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Chapters and verse

By TIMES STAFF
Published December 15, 2006

Could there be a better holiday present than a book? The answer, of course, is ... sure! Of course there could be. Maybe a car, some expensive jewelry, a Nintendo Wii or a PlayStation 3? All great gifts. But cars, jewelry and video game systems are not always practical, affordable or even available. Books are all three. And Tampa, it turns out, is home to many excellent authors. We put together a sampling of books published by our hometown storytellers. Some are self-published and available online or at independent booksellers. Others are available at mega-booksellers such as Barnes & Noble and Borders. So get out there and get some books. Seriously, right now. Stop reading and get ... um ... reading.

Moondance to Eternity

by John Monaco with Sheree Slone

He is a pediatric intensive care doctor who struggled to deal with the deaths of his young patients. She is a nurse with eyes wide open to the spiritual world.

Their book, she said, was fated.

Moondance to Eternity begins with Dr. John Monaco's first night as a resident, when his first patient, an infant named Felix, dies. "I was totally unprepared yet moved by the experience," Monaco said.

Nurse Sheree Slone's personal experience with death convinced her life was eternal, changing Monaco's view from bedsides.

"Some of the things that happen at the moment that kids die - the peace and the love that's in the room is miraculous," he said.

Alexandra Zayas

Ybor City: The Making of a Landmark Town

by Frank Trebin Lastra

Lastra spent most of his life researching this, his latest book. He grew up on Ybor Street in the 1920s, in a time when the name Ybor City evoked much more than images of nightclubs and drunken revelry.

"We were not nightclub people," said Lastra, 84, of his Ybor. In his book - a 488-page history told through stories, photos, maps and lists - he invites readers to witness "some beautiful times and some bad times."

Lastra witnessed the steady decline of a once-thriving cigar industry.

But the Ybor that claimed Lastra's heart, the Ybor he doesn't want Tampa to forget, is a tight-knit, flourishing community that once was recognized as the "Cigar Capital of the World."

Erika Vidal

She Rose: on a journey from girl to Goddess

by Venus Jones

The "rose" of the title in this collection of Venus Jones' poetry is from her poem She Rose for some of my female heroes. A sampling:

A humane example, before she took a stand by keeping her seat.

She chose to fight despite the risk of a thrashed skull or dangling feet.

Rosa rose. Rosa Parks. she rose.

The poem includes other examples of what Jones calls her "sheroes," from Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman to Maya Angelou and Frida Kahlo. The resounding theme is one of empowerment.

Said Jones: "I just want women to rise up to their fullest potential."

Rick Gershman

Maggie & Max at the Museum

by Robin Robson Gonzalez, inspired by Sarah Jane Rubio

Have a pair of scissors handy for this activity book, designed to prepare youngsters for a visit to the Henry B. Plant Museum. They'll learn the building was the Tampa Bay Hotel before it became the University of Tampa. They'll read that the museum rooms are furnished just as they were when guests visited in 1895.

Use your imaginations, Grandfather tells Maggie and her brother Max. Pretend you are vacationing at the resort at the turn of the century. Paper dolls to cut out, and plants and animals to count provide hands-on history lessons.

Sarah Jane Rubio, a museum volunteer since the 1950s, brought the idea to Robin Robson

Gonzalez, past president of Tampa Preservation Inc. The character Maggie is named after Rubio's granddaughter.

Amy Scherzer

A Jewel Reclaimed

by the Chiselers

Historian Phyllis Kimbel chronicles more than $3-million of restoration work on the historic Tampa Bay Hotel, thanks to "a remarkable group of women" known as the Chiselers. The coffee table topper describes the 500-room Moorish Revival gem as it looked 100 years ago and today, as the University of Tampa. Photographs show Tampa's signature minarets, originally zinc-covered tin and now sheathed in stainless steel.

Since 1959, the Chiselers have spent as much to restore Tampa's landmark as railroad magnate Henry B. Plant did to build and furnish it. Family dedications on every page covered the printing cost and read like an old Tampa family tree.

Amy Scherzer

Conquistador

by Jack Fernandez

As a followup to his first book release, Caf Con Leche, Jack Fernandez recently published a book that serves as a prequel. Conquistador takes the reader to the Cantabrian coast of northern Spain in 1867. Fernandez lives near the Channel District and is a former chemistry instructor at the University of South Florida.

"The way I got started on all of this was that I wanted to get to talking about racism in the Latin community, which is somewhat different than what it is in the Anglo community," he said.

Conquistador features the grandparents of a character in the first book as they move from Asturias, Spain, to Cuba.

Jonathan Milton

Tulle Little, Tulle Late

by Kimberly Llewellyn

In her latest novel, Tulle Little, Tulle Late, Kimberly Llewellyn uses humor and quick wit to tell the story of Nina Robertson, a 30-year-old woman near the edge. Her fiance has broken off their engagement. Her career is going nowhere. Now her cousin is getting married - in her dream dress.

