey (Born a Woman and Single Girl ), Paul Revere & The Raiders (Goin' to Memphis), Dusty Springfield (Son of a Preacher Man), Ringo Starr (an unreleased album which the author listened to and considers among Ringo's best; the album ended up in a celebrated court case); B.J. Thomas (Hooked on a Feeling, The Eyes of a New York Woman, and (Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.

In country music, he produced Willie Nelson's Always on My Mind and numerous other albums; he originated the super group the Highwaymen (Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kristofferson) and produced two of their three albums; Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard (Pancho & Lefty), plus albums with Tammy Wynette, Gary Stewart, Brenda Lee and others. Moman also recorded a country album, as of now unreleased, with actor Robert Duvall, who got permission from Moman to use him as a model for the character he played in Tender Mercies, a role for which he was awarded an Oscar.

Long before Covid-19 ever terrorized the American public there was an even more insidious disease called Yellow Fever that brought America to its knees-and it is today threatening a deadly comeback thanks to the acceleration of climate change.

In a vividly told narrative, filled with poignant and graphic scenes culled from historical archives, James L. Dickerson, author of Cirrhosis: An Essential Guide for the Newly Diagnosed and Inside America's Concentration Camps: Two Centuries of Internment and Torture, recounts the history in this investigative book of one of the most feared diseases in American history. From the late 18th to the early 20th century, yellow fever killed Americans by the tens of thousands in the Northeast and throughout the South.

Especially devastated by yellow fever were Mississippi, New Orleans, and Memphis, Tennessee.

In Memphis alone, five thousand people died in 1878. Dickerson describes how public health officials gradually eliminated the disease from this country, so that by the mid-1950s it had ceased to be of much concern to the public at large. However, to this day no cure has been found.

As a mosquito-borne viral infection, yellow fever is impervious to antibiotics, and it continues to wreak havoc in parts of South America and Africa. Focusing on the present, Dickerson discusses the potential threat of yellow fever as a biological warfare agent in the hands of terrorists. Also of concern to public health researchers is the effect of global warming on mosquito populations. Even a one-to-two degree warming enables disease-bearing mosquitoes to move into areas once protected by colder weather. He concludes with a discussion of current precautionary efforts based on interviews with experts and analysis of available studies. Both absorbing history and a timely wake-up call for the present, Yellow Fever is fascinating and important reading.

March 29, 2023, marks the 50^th anniversary of the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. It hardly seems possible that it has been nearly 50 years since the Vietnam War was at its zenith. In 1998 author James L. Dickerson went to Canada to meet with and interview Americans who had gone to Canada in opposition to the war in Vietnam. This is a revised and updated edition of the book that was published in 1999, made even more poignant by the realization that today America's crumbling democracy is likely to send a new wave of Americans to Canada in search of freedom and a better way of life.

At the time of the Vietnam War, if you had asked those who fought against the war-and those who fought in the war-if the day would ever come when it would cease to matter, you would have been greeted with derisive laughter. The Vietnam War, whether you were for it or against it, is who we were then -and still are today, if you are old enough to remember it. In this new updated and revised edition of this American-Canadian history book, author Dickerson answers the question: whatever happened to the men and women who went to Canada?

Incredibly, only 7 million of Canada's current 38 million population are of an age to have any memory of the thousands of American war resisters and deserters who fled to Canada during the Vietnam War. That's because, according to Statistics Canada, 31 million Canadians living today were born after 1957, too young to have been influenced by the arrival of Vietnam War resisters.

That is of current interest because of the belief of many political observers that disillusioned Americans will once again flood into Canada in the years ahead as American democracy is threatened by those who strive to install an authoritarian style of government in the United States similar to those that rule Russia, China, and North Korea. If that happens, Canada will be one of the few democracies left in the world. Ironically there may come a time when the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of American war resisters may be called to fight a war against an authoritarian Dis-United States of America in need of Canada's natural resources.

With contextual information regarding the polices of both the U.S. and Canadian governments toward the war and its resisters, Dickerson offers evidence that a generation of America's best and brightest was lost to Canada. His inclusion of female resisters contributes a new perspective to the debate that continues to rage almost 50 years after the last American troops in Vietnam were sent home to an ungrateful nation to resume their lives amid the destruction caused by the war.

