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God's Smuggler
by Brother Andrew John Sherrill Elizabeth SherrillAs a boy he dreamed of being a spy - undercover behind enemy lines. As a man he found himself undercover for God. Brother Andrew was his name, and for decades his life story, recounted in God's Smuggler, has awed and inspired millions. This bestseller tells of the young Dutch factory worker's incredible efforts to transport Bibles across closed borders - and the miraculous ways in which God provided for him every step of the way.
God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, And The Making Of The Modern World
by Alan Mikhail“A stunning work of global history. . . . Alan Mikhail offers a bold and thoroughly convincing new way to think about the origins of the modern world. . . . A tour de force.” —Greg Grandin Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power, and enlightened pluralistic rule. At the height of their authority in the sixteenth century, the Ottomans, with extraordinary military dominance and unparalleled monopolies over trade routes, controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any world power, forcing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and to the New World. Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire’s history has for centuries been distorted, misrepresented, and even suppressed in the West. Now Alan Mikhail presents a vitally needed recasting of Ottoman history, retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470–1520). Born to a concubine, and the fourth of his sultan father’s ten sons, Selim was never meant to inherit the throne. With personal charisma and military prowess—as well as the guidance of his remarkably gifted mother, Gülbahar—Selim claimed power over the empire in 1512 and, through ruthless ambition, nearly tripled the territory under Ottoman control, building a governing structure that lasted into the twentieth century. At the same time, Selim—known by his subjects as “God’s Shadow on Earth”—fostered religious diversity, welcoming Jews among other minority populations into the empire; encouraged learning and philosophy; and penned his own verse. Drawing on previously unexamined sources from multiple languages, and with original maps and stunning illustrations, Mikhail’s game-changing account “challenges readers to recalibrate their sense of history” (Leslie Peirce), adroitly using Selim’s life to upend prevailing shibboleths about Islamic history and jingoistic “rise of the West” theories that have held sway for decades. Whether recasting Christopher Columbus’s voyages to the “Americas” as a bumbling attempt to slay Muslims or showing how the Ottomans allowed slaves to become the elite of society while Christian states at the very same time waged the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, God’s Shadow radically reshapes our understanding of the importance of Selim’s Ottoman Empire in the history of the modern world.
God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible
by Adam NicolsonNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK“This scrupulously elegant account of the creation of what four centuries of history has confirmed is the finest English-language work of all time, is entirely true to its subject: Adam Nicolson’s lapidary prose is masterly, his measured account both as readable as the curious demand and as dignified as the story deserves.” — Simon Winchester, author of KrakatoaIn God's Secretaries, Adam Nicolson gives a fascinating and dramatic account of the era of the King James Bible and its translation, immersing us in an age whose greatest monument is not a painting or a building but a book.A network of complex currents flowed across Jacobean England. This was the England of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Bacon; the era of the Gunpowder Plot and the worst outbreak of the plague. Jacobean England was both more godly and less godly than the country had ever been, and the entire culture was drawn taut between these polarities. This was the world that created the King James Bible. It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment "Englishness," specifically the English language itself, had come into its first passionate maturity. The English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own scope than any form of the language before or since. It drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
God's Secret Agent
by Diane YoderNicu wanted to serve God in any capacity he could, but he had not anticipated an assignment full of danger and sleepless nights. Yet the opportunity sparked a sense of excitement and purpose. Nicu constantly had to place his life in God's hands. As he did, he witnessed miracle after miracle. A faith-strengthening story of how God's hand protected His secret agent time and again.
God's Scrivener: The Madness and Meaning of Jones Very
by Clark DavisA biography of a long-forgotten but vital American Transcendentalist poet. In September of 1838, a few months after Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his controversial Divinity School address, a twenty-five-year-old tutor and divinity student at Harvard named Jones Very stood before his beginning Greek class and proclaimed himself “the second coming.” Over the next twenty months, despite a brief confinement in a mental hospital, he would write more than three hundred sonnets, many of them in the voice of a prophet such as John the Baptist or even of Christ himself—all, he was quick to claim, dictated to him by the Holy Spirit. Befriended by the major figures of the Transcendentalist movement, Very strove to convert, among others, Elizabeth and Sophia Peabody, Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and most significantly, Emerson himself. Though shocking to some, his message was simple: by renouncing the individual will, anyone can become a “son of God” and thereby usher in a millennialist heaven on earth. Clark Davis’s masterful biography shows how Very came to embody both the full radicalism of Emersonian ideals and the trap of isolation and emptiness that lay in wait for those who sought complete transcendence. God’s Scrivener tells the story of Very’s life, work, and influence in depth, recovering the startling story of a forgotten American prophet, a “brave saint” whose life and work are central to the development of poetry and spirituality in America.
