Bøger af Mike Palecek

The American Vision. The American Journey.Land of Liberty.The Commies are Coming. The Commies are Coming! The Criminals Are Coming!The Terrorists Are Coming! Big Bees!It's that time of year again.Time for the release of the new sophomore textbook, American History 101, complete with brand new sub-title.But something is different this year.Sales are down and a major publishing industry magazine has shouted "Print Is Dead!"How can that be? Nickostatos Greenberg is the latest in the long line of family members to head the publishing house Beantree Barkham Bagnor ... Kruszynianys, the big employer in the small town of New Town.Nickostatos has to fi gure out a way to jazz up the new book and sell some history in order to pass down a successful legacy to his children.He's ready to try anything, even something drastic.The naming of the sophomore American History 101 textbook sub-title is one of the big events of book season in New Town.What can he do?What would make history interesting?Tell the truth?

Mike Palecek's new novel Speak English tells what happened when some rowdy teenagers encountered an alien, somewhere around 1970. Why did they shoot it? What were the consequences? Was it really an alien, or maybe a mental patient?How did this incident affect these three when they grew up? Did they ever meet another alien?To find out, read Speak English. Buy it here or get the ebook athttps: //www.smashwords.com/books/view/541

Johnny Moon represents a new direction for Mike Palecek. Straying from his traditional emphasis on present-day or near-future adult protagonists who end up in prison when they refuse to kowtow to the powers that be, Palecek's new novel features Johnny Moon, a likable 1963 schoolkid. Johnny, his schoolmates, Sister Mark and the other faculty, and a couple of workmen one of whom has been living in the basement of the Catholic school. The unlikely cast of characters are involved in an even more unlikely scenario: the boiler may actually be a time machine, the nuns aliens, and President Kennedy's death may not have been the act of a lone Communist gunman. Reality mixes with the absurd and it's often hard to tell the difference.Johnny didn't set out to be the leader of an underground club. He just wanted to win a physical fitness award and maybe he would get to go to the moon. The President had caught his imagination and that of the whole country. It was a magical time when it seemed that anything could happen, and probably would. Americans would lead the whole world into a wonderful new age of freedom and prosperity for everyone.Or not. The privileged and corrupt few who really run the world were just not going to let that happen. And those who saw, who realized there was something ugly underneath the facade--those people had best keep out of sight, keep their mouths shut, hear nothing, just like those famous monkeys. Because if they did see, hear, or speak of evil, it just might come to visit them and they would probably not survive the encounter.All this is not what Mike says in his new book. Not exactly. Certainly not explicitly. But it's what I got out of the highly disturbing experience of reading it. The first thing I told my friends who asked what I thought of Johnny Moon was that I thought I liked it. They said, "You thought...you aren't sure?" And I told them that when I got to the end I didn't feel sure of much of anything anymore. I wasn't completely sure what happened, in the book or while I was reading it. I had somehow gotten lost in that space between conscious and unconscious, reality and surreality. It was as if I'd returned to the sixties in my own time machine, and anything was possible again. But the evil ones were not hiding any more as they did then. The evil was in plain sight for anyone who allowed themselves to see.Johnny Moon is frightening and enchanting, fringe and mainstream, young and old, crazy and sane. It's maddening and frustrating and I'm very glad I read it.

The Revolution will not be planned in the checkout line at Walmart or in the line to punch out on Friday afternoon, or at happy hour.The Revolution will be born at TWO A.M. in a group home in Minneapolis by young people who are not stupid, who know what's going on ... who are brave, and loving and fearful and with bills to be paid and routines that need to be maintained and all that you are ... but these people ... they chose to do something.Join them.

