At 84, Author Fred Self Recounts a Life From Arkansas Cotton Fields to the Boardroom

Balle Balle Radio™ Entertainment Desk

Fred Self has published "Exciting Adventures & Hidden Miracles: From the Cotton Fields to the Board Room," a memoir tracing his life from a Depression-era childhood in the Ozark Mountains to a career building two businesses and manufacturing patented products distributed internationally. The book is published through Christian Faith Publishing.

Self was born in Arkansas during the Great Depression, and the book describes a childhood marked by poverty common to the era: crossing rivers on logs, riding mules to church, working barefoot through summers. His family migrated across several states, including Indiana, California, Oregon and Washington, following farm work, according to the author’s own account of the book. That early material appears to draw on an earlier work of his, "The Miracles of Time," which covered similar ground.

From that start, Self’s path included high school and college education, military service in both the Army and Merchant Marines, and roles in transportation and law enforcement before establishing his enterprises, according to the announcement. He is credited with patented inventions that were manufactured and distributed internationally. Now 84, he frames the book as a record of divine providence through both hardship and success, dedicating it, in his words, to "God, county, and family."

"This account serves as my testimony to a significant chapter of American experience," Self said in a statement accompanying the release. "I have been blessed beyond measure, and I wanted to honor God by recording how He guided our family through the trials and triumphs that defined our era."

The book runs 438 pages and is available as an ebook and in print through major retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play and the Apple iTunes Store, as well as through Christian Faith Publishing’s website.

Studio CarryOnHarry sees this as part of a familiar but durable genre: the self-published memoir that treats a long American life as a kind of testimony, written less for a mass market than for family, church, and readers drawn to stories of faith sustained through hard times.

Read more People’s Choice stories on Studio CarryOnHarry. Reporting via Live News Vault.

Are you an author with a new release? We’re always looking for books to cover and authors to interview — tell us about yours here.

Press Releases at Studio CarryOnHarry