Poetry. African American Studies. These poems speak to us with voices borrowed from the pages of novels of Alice Walker, Jean Toomer, and Toni Morrison--voices that still have more to say, things to discuss. Each struggles beneath a yoke of dreaming, loving, and suffering. These characters converse not just with the reader but also with each other, talking amongst themselves, offering up their secrets and hard-won words of wisdom, an everlasting conversation through which these poems voice a shared human experience.
Welcome back to Mule Hollow for a romance that’s sure to make you smile. No, it’s not Bad, Bad Leroy Brown but like the old song there’s trouble brewing and romance that won’t go away… Max Cantrell is building his Prickly Pear Jelly business he and his mom opened when they first came to Mule Hollow when he got off the bus at thirteen. Max is now twenty-five and zeroed in on expanding and going full speed ahead with the business. Then she rides into the prickly pears on her red motorcycle and turns his whole life into turmoil. Lee Ann Brown’s life has been bad, really bad even her name isn’t her own. It’s given to her because she had no name, no family just flung to the side like she was nothing. Now, after moving from family to family she’s in control and her and her motorcycle are free and on their own. She’s learned to take up for herself, enjoy life as she wants to and no one’s messing with her. Yep, she’s seeing the USA then the world one job and town at a time—until she has a flat in the middle of a prickly pear farm whose wild, beautiful colors drew her off-road. And then, she sees him—the striking cowboy wrangling the prickly pears and his eyes turn to her and things she’s not expecting erupt inside and the fight is on. Welcome back to Mule Hollow where love is still in the air—and the prickly pears. The Matchmakin’ Posse get that old song Bad, Bad Leroy Brown stuck in their heads and see a gal whose determined to live life her way. But God’s got a plan and the Matchmakers are in on it full throttle. And sweet-old-meddling Esther Mae wants a ride on the red motorcycle and plans to get it.
Volume XII of the highly respected Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament expands the scope of this fundamental reference tool for biblical studies. Ranging from pāsah, pesah ("Passover") to qûm ("stand, rise"), these eighty-six articles include thorough etymological analysis of the Hebrew roots and their derivatives within the context of Semitic and cognate languages, diachronically considered, as well as Septuagint, New Testament, and extracanonical usages. Among the articles of primary theological importance included in Volume XII are these: par'ōh ("Pharoah"), pāsa, pesa; ("sin, offense, crime"), sebāôt ("Sabaoth"), sādaq, sedeq, sedāqâ ("[be] righteous, righteousness"), qds, aōdes ("holy"), and qāhāl ("congregation"). Each article is fully annotated and contains an extensive bibliography with cross-references to the entire series.
This book is fiction and could fill several niches in the marketplace. Reluctant readers, those learning English as a second language, trivia buffs, and fans of Beatles spring to mind. This Is as Big as It Gets tells the story of two boys who meet and pair up with two girls. The four of them then banter as they try to put the world to rights while coping with stepparents, sexism, abused parents, sick parents, a plague of rats, death, suicide, and a terrorist attackbut not necessarily in that order. Interspersed with these dramas is an offbeat modern fairy tale told by one of the boys; it is so well received that he decides to write a book. His friends try to help him with ideas, and they get sidetracked by idioms, song lyrics, jokes, palindromes, and trivia. However, the book is never penned, not in this story anyway. The entire text of the story is told using no words longer than four letters because it began life as a teaching exercise for primary school children in Australia. The language is not your average American English, and for that reason, a glossary is attached by way of a translation from the Australian and English idioms and vocabulary that the story is punctuated with. This Is as Big as It Gets will, hopefully, be followed by A Bit of This and a Bit of That and then, to complete the trilogy, Amen to All That. The pattern of using no words longer than four letters in the telling of the story will continue.
