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Blue Windows: A Christian Science Childhood
By Barbara Wilson. 1997
From Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christian Science, to Deepak Chopra, Americans have struggled with the…
connection between health and happiness. Barbara Wilson was taught by her Christian Scientist family that there was no sickness or evil, and that by maintaining this belief she would be protected. But such beliefs were challenged when Wilson's own mother died of breast cancer after deciding not to seek medical attention, having been driven mad by the contradiction between her religion and her reality. In this perceptive and textured memoir Blue Windows, Wilson surveys the complex history of Christian Science and the role of women in religion and healing.The Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram
By Nicholas Faith. 2006
For decades, the Bronfman family ruled Seagram's and the liquor industry. This is the story of their meteoric rise and…
spectacular fall.The story of the Bronfman family is a fascinating and improbable saga. It is dominated by "Mr. Sam," the single greatest figure in the history of the liquor business, the man who made drinking whiskey respectable in the United States and who in the 1950s and 1960s built Seagram into the first worldwide empire in wine and spirits.After Sam's death in 1971, his oldest son, Edgar, maintained the business, though he was distracted by his matrimonial problems. Nevertheless, in the 1980s he masterminded a major coup when he translated a small investment in oil made by his father into a 25 percent stake in the mighty DuPont company. But in the 1990s, Edgar allowed his second son, Edgar Jr., to indulge his ambition to become a media tycoon. The stake in DuPont was sold, and the money reinvested in Universal, the film and theme-park empire. Edgar Jr. then paid more than $10 billion to buy Polygram Records and thus fulfill his fancy to be king of the world's music business. But at the same time, he remained in charge of the liquor business, which started to stagnate—indeed, to fall apart. Then came the final disaster when the increasingly divided family sold out to Jean-Marie Messier, overreaching empire builder of Vivendi, the French conglomerate. But the story of this amazing family over the past century is about more than booze and business. The Bronfmans is a spectacular account that details the larger-than-life personalities and bitter rivalries that have made the family so famous and, sometimes, so infamous.Wear Your Dreams: My Life in Tattoos
By Ed Hardy, Joel Selvin. 2013
The memoir of iconic tattoo artist Ed Hardy from his beginnings in 1960s California, to leading the tattoo renaissance and…
building his name into a hugely lucrative international brand"Ed Hardy" is emblazoned on everything from t-shirts and hats to perfumes and energy drinks. From LA to Japan, his colorful cross-and-bones designs and ribbon-banners have become internationally ubiquitous. But long before the fashion world discovered his iconic designs, the man behind the eponymous brand spearheaded nothing less than a cultural revolution.In Wear Your Dreams, Ed Hardy recounts his genesis as a tattoo artist and leader in the movement to recognize tattooing as a valid and rich art form, through to the ultimate transformation of his career into a multi-billion dollar branding empire. From giving colored pencil tattoos to neighborhood kids at age ten to working with legendary artists like Sailor Jerry to learning at the feet of the masters in Japan, the book explains how this Godfather of Tattoos fomented the explosion of tattoo art and how his influence can be witnessed on everyone, from countless celebs to ink-adorned rockers to butterfly-branded, stroller-pushing moms. With over fifty different product categories, the Ed Hardy brand generates over $700 million in retail sales annually. Vividly packaged with original Ed Hardy artwork and ideal for ink devotees and Ed Hardy aficionados alike, Wear Your Dreams is a never-before-seen look at the tattoo artist who rocked the art world and has left a permanent mark on fashion history.Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two
By Jim Koch. 2016
NATIONAL BESTSELLER and named a 2016 Best Book of the Year by Inc., Business Insider, and ForbesFounder of The Boston…
Beer Company, brewer of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, and a key catalyst of the American craft beer revolution, Jim Koch offers his unique perspective when it comes to business, beer, and turning your passion into a successful company or career.“Boston Beer’s Jim Koch offers readers a six-pack of wisdom.” – The Boston GlobePull up a chair and crack open a Sam Adams. It’s time to leave behind business as you know it.Quench Your Own Thirst covers everything from finding your own Yoda to Koch’s theory on how a piece of string can teach you the most important lesson you’ll ever learn about business. Koch also has surprising advice on sales, marketing, hiring, and company culture. His anecdotes, quirky musings, and bits of wisdom go far beyond brewing. A fun, engaging guide for building a career or launching a successful business, Quench Your Own Thirst is the key to the ultimate dream: being successful while doing what you love. So, are you quenching you own thirst – or someone else’s? "Like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and the other greats, Jim Koch's entrepreneurial journey is motivated by a deep commitment to making superb products and building a unique culture that reinforces innovation and risk-taking. This book tells a compelling story about how he did it. The lessons will be invaluable for anyone starting a business or building a career." —Bill Hambrecht, co-founder or Hambrecht & Quist and chairman of WRHambrecht + CoSpiritual writer Thomas Merton is the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century. Despite appearances to the contrary,…
in 1966 he was a troubled, lonely monk. Only when the suffering Merton fell madly in love with a student nurse, a forbidden, erotic affair condemned by the Catholic Church, would he discover whether his devotion to God was stronger than his dedication to the woman he called "a miracle in my life." Truly an inspirational story based on Merton's personal journals, new information and sources such as fellow monks, Beneath the Mask of Holiness presents a unique portrayal of the famous man, one never revealed in its entirety before.Sex and Shopping: An Autobiography
By Judith Krantz. 2000
Dear Reader, As I was about to start my eleventh novel, I abruptly realized that I was making a huge…
mistake. On the verge of launching into the imagined world of a twenty-eight-year-old, I felt an intense need to tell another story, the story of a woman I know through and through...a woman with more wealth of experience, a woman who's seen more real glamour, known more fascinating people, lived in a world of more sophistication, and arrived at more hard-won maturity than that twenty-eight-year-old could hope for---in short, my own story. I've tried to remain as unknowable as possible, the better to let my heroines hold the stage, but now I was ready to tell the truth about myself, with no holding back. I've had a different life from that of the majority of women of my generation and background. While I seemed like another "nice Jewish girl," underneath that convenient cover I'd traveled my own, inner-directed path and had many a spicy and secret adventure. I grew up in a complicated tangle of privilege, family problems, and tormented teenaged sexuality. After a riotous education at Wellesley, my life was turned upside down by a glorious year in Paris, marked by an intense but ill-starred romance. I spent the next half-decade in New York, sowing lighthearted wild oats until I finally met my true love, to whom I've been married for forty-six years.When I was fifty I had an utterly unexpected, almost unbelievable success as a number-one bestselling novelist that has continued for book after book. Challenging, lucky, exciting, and often devastatingly askew, my life seems to have been lived under a wild and antic star.I've had as much amazing fun as my heroines, and here's the book to prove it. Judith KrantzForager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult: a Memoir
By Michelle Dowd. 2023
A moving, heartbreaking, and inspiring true story of the author&’s escape from an apocalyptic cult—and the deep understanding of the…
natural world that helped her find freedom. My family prepared me for the end of the world, but I know how to survive on what the earth yields. Michelle Dowd grew up on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest, born into an ultra-religious cult—the Field, as members called it—run by her grandfather, who believed that his chosen followers must prepare themselves to survive doomsday. Bound by the group&’s patriarchal rules and literal interpretation of the Bible, Michelle and her siblings lived a life of deprivation, isolated from Outsiders and starved for both love and food. She was forced to learn the skills necessary to battle hunger, thirst, and cold; she learned to trust animals more than humans; and most important, she learned how to survive by foraging for what she needed. And as Michelle got older, she realized she had the strength to break free. Focus on what will sustain, not satiate you, she would tell herself. Use everything. Waste nothing. Get to know the intricacies of the land like the intricacies of your body. And so she did. With haunting and stark language, and illustrations of edible plants and their uses opening each chapter, Forager is a fierce and empowering coming-of-age story and a timely meditation on the ways in which harnessing nature&’s gifts can lead to our freedom.Joseph White Musser: A Mormon Fundamentalist (Introductions to Mormon Thought)
