Back Cover The story of the birth of Christ is an intriguing Biblical tale. But there are many details left out. Perhaps to help us study more. For instance, why didn't anyone else around Jerusalem or Bethlehem hear or see the angels when they appeared to the shepherds the night Christ was born? Was Jesus born in a manger because no one had pity on a young pregnant girl from the hills, or did the manger offer a place of privacy for Mary? And why did it take the Eastern visitors almost two years to find the Christ child? The events of the birth of Christ contain several beautiful love stories, at least one mystery, and real humor if looked at from a human perspective. After all, the people involved in the story were not stained-glass Saints, but were, in fact, just ordinary people chosen by God to be direct participants in the beginning of the greatest story ever told... And Nothing's Been the Same Since!
Kay Redfield Jamison, award-winning professor and writer, changed the way we think about moods and madness. Now Jamison uses her characteristic honesty, wit and eloquence to look back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who died of cancer. Nothing was the Same is a penetrating psychological study of grief viewed from deep inside the experience itself.
Important: This book is the 11th book in our Superhero Universe! Emily Davis has returned after a year since the events in New York and half a year since she aided Aessoid. She was determined to find Harry. However, before she could begin her search, The General had other plans. He wanted to create more Ultimate Soldiers, and Emily's blood was the key ingredient. Emily was against the idea and decided to quit the army. But what would be the consequences of her decision? During her time with Aessoid, Emily had met a young girl named Rose. She had faced numerous issues at home, and Emily had helped her escape from those problems. Emily even allowed Rose to stay with her for a while. Rose had become like a daughter to Emily, and she cared for her deeply. However, with people looking to fight Emily, she knew that it wouldn't be easy. Emily was determined to find Harry and wouldn't give up. She knew that the road ahead would be challenging, but she was ready to face it. The question was, would she be able to find Harry before it was too late?
Legendary country and rock singer/songwriter Chapman has seen many of her more than 250 songs ("Betty's Bein' Bad," "The Perfect Partner") made famous by other artists like Jimmy Buffett, while her own recording career never went beyond cult status. This wild and woolly memoir deserves to gain her a much wider audience than just her loyal fans. Structured as a series of essays about 12 of her songs "that have the best stories around them," this is a hilarious and entertaining look at life by a fascinating 40-something artist who is not afraid to admit that she wrote one of her favorite songs ("Rode Hard and Put Up Wet") after waking up "around noon facedown in my front yard-which was a vegetable garden-wearing nothing but my underpants." The rebellious child of an upper-middle-class family in South Carolina, Chapman moves from college life at Vanderbilt to Nashville in the early 1970s, "about when the ' 60s hit the South," just in time to be a part of the "outlaw" country music era along with Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson ("hell, back then, Willie didn't even bathe on a regular basis"), and she gives excellent insight into the rowdy ways of that much storied era. She also uses the creation of other songs to discuss everything from her "career of dating criminals" to her current sobriety with her true love, a man who wouldn't be fazed if Chapman chopped wood "with nothing on but a pair of men's boxer shorts."
A penetrating psychological study of grief viewed from deep inside the experience itself—from the national bestselling author of Unquiet Mind. Kay Redfield Jamison, award-winning professor and writer, changed the way we think about moods and madness. Now Jamison uses her characteristic honesty, wit and eloquence to look back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who died of cancer.
