Download or read book Confessions of an American None written by Rachel Roberts and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-07 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confessions of an American None: A Credo of Sorts is part memoir, part credo, and part romp in pop culture, spotlighting the largest, fastest-growing spiritual demographic in our country- the religiously unaffiliated, aka Nones.A swashbuckling narrative upends conventional thinking about God and religion. Some doctrinal alligators are wrestled into compliance. Some walk the plank. What is the fate of Original Sin, virgin births, and sexuality? It's probably not what you expect.Rachel Roberts shares personal tales of growing up in a cult (Praise Jesus and pass the snakes!), battling an adult relationship with Christianity (Jesus would get drunk with her over this one), and finding relief in becoming a None (phew). She unearths a spirituality that balances the affirmation of reason and science with compassion and inclusivity while abandoning antiquated notions of superstition and tribalism.Seemingly quirky or random cultural references punctuate profundity with levity and reprieve. Think Spock meets the Dali Lama meets Bart Simpson. Each chapter contains a recipe and a well-known song that culminates in a meal and an accompanying playlist. This unique feature inspires the reader to experience everyday spirituality the way many Nones do, by meaningfully connecting with others.Amidst the fun, Confessions aims to instigate a voice for Nones, revolutionize spirituality based on 21st-century values, and reorient our collective consciousness toward that which unifies all people: Love.
Download or read book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man written by John Perkins and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2004-11-09 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perkins, a former chief economist at a Boston strategic-consulting firm, confesses he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.
Download or read book Public Confessions written by Rebecca L. Davis and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Personal reinvention is a core part of the human condition. Yet in the mid-twentieth century, certain private religious choices became lightning rods for public outrage and debate. Public Confessions reveals the controversial religious conversions that shaped modern America. Rebecca L. Davis explains why the new faiths of notable figures including Clare Boothe Luce, Whittaker Chambers, Sammy Davis Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, Chuck Colson, and others riveted the American public. Unconventional religious choices charted new ways of declaring an "authentic" identity amid escalating Cold War fears of brainwashing and coercion. Facing pressure to celebrate a specific vision of Americanism, these converts variously attracted and repelled members of the American public. Whether the act of changing religions was viewed as selfish, reckless, or even unpatriotic, it provoked controversies that ultimately transformed American politics. Public Confessions takes intimate history to its widest relevance, and in so doing, makes you see yourself in both the private and public stories it tells.
Download or read book Confessions of an American Sikh written by Gursant Singh and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2012-12-13 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arriving in India to get his teeth fixed, Gursant Singh decides he needs a Punjabi wife and becomes embroiled with Dadaji, Amritsar's notorious marriage broker. When their search for the perfect bride gets them both thrown into Amritsar's Central Jail, Gursant has to look deep within himself and question everything he has been taught about the Sikh path - Sikhi. Gursant's encounters with crooked lawyers, corrupt cops and the enigmatic Indian legal system lead him from the radiant spirituality of Amritsar's Golden Temple, through labyrinthine back streets, chaotic lawyers' offices and the Amritsar Police station to the tranquility of an isolated yoga ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas. On the way, we meet an exotic cast of characters. Some venal and manipulating, others compassionate and generous; all of whom bring to life the contradictions, idiosyncrasies and excitement of 21st Century India. Gursant chronicles his adventures in a fast-moving, warts-and-all style to give the reader a searingly honest picture of his own spiritual loss of innocence. It was during my time in the Amritsar Central Jail that I thought of writing this book. As soon as I had Internet access, I began to research what it might take to create a written record of my experiences. In effect, this book was created as it happened and certainly before I knew how it would finish. My hope was that I could help others to learn from my experiences; not only those in India, but also those within the 3HO spiritual organization to which I devoted thirty years of my life. India can be fun, entertaining and spiritually inspiring; at the same time it can be harsh and unforgiving, especially if you fall foul of the law, as I did. The spiritual path of the seeker can provide endless inspiration and satisfaction. But, like India, it can bring you face to face with your deepest fears and weaknesses. It is my fervent hope that others will learn from my mistakes and perhaps deepen their own spiritual experience by reading about what I had to go through. Thus this book is the story of my spiritual coming of age; my loss of innocence, if you will. I wish to offer my deepest gratitude to Akal Purkh, Waheguru, the Creator and Sustainer of the incredible universe in which we live. Let me also give thanks to Guru Nanak Sahib and his nine illustrious human successors. It is the grace of Guru Nanak that brought me to his teachings and it was his kindness that enabled me to find the true path of Sikhi. Finally I humbly offer obeisance to Siri Guru Granth Sahib, the word of God and living Guru for all Sikhs. Gursant Singh
Download or read book Life in Double Time written by Mike Lankford and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 1997 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mike was member of a series of local groups before declaring himself ready to go out on the road. But lying low in southern Olklahoma didn't yield any big gigs, until suddenly, oppurtunity knocked. With no rehearsals and very little understanding of what he was getting himself into, he took off with what his mother called "a Negro band headed for parts unknown," a seasoned blues outfit from Chicago called Salt & Pepper. (The band's white drummer had run off to Texas, and.
