Yardbird Catalog by Author

 

A Knife All Blade

by Joao Cabral de Melo Neto

Translated into English by Kerry Shawn Keys. "Certainly one of the most brilliant poems ever written and, without doubt, the Brazilian classic of the 20th century." 0-930502-10-9 / Pbk. / $10 OUT OF STOCK


"Poems voiced with light, darkness and hints of eroticism." 24 pages. 0-9620251-9-4 / Pbk./ acid-free paper / $9.95
OUT OF STOCK


Soon Found, Soon Lost

A novel
by Elizabeth Ferber

  

"A young Maine woman travels to Africa in search of her father, discovering a wealth of cultural surprises." 160 pages. 1-882611-03-9 / Pbk. / acid-free paper / $11.95
IN STOCK
 
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Plant Voices

Poetry by Gary Fincke
"These poems pay attention to the speech and gestures of steelworkers, coal miners, and factory employees. They include the wives and children of these men, bristling with heritage and family. Plant Voices amplifies the figurative language of wildflowers and mills, listening closely to the messages of these varied 'plants.'" 64 pages. 0-9620251-4-3 / Pbk. / acid-free paper / $7.95
IN STOCK
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Pow Wows,
or The Long Lost Friend

Folklore
by John George Hohman
"The long-suppressed, reviled and revered Pennsylvania-German folk-healing classic. First published by the author in 1820. With an up-to-date introduction." Second Yardbird printing. 70 pages. 0-9620251-5-1 / Pbk. / acid-free paper / $15
OUT OF STOCK

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"Poems from a very hard street. Kearns immortalizes the voiceless and the weird, while damning the culture that produces them. But there is also humor and fears, wisdom and light, flowers and steel in his creative equation." 49 pages / 1-879294-03-6 / Pbk. / acid-free paper / $10
OUT OF STOCK

Helping Hands

Nonfiction
by William Keisling

 

 

"For hundreds of years American politicians have relied on a peculiar institution -- political patronage -- to place family and supporters in government jobs. In 1990 an obscure United States Supreme Court decision outlawed most patronage. Pennsylvania politicians elected to ignore the decision, and kept hiring friends and family into government agencies like the Pennsylvania turnpike. State employees responded by filing several federal lawsuits to stop the practice.

In Helping Hands, writer William Keisling relates what happened when he was asked to serve as an expert witness in one of these suits brought by a turnpike employee. You don't have to look too far to realize the stakes are high for the continuance of political patronage. 142 pages. 1-882611-10-1/Pbk, / acid-free paper / $11.95

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Maybe Four Steps

Nonfiction
by William Keisling
"An unauthorized biography of former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh. Maybe Four Steps first appeared in Pennsylvania twenty-five days before Thornburgh lost his bid to a senate seat. Rather than working toward a justice system that would serve as a model of fairness, Keisling writes, Thornburgh devoted his energies to denigrating the American justice system into an enforcement arm of a political party." 151 pages. 0-9620251-8-6/Cloth; acid-free paper / $16.95 -51-7-8 / Pbk, / acid-free paper / $9.95
OUT OF STOCK


 

The Midnight Ride
of Jonathan Luna

Nonfiction
by William Keisling

      "Shortly before midnight, young Assistant United States Attorney Jonathan Luna vanishes from his desk in the federal courthouse in downtown Baltimore. Without explanation he mysteriously drives away from his office in the courthouse, away from his life, embarking on a wildly improbable midnight ride.
      "The next morning, shortly before dawn, Luna’s body is found face down in a cold stream outside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He’s been stabbed thirty-six times, once for every thousand dollars missing from a courthouse safe. His car idles beside him at the side of the murmuring creek. He’s seventy miles from his office, at the far end of a midnight ride that carried him across four states.
      "In The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna, writer William Keisling reconstructs the last hours in the life of an American public servant. It’s a shocking, true-life, murder mystery whodunit that you’ll never forget." 515 pages / 1-882611-18-7 / Pbk. / acid-free paper / $20.00 Read more >>

NOW IN STOCK Fourth printing available now! Includes special DVD!

