Like to read? Enjoy three outstanding books from award-winning author Ken McAlpine including Islands Apart: A Year on the Edge of Civilization, Off-Season: Discovering America on Winter's Shore and Fog.

About Islands Apart: A Year on the Edge of Civilization

Author Ken McAlpine stands in his front yard one night in Ventura, California, trying to see the stars. His view is diminished by light pollution, making it hard to see much of anything in the sky. Our fast-paced, technologically advanced society, he concludes, is not conducive to stargazing or soul-searching. Taking a page from Thoreau's Walden, he decides to get away from the clamor of everyday life, journeying alone through California's Channel Islands National Park. There, he imagines, he might be able to "breathe slowly and think clearly, to examine how we live and what we live for."

In between his week-long solo trips through these pristine islands, McAlpine reaches out to try to better understand his fellow man: he eats lunch with the homeless in Beverly Hills, sits in the desert with a 98-year-old Benedictine monk, and befriends a sidewalk celebrity impersonator in Hollywood. What he discovers about himself and the world we live in will inspire anyone who wishes they had the time to slow down and notice the wonders of nature and humanity.

About Off-Season: Discovering America on Winter's Shore

No Longer the Forgotten Season

Just after Labor Day, Ken McAlpine said good-bye to his family and began a drive up the East Coast, from Florida to Maine, on a one-man quest to capture the elusive “forgotten season” of beach towns shuttered until the return of warm weather. Off-Season is a moving portrait that brings to life the magic of the sea and shore in winter, the charm of beach towns emptied of summer crowds, and the warmth and eccentricities of year-round coastal residents who revel in small-town spirit.

McAlpine skipped the more popular destinations like Nags Head, Virginia Beach, Cape May, and the Hamptons, opting to visit lesser known locales like Sharpes, Florida; Tangier Island, Virginia; and Montauk, New York. There he found people who celebrated the departure of the tourists with the cautious hope they’d return next summer. He encountered fishermen struggling to make a living, a former playboy lifeguard now ministering to the elderly and ill, a marine policeman both reviled and respected, a lone kayaker paddling away his grief, a couple fighting to save the world’s coral reefs, divers searching for everything from false teeth to dead bodies in dark waters, and deserted snow-covered beaches more beautiful than anyone could describe.

More than a travelogue—and a whole new breed of beach read—Off-Season is a stroll off the beaten path and a look at the people and places in our country that keep the spirit of community alive.

About FOG

When the Asia, a two-masted schooner, sinks in a storm along the harsh winter shores of Cape Cod in 1882, the crew, the captain, and the captain's young daughter are cast into the midnight sea. Swept ashore, the Asia's captain survives-only to meet a mysterious end before he can be rescued. Meanwhile, his child makes landfall and dies not far away. With dawn's arrival, all that remains are the jagged hulk of the Asia and the whispers of a secret.

So begins a race to find a history-altering treasure-a contest that pits Daniel Cole, keeper of the lifesaving station, and his fellow Peaked Hill Bars lifesavers against a philosophical killer. This mooncusser, an author of shipwrecks, walks a stoic horse along the ridgeline of the Cape's towering beach cliffs, bending fate to his aims.

Hope and despair, love and loss, sacrifice and sin, riddle and answer all blur and intertwine in a tale that calls into question the validity of humanity's moral compass and the very nature of progress and civilization.

About Ken McAlpine

Ken McAlpine's writing has appeared in national magazines and newspapers; his magazine articles have earned three Lowell Thomas awards, the top award in the industry for travel writing. His book Off Season: Discovering America on Winter's Shore (Random House/Three Rivers Press, June 2004) - a five-month meander from Key West, Florida to the tip of Maine, and an ode to some of our country's tucked away places and heartwarming characters- was a Barnes and Noble's Discover Great New Writers selection. His next book Islands Apart: A Year on the Edge of Civilization (Shambhala Publications, July 2009) is a thoughtful and funny look at our fast-paced contemporary life, and how time spent alone in nature can give us a fresh perspective about what matters most. His current novel Fog (iUniverse, 2012) has been praised as "a 21st century Moby Dick", and Ken has a novel slated for early 2013 through iUniverse entitled Together We Jump.

Growing up he often lived abroad: among other countries, his family was stationed in Hong Kong, Singapore and Laos. He currently lives in Ventura, California where he spends as much of his spare time as he can surfing with his wife and two sons. He likes to stand in his yard at night looking at the stars, but he does not like to spend any time during the day doing yard work.