The widely published and award-winning poetry and prose in this book was inspired by a year spent working as Writer in Residence at HMP Nottingham Prison. The jail was built on the vestiges of a low moor, itself once part of Sherwood Forest. The former haunt of legendary outlaws, it was left with just a handful of trees, one of which was rumoured to be rooted in the bodies of executed criminals. Taxi drivers rarely knew how to find the jail. Foxes came and went through the grounds. Rain fell every Thursday. During the year, two new wings were built, and remand prisoners shipped into the old Victorian wing. As the jail groaned under the expansion programme, routines were transformed, and tensions increased. The Privilege of Rain reflects on the writer's role in the rehabilitation of offenders, and finds poetry in a lonely place, where ordinary objects like flasks and rain become charged with new meaning, and where language is pressured into fresh shapes:
Sunbathing in the Rain is undoubtedly the best book I have ever read about one person's experience of depression.' - Dorothy Rowe, author of Breaking the Bonds 'This upbeat, very readable and engaging view of depression as a temporary retrenchment, a breathing space in which to adjust better to life, makes encouraging reading.' - Spectator 'Gwyneth Lewis writes with clarity, beauty and metaphorical precision. She conveys the darkness, the silence, the selfishness, the mental clutter of depression brilliantly.' - Simon Hattenstone, Guardian 'Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis shares her personal story of wrestling with clinical depression and describes what she learned along the way about coping with the disease. The text is aimed primarily at those who are currently depressed and are struggling to recover. The emphasis throughout is on the healing power of self-acceptance and truth-telling. This is a reprint of a book first published in London by Flamingo in 2002.' - www.booknews.com This might well be the Age of Depression. More people than ever now experience the disease directly or see a friend or relative succumb to it. Among their number is Gwyneth Lewis. And she set about writing this book simply because she wished something like it had existed for her when she was in the middle of her depression. Depression is assassination. The depressive is both victim and detective - charged with tracking down the perpetrator of his or her own murder. By drawing on her own experience of struggling with the affliction, by highlighting ways of coping, ways of truth-telling, and ways of thriving, in a straightforward, robust fashion full of casual wisdom and easy wit, Gwyneth re-embarks on a journey that nearly killed her first time round and returns with this, perhaps the first truly undogmatic, undemanding, downright useful book about depression.
A Kirkus Best Book of 2019! From the critically acclaimed author of Just Like Jackie comes a strikingly tender novel about one family’s heartbreak and the compassion that carries them through, perfect for fans of Sara Pennypacker, Lisa Graff, and Ann M. Martin. It’s been almost a year since Rain’s brother Guthrie died, and her parents still don’t know it was all Rain’s fault. In fact, no one does—Rain buried her secret deep, no matter how heavy it weighs on her heart. So when her mom suggests moving the family from Vermont to New York City, Rain agrees. But life in the big city is different. She’s never seen so many people in one place—or felt more like an outsider. With her parents fighting more than ever and the anniversary of Guthrie’s death approaching, Rain is determined to keep her big secret close to her heart. But even she knows that when you bury things deep, they grow up twice as tall. Readers will fall in love with the pluck and warmth of Stoddard’s latest heroine and the strength that even a small heart can lend.
