Larry Farmer

Jericho, just out of the Marines, returns to his roots in Texas only to face the anti-war movement that demonizes all Vietnam vets. He needs to sort through his life away from all that, and in his travels he stumbles upon a Shangri-La called the Lake District of England. There is peace and serenity around those lakes. And a girl-a beautiful, soulful girl he meets while working in the restaurant of a luxury hotel. Gail is deep and intellectual, a mother-earth type who gives him peace inside. But when the Yom Kippur War breaks out in Israel, he abruptly leaves her and goes to help the beleaguered Jewish state while seeking his Jewish identity. Yet neither Jericho nor Gail could ever forget the depth of their love... Will meeting again, years later, resolve the feelings that never left them?

Ex-Marine Nathan, too restless for college and everyday life at home, craves the adventure of backpacking around the world. Michaela, daughter of a Holocaust survivor, shares his love of backpacking and moving on. As they leave a kibbutz in Israel, they join forces to explore Europe before returning to their studies. Is it a match made in heaven? Whether they will ever settle down, as the love they share demands, is the question. Could it be that the only adventure that really matters after all is the rest of their lives together?

Role of a Lifetime is the story of the crucial role Larry Farmer played on teams that won three NCAA titles for UCLA under Coach John Wooden. Farmer’s record at UCLA was 89–1, the greatest winning percentage in NCAA history. (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was 88–2.) Role of a Lifetime also details how Farmer, a self-taught player from the playgrounds of Denver, managed to secure a full scholarship, make the varsity team as a sophomore, and ultimately become the head basketball coach at UCLA at the age of 30—the first black head coach for any sport at UCLA. The book chronicles the reactions of black leaders to his role as the first black head coach, as well as the inside politics that led him to resign after three years as coach, just days after accepting a two-year extension. Farmer also shares new insights about UCLA athletic booster Sam Gilbert and his role in the team’s NCAA probation. Farmer’s insider perspective during UCLA basketball’s most fabled period, combined with his natural ability to relate entertaining and informative anecdotes about legendary figures such as John Wooden, Bill Walton, Jamaal Wilkes, Reggie Miller, and many other famous players and coaches from throughout the world of college basketball, makes Role of a Lifetime a must-have for all Bruin fans and fans of basketball everywhere!

Elon loved traveling the world. The complexity of being a Marine from Texas and of the sixties generation stirred a curiosity that led him to Taiwan, a small Chinese island. Life in a country that spoke a language he would never understand, one with an exotic history and culture, where he found himself broke and needing a job while surviving a near-death experience, fit the bill for his adventurous spirit. But nothing enticed him like meeting Brigitte, the Belgian model and agent, a survivor herself, who took him under her wing and successfully promoted his talents. Their experiences together seemed a destiny. "I will survive" was the life they took for granted.

It was a new age, one called the Age of Aquarius, with a restless, ideological generation full of a reverence for new worlds opening up to new ideas. When the Beatles introduced the mystique of India to pop culture, the Hippie Trail was established as hip adventurers traveled overland from Europe to Kathmandu and India. Hunter was not among these hipsters. Still bitter over the way he was treated as a Marine combat veteran home from the Vietnam War, he felt the allure of the open road in America and in Europe. While getting visas in Vienna, he came across a Polish girl, Ewa, whose Politburo father got her unequal privileges she gladly abused to join Hunter on the trek to India to check out the new-age ashrams. Shared experiences and hardships bonded them, but Cold War politics made falling in love the worst hardship of all.

Following his stint as a Marine during the Vietnam war, James needs something beyond the mundane conformity of his life in Vicksburg, Mississippi. As he enters the Peace Corps, a political reformer named Benigno Aquino is gunned down in the turbulent Philippines, half a world away. James has no idea fate will interweave events for him to witness the overthrow of a dictatorship and the miracle of a bloodless revolution. Lois has joined the Peace Corps to explore the world outside her staid Ohio upbringing. As a teacher in a remote village she totes her own household water from a distant source, learns to accept locals wandering through her hut at all hours, and even becomes accustomed to gunfire in the jungle night. But when the visit of a suspected spy to her village threatens their lives, she and her friend James must make a decision of lasting import.