The first substantial collection of short fiction from "a writer with enough electricity to light up the country" (Ann Patchett) "I guess the things that scare you are the things that are almost normal," observes one narrator in this collection of effervescent and often uncanny stories. Drawing on fifteen years of work, See You in Paradise is the fullest expression yet of J. Robert Lennon's distinctive and brilliantly comic take on the pathos and surreality at the heart of American life. In Lennon's America, a portal to another universe can be discovered with surprising nonchalance in a suburban backyard, adoption almost reaches the level of blood sport, and old pals return from the dead to steal your girlfriend. Sexual dysfunction, suicide, tragic accidents, and career stagnation all create surprising opportunities for unexpected grace in this full-hearted and mischievous depiction of those days (weeks, months, years) we all have when things just don't go quite right.
Elegant, brutal, and profound—this magnificent debut captures the grit and glory of modern Hawai'i with breathtaking force and accuracy. In a stunning collection that announces the arrival of an incredible talent, Kristiana Kahakauwila travels the islands of Hawai'i, making the fabled place her own. Exploring the deep tensions between local and tourist, tradition and expectation, façade and authentic self, This Is Paradise provides an unforgettable portrait of life as it’s truly being lived on Maui, Oahu, Kaua'i and the Big Island. In the gut-punch of “Wanle,” a beautiful and tough young woman wants nothing more than to follow in her father’s footsteps as a legendary cockfighter. With striking versatility, the title story employs a chorus of voices—the women of Waikiki—to tell the tale of a young tourist drawn to the darker side of the city’s nightlife. “The Old Paniolo Way” limns the difficult nature of legacy and inheritance when a patriarch tries to settle the affairs of his farm before his death. Exquisitely written and bursting with sharply observed detail, Kahakauwila’s stories remind us of the powerful desire to belong, to put down roots, and to have a place to call home.
Marin Cole has never: Seen the ocean Climbed a mountain Taken a risk on love ....But if her sister's plan works, she just might do all three. Ever since her journalist mother died on assignment, Marin has played it safe, refusing to set foot outside the state of Tennessee. Her wild-child younger sister, Sadie, has trotted the globe as a photographer, living off of art and adrenaline. When Sadie returns from a tough assignment abroad and looks a little worse for wear, Marin reluctantly agrees to a sisters' spa weekend on the tropical island of Saba. But her lifelong fear of travel is affirmed when Sadie misses the flight, Marin's luggage gets mixed up with another passenger's, and an episode of turbulence sends her hurtling into the lap of Lucas Tsai, the handsome stranger who stole her sister's seat. For the first time in a long time, Marin has to step outside of her comfort zone as she explores the island with Lucas and learns what she's been missing out on. With each breathtaking new experience, Marin gets closer to her real self, the man she’s falling for, and the heart-wrenching truth about why she’s there in the first place.
The acclaimed Nobel Prize winner challenges our most fiercely held beliefs as she weaves folklore and history, memory and myth into an unforgettable meditation on race, religion, gender, and a far-off past that is ever present—in prose that soars with the rhythms, grandeur, and tragic arc of an epic poem. “They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.” So begins Toni Morrison’s Paradise, which opens with a horrifying scene of mass violence and chronicles its genesis in an all-black small town in rural Oklahoma. Founded by the descendants of freed slaves and survivors in exodus from a hostile world, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away, another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage. “A fascinating story, wonderfully detailed. . . . The town is the stage for a profound and provocative debate.” —Los Angeles Times
"Hidden in the remote mountains of Central India, a remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit touched a community and revealed the reality of Jesus and His kingdom. Over 50 people were caught up into Heaven and experienced wondrous visions like the Apostle Paul"--Back cover.
Chronicles the relationship between three friends--Katchoo, Francine, and David--and the people they fall in and out of love with, in a story of dark pasts, hopeful futures, double-crosses, and true friendship.