When unexpected grief brings two families together, how do they start their journey to healing? Join Michael and Gina Spehn--bestselling authors and founders of the New Day Foundation--as they tell their story of resilience, remembrance, and reliance on their shared faith. Matt Kell and Cathy Spehn had known each other since grade school. As adults, they each got married, lived in their hometown, and attended the same church. Their kids even attended school together. Matt died at home on Christmas Day after a three-year battle with cancer, leaving behind his wife, Gina, and two young boys. After attending Matt's inspirational funeral and reaching out to Gina with offers of support, Cathy was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. She died only 17 days later, leaving behind her husband, Michael, and three young children. In her final hours, Cathy instructed Michael to call Gina Kell. The Color of Rain illuminates the stepping stones of loss and healing that ultimately led to a joyful new life for Michael, Gina, and their five children. Their path to becoming a modern-day Brady Bunch was paved with grief, laughter, and the willingness to be restored to a new and even better life despite the inevitable resistance they faced. As you learn more about Michael and Gina's story, you'll learn: The importance of keeping God at the center of your marriage How they navigated becoming a blended family The life-changing power of faith, even on your darkest days As their dual first-person narrative reveals what it is like to walk through loss and love simultaneously, you'll have an intimate look at how Michael and Gina lived, lost, and ultimately persevered through extraordinary circumstances. Praise for The Color of Rain: "The Color of Rain is a testament to God's restoration and grace. Even in our suffering, there is beauty. It rarely makes sense, but it's always true: 'He makes all things beautiful, in His time.'" --Katie Davis, New York Times bestselling author of Kisses from Katie "Michael and Gina Spehn's The Color of Rain is not only an instant bestseller but also an instant classic, certain to be pressed into the hands of hundreds of thousands of grieving men and women by their closest friends, for it is a book that is painfully honest about the depths of sorrow but also full of the joy of the hard path back from near despair. It is another reminder that God is there, however dark the day, and that he will comfort those who call on him." --Hugh Hewitt, bestselling author and radio host
In the tradition of celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell. The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the bookselling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits. In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton-the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families-feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei-to whom he owes absolute loyalty-is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.
By the spring of 1969, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had reached its zenith as the largest, most radical movement of white youth in American history—a genuine New Left. Yet less than a year later, SDS splintered into warring factions and ceased to exist. SDS's development and its dissolution grew directly out of the organization's relations with the black freedom movement, the movement against the Vietnam War, and the newly emerging struggle for women's liberation. For a moment, young white people could comprehend their world in new and revolutionary ways. But New Leftists did not respond as a tabula rasa. On the contrary, these young people's consciousnesses, their culture, their identities had arisen out of a history which, for hundreds of years, had privileged white over black, men over women, and America over the rest of the world. Such a history could not help but distort the vision and practice of these activists, good intentions notwithstanding. A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why It Failed traces these activists in their relation to other movements and demonstrates that the New Left's dissolution flowed directly from SDS's failure to break with traditional American notions of race, sex, and empire.
In a voice that resonates with insight and humor, New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith tells the story of a teenage girl who must face down her grief and reclaim her place in the world with the help of her intertribal community. It's been six months since Cassidy Rain Berghoff’s best friend, Galen, died, and up until now she has succeeded in shutting herself off from the world. But when controversy arises around Aunt Georgia’s Indian Camp in their mostly white midwestern community, Rain decides to face the outside world again, with a new job photographing the campers for her town’s newspaper. Soon, Rain has to decide how involved she wants to become in Indian Camp. Does she want to keep a professional distance from her fellow Native teens? And, though she is still grieving, will she be able to embrace new friends and new beginnings? In partnership with We Need Diverse Books
From the award-winning poet and playwright behind Barber Shop Chronicles, The Half-God of Rainfall is an epic story and a lyrical exploration of pride, power and female revenge.
A reinvestigation of chemical biological weapons dropped on the Hmong people in the fallout of the Vietnam War In this staggering work of documentary, poetry, and collage, Mai Der Vang reopens a wrongdoing that deserves a new reckoning. As the United States abandoned them at the end of the Vietnam War, many Hmong refugees recounted stories of a mysterious substance that fell from planes during their escape from Laos starting in the mid-1970s. This substance, known as “yellow rain,” caused severe illnesses and thousands of deaths. These reports prompted an investigation into allegations that a chemical biological weapon had been used against the Hmong in breach of international treaties. A Cold War scandal erupted, wrapped in partisan debate around chemical arms development versus control. And then, to the world’s astonishment, American scientists argued that yellow rain was the feces of honeybees defecating en masse—still held as the widely accepted explanation. The truth of what happened to the Hmong, to those who experienced and suffered yellow rain, has been ignored and discredited. Integrating archival research and declassified documents, Yellow Rain calls out the erasure of a history, the silencing of a people who at the time lacked the capacity and resources to defend and represent themselves. In poems that sing and lament, that contend and question, Vang restores a vital narrative in danger of being lost, and brilliantly explores what it means to have access to the truth and how marginalized groups are often forbidden that access.
