Amber's Adventures

 The book My Life in Rhyme has undergone a bit of redesign and is now separated into two books.  The animal rhymes will be removed from the draft and placed in a new manuscript entitled Amber's Adventures featuring rhymes on this four-legged member of the household.  Also included are some rhymes on some other acquaintances.

It will be called Amber's Adventures

So Amber's Adventures is now taking priority for publication this year.

Then comes the finishing of My Life in Rhyme.

I hope you understand all this because I'm not sure I do.

The Engine for Quality Improvement

Okay, it's a deal, this is the last attempt to get at the heart of the quality problem in American industry.  I have salvoed several times and the shot went astray, not even close to the bow, but this time, we may be over the target.

It will not be a big book as I have concluded that the organization of today is not tuned into measuring that which is important for improving quality.  My friend Ken unknowingly mentioned the cause of problems with quality and now even today, he does not recall the clue he gave me back last year.  

But it stuck and I am exploring that avenue and promise that this will be the last shot.  The target date for publication will be is later in 2023.

And now an update:  The book is 99% finished with 88 pages.  Now pondering a review but hard to find someone with content knowledge to be the reviewer.  I may launch it anyway.

Twenty Stories

 A real departure from what has been written before.

This book is a collection of stories---all true---some made even more true than the way they actually occurred.

The reason for the departure from the books written so far, this book is a collection of stories, somewhat akin to the stories in Unstructured Time, but each story is more detailed, of greater length, and more in keeping with the idea that stories should have a storyline---makes sense, doesn't it?

Anyway, it's my first attempt at "storytelling" and it was a struggle to remain true to the idea of a story having action, and a storyline.  An A for effort, not sure of the grade on quality.

Speaking about quality, one of the stories, and the one with the most pages, is a story of my experience in attempting to establish quality improvement as a business strategy in my lifelong job as an engineer and then as a manager.  

The book was published in May 2022.  

The book is available on Amazon and is priced at $22.00

Stites in Grand Rapids

 This will be a documentation of the history of the Stites Family, from its beginning in Europe and into the Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Michigan areas.

The book is the sole effort of Dee and was started in 2020.  It will be a printed collection of old photographs and her oral history of the family, both sides, the Stites family and her mother's side, the DeJong family.

The pages completed so far are packed with information. It is about half completed with an expected publication this year (2022).  But we know how slowly this research and book assembly goes and it would not surprise us if the date for printing would lop over into 2023.

Nature and History II

This book took much longer to write because we ran our of ideas for exploration.  We thought about that reason many times and were not sure this was the cause for the delay in publishing it.  But we forged on ahead and finally put the finishing touches on it and had it printed in February 2023 so now we have it and it looks good. 

It's priced higher than I would have liked, but it had to be in color and color printing adds a whole lot to the publication
costs.

We are happy with the cover as it shows the fox that was reared in our backyard rockpile.  What a charmer this little kit was and now we hope it's wandering the woods as a wild beast.  No, it is not a beast but a fantastic wild animal.

This Old Road

Book Title:  This Old Road

Author:  Robert L Tusch

Availability: Amazon at the NQ99HQ bookseller

Price:  $33.00

Book Description:   Many of the immigrants to southwestern Michigan arrived in the middle 1800s by canal boat on the Erie Canal, then steam boating through Lake Erie and then by an old road across southern Michigan.  Their destination was any of the larger settlements in southern Michigan, but most notably, their destination was Grand Rapids or Holland.  This book will explore the origins of historic roads and then detail this old road across the state that was used to settle in Grand Rapids.  This should be an especially interesting story---at least to the author---as his ancestors travelled on the road to Grand Rapids ---the very road--- on which he lived 100 years later.

By June our research had indicated that the most probable old road on which they travelled was the Detroit to Saginaw Road to Pontiac where the Pontiac Shiawassee Trail took them to the Shiawassee River crossing.  From there, the Dexter Trail went on to Ionia.   At Ionia, they picked up an established trail to Ada and on to Grand Rapids.

Well, the book is finished as of 9.25.2020. All I need to do is to click on the little button on KDP and it's on the ready-to-print bookshelf.  But I am hesitant as my usual experience is that I always think of some way to improve the reading satisfaction after I let it sit for a bit.  So, its sitting for a bit.

As all authors will attest, letting the finished draft sit always results in more edits and that is what happened over the last month.  So here it is late 2020 and the book is off to the printer. Several re-reads produced a new draft which has now been published and ready for your reading enjoyment. Offer some feedback if you can do that:  rltusch@gmail.com.  You can also buy the book directly from the author by contacting me to make the arrangements.

220 pages, 37057 words, 79 illustrations.

Nature and History

Book Title:  Nature and History
Authors:  Robert L. & Dee Tusch
Availability:  Amazon at our bookseller stall NQ99HQ
Book Description: This is a new book, published  in mid 2020.  It contains 20 essays on nature and local history of the central Texas area, all taken from our journal.
This book has many color photographs and so we had to have it printed in color as many of the photographs would mean little in black and white. While this raised the price to about $35, we hope that it will be worth it to those interested in looking at nature and history in some detail and an investment for some.

Book Cover:

"Out West"

Book Title:  "OutWest"
Author:  Robert L. Tusch
Availability:  Amazon and the author (use book title and author name in Amazon search) then buy from our bookseller stall NQ99HQ.
Price:  $12.00

Book Description:   My dad and two of his friends made an auto trip to the west starting from Grand Rapids, Michigan and touring Yellowstone National Park, then  south to Bryce Canyon, to Santa Fe and back to their home state.   They trio did not leave much detail of their trip in 1929, but the families managed to save about fifty photographs, thus allowing the author to relive the trip.  The journey covered about 4000 miles and took 17 days.
The contrast in the comforts of travel then and now are striking.  It makes one wonder how we existed without the cell phone, let alone motels, maps, spare tires, gasoline availability--- the list goes on.

The book, consisting of about 100 pages and 64 illustrations, was published in 2019 and is available on Amazon.

My Life in Rhyme

This book is in the draft stage at the moment but will be published sometime in 2023.  It will be amusing to read as it is a collection of rhymes (not poems) that capture the essence of notable events in the mind of the author throughout her lifetime.  The format will be event-based rhymes with a story accompaniment describing the setting of the event.
The author is Dee, and the draft is up to about 105 pages with at least 50 more pages in the wings.
Keep an eye out for it because it will be a jewel.

Dee adds, " I'm late, I'm late; late for an important date; no time to say hello or goodbye".   But nevertheless, promises to not disappoint as she is still "awriting".

Tusch and Granstra

Book Title:  TUSCH AND GRANSTRA
Author:  Robert L. Tusch
Availability:  Amazon.com or the author (use the book title and the authors name in the Amazon search box) then buy from our bookseller stall NQ99HQ
Price:  $22

Book Description:  This is a compilation of all the files that author was able to collect from public sources, plus a section of photos and stories from the family collection.  It is not interesting reading, but should provide a clear record of the two families that immigrated to Kent County, Michigan in the 1850s. The photo used for the cover should be of interest to historians as an example of how the area has changed over the last 70 years.

Book Cover: