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Wishful Thinking: How I Lost My Faith and Why I Want to Find It
by Donna FreitasDonna Freitas wants to believe. Raised Catholic, she sang songs about Jesus as a child and lived in a house where nuns and priests were regular guests, yet she found herself questioning the faith of her family, examining the reasons none of it added up, and distancing herself from the God of Christianity. Despite her questions—or perhaps because of them—she made a career out of trying to understand God, pursuing a PhD in religion. But even as she taught college students about mystics, theologians, and others who wrestled with God, she was never able to embrace a faith of her own. In this searingly honest and deeply personal book, Freitas retraces her roundabout path up and out of the wilderness toward hope, and her dogged—and ongoing—search for faith. She talks about her experience with the Catholic abuse scandal, about being embraced as a speaker at evangelical colleges, about how the death of her mother and the loss of her marriage made her question everything she thought she knew about love, how she cannot reconcile the ways the concept of God makes absolutely no sense, and how she cannot stop trying to believe, despite it all. Real, raw, and beautifully written, Wishful Thinking is a powerful story about the author&’s search for belief in God and about finding God in the most unexpected places.
Wishing for Snow: A Memoir
by Minrose GwinInthe tradition of Jeanette Walls’ TheGlass Castle and Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, novelist Minrose Gwin offers a beautifullycrafted memoir of rediscovering her mother, the mentally ill poet Erin Taylor,after a life of growing up with her in the South. In an intimate, surprising,emotional, and ultimately uplifting journey into her mother’s past, Gwin, the critically acclaimed author of The Queen ofPalmyra, offers both a daughter’ssoulful elegy to the mother who raised her, and a powerful tribute from onestrong female writer to another—the Erin Taylor that Minrosenever knew.
Wit: A Play
by Margaret EdsonWinner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, and the Oppenheimer Award Margaret Edson's powerfully imagined Pulitzer Prizewinning play examines what makes life worth living through her exploration of one of existence's unifying experiencesmortalitywhile she also probes the vital importance of human relationships. What we as her audience take away from this remarkable drama is a keener sense that, while death is real and unavoidable, our lives are ours to cherish or throw awaya lesson that can be both uplifting and redemptive. As the playwright herself puts it, "The play is not about doctors or even about cancer. It's about kindness, but it shows arrogance. It's about compassion, but it shows insensitivity." In Wit,Edson delves into timeless questions with no final answers: How should we live our lives knowing that we will die? Is the way we live our lives and interact with others more important than what we achieve materially, professionally, or intellectually? How does language figure into our lives? Can science and art help us conquer death, or our fear of it? What will seem most important to each of us about life as that life comes to an end? The immediacy of the presentation, and the clarity and elegance of Edson's writing, make this sophisticated, multilayered play accessible to almost any interested reader. As the play begins, Vivian Bearing, a renowned professor of English who has spent years studying and teaching the intricate, difficult Holy Sonnets of the seventeenth-century poet John Donne, is diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. Confident of her ability to stay in control of events, she brings to her illness the same intensely rational and painstakingly methodical approach that has guided her stellar academic career. But as her disease and its excruciatingly painful treatment inexorably progress, she begins to question the single-minded values and standards that have always directed her, finally coming to understand the aspects of life that make it truly worth living.
Witches And Neighbors: The Social And Cultural Context Of European Witchcraft
by Robin BriggsWitches and Neighbors is a remarkable interpretation of the course and causes of the fear and persecution of witches that bedeviled Europe for centuries. Robin Briggs draws on the latest research into the local realities underlying the phenomenon. In particular, he employs his own extensive work in the rich archives hidden away in the area in Europe in which so many cases became known. Who were the witches? What were their practices? Who believed in them? What was their place in society? Why, exactly, were they feared? And how were they accused, tried, and executed? Robin Briggs attempts to answer these questions. But he goes one step further than simply looking at the persecutions themselves; he focuses on the society in which perceived witchcraft existed. Wiches and Neighbors is an illuminating social and cultural history of a period all too often darkened by myth and misinformation.