Racism and xenophobia have long challenged democracy, a battle played out dramatically in the concentration camps built, staffed, and filled with adults and children under the orders of the U.S. Government. The camps first appeared in the nineteenth century with the imprisonment of Native Americans, then returned during World War II with the roundup of Japanese Americans (most of them citizens of the United States), German Americans, Italian Americans, and Jews fleeing the cruelty and death camps associated with Nazi Germany.

The issue resurfaced during the George Bush administration with the construction of twenty-two new concentration camps and secret plans to build up to 800 additional facilities. And the policy continued during the Donald Trump administration which has imprisoned tens of thousands of Hispanic refugees fleeing persecution in their homelands. Especially heinous has been the Trump Administration's willingness to imprison thousands of children in horrendous conditions in which the children are often deprived of humane living conditions, receiving inadequate food and water, crowded living conditions, and substandard medical treatment. American families treating their children in this manner would quickly find themselves in prison.

Inside America's Concentration Camps explores the history and tragedy of the camps in a vivid narrative that brings the victims' stories to life and the flaws of our government in focus. Based on interviews and extensive research, the book is an investigative history that exposes the erosion of democracy in America and calls upon ordinary Americans to take their country back to its glory days as a fearless defender of individual freedom.

The winner of the 2006 IPPY Award for best non-fiction book from the South (presented by the Independent Publishers Association), the Mojo Triangle tells the true story--at long last--of the birth of the blues, rock 'n' roll, country and jazz

Draw a straight line from New Orleans to Nashville, then over to Memphis and back down to New Orleans, following the curves of the Mississippi River, and you have the Mojo Triangle, a phrase coined by the author in the early 2000's.

So much of what has been written about the music of the South is untrue, says Dickerson. I wanted to set the record straight and put the development of the music in perspective. The Mojo Triangle is a land area in which all of America's original roots music was created: country, blues, jazz, and rock 'n' roll. How did this music come about? What is there about the Mojo Triangle that has contributed to the creation of so much original music?

The book points out that although the music itself was created in the geographical area defined by the Mojo Triangle, the two portals through which the various musical components entered and then morphed into the finished products were Natchez, Mississippi and Nashville, Tennessee, with the Natchez Trace serving as the main artery.

Based on interviews with the recording artists, musicians, producers and songwriters who created and performed the music, it traces the development of the music from the early 1800s up to the present day.

There is probably no author in history who has interviewed as many music legends and musicians as the author--and the reader benefits from that experience in a big way. Among the music legends who participate are: Al Green, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, Carl Perkins, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Chet Atkins, Ike Turner, Jack Clement, Marty Stuart, Mose Allison, Rita Coolidge, Roy Orbison, Scotty Moore, Tammy Wynette, Vince Gill, Waylon Jennings, Garth Brooks, Chips Moman, Billy Sherrill, Bobby Blue Bland, Jimme Vaughan, Willie Mitchell, Booker T. & the MGs, Bobby Womack, Estelle Axton, Dave Edmunds, Pinetop Perkins, Bobbie Gentry, and the list goes on and on.

This incredible book, which contains rare photographs, some of which were taken by the author himself, not only allows the music greats themselves to express themselves about the music they made famous, it explains for the first time the development of America's music.

The African-American struggle for freedom has brought attention to the violence that historically has terrorized the descendants of slaves for generations. The beatings, the lynching, shootings, the rapes, have occurred all across America, but nowhere have they been more notorious than in the State of Mississippi. And nowhere have the perpetrators of such violence been granted such long-standing immunity to prosecution than in Mississippi.

Devil's Sanctuary examines the shocking history of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a secret spy agency that operated as a secret police agency, the racist leanings of state institutions and the news media, the state's use of waterboarding to get convictions from blacks who refused to confess, and the deplorable actions of the state's churches, some of which provided hit men to the KKK-all in the name of preventing blacks from voting and having a say in government. Mississippi, which has the largest percentage of blacks of any state in the union, has made some progress, such as the 2020 decision to remove the Confederate flag from the state flag, but one thing has not changed: Mississippi whites have blocked Mississippi blacks from holding any statewide office for 145 years. Because presidential elections in Mississippi are winner take all, votes cast by blacks are turned over to white Electoral College members to cast for the candidate of their choice. Just imagine being black and having your vote for president not counted for over 100 years.

