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By Betsy Tobin. 2014
Things We Couldn't Explain is a comic story of young love, thwarted desire and the slippery nature of faith. It's…
ideal for readers who have enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars and The Rosie Project. Some things just can't be explained. It's the summer of '79 and the small town of Jericho, Ohio is awash with mysteries. Anne-Marie is beautiful, blind, virginal - and pregnant. Ethan is the boy next door who would do anything to win her heart. But when the Virgin Mary starts to appear in the sunset, the town is besieged by zealots, tourists and profiteers. Can love survive amidst the madness? A comic tale of young love, thwarted desire and the slippery nature of faith... Author Information: Betsy Tobin is the acclaimed author of four novels: Bone House, short-listed for the Commonwealth Prize and winner of a Herodotus Prize in America, The Bounce, Ice Land, and Crimson China, a BBC Radio 4 Book-At-Bedtime and shortlisted for Epic Romantic Novel of the Year. Her books have been published throughout Europe and North America and two have been optioned for feature film. Betsy also writes for stage and radio, and is a past winner of the London Writers' Competition for her short story, Joyride. Born and raised in the American Midwest, she now lives in London and Wales with her husband and four children, and teaches writing with Arvon and First Story.I died in 1990, in an automobile accident in Alaska on the Seward Highway. Soon thereafter, I found myself sitting…
on the ground outside my home in south Anchorage. Only my home wasn't there. Actually, the whole subdivision was missing. Because I soon learned that it wasn't 1990 anymore; it was 1963. But how could that be? In 1963, I was a 9-year old boy living in upstate New York. How did I get here, and why? Could I get back the life I knew? I wanted my wife back! Meeting With The Well Known details my journey back to 1990 from 1963. The impossible circumstances, the delicate change of history, and the call of God to challenge the Church's misconception of time. An adventure so incredible, I dare not declare it as true.By Jeffrey Small. 2011
A murder at the Taj Mahal. A kidnapping in a sacred city. A desperate chase through a cliffside monastery. All…
in the pursuit of a legend that could link the world's great religious faiths.In 1887, a Russian journalist made an explosive discovery in a remote Himalayan monastery only to be condemned and silenced for the heresy he proposed. His discovery vanished shortly thereafter.Now, graduate student Grant Matthews journeys to the Himalayas in search of this ancient mystery. But Matthews couldn't have anticipated the conspiracy of zealots who would go to any lengths to prevent him from bringing this secret public. Soon he is in a race to expose a truth that will change the world's understanding of religion. A truth that his university colleagues believe is mere myth. A truth that will change his life forever-if he survives.By Philip Gulley. 2001
Stories from a Place That Feels Like Home Master storyteller Philip Gulley envelops readers in an almost…
forgotten world of plainspoken and honest small-town values evoking a simpler time when people knew each other by name folks looked out for their neighbors and people were willing to do what was right--no matter the cost When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr and be read on the air to 24 million people Fourteen books later with more than a million books in print Gulley still entertains as well as inspires from his small-town front porchBy Franco Ferrucci. 1996
At the center of Franco Ferrucci's inspired novel is a tender, troubled God. In the beginning is God's solitude, and…
because God is lonely he creates the world. He falls in love with earth, plunges into the oceans, lives as plant and reptile and bird. His every thought and mood serve to populate the planet, with consequences that run away from him—sometimes delightfully, sometimes unfortunately. When a new arrival emerges from the apes, God believes he has finally found the companion he needs to help him make sense of his unruly creation. Yet, as the centuries pass, God feels more and more out of place in the world he has created; by the close of his memoir, he is packing his bags. Highly praised and widely reviewed, The Life of God is a playful, wondrous, and irresistible book, recounting thousands of years of religious and philosophical thought. "A supreme but imperfect entity, the protagonist of this religiously enlightened and orthodoxically heretical novel is possessed by a raving love for his skewed, unbalanced world. . . . Blessed are the readers, for this tale of God's long insomnia will keep them happily