Witches of America
by Alex Mar"Witches are gathering."When most people hear the word "witches," they think of horror films and Halloween, but to the nearly one million Americans who practice Paganism today, witchcraft is a nature-worshipping, polytheistic, and very real religion. So Alex Mar discovers when she sets out to film a documentary and finds herself drawn deep into the world of present-day magic.Witches of America follows Mar on her immersive five-year trip into the occult, charting modern Paganism from its roots in 1950s England to its current American mecca in the San Francisco Bay Area; from a gathering of more than a thousand witches in the Illinois woods to the New Orleans branch of one of the world's most influential magical societies. Along the way she takes part in dozens of rituals and becomes involved with a wild array of characters: a government employee who founds a California priesthood dedicated to a Celtic goddess of war; American disciples of Aleister Crowley, whose elaborate ceremonies turn the Catholic mass on its head; second-wave feminist Wiccans who practice a radical separatist witchcraft; a growing "mystery cult" whose initiates trace their rites back to a blind shaman in rural Oregon. This sprawling magical community compels Mar to confront what she believes is possible-or hopes might be.With keen intelligence and wit, Mar illuminates the world of witchcraft while grappling in fresh and unexpected ways with the question underlying every faith: Why do we choose to believe in anything at all? Whether evangelical Christian, Pagan priestess, or atheist, each of us craves a system of meaning to give structure to our lives. Sometimes we just find it in unexpected places.
Witches, Wenches & Wild Women of Rhode Island (Wicked)
by M. E. Reilly-McGreenDiscover the most fearsome and fascinating women to ever live in the Ocean State in this collection of wild historical profiles. In Witches, Wenches & Wild Women of Rhode Island, local historian M.E. Reilly-McGreen reveals true tales of women who caused scandals in their day. It&’s a compendium of rebellious deeds, outlandish gossip, and superstition run amok. Mercy Brown was a nineteen-year-old consumption victim thought to be a vampire. Locals were so afraid of Mercy that her body was exhumed to perform a ritual banishment of the undead. Goody Seager was accused of infesting her neighbor&’s cheese with maggots by using witchcraft. According to legend, Tall &“Dutch&” Kattern was an opium-eating fortuneteller whose curse set a ship aflame after its crew cast her ashore. Along with these tales, you&’ll read of revolutionaries, like Julia Ward Howe, who invented Mother&’s Day; and religious reformers like Anne Hutchinson, said to be the inspiration for Hawthorne's heroine in The Scarlet Letter; and many others.
Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem
by Rosalyn SchanzerTackling the same twisted subject as Stacy Schiff's much-lauded book The Witches: Salem, 1692, this Sibert Honor book for young readers features unique scratchboard illustrations, chilling primary source material, and powerful narrative to tell the true tale. In the little colonial town of Salem Village, Massachusetts, two girls began to twitch, mumble, and contort their bodies into strange shapes. The doctor tried every remedy, but nothing cured the young Puritans. He grimly announced the dire diagnosis: the girls were bewitched! And then the accusations began. The riveting, true story of the victims, accused witches, crooked officials, and mass hysteria that turned a mysterious illness affecting two children into a witch hunt that took over a dozen people&’s lives and ruined hundreds more unfolds in chilling, novelistic detail—complete with stylized black-white-and-red scratchboard illustrations of young girls having wild fits in the courtroom, witches flying overhead, and the Devil and his servants terrorizing the Puritans— in this young adult book by award-winning author and illustrator Rosalyn Schanzer. Taught in middle and high schools around the U.S., the 17th-century saga remains hauntingly resonant as people struggle even today with the urgent need to find someone to blame for their misfortunes. Witches! has been honored with many prestigious awards, including:. Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Honor Book 2012 Notable Children's Books—ALSC NCSS—Notable Social Studies Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies 2012 School Library Journal Best Books of 2011 SLJ&’s 100 Magnificent Children&’s Books of 2011 Chicago Public Library Best of the Best 2011
With "The Thirty-Second" In The Peninsular And Other Campaigns
