{"title":"Michael Ostrogorsky","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the world of Michael Ostrogorsky, a captivating author known for his insightful works. Explore a collection that promises to engage and enlighten. Start your literary journey here.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"princess-witch-book-michael-ostrogorsky-9781087801261","title":"The Princess Witch","description":"\u003cp\u003eI must finally have gone over the edge to totally batshit crazy. There could be no other explanation. No other explanation for why the cannibal warlock Hamatsa's procurer of bodies, the svelte seductress Kinqalatlala, stood before me with her razor-sharp hand stabbed through my chest while her tongue pushed into my mouth. No other explanation for why I stood frozen in shock while blood streamed down my legs. My blood. No other explanation for why my girlfriend Jean lay unmoving and unconscious on the pavement. No other explanation for why a tall naked muscular Amazonian goddess with glowing crystalline blue skin and only one eye and one breast let out a screech that threatened to burst my head.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWell, wait. There could be one other explanation. I could be dead. I couldn't discount the possibility that I might be a new resident in the spirit world. Crazy or dead. This day was not going well.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50376968569105,"sku":"CIN1087801265G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51630896840977,"sku":"NGR9781087801261","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1087801265.jpg?v=1751334223"},{"product_id":"she-was-not-quite-what-you-would-call-refined-book-michael-ostrogorsky-9781087803227","title":"She Was Not Quite What You Would Call Refined","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52746178527505,"sku":"NIN9781087803227","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781087803227.jpg?v=1763516019"},{"product_id":"parrots-and-witches-book-michael-ostrogorsky-9781087801445","title":"Parrots and Witches","description":"\u003cp\u003eMy earliest memory ever is the first time I successfully walked. Me and my mom. Well, of course, my mom already knew how to walk. But not me. Me and my mom. We were in the kitchen of our first family home. Dad must have been at work. I can't even remember how old I was. Couldn't have been too old. I stood up by myself, leaning against a kitchen counter. My mom walked to the other side of the small kitchen, big to a little tot like me who had never successfully figured out this walking trick before. She wordlessly motioned for me to come to her. I remember feeling scared to death to try, fearing I would plop face down on the yellow linoleum floor if I dared, never to get up.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI desperately wanted my mom to come to me, but my mom kept motioning me to come to her. I finally relented and pushed off against the kitchen counter. One step. Then two. A third. A fourth and fifth. Thinking back on this adventure all these years later I can recall we had a small kitchen. Not too many steps required. I fell into my mother's arms, upright, triumphant. Spent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat's life. Challenges and conquests. Falling flat on your face on the linoleum, picking yourself up, and trying again. They say death and taxes are the only things you can count on in life. I say bull. Taxes are for suckers. Just ask any politician. And death is a con game dreamed up by holy rollers, preachers and grifters. I have learned that death is just another challenge to overcome. Challenge itself is the only thing you can count on in life. No matter how many challenges you face and conquer, there will always be another challenge knocking you face down on the linoleum. Comes the true challenge when you grow up and become an adult. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. No, not the ones you think. Love. Desire. Ambition. Faith. These are the greatest challenges of all. Overcoming these challenges is what makes life such a bitch. Love. Desire. Ambition. Faith. Without them, life is so simple, believe me.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52746188423441,"sku":"NIN9781087801445","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781087801445.jpg?v=1763516061"},{"product_id":"blue-tara-trilogy-book-michael-ostrogorsky-9781087863276","title":"Blue Tara Trilogy","description":"\u003cp\u003eI originally got a parrot because an old black guy with a parrot store convinced me that would help me pick up chicks. And I don't mean the poultry kind. Picked out a parrot at this old black guy's bird store here in Seattle that was big, blue, and loud. And a princess. The loudness I didn't learn about until too late. But that was the least of my problems. First of all, turns out I did not actually pick out the parrot. The parrot picked me. Not only was the parrot big, blue, and loud. And a princess. The parrot was a witch. Not a figurative or allegorical witch. A literal witch. A witch of the spell casting kind. The abracadabra kind. A witch with a coffee addiction, and a penchant for pizza and beer. Once I entered the bird store the parrot cast a spell. The kind of spell that caused me to clean out my bank account for a big, loud, blue-feathered witch. The kind of witch who did not abide with girlfriends. The kind of witch who did not abide with not getting her way. The kind of witch who turned out to be my guardian angel and the proverbial albatross around my neck at the same time. A witch named Princess Tara.