"Nina is definitely over the top," said Llewellyn. "I made her that way on purpose to sort of magnify the crazy emotions you feel when you have an early midlife crisis. I think the root of her insanity is her need for immediate gratification. She wants it all now."

The novel details the hair-raising craziness on the way to a wedding. But there's a message behind the jest. "I like to write about a woman's journey to self-fulfillment," Llewellyn said.

Meaghan Forbes

Green 61

by Cody Fowler Davis

It all started with a bottle of wine.

"A bad bottle of wine," says Cody Fowler Davis, which he and his wife, Beth, drank on the porch of their Useppa Island second home.

From there, "If you look out at the Intracoastal Waterway, you look right at marker 61," Davis said.

That's where they envisioned a boating accident that would kill two children and a legal case that would pit two attorneys against each other: one ethical, the other deliciously evil.

Hyde Park resident Davis published the legal thriller in the spring. Last weekend, he finished the sequel. "It is longer and more complex," he said. For kicks, he has included a psycho woman.

Elisabeth Dyer

Deadman's Poker and Deadman's Bluff

by James Swain

If James Swain had to wager whether the plot of his latest books might come true, he would have bet against it.

The Keystone-based novelist has been stunned to watch the unfolding of events from the summer World Series of Poker, where $2-million in chips mysteriously appeared on the tables during the second week.

"Although that's not the same (cheating) in my book, the reactions of the Gaming Control Board and the hotel are exactly what happened in my book," Swain said.

The books are the latest in Swain's series about retired cop and gambling expert Tony Valentine.

Jeff Solochek

Rave New World

by Lynne Hansen

Janice Strand hopes to sneak some education into teens' lives with her newest book. Her dark science fiction novel actually is a preparation tool for the SAT. It's something Strand, who lives in Carrollwood and writes under the name Lynne Hansen, could have used in high school.

"For a smart kid, I bombed my SAT," Strand said.

The book contains more than 1,000 SAT vocabulary words with definitions and footnotes at the bottom of the page.

The vocabulary guide is disguised in a sci-fi story. Set in future Florida where music is outlawed, Rave New World features a "cyber psychic" who tries to uncover people's hidden addictions.

Stephanie Hayes

Answers

by Joanne King

Joanne King was an IBM computer wizard with no plans to write a book. Then two stunning events showed her how fragile life can be. First, a botched surgery in New York left her paralyzed on one side and numb on the other. Then, in a lawsuit stemming from the surgery, King had to return to New York for depositions. She finished late the night of Sept. 10, 2001, and almost had to come back the next day. The building was near the World Trade Center and was heavily damaged the next day.

King's experiences started her thinking about things left unsaid when people die. Expressions of love, wisdom, faith.

Her book doesn't aim to convey those as much as it guides others to write their own, for their children.

Bill Coats

Soulmate Logic

by Kendall Smith-Sullivan

Kendall Smith-Sullivan realized she was taking a huge risk by taking time off from her job, taking out a second mortgage and pouring thousands of hours into writing and self-publishing Soulmate Logic. But she promised herself she would finish the book if she ever found a soulmate, which she did - her husband, Jim.

Sure, there are a billion relationship self-help books out there already. However, Smith-Sullivan believes this book is different. It has true stories from a divorced woman who was burned over and over, and the useful advice and exercises that worked for her.

Emily Nipps

Earnest Took It With Him

by Bonnie Thomas Birdsall

A one-time soap opera actor in Original Carrollwood is hoping to reach a younger audience with her self-published novel, Earnest Took It With Him.

Bonnie Thomas Birdsall writes of Earnest, who tries to take his money with him when he dies. Instead, the money falls back to Earth and into the hands of people in need. Earnest watches from Heaven as he "learns to share in spite of himself," Birdsall said.

Illustrated with watercolor pictures, Earnest Took It With Him is intended for second- to fifth-graders, "really a spiritual moral book for the whole family," Birdsall said. She is selling the book for $12, and a soundtrack CD for $1. Orders can be placed at swimtaichibon@juno.com or (813) 932-2398.

Amber Mobley

Bottles from the Deep

by Ellen C. Gerth

People in the Civil War slathered bear grease in their hair, fed opium to teething babies and swallowed turpentine to kill intestinal parasites.

Bottles from the Deep is full of such revelations. Ellen Gerth curates the collections of Odyssey Marine Exploration, a shipwreck recovery company that discovered the SS Republic in 2003. The paddlewheel steamer sank in 1865 in a hurricane off the Georgia coast.

When an Odyssey team used a remote-control submarine to explore the wreckage, they found a cargo of glass bottles in dozens of colors and shapes. Gerth has researched the bottles and the food, medicine and spirits they contained.

Michael A. Mohammed

[Last modified December 14, 2006, 07:44:50]