By Cristina M. Rosetti. 2024
In 1921, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicated Joseph White Musser for his refusal to give up…
plural marriage. Cristina M. Rosetti tells the story of how a Church leader followed his beliefs into exile and applied the religious thought he began to develop in the mainline faith to become a foundational theologian of Mormon fundamentalism. Musser’s devotion to Joseph Smith’s vision and the faith’s foundational texts reflected a widespread uneasiness with, and reaction against, changes taking place across society. Rosetti analyzes how Musser’s writing and thought knit a disparate group of outcast LDS believers into a movement. She also places Musser’s eventful life against the backdrop of a difficult period in LDS history, when the Church strained to disentangle itself from plural marriage and leaders like Musser emerged to help dissident members make sense of their lives outside the mainstream. The first book-length account of the Mormon thinker, Joseph White Musser reveals the figure whose teachings helped mold a movement.Mississippi Entrepreneurs
By Polly Dement. 2014
The stories in Mississippi Entrepreneurs collectively draw attention to the tenacious and courageous journeys of Mississippi men and women who…
risk fortune and futures to create successful enterprises. Most tell “how they did it” uniquely and in their own words, bringing to life their entrepreneurial spirits. Family members and former colleagues pick up the storyline for legendary entrepreneurs who have passed on, recalling vividly the characteristics that set them apart from the competition. Usually a passion for creation inspired these go-getters—whether casting red-hot liquid steel into industrial products (Fred Wile, Meridian); constructing buildings (Roy Anderson III, Gulfport; Bill Yates Jr., Philadelphia; and William Yates III, Biloxi); making agricultural products grow (Janice and Allen Eubanks, Lucedale; and Mike Sanders, Cleveland); delivering and installing furniture (Johnnie Terry, Jackson); using technology to improve systems (John Palmer and Joel Bomgar, and Toni and Bill Cooley, Jackson; and Billy and Linda Howard, Laurel); expanding food operations (Dr. S. L. Sethi, Jackson; and Don Newcomb, Oxford); or sharing the sheer love of music (Hartley Peavey, Meridian), food (Robert St. John, Hattiesburg), art (Erin Hayne and Nuno Gonçalves Ferreira, Jackson), or books (John Evans, Jackson; and Richard Howorth, Oxford). Social and cultural entrepreneurs made their marks as well, including those focused on social justice (Martha Bergmark, Jackson); access to health care (Aaron Shirley, Jackson); and public education (Jack Reed, Tupelo). Few if any books have focused exclusively on this aspect of the state's history. Altogether the stories, accompanied by seventy black-and-white photographs, illustrate common traits, including plentiful vision, fierce drive, willingness to take risks and change for a better way, the ability to innovate, solve problems, and turn luck (both good and bad) to advantage. Most of these entrepreneurs generously share the rewards of their hard work and ingenuity with their communities.Lucky Dogs: From Bourbon Street to Beijing and Beyond
By Jerry E. Strahan. 2016
When walking the French Quarter and watching a Lucky Dog salesman set up that colorful cart and call out to…
entice customers, don't you wonder how such a business works? As a knowing review in Rolling Stone stated, "People have always loved the cart and harbored a mysterious need to ride it. Revelers have been known to climb on top of the rolling wienies, screaming 'Yippee kaya!' as vendors stoically push them back to the barn at 4 a.m." Since 1947 the red and yellow carts have trumpeted good fortune and sustenance.Jerry E. Strahan recounts the wild adventures of the Bourbon Street wienie salesmen but also takes readers well beyond New Orleans. In fact, he takes them halfway around the world, where this unique pushcart business maneuvered its way through the bureaucratic red tape of a communist country to become a licensed corporation in the People's Republic of China.In China, two points quickly became apparent to Strahan. First, 99 percent of the Chinese population had