God's Right Hand: How Jerry Falwell Made God a Republican and Baptized the American Right
by Michael Sean WintersAn acclaimed reporter presents the first major biography of the legendary, and divisive, conservative pastor who reshaped the landscape of American politics—Jerry Falwell. At a time when the Tea Party movement is dominating much of America's social and political discourse, the story of Falwell's Moral Majority will resonate strongly. Indeed, Falwell’s language may sound familiar to anyone who has heard recent speeches by figures like Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, or Michelle Bachmann.
God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church
by Caroline FraserFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Christian Scientist Caroline Fraser comes the first unvarnished account of one of America's most controversial and little-understood religious movements.Millions of Americans – from Lady Astor to Ginger Rogers to Watergate conspirator H. R. Haldeman – have been touched by the Church of Christ, Scientist. Founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879, Christian Science was based on a belief that intense contemplation of the perfection of God can heal all ills – an extreme expression of the American faith in self-reliance. In this unflinching investigation, Caroline Fraser, herself raised in a Scientist household, shows how the Church transformed itself from a small, eccentric sect into a politically powerful and socially respectable religion, and explores the human cost of Christian Science's remarkable rise.Fraser examines the strange life and psychology of Mary Baker Eddy, who lived in dread of a kind of witchcraft she called Malicious Animal Magnetism. She takes us into the closed world of Eddy's followers, who refuse to acknowledge the existence of illness and death and reject modern medicine, even at the cost of their children's lives. She reveals just how Christian Science managed to gain extraordinary legal and Congressional sanction for its dubious practices and tracks its enormous influence on new-age beliefs and other modern healing cults.A passionate exposé of zealotry, God's Perfect Child tells one of the most dramatic and little-known stories in American religious history.
Gods of War: History's Greatest Military Rivals
by James Lacey Williamson MurrayHannibal vs. Scipio. Grant vs. Lee. Rommel vs. Patton. The greatest battles, commanders, and rivalries of all time come to life in this engrossing guide to the geniuses of military history. &“A compelling study of military leadership.&”—James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom Any meeting of genius may create sparks, but when military geniuses meet, their confrontations play out upon a vast panorama of states or civilizations at war, wielding the full destructive power of a mighty nation&’s armies. Gods of War is the first single-volume, in-depth examination of the most celebrated military rivalries of all time, and of the rare, world-changing battles in which these great commanders in history matched themselves against true equals. From Caesar and Pompey deciding the fate of the Roman Republic, to Grant and Lee battling for a year during the American Civil War, to Rommel and Montgomery and Patton meeting in battle after battle as Hitler strove for European domination, these match-ups and their corresponding strategies are among the most memorable in history. A thrilling look into both the generals&’ lives and their hardest-fought battles, Gods of War is also a thought-provoking analysis of the qualities that make a strong commander and a deep exploration of the historical context in which the contestants were required to wage war, all told with rousing narrative flair. And in a time when technology has made the potential costs of war even greater, it is a masterful look at how military strategy has evolved and what it will take for leaders to guide their nations to peace in the future.
Gods of Tin: The Flying Years
by James SalterA singular life often circles around a singular moment, an occasion when one's life in the world is defined forever and the emotional vocabulary set. For the extraordinary writer James Salter, this moment was contained in the fighter planes over Korea where, during his young manhood, he flew more than one hundred missions.James Salter is considered one of America's greatest prose stylists. The Arm of Flesh (later revised and retitled Cassada) and his first novel, The Hunters, are legendary in military circles for their descriptions of flying and aerial combat. A former Air Force pilot who flew F–86 fighters in Korea, Salter writes with matchless insight about the terror and exhilaration of the pilot's life.