by Prof. John Henry Wardell Major Harry Ross-LewinThis ebook is purpose built and is proof-read and re-type set from the original to provide an outstanding experience of reflowing text for an ebook reader. Although the 32nd Regiment was primarily recruited in and around Cornwall, leading to many scraps with the Navy for manpower, in its ranks during the Napoleonic wars the two Irish brothers of the Ross-Lewin family fought, the elder brother Harry left an exciting and vibrant account of his campaigning. His adventures took him from the West Indies, engagements with rebel Irishmen, Copenhagen, even before his arrival in the Peninsular to start his campaigns under Wellington in 1808. His first major trial under fire begins at Rolica and Vimiero, before he and his brave men are sent off to the pestilent climes of Walcheren. Returning to the Spain once again he is heavily engaged during the battle of Salamanca, during which he is wounded, once mended his service takes him onward to France via a number of battles at Bayonne, Orthez and Toulouse. During his campaigning he suffers the loss of his brother Edward and writes touchingly of his bravery before he fell. His account of the Waterloo campaign is amongst the best that survive, accurate and vividly written, he was lucky to survive the culminating battle as his regiment was one of the most severely depleted. Major Ross-Lewin originally wrote three volumes of his memoirs of his time in the British army under the title of "The Life of a Soldier, by a Field Officer" in three volumes; this edition has been expertly trimmed the then reader of Modern History at Trinity College, Dublin. This work shares the tone of his countryman William Grattan's memoirs, with a wry view of the antics of his soldiers, an eye for the details of what passed before him, interspersed with battle vignettes that convey the fire and confusion of battle. Text taken, whole and complete from the 1904 edition, Hidges and Figgis & Co, Dublin. Original -368 pages Author - Major Harry Ross-Lewin (1781-1872) Editor - Prof. John Henry Wardell (1898- Aug 1957) Linked TOC
With 6th Airborne Division in Palestine, 1945–1948
by Major General Dare WilsonThe 6th Airborne Division was a major element of the British Security Force in Palestine between September, 1945 and May 1948. Faced with the unenviable task of upholding the law in a lawless country, the individual British soldier had to face continual opposition from a hostile Jewish community. This story is described by General Wilson, then a Major, who served with the division during this period. The mission of British forces was simply "to keep the peace". To achieve this goal, the 6th Airborne Division conducted a variety of counter-insurgency operations in both urban and rural environments. These operations were designed to locate illegal arms caches, limit Jewish-Arab violence and capture dissidents who had attacked British positions. The destruction of the King David Hotel, the most famous terrorist attack of the Mandate period, is treated in great detail. With 6th Airborne Division in Palestine 1945 - 48 is a tribute to the British soldier. It is also an excellent case study in unconventional warfare. It will be of great interest to any student of the intricate problem that Palestine presents.
With A Feather On My Nose (American Autobiography Ser.)
by Billie BurkeThe popular comedienne's account of her theatrical career and her married life with Florenz Ziegfeld.This is the life story of an actress, a beautiful redheaded actress who lived and played in a glittering era now gone but fondly remembered. Although she attained moments of great fame and happiness, she never knew security. Like her father, the well-known clown, she went through life with a feather on her nose.--Print Ed.
With A Field Ambulance At Ypres, Being Letters Written March 7-August 15, 1915: Being Letters Written March 7, To August 15, 1915 (1916)
by William BoydAs an Allied soldier, the Ypres salient was a hellish tongue of land to serve in during the First World War. Overlooked by German forces, surrounded on three sides by the enemies' guns, with little or no protection from the land features, it became a symbol of the stubborn resistance of the Allied soldier in the thin grim trenches. The troops faced shells, bullets, mortars, grenades and poison on a daily basis, whilst only just behind the frontline the Royal Army Medical Corps struggled to deal with the influx of wounded.Captain Boyd, as he then was, recounts his experiences in the bloody, cramped and over-worked hospitals as he attempted to save lives so brutally injured by the war. The Author went on to have an illustrious career as an internationally famed pathologist in Canada.Author -William Boyd, MB, ChB, MD, MRCP.Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in New York, George H. Doran company 1916.Original Page Count - 110 pages.
