Robert Hellenga

I was twenty-nine-years-old when the Arno flooded its banks on Friday, November 4, 1966. On Tuesday I decided to go to Italy, to offer my services as a humble book conservator, to save whatever could be saved, including myself. The Italians called them "Mud Angels," the young foreigners who came...

Chas. Johnson & Sons has been a family operation for three generations - grandfather, father, and son. But when it comes time for Gabe Johnson to take the reins of the business, the world of books has changed, and the combination of the internet and inner city rents forces the store to close...

Audie Award, Literary Fiction, 2011 On the morning of his 40th birthday, anthropology professor Jackson Jones contemplates his future: Should he go back to Africa, where he did his fieldwork, and live with the Mbuti, or should he marry and settle down in the Midwest, where he now teaches? On...

After the violent death of his oldest daughter during a terrorist bombing, small town college professor Alan "Woody" Woodhall finds himself standing in the cemetery where she was buried. Woody is convinced that life has taught him all the lessons he has to learn: His wife has left him, and his...