The Battle of Bumfuck, Iowa is over.The paper mache lions' heads and farm house are smoking. The holsteins are lying dead and the gold finches hum "I dreamed I saw Joe Hill ..."Lara, Kaitylyn and Jim have been captured and put in prison, and now Korey, trying to get them out, is also arrested. ... How will the CRUSHER rebellion against The United States of America continue, as it must? Korey is interrogated, tortured by his C.I.A. captors. Reuben and Hector actually find the treasure in The Underground.Korey escapes from the C.I.A. & now meets Patrick, Henry, Washington and Jefferson. They steal squirt guns from the c-store, fill them in a most unusual way and take to hunting the C.I.A. in downtown Minneapolis. Billy escapes momentarily from the Bumfuck mental hospital and is taken on the scenic route by a few out of this world folks. Evey and Rachel buy a Russian Racehorse, Brooke The Spy and her film crew head out to destroy Beaver Cleaver Land, can't find it, and all are re-routed to Oz ... Irving, Kansas, and as they say in Hollywood, the fight goes on ...

Turn the other way today, on your way to work, and join the revolution. Come along with Lara, Jim, Kaitylyn, Korey, Brooke, Evey, Hector, Reuben and the rest as they go way against the grain. These young people work at a Twin Cities group home. They have almost no money and no hope. They have no health care, no job security, minimum wage. They are not stupid. They know why. And one day they decide they're not going to take it any longer. Basta.Geronimo, Gerry is one of the residents of the group home. He loves wrestling, watches it every week on TV. He calls himself The Crusher.Gerry works at the program center where many of the group home staff also have second jobs. Gerry's job is shredding paper and one day he finds an old airplane ticket. He's not supposed to, but he puts it in his pocket and keeps it. The ticket is from American Airlines, 9/11/01.The word gets out about the ticket and Gerry is invited to be a guest on the local live radio show, The Prince Hope Show.Not long after, Gerry is dead.The group home workers think they know who killed Gerry and why.They talk about it all night long, all week long, for many weeks.They organize the CRUSHER rebellion, Geronimo's Revenge.They are going to fight back, against the CIA, the FBI, The Army, Navy, the police.Because it's about time somebody did.

Red White and his dog, BlueKicking around a small town, your town, my town, not trying to stir things up, just trying to live free, think free, be free.And as always happens, when someone does that, there is going to be trouble.Homeland SecurityWouldn't it be nice?Isn't that what we all want?Just to be home.Be safe.Be happy and have our loved ones be the same.But it's the world and we are people and this is life.And it ain't never gonna happen.A Reporter's LifeIt ain't bad.Get paid for doing what you want to do anyway.Making a difference maybe and getting paid for it and pretty much having a fun day all week long.And there's thoughtful, educated people you might meet in your office and you prob'ly will get to go places and talk to people you wouldn't otherwise.And you can write about anything. In America nobody tells you not to write about anything.You can write about anything.You really can.Go ahead, write about anything.RebellionIt's in the heart. It's there.It pounds. It pumps.It's there.You feel it.Sit quietly. Don't talk. Listen.It's right.There.

This book is based on The First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, written by Rasmus Anderson in 1895. He was spellbound by tales his neighbors told about their pioneer life. He was the first professor of Scandinavian Studies anywhere in the United States. As old pioneers were dying off, he began a letter writing campaign to ask them to write down their memories. Anderson added excerpts of old interviews of pioneers from Billet-Magazin. This book, The First Norwegian Settlements in America is an abridged version of Anderson's book. The sequence has completely changed. Additional research has been added. Photos from the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library and public domain sources have added to more richly illustrate and add meaning to this work. If we want to understand our Norwegian-American roots, it is important to learn about our immigrant ancestors. Hopefully, this book will help broaden your understanding of your Nordic heritage.

You never knew if the person next door was a hero; a Norwegian resistance fighter.The hero next door could be a teenager going with his dad to steal grain from a Nazi train, in order to feed refugees. It could be a girl who hid underground messages in her instrument case, while going by bike to a violin lesson. It could be the fisherman down the street, rowing a boat full of grenades, with a German U-boat captain sitting on the seat which was hiding them. Many Norwegians risked their lives to thwart the Nazis who were occupying their country. These are their true stories.These twenty eyewitness accounts were originally collected from Sons of Norway members by District 5 Cultural Director, Jean Bittner. We hope these accounts help you remember the acts of bravery that everyday heroes made in Norway during World War II.