The authors of this book, the late Alex A. Alston, a former president of the Mississippi Bar Association, and James L. Dickerson, an award winning journalist, grew up together in the Mississippi Delta, witnessing the sort of crimes against black Americans chronicled in the book.

By her 30s, Natalie Portman had starred in more than three dozen films, including the Academy Award-winning Black Swan, Cold Mountain, V for Vendetta, Star Wars: Episodes I, II and III, and her first major film, The Professional. A consummate actress, she has been called the Meryl Streep of her generation.

In Natalie Portman's Stark Reality, James L. Dickerson traces Portman's early development, from her Israeli roots to her first appearance in Hollywood-and takes the reader step-by-step through her professional and personal triumphs and challenges through the first 30 years of her life and her August 2012 marriage to Benjamin Millepied.

Not only does this insightful biography look into the who, what, where and when of Natalie Portman's personal life and professional career, it also examines the all-important question of why she has made the decisions she has throughout her life.

From humble beginnings in Star, Mississippi, Faith Hill soared to the top of the country and pop charts, becoming one of the most successful female recording artists in country music history. Her albums have sold millions. Up until the end of 2000, everything she touched turned to platinum. Early in 2001 she announced that she was taking time off from her recording career to spend more time with her children and her husband, Tim McGraw. It was a fateful decision that sent her career into a decades-long tailspin. Apparently no one ever explained to her that her fans were like a river that flows to the sea. If you are a recording artist who stands on the bank as the river flows past, you cannot hope to ever regain the stardom you previously enjoyed.

This biography tells the inspirational story of the Grammy-winning singer's rise to stardom, her subsequent fall from grace, and her 20-year attempt to regain her former stardom. Drawing on interviews with Faith Hill, her childhood friends and teachers, music professionals, and fans, this intimate portrait of Faith Hill examines her adventurous Huck Finn-like childhood, her first marriage and divorce, her hardscrabble years as a struggling artist in Nashville, her love affair with the man who became her husband (country superstar Tim McGraw), her thoughts on marriage and motherhood, her heartbreaking search for her birth mother (and her subsequent death), and her triumph over her husband's secret life as an alcoholic.

Complete with photographs and insider information on the music industry, here at last is the whole story behind the life and music of Faith Hill-country music's most tenacious country superstar.

Screening applicants for adoption or foster homes has life-altering consequences for the children involved, yet there are incredibly few programs available to train screeners. The educational system that certifies thousands of social workers each year does not understand the specialized training required to screen adoptive and foster parents; social work schools provide minimal interview training and what training they do provide focuses on therapeutic interview techniques rather than screening skills. There is a clear need for a book like Adoptive and Foster Parent Screening, one that can be incorporated into course requirements and used by working social workers and psychologists involved with adoption and foster parent screening.

Screening Adoptive and Foster Parents, written by a former private and public agency social worker, who has placed hundreds of children into adoptive and foster homes, and a psychologist, meshes the best of psychology and social work experience into a definitive guide for screening adoption and foster home applicants. The book provides information on:

- evaluating aberrant behavior and unhealthy parenting attitudes among applicants

- adoptive and foster parent issues

- interview techniques

- writing home studies

- screening for male child predators

- child development, the stages

- understanding the Foster Parent Syndrome

- psychological testing

Adoptive and Foster Parent Screening is based on case histories, research data, and interpretive analysis. The book is written in an accessible style free of technical language, thus making it appropriate for college-level students and professionals who don't have time to sift through empirical data to obtain accessible information that they can adapt to their profession.

If you are a mother raising a son without a father, or a father who is no longer in the home with his son, this investigative book was written for you.

Did you know there are 5 major diseases and ailments that your son is more likely to acquire without his father (or a suitable male role model) in his life?

Did you know there are 4 characteristics that adult sons without fathers possess that put them at a disadvantage in developing relationships?

Did you know that 70 percent of the juveniles in state reform institutions nationwide grew up in father-absent homes? That percentage is an average and varies from state to state, but it does paint a disturbing picture of the overall situation. Wisconsin has one of the highest percentages of children from father-absent homes in its juvenile detention centers, an astonishing 87 percent. Texas is close behind, with 85 percent of its youthful offenders coming from fatherless homes. When individual crimes are broken down into percentages linked to father-absent homes, the figures become even more disturbing: 72 percent of adolescent murderers, 60 percent of rapists, and 70 percent of long-term prisoners grew up in father-absent homes.

