We all carry emotional baggage, and how we handle it can make or break us in the end. Sometimes, our baggage is so heavy, it creates a burden and we feel cursed. But sometimes, if we let things play out with open hearts and minds, what initially seems like a burden or curse ends up being a blessing.

Riley McGavran is a retired game warden and Vietnam veteran coping with alcoholism, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder. As if that's not enough, he recently learned that an old friend is dying from cancer-so he decides to drive from California to Idaho to visit him.

While traveling, Riley picks up a hitchhiker named Abilene Kirkpatrick, who is headed to her ailing mother's bedside in Montana. Riley is intrigued by her atypical beauty and excited by the prospects of the journey. But his simple act of kindness opens into a nightmare, and the unlikely pair is dragged through ordeal after ordeal, pitted against ruthless criminals, corrupt forces, and each other's demons-including Riley's Vietnam flashbacks.

A thoughtful, intelligent, and literary look at the mixed bag of life, "Double-Ought Buck" tells an unforgettable love story against the backdrop of a thrilling adventure.

This duck hunter knows how to tell a story From a young boy shivering in the rain on his first hunt, all the way to suffering the loss of lifelong hunting pals, Don E. Webster embraces almost 60 years of waterfowling. Penned with a style and flair that brings to mind outdoor legends such as Corey Ford, Robert Ruark, and Ed Zern, this collection of duck hunting memories brims with sly humor, salty wit, and poignant reflection. "Bury Me In My Waders" will charm and captivate you while tickling your funny bone at the same time. "My wife claims to have figured out why I hunt ducks. According to her, there's something in my chemistry that drives me to seek masochistic pleasure by exposing myself to bad weather occurring in cold, wet, muddy places. She is of the opinion that I should be studied by behavioral scientists." "Like myself, my lifelong pals who are still above ground have slowed way down. We suffer from hardening of the arteries, arthritis, rheumatism, lumbago, and gout, not to mention nicotine withdrawal and a leathery liver. Trinidad cigars and Napoleon Cognac are now only fond memories, having been replaced by Watkins Liniment and green, vitamin smoothies."

In April 1994 Rwanda exploded in violence, with political, social, and economic divisions most visible along ethnic lines of the Hutu and Tutsi factions. The ensuing killings resulted in the deaths of as much as 20 percent of Rwanda's population. Andre Guichaoua, who was present as the genocide began, unfolds a complex story with multiple actors, including three major political parties that each encompassed a spectrum of positions, all reacting to and influencing a rapidly evolving situation. Economic polarities, famine-fueled privation, clientelism, corruption, north-south rivalries, and events in the neighboring nations of Burundi and Uganda all deepened ethnic tensions, allowing extremists to prevail over moderates. Guichaoua draws on years of meticulous research to describe and analyze this history. He emphasizes that the same virulent controversies that fueled the conflict have often influenced judicial, political, and diplomatic responses to it, reproducing the partisan cleavages between the former belligerents and implicating state actors, international institutions, academics, and the media. Guichaoua insists upon the imperative of absolute intellectual independence in pursuing the truth about some of the gravest human rights violations of the twentieth century.