Book Collections
Sundays with Mom
Motherhood is giving life, loving and nurturing. Of all emotions, a mother’s love is arguably the most genuine and the most intense. My mother’s love was unconditional and she was more than just a mom. She was a gentlewoman, a wife, a university graduate, a professional, a translator, a maid, a cook, a soldier, a volunteer, a caregiver; also a beauty, a cosmopolitan and a polyglot. Being much more than a mom made her an even better and more interesting mom.
Her happy adolescence was shattered by the Nazi occupation and her brothers’ maladies. But misfortune made her more resilient, her family more united, her love deeper, her friendships more meaningful, and her purpose in life clearer. Due to our ‘gypsy life’, Mom and I spoke every Sunday over the phone for more than four decades. And every time I received practical wisdom, loving reassurance or a silver lining. Based on our conversations, her writings, our diaries, and family documents, this text is an attempt to reconstruct a sequence in her art of living.
The Belgrade Five
Based on a diary, this collection of anecdotes and vignettes focuses on five high-school friends, and covers the two years they spent together. It brings to life their passion for football and girls, academic failures and triumphs, pranks and escapades, letdowns and amends. And their watershed period cemented a lifelong friendship.
As it reveals the tone and spirit of the times – music and fashion, books and movies, food and politics – the memoir weaves in the country’s complex history, natural beauty, and cultural diversity. And it gives tribute to the First Belgrade Gymnasium, one of the oldest high schools in the Balkans, which played a pivotal role in the boys’ coming of age.
Vuka
Vuka’s elopement in 1928 caused a major scandal in a small Adriatic port. Wise Mike, a mature sourdough, organized her ‘voluntary kidnapping’ and took her on a venturesome journey to Alaska, where he had struck gold.
In defying local customs and in breaking a taboo, she chose personal happiness over family constraints. She fell in love with the adventurer, endured frigid nights and freezing winds, and fully apprehended the majestic beauty of a distant frontier.
The text traces the life story of this Southern Slav woman without formal education but far ahead of her time. Independent and wealthy, she was most at ease at her Fairbanks Creek, in the midst of astonishing nature and at peace with the essential. There is an endowment in her name at a university in California entitled the Power of Good.
Getting to Know the Manager
Based on the author’s Day-Timer notebooks, this collection of episodes records a process of getting acquainted with an influential manager in a multicultural environment. Set in four countries of the Western hemisphere, the chapters describe the human side of unusual events and relationships. Within the context of international financial affairs, the story gradually reveals a remarkable life story of migration from the old to the new continent. The book is not only entertaining and easy to read but is highly instructive and relevant for the practice of management and teamwork in any multinational organization