A New York Times Notable Book and a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year: A look at the pleasures and surprises of rereading. Compared with reading, the act of rereading is far more personal—it involves a complex interaction of our past selves, our present selves, and literature. With candor and humor, this “inspired intellectual romp, part memoir, part criticism” takes us on a guided tour of the author’s own return to books she once knew—from the plays of Shakespeare to twentieth-century novels by Kingsley Amis and Ian McEwan, from the childhood favorite I Capture the Castle to classic novels such as Anna Karenina and Huckleberry Finn, from nonfiction by Henry Adams to poetry by Wordsworth—as she reflects on how the passage of time and the experience of aging has affected her perceptions of them (Lawrence Weschler). A cultural critic and the acclaimed author of Why I Read, Wendy Lesser conveys an infectious love of reading and inspires us all to take another look at the books we’ve read to find the unexpected treasures they might offer. “Delightful.” —Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce “Anyone who has ever approached a once favorite book later in life . . . will find in this memoir moments of bittersweet recognition.” —The New York Times Book Review “Reflect[s] deeply and candidly on how a reader’s life experiences alter her perceptions of literature . . . [Lesser] has truly fascinating and original things to say about a compelling assortment of writers, including George Orwell, George Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Dostoyevsky, and Shakespeare.” —Booklist
The Brotherhood continues the spiritual adventure of a young archeologist in his quest to find the second sacred site located on the Earth's energy grid. Marked for death, he and four close friends are relentlessly pursued by a priest from an ancient religious order desperate to suppress forbidden knowledge that will awaken mankind from life's illusions. Their adventures lead them to discover a darkened map room in the Ancient City of Prophecy, a dangerous geologic experiment in New Mexico and travelers from the Star Nation. Follow the group, as they "drop all the rules to gain their spirituality" and race against time to activate the sacred site and stop a geologic disaster of unprecedented proportions from occurring to the Earth Mother!
Itzel’s 13th birthday party starts in just about the unluckiest way possible—with her dad having a heart attack. In those frantic moments, the piñata and the frosted sheetcake and the Styrofoam cups of orange soda are forgotten; the day’s highlights end up being CPR, an ambulance ride, and angioplasty. But when her father gets home from the hospital, his problems are far from over—and Itzel’s are just getting started. Nothing’s Ever the Same chronicles a young girl’s coming of age in Chicago—growing up as her family grows apart. In masterful fashion, Cyn Vargas gives us a touching and memorable and universal story about a marriage on the brink and a teenager looking for love. It's a short book that packs a wallop; it’s also a beautiful meditation on dysfunction and forgiveness, and all the times in life to which we can never return. The New Chicago Classics are a disparate set of titles united around a common theme: showcasing the city's up-and-coming literary talents as they produce enduring works. These excellent titles are destined to stand in the first rank of literature about the second city.
A middle-aged Jewish man who fantasizes about being a cowboy goes on an eccentric quest across Europe after the 1941 Nazi invasion of Lithuania in this wild and witty yet heartrending novel from the bestselling author of Yiddish for Pirates, shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Motl is middle-aged, poor, nerdy, Jewish and in desperate need of a shave. Since having his balls shot cleanly off as a youth in WWI, he's lived a quiet life at home in Vilnius with his shrewd and shrewish mom, Gitl, losing himself in the masculine fantasy world of cowboy novels by writers like Karl May--novels equally loved by Hitler, whose troops have just invaded Lithuania and are out to exterminate people like Motl. In his dreams, Motl is a fast-talking, rugged, expert gunslinger capable of dealing with the Nazi threat. But only in his dreams. As friends and neighbours are killed around them, Motl and Gitl escape from Vilnius, saving their own skins. But they immediately risk everything to try rescue relatives they hope are still alive. With death all around him, Motl decides that a Jew's best revenge is not only to live, but to procreate. In order to achieve this, though, he must relocate those most crucial pieces of his anatomy lost to him in a glacier in the Swiss Alps in the previous war. It's an absurd yet life-affirming mission, made even more urgent when he's separated from his mother, and isn't sure whether she's alive or dead. Joining forces, and eventually hearts, with Esther, a Jewish woman whose family has been killed, Motl ventures across Europe, a kaleidoscope of narrow escapes and close encounters with everyone from Himmler, to circus performers, double agents, quislings, fake "Indians" and real ones. Motl at last figures out that he has more connection to the Indigenous characters in western novels than the cowboys. An imaginative and deeply felt exploration of genocide, persecution, colonialism and masculinity--saturated in Gary Barwin's sharp wit and perfect pun-play--Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy is a one-of-a-kind novel of sheer genius.
