Losing a job is an awfully low point--until it turns into the opportunity to pursue writing full time, and a book like "The Five Ancestors: Tiger" results. Jeff Stone looks back to his own experience as a young reader and taps that experience to help frame his own writing. An intriguing snapshot of his new book follows.

A humorous examination of research on effects of institution size on pupil progress reveals evidentiary and inferential errors, naivete, intellectual puritanism, and rational extravagance. Revised, reinterpreted, and confirmed by two new studies, the literature shows a near-unanimous finding: the smaller unit definitely is superior to the larger…

Presents a fictional chronicle depicting the devastating effect that the disparity between African American males and females in social and economic advancement has on African American women. Discusses the "Chronicle of the Twenty-Seventh Year Syndrome" and reconsiders its perspective using responses from critics. (JS)