Religion & Spirituality
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When Sorry Isn't Enough: Making Things Right with Those You Love
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Jennifer M. Thomas
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Northfield Publishing; New Edition edition (2013, May 1st).
Pages: 176
Relationships are fragile. And whether fractured by a major incident or a minor irritation, the ensuing emotions can often feel insurmountable preventing the relationship from moving forward or the offended from moving on. In order to make things right, something more than "sorry" is needed. #1 New York Times bestselling author Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas have teamed up to deliver this groundbreaking study of how we give and receive apologies. It's not just a matter of will, but it's a matter of how you say, "I'm sorry" that ultimately makes things right with those you love. This book will help you discover why certain apologies clear the path for emotional healing, reconciliation, and freedom, while others fall desperately short. more
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Waking Up in Heaven: A True Story of Brokenness, Heaven, and Life Again
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Alex Tresniowski
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Howard Books; Original edition (2013, Apr 2nd).
Pages: 272
On December 10, 2009, Crystal McVea, a thirty-two-year-old mother of four, stopped breathing. Her face turned a dark shade of blue, then black. Her mother screamed for help, and a nurse tried to revive her . . . to no avail. Today, Crystal does not remember what happened in that hospital room during the nine minutes she was unconscious and unable to breathe on her own. She has no memory of the panic and the rushing nurses and the loud cries of “Code Blue.” She simply remembers drifting off. And she remembers waking up in heaven. For most of Crystal’s broken life, she felt utterly beyond the reach of God— if God was even real. Then came December 10—and the nine minutes that changed everything. Waking Up in Heaven invites readers along on a journey to witness the relentless pursuit of God in a life that was shattered and seemingly beyond hope, an awe-inspiring account of love, forgiveness, and redemption, and the healing power of God’s presence. more
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My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Christian Wiman
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2013, Apr 2nd).
Pages: 192
Seven years ago, Christian Wiman, a well-known poet and the editor of Poetry magazine, wrote a now-famous essay about having faith in the face of death. My Bright Abyss, composed in the difficult years since and completed in the wake of a bone marrow transplant, is a moving meditation on what a viable contemporary faith—responsive not only to modern thought and science but also to religious tradition—might look like. Joyful, sorrowful, and beautifully written, My Bright Abyss is destined to become a spiritual classic, useful not only to believers but to anyone whose experience of life and art seems at times to overbrim its boundaries. How do we answer this “burn of being”? Wiman asks. What might it mean for our lives—and for our deaths—if we acknowledge the “insistent, persistent ghost” that some of us call God? . more
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Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Michael D'Antonio
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (2013, Apr 9th).
Pages: 416
An explosive, sweeping account of the scandal that has sent the Catholic Church into a tailspin -- and the brave few who fought for justiceIn the mid-1980s a dynamic young monsignor assigned to the Vatican’s embassy in Washington set out to investigate the problem of sexually abusive priests. He found a scandal in the making, confirmed by secret files revealing complaints that had been hidden from police and covered up by the Church hierarchy. He also understood that the United States judicial system was eager to punish offenders and those who aided them. He presented all of this to the American bishops, warning that the Church could be devastated by negative publicity and bankrupted by its legal liability. They ignored him. more
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Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Shereen El Feki
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon (2013, Jan 29th).
Pages: 368
If you really want to know a people, start by looking inside their bedrooms. As political change sweeps the streets and squares, the parliaments and presidential palaces of the Arab world, Shereen El Feki has been looking at an upheaval a little closer to home—in the sexual lives of men and women in Egypt and across the region. The result is an informative, insightful, and engaging account of a highly sensitive and still largely secret aspect of Arab society. Sex is entwined in religion, tradition, politics, economics, and culture, so it is the perfect lens through which to examine the complex social landscape of the Arab world. From pregnant virgins to desperate housewives, from fearless activists to religious firebrands, from sex work to same-sex relations, Sex and the Citadel takes a fresh look at the sexual history of the region and brings new voices to the debate over its future. more
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Snake Oil: The Art of Healing and Truth-Telling
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Becca Stevens
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Jericho Books (2013, Mar 12th).
Pages: 224
"In the world of snake oils, you have to see the world a little differently. Where others see poverty, you see riches; where others see weeds, you see flowers; where others see sickness, you see openness." Becca Stevens calls herself a "snake oil seller": She takes natural oils, mixes them with a good story, sells them in an open market and believes they help to heal the world. Becca is the founder of Thistle Farms, one of the most successful examples in the US of a social enterprise whose mission is the work force. She is also the founder of its residential program, Magdalene. The women of Magdalene/Thistle Farms have survived prostitution, trafficking and addiction, and the natural body care products they manufacture-balms, soaps, and lotions-aid in their own healing as well as that of the people who buy them. more
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Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Jonathan Sperber
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Liveright; 1 edition (2013, Mar 11th).
Pages: 512
Karl Marx is a magisterial and defining biography that vividly explores not only the man himself but also the revolutionary times in which he lived.Between his birth in 1818 and his death sixty-five years later, Karl Marx became one of Western civilization’s most influential political philosophers. Two centuries on, he is still revered as a prophet of the modern world, yet he is also blamed for the darkest atrocities of modern times. But no matter in what light he is cast, the short, but broad-shouldered, bearded Marx remains—as a human being—distorted on a Procrustean bed of political “isms,” perceived through the partially distorting lens of his chief disciple, Friedrich Engels, or understood as a figure of twentieth-century totalitarian Marxist regimes. more
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The God Argument: The Case against Religion and for Humanism
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: A.C. Grayling
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1 edition (2013, Mar 26th).
Pages: 288
What are the arguments for and against religion and religious belief--all of them--right across the range of reasons and motives that people have for being religious, and do they stand up to scrutiny? Can there be a clear, full statement of these arguments that once and for all will show what is at stake in this debate? Equally important: what is the alternative to religion as a view of the world and a foundation for morality? Is there a worldview and a code of life for thoughtful people--those who wish to live with intellectual integrity, based on reason, evidence, and a desire to do and be good--that does not interfere with people's right to their own beliefs and freedom of expression?In The Case Against Religion, Anthony Grayling offers a definitive examination of these questions, and an in-depth exploration of the humanist outlook that recommends itself as the ethics of the genuinely reflective person. more
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