Books with author Michael Collier

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most popular park in the United States. It is also the most biologically rich, with 1,500 species of flowering plants, 225 species of birds, dozens of species of fish and animals, and 130 species of native trees. This natural history guide focuses on the different species and their ecological interrelationship. It is a book that both travelers and naturalists will love.

Everybody knows that Leonardo da Vinci was an artist - that he was the mastermind behind the infamous Mona Lisa and designed the first-ever flying machine. But did you also know that da Vinci:- spent a decade making a clay horse?- had his very own pet dragon?- loved to wear pink?Full of rivalries between artists, incredible inventions and passages from Leonardo's lost notebook, discover everything you ever wanted to know about the man with the paintbrush!

It is the mid-80s in post-industrial America. In a small town graced with the decaying hulks of defunct factories, young journalist and college dropout Bill churns out lengthy essays on the death of industry and of America itself for The Daily Truth, whose scoops rarely rise above the latest home-bake contest. The static summer is punctured when local bad boy Ronny Lawton reports his father missing. A dismembered finger is found and all suspect the son of murdering his hated father, but nothing can be proved. The sorry tale of the white trash Lawtons hypnotises the town and Ronny Lawton becomes a local icon. Bill becomes increasingly obsessed with the story - he gets involved with Ronny's estranged wife, finds a decomposing human head, and ends up as a suspect in the murder case himself. Things come to a head and Ronny Lawton holds his wife, child and Bill hostage in a confrontation with the FBI. Bill escapes with the woman and child and contemplates the American dream gone sour.

Jeremy and Reggie Mayer watched their mother die at the ethereal hands of three terrifying phantoms. Now they live their lives as best they can, outrunning the memory, and hope to put enough distance between them and their tormentors. Unfortunately, their tormentors won’t be kept away so easily. They have plans for the brothers and their friends. As the attacks escalates, no one is safe. In their efforts to rid themselves of the spreading evil, Jeremy and Reggie will find themselves in places that blur the lines of reality, as well as life and death.