awake. . . . Extraordinary. " —Umberto Eco "The Life of God is, in truth, the synthesis of a charming writer's . . . expression of his boundless hopes for, and poignant disappointments in, his own human kind. " —Jack Miles, New York Times Book Review "Rather endearing. . . . This exceedingly amusing novel . . . is a continuous provocation and delight; there isn't a dull page in it. " —Kirkus Reviews "A smart and charming knitting of secular and ecclesiastic views of the world. . . . The character of God is likable—sweet, utterly human. . . . The prose is delightful . . . the writing is consistently witty and intelligent and periodically hilarious. " —Allison Stark Draper, Boston Review "'God's only excuse is that he does not exist,' wrote Stendhal, but now Franco Ferrucci has provided the Supreme Being with another sort of alibi. " —James Morrow, Washington Post Book WorldBy Elizabeth Cunningham. 2007
"Cunningham weaves Hebrew scripture, Celtic and Egyptian mythology, and early Christian legend into a nearly seamless whole, creating an unforgettable…
fifth gospel story in which the women most involved in Jesus's ministry are given far more representation."--Library Journal"This year's must-have summer reading."--KINK Radio"Lavish and lusty . . . Cunningham's Celtic Magdalen is as hot in the mouth as Irish whiskey."--Beliefnet (chosen as one of this year's "heretical beach-books")"Explodes off the page with its tales of love, hope, power, and redemption--book clubs looking for a great discussion, take note."--TheBookBrothel.comBy Philip Gulley. 2002
Philip Gulley takes us to Harmony, Indiana, at Christmastime as inspiration strikes the inimitable Dale Hinshaw. Always looking for a…
way to increase the church's profit margins, Hinshaw brainstorms a progressive nativity scene that will involve the whole town, complete with a map like those for the Hollywood stars. Neither Pastor Sam Gardner nor the other members of the Harmony Friends meeting express any enthusiasm for this idea, but Dale is unstoppable. Meanwhile, Pastor Sam has his own concerns: he's having his annual argument with his wife, and he's worried that the four-slotted toaster he bought for her may be too lavish a gift. Amidst the bustle of the season, the citizens of Harmony experience the simple joys and sometime loneliness that often go unseen. Sam comes to the realization that Dale, in his own misguided way, is only trying to draw meaning from the eternal story of Christmas. "In this unsettled world, it is good to have this steadiness -- the Christmas Eve service, the peal of the bell. . . .There is a holiness to memory, a sense of God's presence in these mangers of the mind. Which might explain why it is that the occasions that change the least are often the very occasions that change us the most."By Apo Halmyris, Francesca Degani. 2017
Le cose devono essere nel modo in cui le troviamo. Ma i cercatori sono invitati a viaggiare nello spazio-tempo. La…
nostra vita è limitata, ma la conoscenza no. Un libro sapienziale. Un libro che è come una lanterna sulla spalla.By Jeanine Cummins. 2019
&“Si lo que buscan es una mejor vida, búsquenla en otra parte. Este camino solo es para personas que no…
tienen otra opción, que dejan violencia y miseria detrás. El viaje se volverá más peligroso de ahora en adelante. Todo irá en contra de sus propósitos y los boicoteará&”. Lydia Quixano Pérez vive en Acapulco, México, donde lleva su librería. Tiene un hijo, Luca, el amor de su vida, y un maravilloso esposo que es periodista. Y aunque la vida en Acapulco comienza a agrietarse debido a los cárteles de la droga, su vida es confortable. Un día llega un hombre a la librería y compra cuatro libros, entre los que se encuentran dos de las obras favoritas de Lydia, que piensa que nunca va a vender. Javier es erudito, encantador, aunque Lydia no lo sabe, es el jefe del nuevo cártel que se ha apoderado de la ciudad. Cuando se publica el revelador artículo sobre Javier que el esposo de Lydia escribe para el periódico local, sus vidas cambiarán para siempre. Forzados a huir, Lydia y Luca, de ocho años, pronto se encuentran a kilómetros de su cómoda existencia. Transformados instantáneamente en migrantes, Lydia y Luca viajan en La Bestia, los trenes que se dirigen al norte hacia Estados Unidos, el único lugar donde Javier no podrá encontrarlos. Cuando se unen a las innumerables personas que intentan llegar al norte, Lydia pronto se da cuenta que todos huyen de algo. ¿Pero hacia qué huyen exactamente?By Luis Rius Caso. 2019
«¿Para qué abrir heridas? Que si el mestizaje, que si lo mexicano, que si lo español... Y peor aún si…