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The Meltdown

A novel
by William Keisling
"When an atomic power plant runs out of control, and other reporters are busy rounding up the usual suspects, young reporter Tom Parker sees his chance to win a woman's affection. This funny, sad, romantic novel reverberates with sexual tension and nuclear paranoia. It asks the question, is true love possible in an age of PR flacks and spin doctors?" 224 pages. 0-9620251-2-7 / Cloth; acid-free paper / $14.95 -51-3-5 / Pbk. / acid-free paper / $8.95
IN STOCK

Not Fade Away

A comic novel
by William Keisling
      A boy who thinks he’s Buddy Holly reincarnated meets a general who thinks he’s been ordered to nuke the world...
      In 1959, on the day the music dies, a befuddled President Eisenhower signs a classified order meant to protect America’s biggest secrets. Decades later, at the height of the cold war, Ike’s misgiven order leads to the construction of a super computer with strange powers to stir the human heart, a machine capable of peering back into time — and ending the future.
      Preparing for nuclear war against the Russians — for one thing, they wear such cheap suits — the general in charge of the now-forgotten project retreats to an underground command center, inviting friends and family along the big blast. Soon his best-laid plans go awry. His wife, a spoiled heiress, refuses to part with her family’s fabulous collection of antique furniture. His top assistant disappears, replaced by a mysterious boy searching for lost his Stratocaster guitar.
      The boy and the general begin using the super computer to learn about each other. What they learn, and what they do, encapsulates the story of the American Century.
      Not Fade Away is a comic novel that begins as a spoof on cold-war spy novels. It soon becomes a spoof on American culture and, ultimately, a spoof on itself.
      558 pages 1-882611-13-6 quality paperback, acid-free paper / $15.00 IN STOCK

We All Fall Down

Nonfiction
by William Keisling
"In We All Fall Down, writer William Keisling tells the story of the impeachment of Pennsylvania state Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen, a once-popular Pittsburgh jurist. Keisling's account suggests that Larsen's impeachment was a blemish on democracy that should concern all Americans. Keisling describes the breakdown of nearly every democratic institution in the state that cradled American democracy." 336 pages. 1-882611-08-X / Cloth / acid-free paper / $24.00 IN STOCK

When the Levee Breaks

Nonfiction
by William Keisling
"An anonymous letter entices writer William Keisling to consider the once-idealized Pennsylvania turnpike. At America's first superhighway he finds lawbreaking, inside dealing and patronage run amok. The trail of bad or non-existent ethics and loose money leads him to Pennsylvania's state legislature, where lucrative turnpike deals are cut in return for legalized kickbacks. His examination of these deals takes him to the troubled state supreme court, where a resulting turnpike case received special treatment." 183 pages. 1-882611-01-2 / Pbk. / acid-free paper / $11.95
IN STOCK

The Sins of Our Fathers

By William Keisling
and Richard Kearns
"A fascinating, compelling account of Pennsylvania Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer's public suicide and the historical corruption of Pennsylvania's capital city." 104 pages. 0-9620251-0-0/ Pbk. / $7.95
PAPER EDITION OUT OF STOCK
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A Gathering of Smoke

Prose-Poem by
Kerry Shawn Keys
"A wildly improbable prose-poem that weaves together American images and sexual adventure with Hindu myths. The seeming chaos of A Gathering of Smoke is, in fact, an intricate personal philosophy that mirrors man's shifting perception of reality in the 20th Century." First edition from Writer's Workshop Books, Calcutta/Cloth; 232 pages/ $28; U.S. edition 0-89410-622-8 / Pbk. / 264 pages / $15.00
IN STOCK

Seams

Poems by
Kerry Shawn Keys
"Poems which stitch a bit of light into the blue space of darkness about us." 162 pages. 0-930502-05-1 / Pbk. / $12.95
IN STOCK

A Geography of Unknown Lands

Short Stories
by Michael Swanwick
" A new collection of short stories by the acclaimed science fiction writer, Michael Swanwick, including the World Fantasy Award winning novella 'Radio Waves,'the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winning story 'The Edge of the World,'and the extraordinary new story 'Mother Grasshopper' published in this volume for the first time." 154 pages. 0-931763-061 / Pbk. / acid-free paper / $12.00 / 0-931763-07X / Cloth / acid-free paper / $25.00
PAPERBACK IN STOCK
CLOTH OUT OF STOCK

Bar Harbor Police Beat

Nonfiction
by Richard Sassaman
"Long winters, poor locals, and rich summer tourists all thrown together on a Maine island make the weekly newspaper's Police Beat column entertaining reading." 160 pages. 1-882611-05-5 / Pbk. / acid-free paper / $10.95 OUT OF STOCK


No Time For Miracles

Poems by Jack Veasey
"These poems are sensitive portrayals of the struggles of the working poor, drawn from Veasey's childhood days in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. It is a neighborhood full of wonderful characters. The underlying message of his 'Poor Man's Poetry' is that 'you can be poor and have a rough life and essentially have dignity.'" 64 pages. 0-9620251-1-9 / Pbk. / acid-free paper / $6.95 IN STOCK