Publisher: Charles River Editors
G.K. Chesterton was an English writer, theologian and poet. Chesterton, also known as the prince of paradox, wrote on a vast variety of subjects using an unorthodox yet interesting writing style. This edition of Robert Browning includes a table of contents.
In seventeen intimate essays, poet Molly McCully Brown explores living within and beyond the limits of a body--in her case, one shaped since birth by cerebral palsy, a permanent and often painful movement disorder. In spite of--indeed, in response to--physical constraints, Brown leads a peripatetic life: the essays comprise a vivid travelogue set throughout the United States and Europe, ranging from the rural American South of her childhood to the cobblestoned streets of Bologna, Italy. Moving between these locales and others, Brown constellates the subjects that define her inside and out: a disabled and conspicuous body, a religious conversion, a missing twin, a life in poetry. As she does, she depicts vividly for us not only her own life but a striking array of sites and topics, among them Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the world's oldest anatomical theatre, the American Eugenics movement, and Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Throughout, Brown offers us the gift of her exquisite sentences, woven together in consideration, always, of what it means to be human--flawed, potent, feeling. ‘These remarkable essays invite us to look long and hard at our own interior landscapes, and to negotiate exterior ones with as much grace and gratitude as we can muster' Eliza Griswold'Urgent, compelling and lyrically, luminously beautiful.' Psychologies MagazineMolly McCully Brown received her MFA from the University of Mississippi, and is a graduate of Stanford University and Simon's Rock of Bard College. She has published poems in Gulf Coast, Image, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere.Show book
“A groundbreaking study of Malcolm’s relationship to Islam . . . This is the best, most thorough account we have of Malcolm X as a religious leader.” —Publishers Weekly In On the Side of My People, Louis A. DeCaro, Jr. offers the first book length religious treatment of Malcolm X. Malcolm X was certainly a political man. Yet he was also a man of Allah, struggling with his salvation—as concerned with redemption as with revolution. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including extensive interviews with Malcolm’s oldest brother, FBI surveillance documents, the black press, and tape-recorded speeches and interviews, DeCaro examines the charismatic leader from the standpoint of his two conversion experiences—to the Nation while he was in jail and to traditional Islam climaxing in his pilgrimage to Mecca. Examining Malcolm beyond his well-known years as spokesman for the Nation, On the Side My People explores Malcolm’s early religious training and the influence of his Garveyite parents, his relationship with Elijah Muhammad, his often overlooked journey to Africa in 1959, and his life as a traditional Muslim after the 1964 pilgrimage. In his critical analysis of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, DeCaro provides insight into the motivation behind Malcolm’s own story, offering a key to understanding how and why Malcolm portrayed his life in his own autobiography as told to Alex Haley. Inspiring and necessary, On the Side My People presents readers with a Malcolm X few were privileged to know. By filling in the gaps of Malcolm’s life, DeCaro paints a more complete portrait of one of the most powerful and relevant civil rights figures in American history.Show book
This brilliant audiobook is wittily and hilariously read by the author, Nina Stibbe.'Painfully funny, but also deeply moving' - Meg Mason'Vulnerable, sharp, funny, wise' - Bonnie Garmus'A unique comic voice, endlessly funny' - David NichollsTwenty years after leaving London, Nina Stibbe is back in town with her dog, Peggy. Together they take up lodging in the house of writer Deborah (Debby) Moggach in Camden for 'a year-long sabbatical'. It’s a break from married life back in Cornwall, or even perhaps a fresh start altogether.Debby does not have many demands – only to water the garden, watch for toads, and defrost the odd pie – so Nina is free to explore the city she once called home. Between scrutinising her son’s online dating developments, navigating the politics of the local pool, and taking detergent advice at the laundrette, this diary of a sixty-year-old runaway reunites us with the inimitable voice of Love, Nina, as the writer becomes, as she puts it, 'a proper adult' at last.As heard on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour'An utter, UTTER treat! It was like spending time with my most clever, insightful, funny, FUNNY friend' - Marian Keyes'No one writes heartbreak more hilariously, or hilarity more heartbreakingly' - Katherine Heiny'So sharp and funny, blissfully gossipy, enviably well-observed . . . I loved it' - India KnightShow book