Download or read book The Confessions of a Number One Son written by Frank Chin and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2015-02-28 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1970s, Frank Chin, the outspoken Chinese American author of such plays as The Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of the Dragon, wrote a full-length novel that was never published and presumably lost. Nearly four decades later, Calvin McMillin, a literary scholar specializing in Asian American literature, would discover Chin’s original manuscripts and embark on an extensive restoration project. Meticulously reassembled from multiple extant drafts, Frank Chin’s “forgotten” novel is a sequel to The Chickencoop Chinaman and follows the further misadventures of Tam Lum, the original play’s witty protagonist. Haunted by the bitter memories of a failed marriage and the untimely death of a beloved family member, Tam flees San Francisco’s Chinatown for a life of self-imposed exile on the Hawaiian island of Maui. After burning his sole copy of a manuscript he believed would someday be hailed as “The Great Chinese American Novel,” Tam stumbles into an unlikely romance with Lily, a former nun fresh out of the convent and looking for love. In the process, he also develops an unusual friendship with Lily’s father, a washed-up Hollywood actor once famous for portraying Charlie Chan on the big screen. Thanks in no small part to this bizarre father/daughter pair, not to mention an array of equally quirky locals, Tam soon discovers that his otherwise laidback island existence has been transformed into a farce of epic proportions. Had it been published in the 1970s as originally intended, The Confessions of a Number One Son might have changed the face of Asian American literature as we know it. Written at the height of Frank Chin’s creative powers, this formerly “lost” novel ranks as the author’s funniest, most powerful, and most poignant work to date. Now, some forty years after its initial conception, The Confessions of a Number One Son is finally available to readers everywhere.
Download or read book Sentimental Confessions written by Joycelyn Moody and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sentimental Confessions is a groundbreaking study of evangelicalism, sentimentalism, and nationalism in early African American holy women’s autobiography. At its core are analyses of the life writings of six women--Maria Stewart, Jarena Lee, Zilpha Elaw, Nancy Prince, Mattie J. Jackson, and Julia Foote--all of which appeared in the mid-nineteenth century. Joycelyn Moody shows how these authors appropriated white-sanctioned literary conventions to assert their voices and to protest the racism, patriarchy, and other forces that created and sustained their poverty and enslavement. In doing so, Moody also reveals the wealth of insights that could be gained from these kinds of writings if we were to acknowledge the spiritual convictions of their authors--if we read them because (not although) they are holy texts. The deeply held, passionately expressed beliefs of these women, says Moody, should not be brushed aside by scholars who may be tempted to view them as naïve or as indicative only of the racial, class, and gender oppressions these women suffered. In addition, Moody promotes new ways of looking at dictated narratives without relegating them to a status below self-authored texts. Helping to recover a neglected chapter of American literary history, Sentimental Confessions is filled with insights into the state of the nation in the nineteenth century.
Download or read book The Armies of the Night written by Norman Mailer and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Confessions of a Civil Servant written by Bob Stone and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-07-26 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confessions of a Civil Servant is filled with lessons on leading change in government and the military. Bob Stone based the book on thirty years as a revolutionary in government. It comes at a time when the events of 9-11 are sharpening America's demands for government at all levels that works.
Download or read book Confessions of Love written by Craig J. N. De Paulo and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 2011 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confessions of Love: The Ambiguities of Greek 'Eros' and Latin 'Caritas' includes a collection of essays by internationally renowned scholars such as Phillip Cary, Roland Teske, and Leonid Rudnytzky, tackling some historic, controversial «confessions» of love. Inspired by the Augustinian tradition, this volume focuses on the ambiguous nature of love, especially with regard to some of the conflicting aspects of Greek eros and its ancient Latin rival, caritas, in great thinkers like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Marsilio Ficino, Freud, and Max Scheler. This volume will be of interest to humanities, philosophy, theology, history, and classics departments seeking a new way to approach the Western tradition through the historic controversy in the West over eros and caritas. Finally, its focus on the retrieval and disclosure of sensuality and eroticism in these great texts will also be of special interest to postmodernism and hermeneutics.
Download or read book Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady written by Florence King and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 1990-09-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady is Florence King's classic memoir of her upbringing in an eccentric Southern family, told with all the uproarious wit and gusto that has made her one of the most admired writers in the country. Florence may have been a disappointment to her Granny, whose dream of rearing a Perfect Southern Lady would never be quite fulfilled. But after all, as Florence reminds us, "no matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street."