van ligados a traumas históricos, corrupción, dictaduras, farsas.» José Gallostra llevaba dos años fungiendo como ministro extraoficial de la España franquista cuando, el 20 de febrero de 1950, fue asesinado a tiros en una calle de la Ciudad de México. Gallostra actuaba en realidad no como embajador, sino como un espía político, y servía de enlace en operaciones ilícitas, en contubernio con algunos personajes de la colonia española. Aparte de provocar un conflicto diplomático, y de que su ejecutor material, un evidente sicario, ni siquiera se resistió al arresto, su asesinato encierra un enigma: ¿quién lo ordenó y con qué propósito? ¿Los republicanos, los comunistas, los anarquistas, el propio Franco, para propiciar una crisis? Gallostra era un gran ajedrecista y un personaje carismático, galante, pícaro y lujurioso sin cortapisas, así que también cabe pensar: ¿fue su muerte la venganza de algún marido cornudo? Sustentada en una meticulosa investigación, esta novela también muestra un rico mosaico de la sociedad española asentada en la capital mexicana en una época vibrante y definitoria, donde conviven tanto el muralismo y la cultura del exilio como Diego Rivera, José Gaos, Miguel Alemán Valdés y Lázaro Cárdenas. Luis Rius Caso ha logrado una afortunada mezcla de los elementos del thriller con los de la novela histórica.By Teresa Huffman Traver. 2019
Victorian Cosmopolitanism and English Catholicity in the Mid-Century Novel argues that the Creedal doctrines of “the communion of saints” and…
the “holy Catholic Church” provided Victorian novelists—both Roman Catholic and Protestant—with a means of exploring religious forms of cosmopolitanism. Building on research exploring the divisions between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism in Victorian literature and culture, Teresa Huffman Traver considers the extent to which anti-Catholicism, domesticity, and national identity were linked. Huffman Traver connects this research with cosmopolitan theory, and analyzes how the conception of Catholicity could be used to reach beyond national identity towards a transnational community. Investigating the idea of a “rooted” cosmopolitanism, grounded in the local and limited in scope, this Pivot book offers a new angle on how religion, domesticity, and national identity were constructed in nineteenth-century British culture.By Gavin Knight. 2006
Tres historias reales y tres ciudades que podrían ser cualquier otra... La violencia y el tráfico de drogas son dos…
de los grandes problemas sociales a nivel mundial. Los chicos malos del barrio se acerca a ellos a través de tres ciudades del Reino Unido: Manchester, Londres y Glasgow. Tres historias independientes, con personajes y visiones del problema de lo más diversas. En Manchester tenemos a Anders Svenson, un policía obsesionado con atrapar a Merlin y Flow, principales capos de la droga en la ciudad. En Londres, Pilgrim es un chico de ascendencia jamaicana que se mete en líos con pandillas. Esto lo lleva a participar en el robo de un camión y a acabar en un reformatorio. Pero, lejos de reformarse, la dureza del ambiente lo lleva a formar su propia banda para sobrevivir. En Glasgow, Karin McCluskey es detective y ha sido ascendida para controlar el número de crímenes violentos. Sus estudios descubren que la tasa de crimen real es el triple del que aparece en los informes. Busca ayuda en políticos y gente influyente, pero todos piensan que la violencia está demasiado arraigada para invertir su dinero y su tiempo en programas para solventarla. Estos y otros personajes construyen una novela coral que, con un estilo directo y objetivo, muestra al lector la realidad de la violencia, sus causas y sus consecuencias, basándose en historias reales y situaciones que podrían darse en cualquier ciudad del mundo.Compare worldwide religious regulations involving gay sex and masculinity! Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods: An Exploration into the Religious Significance…
of Male Homosexuality in World Perspective is an eye-opening look at the traditions of particular religions and their edicts concerning gay sex. This book examines the origins of holy directives involving homosexualitywhether forbidden, tolerated, or mandatoryand establishes a link between theology, sex roles, and the sensitive issue of masculinity. This text draws a parallel between homosexuality and the idea of religion, suggesting that gay rights can be understood as a freedom of religion issue. While most readers are familiar with the traditional Islamic, Christian, and Hebrew prohibitions against sex between two males, this book also reveals other historic religions from around the world that neither opposed nor looked down on homosexuality. Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods argues that masculinity is the universal theme that formed historical interpretationwarriors and men of high status could not be sexually receptive or feminine and still be called men. This intriguing text shows how the modern homophile movements are in effect redefining masculinity to obliterate the stigma of being a sexually receptive man. Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods examines the significance of homosexuality in such religions as: the Sambians of New Guinea the Taoists of Ancient China Plato and the later Stoics Islamic Sufism Native American culture Hebrew Scriptures early Christianity Buddhism Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods is an enlightening book that honors homosexual claims to moral integrity and appreciates religion and religious figures without rancor. Easy-to-read and free of technical language, this volume is for anyone who has an academic, professional, or personal interest in theology and homosexuality. The author is available for speaking engagements and can be contacted at Ronldlong@aol.comBy Professor Michael D. Jackson. 2015
We all experience qualms and anxieties when we move from the known to the unknown. Though our fulfillment in life…
may depend on testing limits, our faintheartedness is a reminder of our need for security and our awareness of the risks of venturing into alien worlds. Evoking the hot, dust-filled Harmattan winds that blow from the Sahara to the Gulf of Guinea, this book creatively explores what it means to be buffeted by the unforeseen and the unknown. Celebrating the life-giving potential of people, places, and powers that lie beyond our established worlds, Harmattan connects existential vitality to the act of resisting prescribed customs and questioning received notions of truth. At the book's heart is the fictional story of Tom Lannon, a graduate student from Cambridge University, who remains ambivalent about pursuing a conventional life. After traveling to Sierra Leone in the aftermath of its devastating civil war, Tom meets a writer who helps him explore the possibilities of renewal. Illustrating the fact that certain aspects of human existence are common to all people regardless of culture and history, Harmattan remakes the distinction between home and world and the relationship between knowledge and life.By Jackie Clune. 2020
'Obligatory reading for all parents of teenagers!' NIGELLA LAWSON'Bloody marvellous. Horribly familiar, funny, touching, sad, brutally honest...clutch this book to…
your stained T-shirt and never let it go.' JO BRAND'Terrific. A remarkable blend of hilarity and heartbreak with a really satisfying plot. Being childless never felt so good.' GRAHAM NORTON'Warm and witty... The competitive mothering, the hell that is other people's children, the fights and accusations of Homeland inquisition all rang deliciously true... a most entertaining read.' KATHY LETTE'Very poignant... A moving read as well as a funny one.' JANE GARVEY 'Honest, hilarious and painful' WOMAN & HOMEWarning!! This novel may lead you to make rash and life-changing decisions!**Probably don't read if you fear you may be ripe for liberation. Or if you sometimes wee when you laugh...First there was Having It All, then there was Bridget Jones' s Diary and I Don't Know How She Does It. Now there is Teenage Punchbag.I'm Just A Teenage Punchbag is a laugh-out-loud, sob-on-the bus journey through the so-called life of a middle-aged woman.Ciara is mother to three ungrateful, entitled teenagers, is married to steady Martin, a man with hairy udders, and is grieving for her mum who now lives in the wardrobe in a cardboard box from the crematorium. She finds solace in her anonymous blog, and in the daily chats she has with her mum's ashes (often the best conversations she has all day.)Despite the menopause, the invisibility of middle age and the daily self-esteem bashings, courtesy of her kids, Ciara manages to navigate the stormy waters of grief and family life - until her mask slips and she is cast out from the family bosom. She embarks on a mission to fulfil her mum's dying wishes to have her remains sprinkled from the top of the Empire State Building, finding company, distraction and - ultimately - herself in the process.If motherhood is a job - who says you can't resign?By Tim MacGabhann. 2020
Life is finally on the right track for reporter and recovering addict Andrew: he is slowly coming to terms with…
the murder of his photographer boyfriend Carlos, pursuing sobriety and building a new home with a new partner. Andrew has almost forgotten about the story that ruined his life - but that story hasn't forgotten about him, and a series of deadly threats forces him into helping the very man whose gang murdered his boyfriend and left him homeless.A literary take on the classic chase movie, HOW TO BE NOWHERE is the sequel to Tim MacGabhann's genre-busting and critically-acclaimed debut CALL HIM MINE, and a blistering thrill-ride deep into the fog of Central America's murky present and tragic future.By Ewan Morrison. 2019