no idea what a Lucky Dog cart represented. One elderly passerby declared it to be a missile. Second, the success or failure of any joint venture in the Asian nation is directly proportional to the political clout of that company's local partner.Lucky Dogs also recounts how the business and its vendors survived Hurricane Katrina. Miraculously, it reopened only six months after the storm in a city where more than 80 percent of the landmass had been flooded and where less than 40 percent of the population had returned. To reestablish itself in what many described as Third World conditions, the company had to transform its operation.This work mixes business history, autobiography, survival story, and an insider's look at the bizarre lives of some of Bourbon Street's most quirky characters--the dauntless Lucky Dog vendors. Both humorous and tragic, though it may read like fiction, it is, for better or worse, all fact.Mobilizing for the Common Good: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins
By John M. Perkins. 2013
Born into a sharecropping family in New Hebron, Mississippi, in 1930, and only receiving a third-grade education, John M. Perkins…
has been a pioneering prophetic African American voice for reconciliation and social justice to America's white evangelical churches. Often an unwelcome voice and always a passionate, provocative clarion, Perkins persisted for forty years in bringing about the formation of the Christian Community Development Association—a large network of evangelical churches and community organizations working in America's poorest communities—and inspired the emerging generation of young evangelicals concerned with releasing the Church from its cultural captivity and oppressive materialism. John M. Perkins has received surprisingly little attention from historians of modern American religious history and theologians. Mobilizing for the Common Good is an exploration of his theological significance. With contributions from theologians, historians, and activists, this book contends that Perkins ushered in a paradigm shift in twentieth-century evangelical theology that continues to influence Christian community development projects and social justice activists today.Eyes of an Eagle: Jean-Pierre Cenac, Patriarch: An Illustrated History of Early Houma-Terrebonne
By Christopher Everette Cenac Sr.. 2011
Selected Book for the Louisiana Bicentennial Celebration, 2012In the year 1860, Jean-Pierre Cenac sailed from the sophisticated French city of…
Bordeaux to begin his new life in the city with the second busiest port of debarkation in the U.S. Two years before, he had descended the Pyrenees to Bordeaux from his home village of Barbazan-Debat, a terrain in direct contrast to the flatlands of Louisiana. He arrived in 1860, just when the U.S. Civil War began with the secession of the Southern states, and in New Orleans, just where there would be placed a prime military target as the war developed.Neither Creole nor Acadian, Pierre took his chances in the rural parish of Terrebonne on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Pierre's resolute nature, unflagging work ethic, steadfast determination, and farsighted vision earned him a place of respect he could never have imagined when he left his native country. How he forged his place in this new landscape echoes the life journeys of countless immigrants--yet remains uniquely his own. His story and his family's story exemplify the experiences of many nineteenth century immigrants to Louisiana and the experiences of their twentieth century descendants.The House That Sugarcane Built: The Louisiana Burguières
By Donna McGee Onebane. 2014
The House That Sugarcane Built tells the saga of Jules M. Burguières Sr. and five generations of Louisianans who, after…
the Civil War, established a sugar empire that has survived into the present. When twenty-seven-year-old Parisian immigrant Eugène D. Burguières landed at the Port of New Orleans in 1831, one of the oldest Louisiana dynasties began. Seen through the lens of one family, this book traces the Burguières from seventeenth-century France, to nineteenth- century New Orleans and rural south Louisiana and into the twenty-first century. It is also a rich portrait of an American region that has retained its vibrant French culture. As the sweeping narrative of the clan unfolds, so does the story of their family-owned sugar business, the J. M. Burguières Company, as it plays a pivotal role in the expansion of the sugar industry in Louisiana, Florida, and Cuba. The French Burguières were visionaries who knew the value of land and its bountiful resources. The fertile soil along the bayous and wetlands of south Louisiana bestowed on them an abundance of sugarcane above its surface, and salt, oil, and gas beneath. Ever in pursuit of land, the Burguières expanded their holdings to include the vast swamps of the Florida Everglades; then, in 2004, they turned their sights to cattle ranches on the great frontier of west Texas. Finally, integral to the story are the complex dynamics and tensions inherent in this family-owned company, revealing both failures and victories in its history of more than 135 years. The J. M. Burguières Company's survival has depended upon each generation safeguarding and nourishing a legacy for the next.Living for Jesus and Japan: The Social and Theological Thought of Uchimura Kanzo