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52746212409617,"sku":"NIN9781087863276","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781087863276.jpg?v=1763516156"},{"product_id":"k-257-lar-257-tri-or-black-night-trilogy-book-michael-ostrogorsky-9781087902869","title":"K\u0026#257;lar\u0026#257;tri or Black Night Trilogy","description":"\u003cp\u003eA coven of shape-shifting witches comprised of a pandemonium of parrots and one black cat, led by a coffee-swilling blue-skinned goddess named Princess Tara, enlist the help of a trio of Seattle history professors to seek magic to stop a god of war and his goddess of death intent on destroying our world. The professors discover they face a conundrum no book or library can address. How do they defeat a goddess who controls death and time? Can they? Our heroes and villains bounce across the galaxy and dive into the depths of time to search for a solution. They discover that reality and time itself is as fluid as a glass of cold beer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52746221715729,"sku":"NIN9781087902869","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781087902869.jpg?v=1763516192"},{"product_id":"may-you-live-in-interesting-times-book-michael-ostrogorsky-9780578896793","title":"May You Live In Interesting Times","description":"\u003cp\u003eYears ago I inherited several boxes of family documents and photographs that my grandfather Vassilij (William) Yakovlevich Ostrogorsky collected during the last century. These documents passed down through the hands of my aunt Vera Vassilyevna and father Vassilij Vassilyevich, my mother Jadvyga Ivanauskas, and my sister Helen Vassilyenva. Once the boxes fell into my hands they sat mostly forgotten gathering dust in a store room.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver the years I always intended to pull the boxes out of storage to compile a family history. Or at the least investigate the contents. In the words of the great eighteenth century English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson, Hell is paved with good intentions.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe realization of one's own mortality has a way of focusing the mind. I am now in the last year of my sixth decade riding this blue ball called Earth sailing through the outer reaches of the Milky Way. My grandfather died in the second year of his seventh.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI pulled out the boxes. The contents astonished me. Photographs dating to 1920. Letters. Orders. Official certificates. Nazi work permits. Reports. Post-World War II pleas for shelter and assistance to the International Refugee Organization and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Military passes. Job applications. Applications to countries around the world in search of a new home. Red Cross medical reports, and even x-rays of all things \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut what astonished me even more than the contents of the boxes, was the realization my grandfather carried these documents with him halfway around the world by train, foot, and steamship to a new life in America in the 1950s. By my count, these documents survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, a couple of military coups, a military invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and the Allied aerial bombing campaigns of World War II.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI am pleased to present to you the Ostrogorsky-Ivanauskas family history as best I can distilled from the documents my grandfather saved from oblivion, as well as notes my mother compiled in her last years, and family lore. Surviving photos are presented with this history. I am photographing the documents to be published in their entirety in a subsequent volume. I am pleased to report the entire archive will be curated with the Pacific Northwest Collection of the Special Collections Department of the University of Washington's Suzzallo Library.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52952001970449,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52952002035985,"sku":"NIN9780578896793","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780578896793.jpg?v=1766070635"},{"product_id":"may-you-live-in-interesting-times-book-michael-ostrogorsky-9780578919836","title":"May You Live In Interesting Times","description":"\u003cp\u003eYears ago I inherited several boxes of family documents and photographs that my grandfather Vassilij (William) Yakovyevich Ostrogorsky collected during the last century. These documents passed down through the hands of my aunt Vera Vassilyevna and father Vassilij Vassilyevich, my mother Jadvyga Ivanuaskas, and my sister Helen Vassilyenva. Once the boxes fell into my hands they sat mostly forgotten gathering dust in a store room.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver the years I always intended to pull the boxes out of storage to compile a family history. Or at the least investigate the contents. In the words of the great eighteenth century English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson, Hell is paved with good intentions.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe realization of one's own mortality has a way of focusing the mind. I am now in the last year of my sixth decade riding this blue ball called Earth sailing through the outer reaches of the Milky Way. My grandfather died in the second year of his seventh.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI pulled out the boxes. The contents astonished me. Photographs dating to 1920. Letters. Orders. Official certificates. Nazi work permits. Reports. Post-World War II pleas for shelter and assistance to the International Refugee Organization and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Military passes. Job applications. Applications to countries around the world in search of a new home. Red Cross medical reports, and even x-rays of all things \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut what astonished me even more than the contents of the boxes, was the realization my grandfather carried these documents with him halfway around the world by train, foot, and steamship to a new life in America in the 1950s. By my count, these documents survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, a couple of military coups, a military invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and the Allied aerial bombing campaigns of World War II.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI am pleased to present to you the Ostrogorsky-Ivanuaskas family history as best I can distilled from the documents my grandfather saved from oblivion, as well as notes my mother compiled in her last years, and family lore. Surviving photos are presented with this history. I am photographing the documents to be published in their entirety in a subsequent volume. 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