A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
Loss...A small word with such a huge meaning. In BRAVER THAN YOU BELIEVE: TRUE STORIES OF LOSING LOVE AND FINDING SELF, six newly single moms write about the worst event of their lives. After losing their spouses to sudden death or divorce, Sam (the main author Sue Mangum), Tessa, Kathryn, Phoebe, Nattie, and Catrina create a safe space to grieve. Calling themselves 'Single Moms After Loss: Talking Advising Healing Laughing Crying' or SMAL TAHLC pronounced "small talk," their conversations are anything but. Over email, they ask questions they can't ask anyone else, like:"Will I ever have sex again?" "I thought I was religious, but is there really a God?""When should I tell my children that I'm dating?"And finally,"Wow...I'm happy...is that allowed?"Channeling the candid, hilarious, and heartfelt qualities of Becky Aikman's Saturday Night Widows, this work of narrative non-fiction is also based on the true stories of six suddenly single women. This story of actual emails unfolds in real time, as each woman faces her most intimate fears and enters the exhilarating, nerve-wracking, and sometimes hilarious world of dating as a single parent. The book also shows the surprising similarities between death and divorce and grapples with the big questions of single parenting, faith, and learning to trust in self and others. Sam lost her husband to a genetic heart defect and is left with three children to raise. Gentle Tessa, a self-described pleaser, fixer, and friend to all, couldn't save her marriage from infidelity and is awaiting a divorce any day. No-nonsense and quick-witted Kathryn is "celebrating" the one-year anniversary of filing for divorce from a man she nicknames Juicebox, a more polite form of Douchebag. Nattie, the group's wild child and warm-hearted mother of three young girls, lost her husband of 18 years to a tragic accident. Stoic Phoebe, the quietest and most introspective, is estranged from her unfaithful husband, though he still lives in her guest room until she can find a job and move out. And finally, there's chatty, boy-crazy Catrina, whose beloved husband of 13 years died right after they had sex.Though loss is the common immediate bond between these different women, each one longs to push through her pain and fear to become a whole, happy person again. And through a year of emails from January to December, the women learn that, with each other and an open, honest space to share the most painful truths, just about anything is possible. Even finding happiness after loss.
Twelve year-old Ante (Antonia) Alganesh has a problem. It’s lunchbreak and Florence’s gang are after her. Desperate for a place to hide, she climbs the forbidden staircase to the old organ loft, where a hundred years ago a boy tumbled to his death. No one will think of looking for her there... Except Florence. Petrified, Ante watches her enemy approach, leaning on the rotten hand-rail. She shouts a warning, but it’s too late. There’s a crash – and a boy appears from nowhere, just as a door opens in the wall behind them. All three find themselves in a tunnel leading to a river bank where people queue to be rowed across by a filthy old ferryman…Forced to bury their differences, Ante and Florence accompany the strange boy, Gil, on a journey he should have taken 100 years ago through the Underworld. Making their way past the Shopping Maul and Multivice Complex, attacked by Cerberus, Harpies, Furies and the Minotaur, all this is bad enough: far worse is the doubt gnawing at Ante’s heart...Ante’s Inferno is a gripping combination of fantasy, Greek mythology and adventure, for children aged 9-12 years old. Author Griselda is inspired by C. S. Lewis and Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth. Ante's Inferno won the Children's award in the People's Book Prize 2013, and the Silver award in the 9-12 year-old category of the Wishing Shelf Independent Book Awards 2012.
Moving to America turns H&à's life inside out. For all the 10 years of her life, H&à has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by, and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. H&à and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, H&à discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape, and the strength of her very own family. This is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.
In the shadows of Walton Hall a demon lurks... His name: Mephistopheles. In 1586, young John Striven struck a bargain with him in return for help against his murderous foster brother.
