Other books that might interest you

• 

  A Buddhist Path to Joy - The New...

  Mel Pine

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A funny thing happened on the way to my death... 
  Finding joy through Buddhist practices doesn’t require a pilgrimage to Kathmandu or years of living in a cave. It took me decades, but it needn’t take you as long. This book is my end-of-life effort to point the way. 
  "Written with humility, openness, and humanity, A Buddhist Path to Joy...provides a welcome starting-point for readers who want to go past the superficial layers of pop-culture meditation and yoga through understanding," says the IndieReader review. It's an "excellent overall primer to a living practice of modern Buddhism." 
  This isn't another scholarly treatise on Buddhism. It's dharma from the trenches—honest, accessible, and refreshingly free of spiritual pretense. Pine calls himself a "Jewish Buddhist contrarian," and his irreverent yet profound voice guides readers through everything from AI consciousness and Buddha Nature to the practical art of dying well while fully alive. 
  Whether you're new to Buddhism or a seasoned practitioner, this book offers a modern middle way between rigid tradition and shallow spirituality. Pine proves that awakening isn't reserved for monastery dwellers—it's available to anyone willing to make friends with their mind and embrace the radical ordinariness of joy. 
  "I am awake!" Pine declares with hard-earned confidence. His invitation is simple: you can be too. 
  NOTE: The author narrates this book, with voice actor Robin McAlpine playing the parts of AI platforms in conversation with the author in two chapters. It contains no AI narration.

  Show book

• 

  Break Blow Burn and Make - A...

  E. Lily Yu

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  From the award-winning author of On Fragile Waves comes an inspirational, surprising guide to creation and creativity, and how both bring us closer to God.   Centuries ago, sound theology and good fiction were friends and not strangers. Decades ago, authors strove not for self-expression and self-disclosure but for a mastery of craft and language and books that transformed the reader with wisdom and love. In more recent years, the old ideals have been exchanged for lesser ones.   Few guides to writing, which tend to focus on mechanics, point of view, and plot, address the more important matters of meaning, depth, and heart. But it is the latter qualities that make a book a blessing and gift to both writer and reader. Like Christ’s invitation to follow, they demand a risk and sacrifice of the self and all it holds dear. Writers from George MacDonald to James Baldwin understood this, but in recent years this understanding has been lost. Making old things new, this book proposes an ethics of reading, writing, and living based on truth and love.  Break, Blow, Burn, & Make returns the literary conversation to the practices of co-creation with God. Part bugle call, part compass for writing and for life, and part love song to the books that set us on fire, it offers those who are willing to receive it the courage to live, read, and write more deeply and honestly.

  Show book

• 

  Bootstrapped - Liberating...

  Alissa Quart

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  An unsparing, incisive, yet ultimately hopeful look at how we can shed the American obsession with self-reliance that has made us less healthy, less secure, and less fulfilled  
  The promise that you can “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is central to the story of the American Dream. It’s the belief that if you work hard and rely on your own resources, you will eventually succeed. However, time and again we have seen how this foundational myth, with its emphasis on individual determination, brittle self-sufficiency, and personal accomplishment, does not help us. Instead, as income inequality rises around us, we are left with shame and self-blame for our condition. 
  Acclaimed journalist Alissa Quart argues that at the heart of our suffering is a do-it-yourself ethos, the misplaced belief in our own independence and the conviction that we must rely on ourselves alone. Looking at a range of delusions and half solutions—from “grit” to the false Horatio Alger story to the rise of GoFundMe—Quart reveals how we have been steered away from robust social programs that would address the root causes of our problems. Meanwhile, the responsibility for survival has been shifted onto the backs of ordinary people, burdening generations with debt instead of providing the social safety net we so desperately need. 
  Insightful, sharply argued, and characterized by Quart’s lively writing and deep reporting, and for fans of Evicted and Nickel and Dimed, Bootstrapped is a powerful examination of what ails us at a societal level and a plan for how we can free ourselves from these self-defeating narratives. 
  Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

  Show book

• 

  Mended Wings - The Vietnam War...

  Colin P. Cahoon

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  You hear them first, the whop whop sound of rotor blades chopping through the humid Vietnam air. Suddenly they appear, screaming toward the landing zone at treetop level. Gunships launch rockets into the nearby tree line. The resulting explosions announce the arrival of the lift helicopters, pointing their noses skyward like falcons coming out of a dive for landing. Bullets rip into the thin aluminum skin and plastic that surrounds the men who fly these machines. When one pilot is hit, the other takes the controls and carries on. When one helicopter crashes in flames, the pilots in the others maintain formation and push ahead. Nothing deters these warriors, volunteers all, from flying on with the tenaciousness of zealots. 
   
   
   
  Who are these men? Where did they come from? Where have they gone? 
   
   
   
  Mended Wings is their story. Follow the lives of ten Purple Heart heroes as they relate the Vietnam War experience from the perspective of the helicopter cockpit. Get to know the generation of men who fought with pride, determination, skill, and courage only to be shunned when they brought their battered bodies and haunting memories home. Their fathers and uncles were heralded as the "greatest generation." Meet the forgotten generation. Meet the men whose stories did not end as a name on a black wall in Washington D.C. Meet the survivors.

  Show book

• 

  The Silver Women - How Black...

  Joan Flores-Villalobos

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In The Silver Women, Joan Flores-Villalobos argues that Black West Indian women made the Panama Canal construction possible by providing the indispensable everyday labor of social reproduction. West Indian women built a provisioning economy that fed, housed, and cared for the segregated Black West Indian labor force, in effect subsidizing the construction effort and the racial calculus that separated pay in silver for Black workers and gold for white Americans. But while also subject to racial discrimination and segregation, West Indian women mostly worked outside the umbrella of US canal authorities. They did not hold contracts, had little access to official services and wages, and received pay in both silver and gold. From this position, they found ways to skirt, and at times subvert, the legal, moral, and economic parameters imperial authorities sought to impose on the migrant workforce. West Indian women developed important strategies of claims-making, kinship, community building, and market adaptation that helped them navigate the contradictions and violence of the US empire. These strategies of social reproduction nurtured further West Indian migrations, linking Panama to places like Harlem and Santiago de Cuba. The Silver Women is thus a history of Black women's labor of social reproduction as integral to US imperial infrastructure, the global Caribbean diaspora, and women's own survival.

  Show book

• 

  Why Am I Like This? - How to...

  Kobe Campbell

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Read by the author. 
  Why does our past pain continue to affect our present? 
  Though many of us can point to patterns of brokenness in our lives, we don’t know why they're there. No matter how hard we work, we can’t seem to outrun the very things that break our hearts. That's because our everyday setbacks are rooted in our unaddressed wounds. 
  In Why Am I Like This? seminary-trained, licensed trauma therapist Kobe Campbell helps us understand why it’s so hard to break these patterns as she offers us a deeper understanding of how our past shapes our present. With tender wisdom, rare vulnerability, and profound honesty, Kobe reminds each reader that they’re not alone, empowering them to step into healing with evidence-based, faith-filled coping skills and resources. 
  In Why Am I Like This?, you will:gain an understanding of what trauma and healing really are,explore the roots of your dysfunctional patterns,learn how your trauma shows up in your everyday life, andfind trauma-informed, faith-based coping mechanisms to heal your mind and deepen your intimacy with God. 
    
  Kobe marries theological insight with therapeutic principles to give readers the tools and insights needed to begin their journey of restoration. 
  Reflection questions, checklists, and personal exercises are included in the audiobook companion PDF download.

  Show book