Gods of the Hammer: The Teenage Head Story (Exploded Views)
by Geoff Pevere'Teenage Head changed the face of music in this country. I would not be who I am today without their first record ... In 1979 they were the only band that mattered.' - Hugh Dillon In the late 1970s and early 1980s, no Canadian band rocked harder, louder or to more hardcore fans than Hamilton, Ontario's own Teenage Head. Although usually lumped in the dubiously inevitable 'punk rock' category of the day, this high--energy quartet --consisting of four guys who'd known each other since high school --were really only punk by association. In essence they were a full--on, balls--to--the--wall, three--chord, kick--out--the--jams band that obliterated categories and labels with the sheer force of their sonic assault, and everywhere they played they converted the merely curious to the insanely devoted. And they almost became world famous. Almost. This is their story, told in full and for the first time, and by those who lived to tell the tale. Praise for Gods of the Hammer: 'A riot of a good read on Teenage Head ... the writing is fast-paced and lively, told from the laudatory perspective of a frustrated fan trying to explain why such a great band never got its due.' - The Hamilton Spectator 'I loved it! Wanted it to last forever! Geoff Pevere has done an ace portrait of all that is great and dirty in rock and roll.' - Bruce McDonald 'Pevere's is an on-the-ground fan's account of how the band enamoured a country and how if just that one last, special piece fell into place -- if they were managed better, if an American record deal came sooner, if guitarist Gord Lewis hadn't been laid up for half a year at their very peak by a back-breaking car accident -- songs like "Picture My Face" and "Let's Shake" would be played before face-offs and stocked in jukeboxes from St. John's to San Francisco. The Head were always just a centimetre away from super-stardom. To a generation of hip music fans, they're as classic as The Cars, but instead of ubiquity, their story is a distinctly Canadian Almost Famous.' - Chart Attack Praise for Geoff Pevere: 'After almost 30 years of writing about the movies, Geoff Pevere's anti-establishment views are just as strong as ever, but now he wears them as comfortably as an old leather jacket. He has always been more interested in broadening people's interests than in trying to narrow them. In an age with almost unlimited access to film, just one stream in an onrushing tide of media, this is daring. For the boy who once had to wait months to see Citizen Kane, however, it's simply a gesture of generosity.' -- Toronto Screen Shot
Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life
by Elaine Neil OrrOrr (contemporary literature, women's studies, North Carolina State U.) sensitively depicts growing up in pre-independence Nigeria as the child of American medical missionary parents. Returning to Africa helps restore her health and sense of identity. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life
by Elaine Neil OrrThe daughter of medical missionaries, Elaine Neil Orr was born in Nigeria in 1954, in the midst of the national movement that would lead to independence from Great Britain. But as she tells it in her captivating new memoir, Orr did not grow up as a stranger abroad; she was a girl at home--only half American, the other half Nigerian. When she was sent alone to the United States for high school, she didn't realize how much leaving Africa would cost her.It was only in her forties, in the crisis of kidney failure, that she began to recover her African life. In writing Gods of Noonday she came to understand her double-rootedness: in the Christian church and the Yoruba shrine, the piano and the talking drum. Memory took her back from Duke Medical Center in North Carolina to the shores of West Africa and her hometown of Ogbomosho in the land of the Yoruba people. Hers was not the dysfunctional American family whose tensions are brought into high relief by the equatorial sun, but a mission girlhood is haunted nonetheless--by spiritual atmospheres and the limits of good intentions.Orr's father, Lloyd Neil, formerly a high school athlete and World War II pilot, and her mother, Anne, found in Nigeria the adventure that would have escaped them in 1950s America. Elaine identified with her strong, fun-loving father more than her reserved mother, but she herself was as introspective and solitary as her sister Becky was pretty and social. Lloyd acquired a Chevrolet station wagon which carried Elaine and her friends to the Ethiope River, where they swam much as they might have in the United States. But at night the roads were becoming dangerous, and soon the days were clouded by smoke from the coming Biafran War.Interweaving the lush mission compounds with Nigerian culture, furloughs in the American South with boarding school in Nigeria, and eventually Orr's failing health, the narrative builds in intensity as she recognizes that only through recovering her homeland can she find the strength to survive. Taking its place with classics such as Out of Africa and more recent works like The Poisonwood Bible and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Gods of Noonday is a deeply felt, courageous portrait of a woman's life.