The authors believe most mothers possess the skills necessary to raise healthy sons, but fail because they do not have the necessary knowledge to apply those skills. They can overcome

That deficient with effective parenting tailored to their sons' needs. The authors are convinced that most mothers want to do what is right for their sons, and if that does not always occur, it is usually because they do not always have the right information at their fingertips. Specifically, this book was written for:

- Single mothers who are raising sons without a father

- Fathers of sons who are no longer in the home

- Married parents contemplating divorce

- Mothers with sons who have remarried

- Lesbian mothers who are raising a son

- Adoptive parents who are raising a son

Sons who grow up without fathers have different needs, different experiences, and different life expectations from sons who grow up with fathers, and those differences begin in childhood and continue throughout life. Sons with fathers, absent physical or emotional abuse in the family,

usually grow up to consider the world to be a friendly place with potential for great good. Without special parenting by their mothers, sons without fathers invariably see the world as an unfriendly place with potential for great harm.

For over one hundred years, Memphis, Tennessee, was been the center of musical innovation for American popular music. From W. C. Handy to Alberta Hunter and Lil Hardin Armstrong, in the early years, to B. B. King in the late 1940s, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis in the 1950s, to Otis Redding, Booker T. and the MGs, and Al Green in the 1960s and early 1970s, Memphis music sizzled with a level of creativity unrivaled in the history of American music. With the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, the city's music industry began going down, down, down only to sputter to a halt in the mid-1970s. In the decades since only Memphis native Justin Timberlake and Memphis producer Boo Mitchell, who produced Bruno Mar's hit Uptown Funk, have been able to show glimpses of the city's past glories.

For five decades of the city's marvelous music history, author James L. Dickerson was at ground zero as a Memphis journalist, magazine publisher, and radio syndication owner, who had unparalleled access to many of the music greats of the latter half of the century.

Originally published as Goin' Back to Memphis by Simon & Schuster's music imprint, this book was a finalist for the prestigious Gleason Award, previously given out annually by Rolling Stone magazine, BMI, and New York University. Memphis Going Down is an expanded and updated edition with additional text and photos.

Memphis Going Down is told in the words of the record producers, performers, and songwriters themselves as they reflect on their lives and music and its impact on popular culture. You'll hear legendary record producers such as Chips Moman, Willie Mitchell, Sam Phillips, and Jim Stewart talk about the ups and downs of the industry. And you'll hear the artists themselves: Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Al Green, Bobby Womack, B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Rufus Thomas, members of the Box Tops, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds go one-on-one with the author in an effort to understand the mysteries of Memphis music.

A collection of stories shared by 25 country music stars in which they were embarrassed, often in the middle of a performance. Country music fans will enjoy this look at the occupational hazards of being an entertainer.

Screening applicants for adoption or foster homes has life-altering consequences for the children involved, yet there are incredibly few programs available to train screeners. The educational system that certifies thousands of social workers each year does not understand the specialized training required to screen adoptive and foster parents; social work schools provide minimal interview training and what training they do provide focuses on therapeutic interview techniques rather than screening skills. There is a clear need for a book like Adoptive and Foster Parent Screening, one that can be incorporated into course requirements and used by working social workers and psychologists involved with adoption and foster parent screening.

Adoptive and Foster Parent Screening, written by a former social worker, who has placed hundreds of children into adoptive and foster homes, and a clinical psychologist, meshes the best of psychology and social work experience into a definitive guide for screening adoption and foster home applicants. The book provides information on:

• evaluating aberrant behavior and unhealthy parenting attitudes
• interview techniques
• psychological testing.

Adoptive and Foster Parent Screening is based on case histories, research data, and interpretive analysis. The book is written in an accessible style free of technical language, thus making it appropriate for college-level students and professionals who don't have time to sift through empirical data to obtain accessible information that they can adapt to their profession.

In Dixie Chicks: Down-Home and Backstage, James L. Dickerson tells the behind-the-scenes story of the band, drawing from interviews with former band members, scores of insiders, and the band's enormous Internet fan base. This book recounts the early struggles to make it in the male-dominated country music world, the sometimes-fun and sometimes-wild adventures of life on the road, and the intimate details of the Chicks' evolution from bluegrass purists to country-pop divas.