In our chaotic, high-tech age, the lines between work and home, public and private, are becoming increasingly blurred. In this changing time, Jackson explores the ever-changing role of home in our lives and sets out to update our idea of home. What's Happening to Home? goes beyond debates about square footage and working moms, to shed light on the larger questions surrounding the idea of home. How can we find refuge without shortchanging the work lives so many of us value? How can we preserve times and spaces for intimacy and reflection without returning to rigid ideals of the past? Jackson offers an inspiring and illuminating look at the future of home, the centerpiece of our lives. - Author website.
If it's true that we get what we measure, can you conceive of a reality where we would put aside the archaic practice of measuring attendance and offerings, and replace it with measuring the progress of faith life at home? Now, for the first time, readers can discover what is truly happening in the homes of churchgoing people based on groundbreaking new research of over 6000 church goers across 12 denominations. - What good is our discipleship if it is not being lived and expressed at home? - What good is our evangelism if 60+% of our kids are walking away from the faith because of the hypocrisy they saw at home. - What good is our missionality if we are doing one thing in the world and another thing at home? - What good is our worship if that's all people do, spiritually, once a week? Get ready, this book is going to be revealing, challenging yet incredibly helpful in showcasing faith life at home realities church leaders have overlooked for far too long.
This New York Times bestselling book is filled with hundreds of fun, deceptively simple, budget-friendly ideas for sprucing up your home. With two home renovations under their (tool) belts and millions of hits per month on their blog YoungHouseLove.com, Sherry and John Petersik are home-improvement enthusiasts primed to pass on a slew of projects, tricks, and techniques to do-it-yourselfers of all levels. Packed with 243 tips and ideas—both classic and unexpected—and more than 400 photographs and illustrations, this is a book that readers will return to again and again for the creative projects and easy-to-follow instructions in the relatable voice the Petersiks are known for. Learn to trick out a thrift-store mirror, spice up plain old roller shades, "hack" your Ikea table to create three distinct looks, and so much more.
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • An “extraordinary” (The New York Times Book Review) tender and vivid memoir about the radical grace we discover when we consider ourselves bound together in community, and a moving account of one woman’s attempt to answer the essential question Who are we to one another? “Your heart will be altered by this book.”—Gregory Boyle, S.J., New York Times bestselling author of Tattoos on the Heart Liz Hauck and her dad had a plan to start a weekly cooking program in a residential home for teenage boys in state care, which was run by the human services agency he co-directed. When her father died before they had a chance to get the project started, Liz decided she would try it without him. She didn’t know what to expect from volunteering with court-involved youth, but as a high school teacher she knew that teenagers are drawn to food-related activities, and as a daughter, she believed that if she and the kids made even a single dinner together she could check one box off her father’s long, unfinished to-do list. This is the story of what happened around the table, and how one dinner became one hundred dinners. “The kids picked the menus, I bought the groceries,” Liz writes, “and we cooked and ate dinner together for two hours a week for nearly three years. Sometimes improvisation in kitchens is disastrous. But sometimes, a combination of elements produces something spectacularly unexpected. I think that’s why, when we don’t know what else to do, we feed our neighbors.” Capturing the clumsy choreography of cooking with other people, this is a sharply observed story about the ways we behave when we are hungry and the conversations that happen at the intersections of flavor and memory, vulnerability and strength, grief and connection. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SHE READS
The incomparable Rebecca Solnit, author of more than a dozen acclaimed, prizewinning books of nonfiction, brings the same dazzling writing to the essays in Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness. As the title suggests, the territory of Solnit’s concerns is vast, and in her signature alchemical style she combines commentary on history, justice, war and peace, and explorations of place, art, and community, all while writing with the lyricism of a poet to achieve incandescence and wisdom. Gathered here are celebrated iconic essays along with little-known pieces that create a powerful survey of the world we live in, from the jungles of the Zapatistas in Mexico to the splendors of the Arctic. This rich collection tours places as diverse as Haiti and Iceland; movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring; an original take on the question of who did Henry David Thoreau’s laundry; and a searching look at what the hatred of country music really means. Solnit moves nimbly from Orwell to Elvis, to contemporary urban gardening to 1970s California macramé and punk rock, and on to searing questions about the environment, freedom, family, class, work, and friendship. It’s no wonder she’s been compared in Bookforum to Susan Sontag and Annie Dillard and in the San Francisco Chronicle to Joan Didion. The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness proves Rebecca Solnit worthy of the accolades and honors she’s received. Rarely can a reader find such penetrating critiques of our time and its failures leavened with such generous heapings of hope. Solnit looks back to history and the progress of political movements to find an antidote to despair in what many feel as lost causes. In its encyclopedic reach and its generous compassion, Solnit’s collection charts a way through the thickets of our complex social and political worlds. Her essays are a beacon for readers looking for alternative ideas in these imperiled times.