God's Most Precious Jewels are Crystallized Tears: True Stories of Women Who Turned Their Misery into Ministry
by Barbara JohnsonThe Queen of Encouragement has brought a dozen amazing friends to inspire and encourage you!Barbara Johnson's heart-touching, laughter-laced story has given hope to millions of readers worldwide. Now she brings together twelve courageous women who have triumphed over challenges and endured heart-rending losses. With Christlike serventhood, they have reached beyond their own anguish to extend a helping hand to others in need, turning their tears of heartache into jewels of blessing. In their awe-inspiring stories, you will meet women who have faced:a husband's brutal murderthe death of a young childpoverty and bigotryeating disordersan adult child's homosexualitythe death of two sons due to AIDSabusive marriagesheartbreaking divorcefamily members' estrangementclinical depressionphysical disabilitya husband's struggle with homosexualityToday these women, like Barbara, spread hope and joy wherever they go. To celebrate their ministry of encouragement, each of their stories concludes with Barbara's trademark collection of wit and laughter. Open this book and find a pathway out of sorrow and into the sunlight of a life warmed by love and filled with meaning. Read these stories and learn how to turn misery into ministry.
God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre
by Richard GrantFrom the acclaimed author of Dispatches From Pluto and Deepest South of All, a harrowing travelogue into Mexico&’s lawless Sierra Madre mountains.Twenty miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, the rugged, beautiful Sierra Madre mountains begin their dramatic ascent. Almost 900 miles long, the range climbs to nearly 11,000 feet and boasts several canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon. The rules of law and society have never taken hold in the Sierra Madre, which is home to bandits, drug smugglers, Mormons, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, opium farmers, cowboys, and other assorted outcasts. Outsiders are not welcome; drugs are the primary source of income; murder is all but a regional pastime. The Mexican army occasionally goes in to burn marijuana and opium crops—the modern treasure of the Sierra Madre—but otherwise the government stays away. In its stead are the drug lords, who have made it one of the biggest drug-producing areas in the world.Fifteen years ago, journalist Richard Grant developed what he calls "an unfortunate fascination" with this lawless place. Locals warned that he would meet his death there, but he didn't believe them—until his last trip. During his travels Grant visited a folk healer for his insomnia and was prescribed rattlesnake pills, attended bizarre religious rituals, consorted with cocaine-snorting policemen, taught English to Guarijio Indians, and dug for buried treasure. On his last visit, his reckless adventure spiraled into his own personal heart of darkness when cocaine-fueled Mexican hillbillies hunted him through the woods all night, bent on killing him for sport.With gorgeous detail, fascinating insight, and an undercurrent of dark humor, God's Middle Finger brings to vivid life a truly unique and uncharted world.
Gods in Shackles: What Elephants Can Teach Us About Empathy, Resilience, and Freedom
by Sangita IyerWith a foreword by Jane Goodall, this moving memoir follows a successful journalist and filmmaker who felt like something was missing in her life as she finds her purpose in advocacy for the Asian elephants in her childhood home town of Kerala, India."The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma GandhiElephants are self-aware, conscious beings. They can feel and grieve the loss of both elephants and humans. But despite all empathy that elephants shower on humans, we continue to inflict pain and suffering on these caring, sentient beings.In 2013 Sangita Iyer visited her childhood home of Kerala, India. Over 700 Asian elephants live in Kerala, owned by individuals and temples that force them to perform in lengthy, crowded, noisy festivals, abusing and shackling these animals they claim to revere for tourists and money.When Sangita found herself in the presence of these divine creatures and witnessed their suffering first hand, she felt a deep connection to their pain. She too had been shackled and broken for too long-to her patriarchal upbringing in India, to the many "me too" moments in her work life that were swept under the rug, to the silence. Now she would speak out for the elephants and for herself. And she would heal alongside them.This sparked the creation of her award winning documentary of the same name and a new purpose in this life for both Sangita and the elephants.
God's Hotel
by Victoria SweetA medical "page-turner" that traces one doctor's "remarkable journey to the essence of medicine" (The San Francisco Chronicle). San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God's hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves--"anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times" and needed extended medical care--ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for twenty years. Laguna Honda, relatively low-tech but human-paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished. Gradually, the place transformed the way she understood her work. Alongside the modern view of the body as a machine to be fixed, her extraordinary patients evoked an older idea, of the body as a garden to be tended. God's Hotel tells their story and the story of the hospital itself, which, as efficiency experts, politicians, and architects descended, determined to turn it into a modern "health care facility," revealed its own surprising truths about the essence, cost, and value of caring for the body and the soul.