With All Deliberate Speed: An Oral History Memoir
by Norman I. Silber Philip ElmanFrom a modest childhood in Patterson, N. J., Philip Elman rose to become clerk for the great Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, and then to a position in the U.S. Solicitor General's Office. As a member of that office, Philip Elman had an exceptional vantage point on one of the most momentous cases in U.S. Supreme Court history: Brown v. Board of Education. In this oral history memoir of Elman's life, With All Deliberate Speed, author Norman I. Silber reveals the maneuvering that led to the Court's overturning the doctrine of "separate but equal." Working behind the scenes, it was Justice Department attorney Elman who came up with the concept of gradual integration-an idea that worked its way into the final decision as the famous phrase "with all deliberate speed." Though this expression angered those pressing for immediate desegregation, Elman claims that it unified a divided Court, thus enabling them to stand together against the evil of segregation. With All Deliberate Speed records a decisive moment in Supreme Court history, but it is also Philip Elman's unforgettable oral memoir-the story of his entire career in government service, including his work with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy as commissioner of the FTC, and his role in founding the modern consumer protection movement, which includes the antismoking campaign that put the Surgeon General's warning on cigarette packs. At once rich historical testimony and a gripping read, With All Deliberate Speed offers a rarely glimpsed insider's understanding of the politics of the American legal system.
With Billie
by Julia BlackburnFrom Julia Blackburn, an author whose ability to conjure lives from other times and places is so vivid that one suspects she sees ghosts, here is a portrait of a woman whose voice continues to haunt anyone who hears it.Billie Holiday's life is inseparable from an account of her troubles, her addictions, her arrests, and the scandals that would repeatedly put her name in the tabloid headlines of the 1940s and 1950s. Those who knew her learned never to be surprised by what she might do. Her moods and faces were so various that she could seem to be a different woman from one moment to the next. Volatile, unpredictable, Billie Holiday remained, even to her friends, an elusive and perplexing figure.In With Billie, we hear the voices of those people-piano players and dancers, pimps and junkies, lovers and narcs, producers and critics, each recalling intimate stories of the Billie they knew. What emerges is a portrait of a complex, contradictory, enthralling woman, a woman who knew what really mattered to her. Reading With Billie, one is convinced that she has only just left the room but will return shortly.
With Billie: A New Look at the Unforgettable Lady Day
by Julia BlackburnFrom Julia Blackburn, an author whose ability to conjure lives from other times and places is so vivid that one suspects she sees ghosts, here is a portrait of a woman whose voice continues to haunt anyone who hears it.Billie Holiday’s life is inseparable from an account of her troubles, her addictions, her arrests, and the scandals that would repeatedly put her name in the tabloid headlines of the 1940s and 1950s. Those who knew her learned never to be surprised by what she might do. Her moods and faces were so various that she could seem to be a different woman from one moment to the next. Volatile, unpredictable, Billie Holiday remained, even to her friends, an elusive and perplexing figure.In With Billie, we hear the voices of those people–piano players and dancers, pimps and junkies, lovers and narcs, producers and critics, each recalling intimate stories of the Billie they knew. What emerges is a portrait of a complex, contradictory, enthralling woman, a woman who knew what really mattered to her. Reading With Billie, one is convinced that she has only just left the room but will return shortly.
With Books and Bricks
by Suzanne Slade Nicole TadgellBooker T. Washington had an incredible passion for learning. Born a slave, he taught himself to read. When the Civil War ended, Booker finally fulfilled his dream of attending school. After graduation, he was invited to teach in Tuskegee, Alabama. Finding many eager students but no school, Booker set out to build his own school--brick by brick. An afterword gives detailed information on how the school was built.
