Mike's Bookshelf
Discover and purchase the books written by Mike: "White Sugar, Brown Sugar" and "Cuban Roots", as well as others published by Armstrong Media Group. Click on the book covers and you will be redirected to Amazon.
White Sugar, Brown Sugar
by Michael A. Pyle
White Sugar, Brown Sugar is a novel set in Daytona Beach, Florida. An upper middle-class white boy from the peninsula, or beach-side, of the Inland Waterway, and a black boy of lesser means, who lives west of the railroad tracks, where Blacks (who were called Negroes and other names at the time) were required to live, become good friends, in spite of the racial separation in effect in the '60s in the south. David "Jude" Armstrong and Roosevelt Harris meet at a basin of a yacht club. Jude, the white boy, fishes from the docks, where stately boats stand. Roosevelt, the black boy, and his family, fish with cane poles on the wall next to the street. The boys meet various times over the years.
The tranquility of Jude Armstrong's safe, upper middle-class white world ends when his alcoholic mother tosses his father out of the house. Roosevelt Harris' life has never been tranquil. He has grown up with his grandparents. He has never known a father, and his mother is a heroin addict who disappears for weeks at a time, and is incarcerated frequently. Neither boy understands the racial issues of the time. Both boys fully understand the misery and difficulties that arise from abuse of alcohol and drugs, and both swear they will never end up in that situation, yet they both follow the same path. Eventually, Jude's father, Lansing Armstrong, an attorney, helps the boys escape criminal prosecution for drug-related crimes, and becomes a guiding light for both boys. Roosevelt grasps sobriety much sooner and easier than Jude does.
As the founder of a successful restaurant business, Lansing Armstrong eventually places both Roosevelt and Jude in control of the business. Jude and Roosevelt struggle to overcome their prior problems, and eventually lead normal and successful lives.
White Sugar, Brown Sugar follows their loss of innocence, submergence to the depths of desperation, and eventual emergence as recovering adults. It is a story of friendship, hope, strength, and inspiration.
Cuban Roots
By Michael A. Pyle
'Cuban Roots’ is a historical novel, based mostly in Cuba and also in Florida, including Daytona Beach. Luis Morales is an eighty-four year old lawyer, born in Cuba, living in Miami. He regularly travels to Cuba to deliver funds inherited by Cubans. He gives an interview to a reporter regarding his interpretation of the feeling of the people living on the island about Fidel Castro’s death, and some strongly criticize his words. After being hounded and attacked, he suffers a medical crisis, and while seemingly unconscious, relives the good and bad experiences of his youth in the country of his birth, the country that he loves, Cuba. Michael A. Pyle, author of ‘White Sugar, Brown Sugar’, began writing Cuban Roots over thirty years ago. He has traveled all over Cuba numerous times, interviewing people, visiting museum and performing research. Senior officers of the Institute of Cuban History in Havana, Cuba have read the manuscript and found the historical references credible. The Institute has invited him twice to present the book to its annual international symposium.
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El Nuevo Viejo Mundo:
Cartas de una Cubana en Europa
By Leonor G. Sierra Salas
One of the books published by Armstrong Media Group is written in Spanish by a Cuban author, Leonor Sierra: "El Viejo Nuevo Mundo, Cartas de una Cubana en Europa". The title, translated into English, indicates that the old world, as Europe is frequently described, was a new world to a person from a country like Cuba that is far behind in modern technology.
A young Cuban woman travels to Spain to study. Upon her arrival, she begins a correspondence with a friend who remains on the Island. This epistolary presents anecdotes, experiences and reflections of the narrator, who in turn ventures into other more imaginary journeys (through short stories, myths, poems, dialogues, letters within letters…) related to the places visited. The result is a hybrid literary composition, structured in ten letters that play with the limits of reality and fiction.
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Charlie y Lili
de paseo por los Estados Unidos
by Grethel Sierra
A book written in Spanish and fully illustrated, designed especially for the Spanish-speaking community residing in the United States.
These fun friends will take you to a beach in Miami and then to see the Aurora Borealis in Alaska; you will also fly over the Grand Canyon of Colorado and descend the San Francisco hills by tram; you will meet Edison, the inventor, and the whale, Moby Dick. You will be invited to a dinner for the Day of Thanksgiving and will enjoy as Louis Armstrong plays jazz music. But this is not all, many adventures await you in this huge and diverse country.
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