Tom and Tina meet on a beach in Golden Shore, a college town in Southern California. The time is 1970, a year after the lunar landing and Kent State shootings. He is a Vietnam veteran working in aerospace but thinking about returning to school for a degree in English, so he can become a writer. Tom is newly sober but still haunted by the demons of Vietnam. Tina is entering her senior year of college and about to begin her student teaching. Her parents and divorced and she is estranged from her playboy father. Tom and Tina meet when her rolled-up towel is tossed like a football from friend to friend. The towel flies over the boardwalk railing and plunges down to strike Tom unawares. He rolls on the sand and starts to take aim with the assault rifle he no longer carries. Tom sees Tina rushing up to apologize. The whole world slows as they meet, eye to eye, with the attraction between them palpable and immediate. Will Tom get the offer from the university and move here? Will he be able to stay sober and conquer his flashbacks? Will Tina finally be able to let a man get past her defenses? Can they make it as a couple? Genesis of Love is set in a time of great social change, including the Free Love Movement and Student Demonstrations, with events of great historical importance, like the Vietnam War and Apollo 11. It was an Age of Innocence, before the term PTSD had even been coined, when people still believed in education and the power of love to redeem a human soul. J.R. Fisher, or just plain Jim, is also the author of The Adventures of J.R. Engels in the Great Pacific Northwest, a rollicking romp through the Olympic Mountains in the State of Washington, in which J.R. learns to fish for salmon and poach elk, while encountering Vampires and Sasquatch.

See Spot Smile: A Proper Grammar for Every Dick and Jane This collection of humorous poetry runs the gamut from "groaners," like puns, to the wit and sophistication of Shakespeare. The poet, J.R. Fisher, claims to have invented the "sonnette," whose pure form is a fourteen-word joke arranged vertically on the page. The internet has proven to be a great source for these simple poems. Along with others in the collection, "Proper Grammar" and "See Dick See Jane" will transport the reader back to school days. Other sure favorites will be "Loin Cloth" and "The Less than Divine Comedy." The reader is also sure to enjoy "Psychoglycemia," written for oversexed chocolate addicts. For those who are "humor challenged," many of the poems are annotated, so you don't miss the point of the joke. For example, "Confucius say that time flies like a banana, but fruit flies like a banana" is fully explained. Jim, or J.R. as he is known in literary circles, is often the comic relief in local open mic readings. He is often quoted as saying, If I can't motivate them or get them to think, perhaps I can make them laugh. Enjoy the book

HAVING RECEIVED disturbing news from his physician, seventy-year-old Frank Hessel agonizes over how best to tell Sarah, his long-term girlfriend. Not wanting to be a burden, he finally decides to break up with her, to set her free, just when they are finally able to be a true couple after years of limited time together. Before he can act, Frank runs into his childhood friend and rival, Carl, who has moved back to Happy Valley following the death of his wife. Frank is a devout Catholic while Carl was raised Lutheran, and they always enjoyed a friendly rivalry. Carl tells Frank that someone else from their childhood has also returned, Jonathan Green-part of the last Jewish family in the valley. Old friendships, ancient rivalries, and human greed and prejudice threaten to tear apart the idyllic peace of Happy Valley.

The poems in Around the World on a Metaphor are inspired by travel and by coming home. Three parts of this collection are from previous chapbooks, locally produced and distributed. Most of the poems have not been seen outside the State of Washington. They represent twenty years of writing and teaching and traveling, sometimes all three together done together. Part I is based on teaching in China for three months in 2002 as the exchange professor from Peninsula College in Port Angeles, Washington. Part II is from a vacation in 2008 that included Amsterdam, Cairo and two cruises on the Nile. The poems in Part III were inspired in 1999 by one of my colleagues, Alice Derry, specifically her book of poetry about her relatives in East Germany, Strangers to Their Courage, whose influence then resulted in a trip to Germany, land of my ancestors. Part IV is all new poems, based on my recent diagnosis with cancer. Had it not been for the immediacy of my current situation, this book might never have come into existence. The overriding metaphor here is that life is a journey from East to West, from Sunrise to Sunset. Given the nature of Part IV, it is a work in progress and will remain that way up to the very end, but this book calls out to be published, so it does end on a final note that was written very early in the process. See you on the other side ...

1883. This volume embraces a discussion of the evidences of both natural and revealed religion. Prominence is given to topics having special interest at present from their connection with modern theories and difficulties. The argument of design, and the bearing of evolutionary doctrine on its validity, are fully considered. it is made clear that no theory of evolution which in not pushed to the extreme of materialism and fatalism, dogmas which lack all scientific warrant, weakens the proof from final causes.