Raising My Rainbow is Lori Duron’s frank, heartfelt, and brutally funny account of her and her family's adventures of distress and happiness raising a gender-creative son. Whereas her older son, Chase, is a Lego-loving, sports-playing boy's boy, Lori's younger son, C.J., would much rather twirl around in a pink sparkly tutu, with a Disney Princess in each hand while singing Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi." C.J. is gender variant or gender nonconforming, whichever you prefer. Whatever the term, Lori has a boy who likes girl stuff—really likes girl stuff. He floats on the gender-variation spectrum from super-macho-masculine on the left all the way to super-girly-feminine on the right. He's not all pink and not all blue. He's a muddled mess or a rainbow creation. Lori and her family choose to see the rainbow. Written in Lori's uniquely witty and warm voice and launched by her incredibly popular blog of the same name, Raising My Rainbow is the unforgettable story of her wonderful family as they navigate the often challenging but never dull privilege of raising a slightly effeminate, possibly gay, totally fabulous son. Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
Winner of the Virginia Prize for Fiction A young American on a vacation trip around India with her boyfriend, steps down off the train for a bottle of water at Shambala Junction, only to find herself stranded at the town with no phone or money, she has to rely on the kindness of strangers... A journey into the heart of India, Iris is forced to question her beliefs and values and to learn what really counts. "... a refreshingly original viewpoint on the traditional ‘coming of age’ story, brimming with powerful women, a complex society and fundamental human truths laid out in all its gritty beauty.” -SkyLightRain “An enlightening and enjoyable read. As much a cultural exploration as it is a love story, the book is a remarkable webbing of different viewpoints. Mukherjee is able to translate captivating realities to a wide audience through pulsing characters, with a natural story-telling ability that is inviting and enlightening.” -Windy City Review “My hat is off to you for making Shambala Junction a compelling, suspenseful novel that illuminates the personal and social consequences of corrupt adoptions.” - Umberto Tosi author of Ophelia Rising and contributing editor of Chicago Quarterly Review “... fluid prose that takes firm hold of the plot to produce an invigorating, engaging, and dynamic story.” -World Literature Today “A truly engaging and lovely read, Shambala Junction is a book that tugs at the reader’s morality while at the same time telling a truly inspiring coming-of-age story.” -9/10 – Star2.com “Shambala Junction takes hold of you and leads you with absolute confidence into one of the most extraordinary journeys any of us ever embark on: the discovery of India.” -- Barney Norris, author of Five Rivers Met On A Wooded Plain About the author Dipika Mukherjee made her debut as a novelist with Thunder Demons (Gyaana Books, 2011), long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize. She won the Platform Flash Fiction competition in April 2009. She has edited two anthologies of Southeast Asian short stories: Silverfish New Writing 6 (Silverfish, 2006) and The Merlion and Hibiscus (Penguin, 2002). Her first poetry collection, The Palimpsest of Exile, was published by Rubicon Press in 2009. Her short stories and poems have appeared in publications around the world, including World Literature Today, Asia Literary Review, The South Asia Review, Del Sol Review and Postcolonial Text among others, and have been widely anthologised. She curates an Asian/American Reading Series for the Guild Literary Complex, Chicago. Dipika holds a doctorate in English (Sociolinguistics) from Texas A&M University. She has taught language and linguistic courses in China, India, the Netherlands, United States, Malaysia, and Singapore and now teaches Sociolinguistics at Northwestern University and is Faculty Affiliate at the Equality Development and Globalisation Studies (EDGS), Roberta Buffett Centre for International and Comparative Studies. She lives in Chicago with her husband and they have two sons. Reviews “This vividly written, courageous book... a refreshingly original viewpoint on the traditional ‘coming of age’ story, brimming with powerful women, a complex society and fundamental human truths laid out in all its gritty beauty.” --SkyLightRain “An enlightening and enjoyable read. As much a cultural exploration as it is a love story, the book is a remarkable webbing of different viewpoints. Mukherjee is able to translate captivating realities to a wide audience through pulsing characters, with a natural story-telling ability that is inviting and enlightening.” --Windy City Review “My hat is off to you for making Shambala Junction a compelling, suspenseful novel that illuminates the personal and social consequences of corrupt adoptions.” --Umberto Tosi author of Ophelia Rising and contributing editor of Chicago Quarterly Review “... fluid prose that takes firm hold of the plot to produce an invigorating, engaging, and dynamic story.” --World Literature Today “A truly engaging and lovely read, Shambala Junction is a book that tugs at the reader’s morality while at the same time telling a truly inspiring coming-of-age story.” --9/10 – Star2.com About previous books: “Dipika Mukherjee uses vibrant imagery and brutally honest observation to create a humanistic portrait of a modern nation still coming to grips with its past.” --City Weekend (Shanghai) “Longlisted for the Man Asian Prize in 2009, Mukherjee’s novel is not unlike Miguel Syjuco’s IIustrado, which won the prize in 2008. Both are grim state-of-the-nation novels based in East Asia, written by peripatetic authors. Both have lead characters who leave relatively comfortable lives in the United States of America to travel back to the troubled East and tragic pasts.” Paperback Pickings, The Telegraph