God's Fool: The Life of Francis of Assisi
by Julien Green Peter HeineggThis warm, richly detailed biography brings the beloved saint alive in all his human and profoundly spiritual dimensions.
God's Fool: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries Ser.)
by Mark SloukaIf you can read [God’s Fool] without being astonished and touched, then you’d better check to see if your heart is made of stone…simply brilliant. A book of the year. Born attached at the chest, Chang and Eng were considered a marvel, an act of God. By any standard, theirs is a history of epic variety and drama. Mark Slouka recounts their tumultuous story, from the docks of Vietnam to American fame, with intimacy and compassion. A Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Dallas Morning News Best Book of the Year.
God's Cold Warrior: The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles (Library of Religious Biography (LRB))
by John D. WilseyWhen John Foster Dulles died in 1959, he was given the largest American state funeral since Franklin Delano Roosevelt&’s in 1945. President Eisenhower called Dulles—his longtime secretary of state—&“one of the truly great men of our time,&” and a few years later the new commercial airport outside Washington, DC, was christened the Dulles International Airport in his honor. His star has fallen significantly since that time, but his influence remains indelible—most especially regarding his role in bringing the worldview of American exceptionalism to the forefront of US foreign policy during the Cold War era, a worldview that has long outlived him. God&’s Cold Warrior recounts how Dulles&’s faith commitments from his Presbyterian upbringing found fertile soil in the anti-communist crusades of the mid-twentieth century. After attending the Oxford Ecumenical Church Conference in 1937, he wrote about his realization that &“the spirit of Christianity, of which I learned as a boy, was really that of which the world now stood in very great need, not merely to save souls, but to solve the practical problems of international affairs.&” Dulles believed that America was chosen by God to defend the freedom of all those vulnerable to the godless tyranny of communism, and he carried out this religious vision in every aspect of his diplomatic and political work. He was conspicuous among those US officials in the twentieth century that prominently combined their religious convictions and public service, making his life and faith key to understanding the interconnectedness of God and country in US foreign affairs.
God's Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church
by George WeigelWeigel introduces us to Pope Benedict XVI. What was this man thinking when he knew that he might be elected? How did the process work? What is the historical significance for the Catholic Church? What is John Paul II's legacy? Although rich with detail, this book is a lucid and fascinating consideration of the monumental events of 2005.
Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano
by Dana ThomasMore than two decades ago, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen arrived on the fashions scene when the business was in an artistic and economic rut. Both wanted to revolutionize fashion in a way no one had in decades. They shook the establishment out of its bourgeois, minimalist stupor with daring, sexy designs. They turned out landmark collections in mesmerizing, theatrical shows that retailers and critics still gush about and designers continue to reference.<P><P> Their approach to fashion was wildly different—Galliano began as an illustrator, McQueen as a Savile Row tailor. Galliano led the way with his sensual bias-cut gowns and his voluptuous hourglass tailoring, which he presented in romantic storybook-like settings. McQueen, though nearly ten years younger than Galliano, was a brilliant technician and a visionary artist who brought a new reality to fashion, as well as an otherworldly beauty. For his first official collection at the tender age of twenty-three, McQueen did what few in fashion ever achieve: he invented a new silhouette, the Bumster.<P> They had similar backgrounds: sensitive, shy gay men raised in tough London neighborhoods, their love of fashion nurtured by their doting mothers. Both struggled to get their businesses off the ground, despite early critical success. But by 1997, each had landed a job as creative director for couture houses owned by French tycoon Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH.<P> Galliano’s and McQueen’s work for Dior and Givenchy and beyond not only influenced fashion; their distinct styles were also reflected across the media landscape. With their help, luxury fashion evolved from a clutch of small, family-owned businesses into a $280 billion-a-year global corporate industry. Executives pushed the designers to meet increasingly rapid deadlines. For both Galliano and McQueen, the pace was unsustainable. In 2010, McQueen took his own life three weeks before his womens' wear show.<P> The same week that Galliano was fired, Forbes named Arnault the fourth richest man in the world. Two months later, Kate Middleton wore a McQueen wedding gown, instantly making the house the world’s most famous fashion brand, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened a wildly successful McQueen retrospective, cosponsored by the corporate owners of the McQueen brand. The corporations had won and the artists had lost.<P> In her groundbreaking work Gods and Kings, acclaimed journalist Dana Thomas tells the true story of McQueen and Galliano. In so doing, she reveals the revolution in high fashion in the last two decades—and the price it demanded of the very ones who saved it.
