When Carson Reynolds gets hired to produce a documentary film at a gathering of Native American medicine men, he never suspects it will be a portal into a world that will radically change his life. Despite his resistance to the Call, he is ineluctably drawn into a realm of shamans, priestesses, deities, and plant-medicine work, where he becomes engaged in a searing struggle with extra-dimensional forces that threaten the future of humanity as we know it.
Latifa was born into an educated middle-class Afghan family in Kabul in 1980. She dreamed of one day of becoming a journalist, she was interested in fashion, movies and friends. Her father was in the import/export business and her mother was a doctor. Then in September 1996, Taliban soldiers seized power in Kabul. From that moment, Latifa, just 16 years old became a prisoner in her own home. Her school was closed. Her mother was banned from working. The simplest and most basic freedoms - walking down the street, looking out a window - were no longer hers. She was now forced to wear a chadri. My Forbidden Face provides a poignant and highly personal account of life under the Taliban regime. With painful honesty and clarity Latifa describes the way she watched her world falling apart, in the name of a fanatical interpretation of a faith that she could not comprehend. Her voice captures a lost innocence, but also echoes her determination to live in freedom and hope. Earlier this year, Latifa and her parents escaped Afghanistan with the help of a French-based Afghan resistance group.
Alison Dashford Reid wants three things for her twenty-first birthday: a trip to New York City, a break from her steeped-in-scandal family, and for her sister’s much older bodyguard to take her virginity. Scott Mayfair—ex-Navy SEAL, ex-spy—doesn’t like losing control of his life. So when his accounts are locked after a dust up with the British Government, he doesn’t turn to his family, of Mayfair Enterprises wealth. He gets a job running security…and Ali Reid twirls into his life. She’s lovely and light, pure goodness, and is hell bent on seducing him. His life is complicated to say the least. But when she texts him at four in the morning, he can’t say no.
Description: This book is about a Black man's reading of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the first time while in graduate school. The story captures his emotional experience with Twain's use of the racial epithet "nigger" more than 211 times throughout the book. The visceral response to hearing the word verbalized by whites with Twain's permission, regardless of irony or satire, is a central theme of this personal history/memoir. The situation is a seminar in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, where the Civil War is still being fought on many levels. The story is the complication of race as a topic of public discussion and the role the word nigger plays in postmodern society especially among Blacks and Hip-Hop music. The use of the word is a sign of evil both historically and culturally and cannot be flipped in a way that erases its history and meaning. It is also a reflection on language and culture. Endorsements: "Harris has written a courageous memoir that confronts the long debate over Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the use of the n-word. Marshaling critics from Hegel to bell hooks, and calling on a family history of resistance, Harris challenges his instructor and classmates, and in turn inspires his readers to redress the long history of American racism and white supremacy bound up with the epithet." --Mark Sanders, Professor of English, Emory University "Harris combines the passion and power of personal experience with a masterful display of historical and literary criticism, and the finished product is a book that goes beyond Twain's painfully derogatory stereotypes, racial epithets, and the persistent myths to expose race as the enduring and central dilemma of the American experience. In compelling terms, Harris helps us understand why our claims of 'a post-racial society' remain open to serious question and debate." --Lewis V. Baldwin, Professor of Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University "The Forbidden Word is an elegant, heartfelt rumination on America's crucible of race. Engaging, beautifully crafted, and analytically powerful, it masterfully employs Twain's Huck Finn as both a literal and figurative representation of the nation's never-ending racial drama. By blending the narrative voice of a memoirist and the sharp insights of a true scholar, Harris achieves a remarkable literary triumph." --Tim Wise, author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
Welcome back to Virgin River with the books that started it all… Reverend Noah Kincaid moved to Virgin River to reopen an abandoned church he bought on eBay. Like Noah, the place is a little empty inside, but all it may need is some loving care… The young widower arrives ready to roll up his sleeves and build a place of worship and welcome, but he needs some help. And the Lord works in mysterious ways. With her tight shirts and short skirts, pastor’s assistant is not a phrase that springs to mind when Noah meets brassy, beautiful Ellie Baldwin. The former exotic dancer needs a respectable job so she can regain custody of her children. And Noah can’t help but admire her spunk and motherly determination. Noah and Ellie are an unlikely team to revitalize a church, much less build a future. The couple has so many differences, but in Virgin River anything is possible, and happiness is never out of the question.
"Lush, romantic, and exquisitely written . . . a rare, glittering jewel of a novel."—Sarah J. Maas, author of the New York Times bestselling Throne of Glass series "This is Aladdin like you've never imagined."—Renée Ahdieh, author of The Wrath and the Dawn She is the most powerful Jinni of all. He is a boy from the streets. Their love will shake the world. . . . When Aladdin discovers Zahra's jinni lamp, Zahra is thrust back into a world she hasn't seen in hundreds of years—a world where magic is forbidden and Zahra's very existence is illegal. She must disguise herself to stay alive, using ancient shape-shifting magic, until her new master has selected his three wishes. But when the King of the Jinn offers Zahra a chance to be free of her lamp forever, she seizes the opportunity—only to discover she is falling in love with Aladdin. When saving herself means betraying him, Zahra must decide once and for all: is winning her freedom worth losing her heart? As time unravels and her enemies close in, Zahra finds herself suspended between danger and desire in this dazzling retelling of the Aladdin story from acclaimed author Jessica Khoury.