By Shibuya Hiroshi & Chiba Shin. 2013
Uchimura Kanzo (1861–1930) was an independent, original, and thought-provoking pioneer of Christianity in modern Japan. His theological values were organically…
linked with his aspiration for living and practicing such evangelical ideas as prophetic existence, neighborly love, social justice, pacifism, patriotism, and internationalism in the sphere of public life. Uchimura's commitment to the interaction between religious thought and social life is apparent in his well-known epitaph: "I for Japan; Japan for the World; the World for Christ; and All for God."In this interdisciplinary, multi-angled approach to Uchimura Kanzo, the contributors shed light on the inner logic, meanings, and modes of interaction between the religious and social thought observable in Kanzo.Contributors:Andrew E. BarshayKei ChibaShin ChibaKyougae LeeHiroshi MiuraTsunao OhyamaHiroshi ShibuyaTakashi ShogimenYasuhiro TakahashiKunichika YagyuMy God and I: A Spiritual Memoir
By Lewis B. Smedes. 2003
"There are some things about God that, were I to stop believing them, my world would change color, my hope…
would turn sour, and the meaning of my life would be yanked inside out."In this moving spiritual memoir, finished shortly before his death in December 2002, Lewis Smedes, beloved teacher and best-selling author, takes readers through his own lifelong walk with God.In My God and I Smedes gives voice to both the struggles and the joys of his life, revealing his deepest questions to a God who would never let him go and expressing his eager anticipation of the day when, as God promises, all things will be made new. "It has been 'God and I' the whole way," Smedes writes. "Not so much because he has always been pleasant company. Not because I could always feel his presence when I got up in the morning or when I was afraid to sleep at night. It was because he did not trust me to travel alone."Yet My God and I is more than Smedes's personal account of his travels with God -- the theological odyssey that was his life. Like all his writings, this book also models and instructs. Through his honest confessions on the nature of Christian faith, Smedes offers gentle insights not just about God but also about human life and how it can and should be lived. And for those interested in the particulars of Smedes's professional life, these pages include many anecdotes by one whose career was linked closely with shifting currents in modern theology and with some of America's premier educational institutions.Above all, My God and I will provide a source of spiritual comfort to those who, like Smedes, continue to strive after the presence of God. It will also be a cherished good-bye for the many people who have been touched by the wisdom, wit, and charm of Lewis Smedes.&“Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don&’t…
care what it is. With us, of course, it is the Judeo-Christian concept, but it must be a religion that all men are created equal.&” So said Dwight D. Eisenhower shortly after being elected president of the United States in 1952. Although this statement has been variously interpreted, it reflects one of his fundamental guiding principles: that for a country to thrive, it needs a shared identity, formed through common values, history, and purpose. For Eisenhower, this could be found most distinctly in shared faith—a concept that came to be known as American civil religion, which defined and drove much of the cohesion of the 1950s under Eisenhower&’s leadership. This biography tells the story of how deeply religious convictions ran through every aspect of Eisenhower&’s public life: his decision to become a soldier, his crusade against fascism and communism, his response to the civil rights movement, his belief that only he as president could lead America through the Cold War, and his search for nuclear peace. Having been brought up in a devout family—first as part of the River Brethren and later Jehovah&’s Witnesses—Eisenhower continued to see the world in terms of a dialectical