Winner of the Saltire Literary Award Fiction Book of the Year'Literary gold . . . Morrison has published his masterpiece'…
Sunday Times'Sensational. Like nothing I've ever read. A tour de force' Ian RankinNina X has never been outside. She has never met another child.Nina X has no books, no toys and no privacy.Nina X has no idea what the outside world is like.Nina X has a lot to learn.Nina X has no mother and no father; she has Comrade Chen, and Comrades Uma, Jeni and Ruth. Her closest emotional connection is with the birds she sees when she removes the plasterboard that covers her bedroom window. Comrade Chen has named her The Project; she is being raised entirely separated from the false gods of capitalism and the cult of the self. He has her record everything in her journal, to track her thoughts. To keep her ideology pure, her words are erased, over and over again. But that was before. Now Nina is in Freedom, and all the rules have changed. She has to remember that everything is opposite to what she was told, and yet Freedom seems to be a very confusing and dangerous place'This moving tale of growing up in a Maoist cult, and the traumatic aftermath, explores ideas of freedom, control and identity with warmth and humour' Alex Preston, Observer'Amazing . . . There are few writers left in Britain who have his ambition, vision and empathy. Nina is marvellous creation and this is an important novel' Irvine Welsh'Compelling. Chilling' Lionel ShriverBy Juan Gabriel Vásquez. 2015
Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019"Like Don DeLillo's JFK-themed Libra, the novel is an intoxicating blend of fact…
and fiction" Glasgow Herald"A masterful writer" Nicole Krauss"Vasquez has succeeded García Márquez as the literary grandmaster of Colombia" Ariel Dorfman, New York Review of Books"A dazzlingly choreographed network of echoes and mirrorings" T.L.S.It takes the form of personal and formal investigations into two political assassinations - the murders of Rafael Uribe Uribe in 1914, the man who inspired García Márquez's General Buendia in One Hundred Years of Solitude, and of the charismatic Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the man who might have been Colombia's J.F.K., gunned down on the brink of success in the presidential elections of 1948. Separated by more than 30 years, the two murders at first appear unconnected, but as the novel progresses Vásquez reveals how between them they contain the seeds of the violence that has bedevilled Colombia ever since. The Shape of the Ruins is Vásquez's most ambitious, challenging and rewarding novel to date. His previous novel, The Sound of Things Falling, won Spain's Alfaguara Prize, Italy's Von Rezzori Prize and the 2014 Dublin IMPAC literary Award. Winner of the Prémio Literário Casino da Póvoa 2018 Finalist for the Bienal de Novela Mario Vargas Llosa 2016 Finalist for the Premio Bottari Lattes Grinzane 2017 Finalist for the Prix Fémina Finalist for the Prix Médicis Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLeanBy Karim Miské. 2012
Kosher sushi, kebabs, a second hand bookshop and a bar: the 19th arrondissement in Paris is a cosmopolitan neighbourhood where…
multicultural citizens live, love and worship alongside one another. This peace is shattered when Ahmed Taroudant's melancholy daydreams are interrupted by the blood dripping from his upstairs neighbour's brutally mutilated corpse. The violent murder of Laura Vignole, and the pork joint placed next to her, set imaginations ablaze across the neighborhood, and Ahmed finds himself the prime suspect. However detectives Rachel Kupferstein and Jean Hamelot are not short of leads. What is the connection between a disbanded hip-hop group and the fiery extremist preachers that jostle in the streets for attention? And what is the mysterious new pill that is taking the district by storm? In this his debut novel, Karim Miské demonstrates a masterful control of setting, as he moves seamlessly between the sensual streets of Paris and the synagogues of New York to reveal the truth behind a horrifying crime.By Ian Rankin. 2008
'Rankin is a master story-teller ... I read this in one sitting' GuardianMike Mackenzie is a self-made man with too…
much time on his hands and a bit of the devil in his soul. He is looking for something to liven up the days and settles on a plot to rip-off one of the most high-profile targets in the capital - the National Gallery of Scotland.So, together with two close friends from the art world, he devises a plan to lift some of the most valuable artwork around. But of course, the real trick is to rob the place - whilst persuading the world that no crime was ever committed...