New York Times bestselling author John Eldredge offers readers a breathtaking look into God’s promise for a new heaven and a new earth. This revolutionary book about our future is based on the simple idea that, according to the Bible, heaven is not our eternal home--the New Earth is. As Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew, the next chapter of our story begins with "the renewal of all things," by which he means the earth we love in all its beauty, our own selves, and the things that make for a rich life: music, art, food, laughter and all that we hold dear. Everything shall be renewed "when the world is made new." More than anything else, how you envision your future shapes your current experience. If you knew that God was going to restore your life and everything you love any day; if you believed a great and glorious goodness was coming to you--not in a vague heaven but right here on this earth--you would have a hope to see you through anything, an anchor for your soul, "an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God" (Hebrews 6:19). Most Christians (most people for that matter) fail to look forward to their future because their view of heaven is vague, religious, and frankly boring. Hope begins when we understand that for the believer nothing is lost. Heaven is not a life in the clouds; it is not endless harp-strumming or worship-singing. Rather, the life we long for, the paradise Adam and Eve knew, is precisely the life that is coming to us. And that life is coming soon.
Jens Naumann, a typical energetic young man of 17 had just moved out of his parent's home in Northern British Columbia, moving into a railway camp as an employee with the British Columbia Railway. All goes well as Jens enjoys his new found freedom, treasuring his driver's license and its associated freedom of travel. Then on a wintry day in 1981, fate rears its ugly head and strikes him blind in his left eye. Jens quickly rearranges his life to accommodate his new found fear - that of losing his remaining eye now that the true vulnerability of his eyesight is revealed. As his life continues onwards despite the initial readjustment, he finds ultimate happiness in his new marriage to his young wife Lorri, and just when life stands at its threshold of paradise exploring fatherhood along with the beauty of travel and thrill, his worst nightmare becomes reality not once, but twice in the most bizarre series of unforeseen incidents of bad luck; as Jens is totally blinded with no foreseeable chance of seeing again according to the best medical experts. Jens tries his best to adjust to this unwanted situation, exploring conventional methods of rehabilitation to live with blindness, as well as using imaginative, totally unheard - of activities in order to pass his time in a hope of someday being able to see again despite all the odds stacked against him. Close to the turn of the century, Jens unexpectedly receives news of an American Medical Device Engineer, Dr. William H. Dobelle, inviting blind adults as patients for his newly developed artificial vision system designed to provide limited vision via visual cortex stimulation. Dr. Dobelle claims that his system has a good chance in functioning based on previous experimenting with volunteers, at the same time classifying the surgical procedure as minor. The system and its related components is complicated; consisting of not only the implants, but a series of "electrical sockets" protruding from the patients head to which an array of computer boxes and stimulator hardware is connected and worn by the patient. Jens is determined to be one of the patients, regardless of the remoteness of the chance of being one out of literally millions of blind people in the World possibly lining up to have this procedure in hopes of ending their blindness for once and for all. To his absolute surprise, Jens is accepted as the first patient for this procedure and slowly builds a relationship with Dr. Dobelle as Jens overcomes obvious barriers of raising enough money for the very expensive procedure, as well as fighting the challenges of relentless forces working against him for his involvement in the Dobelle vision project. Armed with preconceived ideas of how a research institute should be run, Jens travels overseas for the various stages of the procedure, only to find the most astonishing facts of what goes on in the heart of a renowned medical research institute. Not only is Jens looking at the workings of the Dobelle Institute from the view of a patient, but in short time Jens is hired by the firm as Patient Representative, providing further exploration yet on the inner most details concerning a research company and its treatment of the 15 additional implanted patients. Throughout the book, Jens describes the devastation, exhilaration, disappointment, elation, and confusion that attempts at sight recovery, medical intervention, media propaganda, and ethical boundaries conjure in the most illustrative intensity. The manner in which the book ends is most indescribable; one could view it as the final straw, the beginning of a new era, the curse of the unforgiven, the sadness of a crushing reality, the beginning of a good job left unfinished; or that of the birth of a new expert compelled to unleash the new found knowledge for the whole World to thrive. Just as many questions are answered, many more yet are opened and left so far undiscovered. Search for Paradise is ce
For as long as anyone can remember, tourists have flocked to the quaint town of Paradise, Pennsylvania, where Amish buggies are as common as shops selling handcrafted goods. But to attorney Julia Spencer this town is anything but a paradise. Raised in foster homes, Julia has succeeded in life only through steely determination and independence. The close-knit Amish people are a mystery to her, but local veterinarian Simon Thomas knows them well and is fiercely protective of their simple ways, which are increasingly threatened by the outside world. When Julia agrees to defend a local teenager charged in a case involving an Amish boy, she and Simon find themselves on opposite sides of an intense and emotional legal battle. Just when it seems they will never understand one another, God has something to teach them both about the power of forgivenessand the joys to be found in Paradise.