Nothing Special is a book of change, healing, and a true story of horses inspiring spiritual awakenings in the most unexpected ways. You have to be the biggest and best to stand out. At least, that's what our culture seems to believe. However, as psychologist Dr. Leia Hughey points out, we are all special and deserving of love, even if we are nothing special. Through the nonverbal communication with an ordinary horse, she and others were able to reveal unhealed psychic wounds and provide a context for change and transformation. Just people and horses. Nothing special, really, but what a difference it made. A pristine beauty exists slightly beneath the surface of our perception and can be found when love is recognized in the ordinary, enjoying one another for no particular reason. In Nothing Special, you will see how interpersonal, interspecies interactions changed the world for a handful of people. Narrated by Stan Welsh.Show book
Born in Lithuania in 1885 under the rule of Russian Tsars, Nettie was ever aware of the injustice levied on her Jewish people. Rules limited their freedom reducing their status to that of second-class citizens. Additionally, Nettie challenged her own religion’s system of excluding girls from Talmud instruction, which the male-dominated Jewish society deemed to be the exclusive right of men. Nettie fled to America with Russian Cossacks hot on her trail for a murder that occurred during a pogrom while she was defending her husband. In America, she found opportunity but not without its perils. She took advantage of America’s freedoms and became educated, continuing to navigate the male dominated society with her resolve to live the American Dream. Nettie’s natural sexuality and intelligence attracted five husbands and produced six children, who in turn contributed twelve grandchildren. This was her legacy to America. Her life’s story unfolded as her adopted country fought two wars, saw the start of the union movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and segregation, and adjusted to an immigrant crisis. Tragically, Nettie ---a young widow ---lost her life at age 37 at the hands of the son of a man whose romantic interest she had rejected years before in the old country. Envious of her newfound wealth, he was determined to claim it as his own. He sent his son, 13 years younger than Nettie, to court her, then marry her. Evil occult forces seemed to follow Nettie’s every move after her third marriage, only ending with her death after the fifth. The sensational trial of her last husband for her violent murder was followed in newspapers across the country. Her life in America played out against a backdrop of the Roaring Twenties, Prohibition, bootleg liquor, ragtime music, and speakeasies. Nettie became in her mind, and in reality, a true American. She did her best to raise her children and instill in them her passion for justice and freedom.Show book
What motivated a small multiracial force of Cape-born soldiers - whites, coloureds and Malays - to put up such stiff resistance at the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806, in spite of odds so overwhelming that even some long-serving professional soldiers broke rank and ran? This was the intriguing question that launched author Willem Steenkamp's research. It was an investigation which eventually took him back to 150 years before Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape in 1652, and involved examining the social as well as the military history of the Cape. What Steenkamp discovered differs from what most South Africans think about that period, and he corrects a number of serious misconceptions not only about the soldiers of 1510-1806 but about the social and political development of the Cape. For students of the Napoleonic Wars, the book provides new information about a forgotten aspect of that conflict; for the ordinary reader here is a story no-one has ever told before in its entirety. Assegais, Drums and Dragoons: A Military and Social History of the Cape is a well-researched and fascinating account that now illuminates a previously lightless corner of South African military history Descended from a 1690s-era solider, Willem Steenkamp is a writer, journalist and specialist tour guide who has also been a solider, a security advisor and a director of military tattoos and other spectacles, among several other things. Since childhood he has been absorbing the Cape's history from family stories (one of his ancestors was a hero of the Battle of Blaauwberg) and voluminous reading. And yes, he actually has fired flintlock muskets and muzzle-loading cannon. Willem lives in Cape Town.Show book