God's Adventurer
by Phyllis ThompsonHuson Taylor was still a teenager when God told him to go to China. Alone, broke and even critically ill, he hung on to that goal, and to God who was sending him. But would God be enough? In inland China, Hudson had lots of chances to find out! There is plenty of danger, adventure and action in this true story of a man who dared to risk all on God.
The Godmother: Murder, Vengeance and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women
by Barbie Latza NadeauThe untold stories of the women who have risen to prominence and notoriety in Italy's mafia—many more ruthless than the fathers and husbands they replaced—and the octogenarian murderer who decades ago blazed a bloody trail for them to follow.In 1955 in a public market outside Naples, Italy, a pregnant teenage widow named Assunta &“Pupetta&” Maresca encounters the man she believes to be her husband's killer. Minutes later, police find the man dead, riddled with an astonishing 29 bullets. Pupetta is arrested and convicted for his death. "I killed for love," she declares in court, "and I'd do it again!" It is the middle of the twentieth century. Italy is impoverished after the war. Criminal organization are springing up where governments fail their citizens. Women are considered adjunct to the growth of the criminal class; they are mothers who train sons in the primacy of blood feuds, or they are daughters and sisters who deliver messages for imprisoned male relatives. But Pupetta changes that. She is heralded "Lady Camorra," and in prison she takes on legendary stature, with films and TV shows produced to capitalize on her outlaw image. The crime and even the killing does not stop there for Pupetta, and though she is arguably the first mafia godmother, she is not the worst. Some of the women who follow in her footsteps will meet terrible fates; others will lead their clans. But if CNN correspondent and Daily Beast Rome bureau chief makes one thing clear in The Godmother, it's that as women seize ever more control of Italy's criminal underworld, they are proving themselves more vicious, cunning and cutthroat than the men they replace.
Godmersham Park: A Novel of the Austen Family
by Gill HornbyA richly imagined novel inspired by the true story of Anne Sharp, a governess who became very close with Jane Austen and her family by the #1 International bestselling-author of Miss Austen.On January 21, 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At thirty-one years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. Her mother has died, and she has nowhere else to go. Anne is left with no choice. For her new charge—twelve-year-old Fanny Austen—Anne's arrival is all novelty and excitement. The governess role is a uniquely awkward one. Anne is neither one of the servants, nor one of the family, and to balance a position between the "upstairs" and "downstairs" members of the household is a diplomatic chess game. One wrong move may result in instant dismissal. Anne knows that she must never let down her guard. When Mr. Edward Austen's family comes to stay, Anne forms an immediate attachment to Jane. They write plays together, and enjoy long discussions. However, in the process, Anne reveals herself as not merely pretty, charming, and competent; she is clever too. Even her sleepy, complacent, mistress can hardly fail to notice. Meanwhile Jane's brother, Henry, begins to take an unusually strong interest in the lovely young governess. And from now on, Anne's days at Godmersham Park are numbered.
A Godly Humanism: Clarifying the Hope That Lies Within
by Francis E. George OMIIs the Catholic Church a movement built around ideas, or a communion built around relationships? In A Godly Humanism, Francis Cardinal George shares his understanding of the Church in lively, compelling prose, presenting a way to understand and appreciate the relationships of God to human beings and of human beings to one another. These loving relationships are continually made available to us in and through the Church, from the time of Jesus&’s first disciples down to our own day. We are introduced to how the spiritual and intellectual life of Christians, aided in every generation by the Holy Spirit working through the Apostles and their successors, resist the danger of splitting apart from one another. Though they take different outward forms at different times, both wisdom and holiness are made possible for every Christian in any station of life. Sign-posting his conversation by the milestones of his own spiritual and intellectual journey, Cardinal George invites us to view the Church and her history in ways that go beyond the categories of politics—through which we find merely human initiative, contrivance, and adjustment—and rather to see the initiative as God&’s first and foremost. God is the non-stop giver, we are non-stop recipients of his gifts, and the recent popes, no less than the Father of the Church, have made every effort to make us aware of the graces—that is, of the unearned benefits—that God confers on us as Catholics, as Christians, as believers, and simply as human beings. Pope Francis, he reminds us, contrasts human planning with God&’s providence, and this book is at once an exposition of that providence and a personal response of gratitude for the way it has operated in one man&’s life.