With Cavalry In 1915, The British Trooper In The Trench Line, Through Second Battle Of Ypres [Illustrated Edition]
by Frederic Abernethy ColemanFrederic Coleman returns to the front with the British Army in 1915 after his adventures in 1914, as recounted in his first reminiscences "From Mons to Ypres with General French". Once again attached to the British cavalry, grand movements had ceased and the positional war of attrition, artillery and trenches would dominate from then to the end of the war. 1915 would see much hard fighting and the cavalry divisions would often be pressed into service in the trenches alongside the infantry. The early months of 1915 were a period of relative quiet, which allowed the author to tour and recount the devastated scenery of Ypres, St. Eloi and all along the line; he also records the effects of war on the civilian French and Belgian populations as he tours along in his car. However, as the year goes on, the Spring would see the second battle of Ypres and the advent of the use of poison gas. Hard pressed all along the line, Coleman paints vivid picture of the desperate measures undertaken by the British to hold on at all costs.An excellent First World War One memoir.Author -- Frederic Abernethy Coleman 1876-1931Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in London: S. Low, Marston & co., limited, 1916.Original Page Count - xvi and 302 pages.Illustrations - numerous illustrations throughout.
With Child: A Diary of Motherhood
by Phyllis Chesler Ariel CheslerThis diary of acclaimed psychologist and radical feminist icon Phyllis Chesler was a pioneering work when it was first published in 1979. A look into the second wave of feminism and the era's changing attitudes toward motherhood and pregnancy, With Child—now with an updated preface from her son—remains relevant for mothers today.
With Courage and Common Sense: Memoirs from the Older Women's Legacy Circles
by Susan Wittig Albert Dayna FinetWomen who were sixty or older at the turn of the twenty-first century have lived through some of recent history's most momentous moments--and yet these women often believe that their personal lives and stories are insignificant, not worthy of being recorded for future generations. To change that perception and capture some of these life stories before they are lost, the Story Circle Network, a national organization dedicated to helping women write about their lives, developed the Older Women's Legacy (OWL) Circle Memoir Workshops. During the first two years of the project (1998-2000), nearly 500 older women participated in workshops that offered them the opportunity and encouragement to reflect on and create written records of their lives.
With Crook At The Rosebud (Stackpole Classics Ser.)
by J. W. VaughnThough the battle of the Little Big Horn, June 25, 1876, received widespread publicity because of the magic personality of General George Armstrong Custer and the mystery surrounding the massacre of half of the 7th Cavalry regiment, the Battle of the Rosebud, thirty miles southeast and occurring one week earlier--virtually unknown except to a few students--involved more troops, had fewer casualties, lasted for most of a day, and was of far greater historical significance.The Battle of the Rosebud covered an area four miles long east and west and two miles wide north and south along the banks of the little Rosebud River in southern Montana.Northward into this territory in middle June, 1876, Brigadier General George Crook led a large column of U.S. Cavalry and Infantry. This column numbered in excess of 1325 soldiers, Indian allies, packers and miners besides some Army servants who were made part of the fighting force. Regarded at the time as the main force against the infractious Indians, the command was intercepted by a party of Sioux and Cheyennes under Crazy Horse at the big bend of the Rosebud River. After a battle which lasted nearly a day, General Crook was compelled to return to his base forty miles away on the present site of Sheridan, Wyoming.
With Daring Faith: A Biography of Amy Carmichael
by Rebecca Henry DavisThis is a biography, written for children, of the esteemed missionary, Amy Carmichael, who almost single-handedly fought a battle against the practice of child temple prostitution in India in the early part of this century.
With Darkness Came Stars: A Memoir
by Audrey FlackOnly in the darkest moments of our lives do the brightest stars appear.An artist, mother, teacher, and rebel, Audrey Flack is counted among the most important American artists of the twentieth century. In With Darkness Came Stars, she recounts and reflects upon a life fully lived. Flack came up in the New York art scene when the city was fast becoming a world arts center. She had a studio in the Bowery and frequented the Cedar Tavern, where she rubbed elbows with Jackson Pollock, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, and other giants of the Abstract Expressionist movement. After leaving that scene and starting a family, she spearheaded Photorealist painting, alongside the likes of Chuck Close and Richard Estes. Flack has lived a remarkable life, successfully navigating a vibrant and virulently sexist art world, escaping an abusive marriage, and reshaping the rules of art creation in the middle of the twentieth century—all while raising two children, one with severe autism. Her story is full of strife and striving, but as an artist, Flack has always been able to find the beauty in it.
