That’s how I felt when I finished reading OUTCASTS UNITED and knew that I would have the opportunity to meet and interview author Warren St. John and help get the word out about this great book.

The book tells the story of coach Luma Mufleh the soccer team of refugee boys she founded and the town of Clarkston, Georgia that wasn’t sure they wanted them… or their families.

Once I finished reading the book, I knew it would be a perfect fit for The Better World Book Club.  And once again that perfect day stuff starting happening.  I think they call it serendipity.  When I called Warren to let him know his book had been chosen for the December 2009 read for The Better World Book Club – now going live at Whole Foods Markets in Atlanta, he let me know how perfect that was, as he had written a good bit of the book IN the Whole Foods Market at Ponce.  I think I actually got chills.

So – if you’re in the Atlanta area, you can meet Warren and get a signed copy of the book on Saturday October 17th as we kick off the book club with a celebration that will actually move between 3 of the Atlanta area Whole Foods Markets.  And if you’re not in the Atlanta area, you can still check out the interview with Warren and grab a copy of the book right here at BetterWorldBooks.com.

Enjoy the interview, and click here to check out the rest of the great authors talking about their books on our podcast!

1) They had free wi-fi

2) I wanted to make some new friends.

My plan went sour when I was informed by the coffee house wi-fi server
that I was not allowed to go to my intended website.   Apparently, the
company is against online dating.  I like online dating.

Online dating saves money.  (That is if you use a free dating site)

I am a bit of a value fan.  Some people say I am cheap but I
am not cheap. I am efficient.  I’m not going to say what coffee shop I
was in but I’ll give you a hint.  It is everywhere.
Plan A to meet people didn’t work.

Plan B
I was forced to attempt to talk to the strangers in the coffee shop.
Complete strangers, not the good kind of strangers.

Not a dating website stranger.

Not cute strangers with similar taste in movies and books
and cute pictures they took of themselves with a phone.
Strangers are strangers in coffee shops but there are clues. You
shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but we all find ourselves judging
people by the cover of the book they are reading.

I was reading cliffs notes so I suppose I appeared efficient. I used
to read cliffs notes because I was a lazy high school student.  I
read cliffs notes as an adult because I am efficient.

Since we do judge each other by what we are reading, I wish I had a
book titled “How to Stay Awesome” written in big letters on the cover.
Women would think wow that guy looks pretty awesome.

I recently ordered a book from betterworld.com.  I was proud to order from my company because I know that Better World Books erases carbon foot prints.

If you don’t know what a carbon footprint is… don’t
worry about it. I felt smarter before I tried to understand the
concept.  This is how I understand it. A carbon footprint is like
gingivitis and Better World Books is like Listerine but Listerine that
also raises funds for non-profit literacy partners.

…I started to gather group support for the project through my fraternity of almost 100 men.  I posted messages on bulletins for large classes through our online system, WebCT and I posted messages to the different list serves

…After the fall drive, I recruited other groups to help make the spring drive bigger and better.  I organized what each group was going to do and divided the campus for our groups to have a better drive.   I wrote an editorial piece for our student newspaper that has a huge readership. I spoke at several meetings throughout the year to promote the drive.  I was in contact with the assistant to the President,  I was in contact with the head of  Residence Life…  I put up posters in high traffic areas and I was able to get our informational/planning meeting on the UGA front page.

The planning meeting was great to facilitate brainstorming for the drive and we presented a powerpoint to student volunteers.  I contacted a member in our student government to help me with the facebook event to get many student government leaders involved and help them to spread the word.

I learned a tremendous amount from working on the book drive and I feel extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to help others. I believe we have a great opportunity at UGA to create an extremely large drive which could turn into a campus movement. I have been mentoring some freshmen TEP to take over the drive and I made sure to thank all those who helped our drive so that those who helped will be inclined to do so in the future.”

-Irv Steel