Astigirl

Far from the grown-up she thought she would be, Tweet Sering, 30 plus and tormented by a raging discontent with stale notions of how one must live, strips herself of the trappings of adulthood-her job, her savings, her insurance, and even her credit card-and resolves to begin growing up again.In this memoir that is by turns sharply funny, intelligent, outspoken, but also pained and bewildered, Tweet shows her readers how being astray can turn into being astig (tough). Her essays remind us of long, late night chats with our favorite friend, so that the substance of the go for broke account of her journey is not muddled by easy sentiment, but shines with a desire to cheer us on into our own journeys of being a tough girl. An Astigirl.

Twenty something Hilda Gallares is having a hard time navigating life after college. She's stuck in a bad relationship and a dead end job in her family's travel business. Obviously, this is not the life of travel, excitement, and sweep you off your feet romance that Hilda had always dreamed of. But after a pregnancy scare where she imagines the kind of life she might be living before she's even really LIVED, Hilda finally starts a journey to search for her ideal job, her ideal self, and her ideal man. Will she finally try her hand at being a writer, or will she slug it out as a clerk at the travel agency? And will it be the passionate French backpacker she met at Sagada or the earnest Brit she met at the bar? But more importantly, will Hilda's wandering lead her where she really wants to be?

Most of us believe in information. Some believe in truths, while others believe in magic. Information is what we can see, truth is what we feel, and magic is what we instinctively know is true. On December 4th 1981 the president of the United States issued Executive Order 12333 concerning the activities of the intelligence community. Paragraph 2.11 of that order states; "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in assassination." But upon learning of the political ties and aspirations of one charismatic young entertainer and philanthropist, certain agencies broke that order in the fall of 1996 when the star was killed in a barrage of bullets fired by a confidential informant commissioned for just such an act. After a decade of silence the files have been unsealed and the shooter will now be revealed. Some call him a hero, others say he's a villain, and some even call him a god. The White Book provides a glimpse at man's perspectives of the cultural history of the United States: assassination, government cover-ups, and his perpetual pursuit of what sets us all free: the truth.