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the stars of the Netflix series Get Organized with The Home Edit (with a serious fan club that includes Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Mindy Kaling), here is an accessible, room-by-room guide to establishing new order in your home. “A master class on how to arrange even your most unattractive belongings—and spaces—in an aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-navigate way.”—Glamour (10 Books to Help You Live Your Best Life) Believe this: every single space in your house has the potential to function efficiently and look great. The mishmash of summer and winter clothes in the closet? Yep. Even the dreaded junk drawer? Consider it done. And the best news: it’s not hard to do—in fact, it’s a lot of fun. From the home organizers who made their orderly eye candy the method that everyone swears by comes Joanna and Clea’s signature approach to decluttering. The Home Edit walks you through paring down your belongings in every room, arranging them in a stunning and easy-to-find way (hello, labels!), and maintaining the system so you don’t need another do-over in six months. When you’re done, you’ll not only know exactly where to find things, but you’ll also love the way it looks. A masterclass and look book in one, The Home Edit is filled with bright photographs and detailed tips, from placing plastic dishware in a drawer where little hands can reach to categorizing pantry items by color (there’s nothing like a little ROYGBIV to soothe the soul). Above all, it’s like having your best friends at your side to help you turn the chaos into calm. Includes a link to download and print the labels from a computer (you will need 8-1/2 x 11-inch clear repositionable sticker project paper, such as Avery 4397).
Many of the details of the main character’s life parallel’s actual life events of the author. The author earned an MBA in finance, served four years in the military, and 14 years with the Department of Homeland Security. The motivation for the book arose when a Jewish friend asked him to describe his feelings about the afterlife. After that, he wrote the book with inspiration for the story being the Two Great Commandments from the Bible as well as thoughts from The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott and finally a lifetime of experiences. The author was highly inspired by a quote from the movie Gladiator, “what we do in life echoes in eternity.” The book was intended to be more action/romance than spiritual but as he experienced a spiritual awakening of his own, the author’s point of view of the world changed. People would ask, “how are you doing?’ and he would answer, “better than I deserve.” The author was dazzled at the extent of religious fervor in many communities but was all too keenly aware of the sadness and desperation brought about by generational poverty on the part of many and generational greed on the part of others. He was also deeply saddened at the spread of godlessness in the secular world. The author earnestly wants to produce an allegory showing a broken special ops soldier, representing every broken man or woman within the reach of this book, nevertheless making his way to heaven to experience the love of God. How can such a man, or any of us, achieve eternity in heaven with the Holy Father when faced with all that we have done? Joe, the special ops man, was told by the archangels that ever since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden there had been a vicious struggle in the Universe between God and the Devil for the souls of the living. The angels in heaven are tasked to assist the Heavenly Father in this struggle. Joe and other warriors were masters of the skills needed to help the Heavenly Father in this effort.
High school sweethearts Brad Andrews and Monika Johnson are about to have a baby. On top of planning for their graduation ceremony, they must now plan a wedding and prepare for a child. They both had university scholarships but have given them up to take over the Andrews family business. It’s not the life they dreamed of, but it’s one they can be happy with. Five years later, Monika is found dead, and her young son is missing. While the town has suspicions about Brad, the police have no evidence to suggest foul play was involved. As the small town grapples with this tragedy, they must also process another: a car crash that leaves a young mother without her husband and son. After recovering from her injuries and a strange encounter with the owner of a local auto wreckage business, the woman leaves Deer Lake and never looks back. She has made a decision that has given her a new life.
Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction • From the celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street: "This memoir has the transcendent sweep of a full life.” —Houston Chronicle From Chicago to Mexico, the places Sandra Cisneros has lived have provided inspiration for her now-classic works of fiction and poetry. But a house of her own, a place where she could truly take root, has eluded her. In this jigsaw autobiography, made up of essays and images spanning three decades—and including never-before-published work—Cisneros has come home at last. Written with her trademark lyricism, in these signature pieces the acclaimed author of The House on Mango Street and winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature shares her transformative memories and reveals her artistic and intellectual influences. Poignant, honest, and deeply moving, A House of My Own is an exuberant celebration of a life lived to the fullest, from one of our most beloved writers.