struggle between divine and demonic forces throughout his life, even after joining the Presbyterian church. This perspective shaped his public image as a general in World War II and as president during some of the coldest years of the Cold War, when cultural differences between the atheistic Soviet Union and the religiously grounded United States began crystallizing. As Eisenhower&’s historical standing continues to rise, and his contrast with the modern Republican Party deepens, Jack Holl&’s study of this consequential figure of twentieth-century American history shines a spotlight on what has changed in the intervening years. What can be learned from the religious outlook of a public servant who embraced moderation instead of partisan division? Which beliefs and convictions led a former general to a position of skepticism against the military-industrial complex? With the role of faith in American political life still a hotly debated topic today, Eisenhower&’s religious journey is worth renewed attention.Karl Barth: An Introductory Biography for Evangelicals
By Mark Galli. 2017
This refreshingly accessible introduction to Karl Barth by Mark Galli takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the life and…
writings of this giant of twentieth-century theology. Galli pays special attention to themes and topics of concern for contemporary evangelicals, who may need Barth&’s acute critique as much as early-twentieth-century liberals did—and for surprisingly similar reasons.The Monk's Record Player: Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan, and the Perilous Summer of 1966
By Robert Hudson. 2018
The story of a monk, a minstrel, and the music that brought them together In 1965 writer-activist-monk Thomas Merton fulfilled…
a twenty-four-year dream and went to live as a hermit beyond the walls of his Trappist monastery. Seven months later, after a secret romance with a woman half his age, he was in danger of losing it all. Yet on the very day that his abbot uncovered the affair, Merton found solace in an unlikely place—the songs of Bob Dylan, who, as fate would have it, was experiencing his own personal and creative crises during the summer of 1966. In this striking parallel biography of two countercultural icons, Robert Hudson plumbs the depths of Dylan&’s surprising influence on Merton&’s life and writing, recounts each man&’s interactions with the woman who linked them together—Joan Baez—and shows how each transcended his immediate troubles and went on to new heights of spiritual and artistic genius. Readers will discover here a riveting story of creativity and crisis, burnout and redemption, in the tumultuous era of 1960s America.Finding God: A Treasury of Conversion Stories
By John M. Mulder. 2012
The search for God is a staple of human history. Finding God records sixty first-person accounts of Christians who found…
God in different ways and the impact this discovery made on their lives and on the world in which they lived. Ranging from the first century to the present, Finding God is a fascinating digest of conversion stories from a wide variety of people -- from the apostle Paul to the rock musician Bono. These narratives together demonstrate the remarkable diversity of spiritual journeys and the dramatic changes that can result from encounters with God. Both instructive and inspirational, Finding God will expand horizons and deepen the faith of those who seek insight into the age-old spiritual quest to find God.Between the Swastika and the Sickle: The Life, Disappearance, and Execution of Ernst Lohmeyer
By James R. Edwards. 2019
The life, theological contribution, and mysterious disappearance of one of the more important New Testament scholars in the twentieth century On…
February 15, 1946, the Soviet NKVD raided the home of Ernst Lohmeyer just hours before his inauguration as the president of Greifswald University in Germany. Lohmeyer had survived active duty in both World War I and World War II. A New Testament scholar and theologian, he resisted the rise of Nazi fascism as a member of the Confessing Church. But the Soviet occupation of Germany was even more repressive than Nazi domination. With the exception of correspondence from prison, Lohmeyer was never heard from again. In Between the Swastika and the Sickle, James R. Edwards recounts the story of Lohmeyer&’s life, his theological achievements, his courageous resistance to the forces of political repression, and the events surrounding his death. But the book also includes Edwards&’s intrepid search for the legacy of this brilliant and courageous scholar, whose story is made even more compelling by the tumultuous interplay of faith and politics in twenty-first-century America.