With Dew on My Boots and Other Footprints
by Colin Thiele Anita MertzlinWith Dew on my Boots is a rich evocation of the childhood of Colin Thiele, who has delighted generations of Australian children for years. A fascinating account of what it was like to grow up at a particular time and place: the predominately German-speaking farming community of Eudunda, just north of the Barossa Valley, in the 1920s and 30s. With Dew on my Boots is instilled with Colin's characteristic warmth, humour and wisdom.Other Footprints traces moments in Colin?s life beyond the early years. During his many journeys across the length and breadth of Australia with his wife, Rhonda, he delighted in encounters with people of all ages in cities, country towns and `microscopic dots on outback maps?, as well as with wildlife and the land itself.
With Every Great Breath: New and Selected Essays, 1995-2023
by Rick BassWinner of the National Outdoor Book Award"Master craftsman" (Los Angeles Times) and beloved author Rick Bass explores ecological, social, and personal landscapes through this collection that brings together his best-loved essays and brand-new piecesFor acclaimed writer and environmental activist Rick Bass, it can be wearying to dwell relentlessly upon the broken, the fragmented, the dead and dying and doomed to extinction. Activism is a necessary part of the environmental movement, but so is the time-honored celebration of the beauty that inspires us.Spanning his storied career, these new and selected essays attempt to take a brief step to the side, away from lamentation and prescription, to inhabit, as deeply as possible, the greater depths of the beauty in each moment. With Every Great Breath ranges from the extremely local—a long-form essay about the community affected by the largest Superfund site in U.S. history, in Libby, Montana—to the far-flung: the Galápagos, Namibia, and Alaska. Throughout, Bass offers a portrait of our planet that is always alert to its wonders, even in the face of environmental crisis.
With Fidel: A Portrait of Castro and Cuba
by Fidel Castro Frank Mankiewicz Kirby JonesThis book is the result of three trips to Cuba in 1974 and 1975 by Frank Mankiewicz and Kirby Jones. The first trip lasted from June 29 to July 21, 1974; the second from September 28 to October 6, 1974; and the third from January 24 to February 4, 1975. The main purpose of the trips was to conduct an in-depth interview with Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro for American television. Over the course of four days and nights from July 18 to July 21, we spent more than eleven hours in formal interview with Castro and another twelve hours in informal conversation and traveling with him by jeep throughout the Havana area. All conversations with Castro were conducted in Spanish. During the second trip, there were an additional two hours of filmed interview, and over six hours were spent meeting informally with Castro.
With God in Russia: The Inspiring Classic Account of a Catholic Priest's Twenty-three Years in Soviet Prisons and Labor Camps
by Walter J. Ciszek Daniel L. FlahertyA Polish-American priest spends twenty-three years in Soviet prisons and labor camps during the Cold War in this classic memoir of faith and survival.After ministering in Eastern Europe during World War II, Walter Ciszek, S.J., was arrested by the Russian secret police. Accused of spying, and charged with “agitation with intent to subvert,” he was held in Moscow’s notorious Lubyanka prison for five years. The Catholic priest was then sentenced without trial to ten more years in Siberia’s notorious forced labor camp system made famous in Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago.In With God in Russia, Ciszek reflects on his daily life as a prisoner, his unwavering faith in God, and his firm devotion to his vows and vocation. Enduring brutal conditions, Ciszek risked his life to offer spiritual guidance to fellow prisoners who could easily have exposed him for their own gains. Ciszek chronicles these experiences with grace, humility, and candor, from his secret work leading mass and hearing confessions within the prison grounds, to his participation in a major gulag uprising, to his eventual release in a 1963 prisoner exchange which astonished all who had feared he was dead.