Download or read book The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man written by John Perkins and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring 15 explosive new chapters, this new edition of the New York Times bestseller brings the story of Economic Hit Men up-to-date and, chillingly, home to the U.S.―but it also gives us hope and the tools to fight back. The previous edition of this now-classic book revealed the existence and subversive manipulations of "economic hit men. John Perkins wrote that they are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. In Perkins's case the tool was debt-convincing strategically important countries to borrow huge amounts of money for enormous, development projects that served the very rich while driving the country deeper into poverty and debt. And once indebted, these countries could be controlled. In this latest edition, Perkins provides revealing new details about how he and others did their work. But more importantly, in an explosive new section he describes how the EHM tools are being used around the world more widely than ever-even in the U. S. itself. The cancer has metastasized, yet most people still aren't aware of it. Fear and debt drive the EHM system. We are hammered with messages that terrify us into believing that we must pay any price, assume any debt, to stop the enemies who, we are told, lurk at our doorsteps. The EHM system-employing false economics, bribes, surveillance, deception, debt, coups, assassinations, unbridled military power-has become the dominant system of economics, government, and society today. It has created what Perkins calls a Death Economy. But Perkins offers hope: he concludes with dozens of specific, concrete suggestions for actions all of us can take to wrest control of our world away from the economic hit men, and help give birth to a Life Economy.
Download or read book The American Heiress written by Daisy Goodwin and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2011-06-21 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now including an excerpt from VICTORIA: A Novel, by Daisy Goodwin, the Creator/Writer of the Masterpiece Presentation on PBS. "Anyone suffering Downton Abbey withdrawal symptoms (who isn't?) will find an instant tonic in Daisy Goodwin's The American Heiress. The story of Cora Cash, an American heiress in the 1890s who bags an English duke, this is a deliciously evocative first novel that lingers in the mind." --Allison Pearson, New York Times bestselling author of I Don't Know How She Does It and I Think I Love You Be careful what you wish for. Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts', suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage. Witty, moving, and brilliantly entertaining, Cora's story marks the debut of a glorious storyteller who brings a fresh new spirit to the world of Edith Wharton and Henry James. "For daughters of the new American billionaires of the 19th century, it was the ultimate deal: marriage to a cash-strapped British Aristocrat in return for a title and social status. But money didn't always buy them happiness." --Daisy Goodwin in The Daily Mail One of Library Journal's Best Historical Fiction Books of 2011
Download or read book Confessions of Madame Psyche written by Dorothy Bryant and published by Feminist Press at CUNY. This book was released on 1998 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1987 American Book Award Winner A A A This ambitious and enchanting novel is both modern-day epic and a work of great emotional and spiritual death. Bold in its historical scope, rich in colorful settings, and eminently readable, Confessions of Madame Psyche also reaches inward, toward quieter truths. A A A The novel is narrated by Mei0li Murrow, born in San Francisco in 1895, the illegitimate daughter of a charismatic confidence man and the Chinese prostitute he has "rescued" from the streets. After her mother's early death, Mei-li is left to care of her mercenary half-sister Erika. When the young Mei-li, by pure coincidence, predicts the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, Erika contructs her identity as "Madame Psyche"-exploiting Mei'li's exoticism and her clients' yearnings for contact with the dead in a series of ingeniously orchestrated seances that win her renown as a medium in California and then in the death-soaked Europe of the First World War. A A A Ironically, it is when she manages to finally reject the popular "spirituality" that has made her famous that Mei-li experiences a truer spiritual vision: One day, while walking on the beach, she has a revelation of her connection to all of life-"an experience of hidden reality which I have never doubted...and which left me permanently changed by what I then knew and know still and will always know." A A A Mei-li's subsequent journey leads her through the aspirations and disappointments of a utopian commune in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the 1920s; to the poverty of migrant work camps in the Depression-era Salinas Valley; and to the courage of the first strikes on San Jose's cannery row. Finally, when the relentless Erika cheats her out of an inheritance by having her committed to the Napa State Hospital, Mee-li finds her greatest wisdom and peace among the outcasts of the asylum-and there writes her "confessions." A A A Mei'li's story is ensconed in the rich history of Northern California in the first half of the twentieth century, and peopled by comrades of many classes and cultures and lovers both male and female; but her central odyssey remains one of inner discovery. In Confessions of Madame Psyche, Dorothy Bryant has created a character who is so honest in her search for truth, growth, and spiritual understanding that this quest becomes inherent to her survival.
Download or read book Gray Work written by Jamie Smith and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first ever, first-person story of America's private, paramilitary contractors at work around the world-from a man who performed these missions himself and has decades of stories to tell. This is a fascinating tale-and potentially the first-to describe the work of American contractors, men who run highly dangerous missions deep inside foreign countries on the brink of war. It will lift the veil and detail the ultimate danger and risk of paramilitary operations (both officially government-sanctioned and not) and show us in very intimate terms exactly what private soldiers do when the government can't act or take public responsibility. GRAY WORK combines covert military intelligence with boots-on-the-ground realism, following Jamie Smith through his CIA training and work as a spy in the State Department, to his co-founding of Blackwater following 9/11, to his decision to leave that company. As the founder and director of Blackwater Security, Smith's initial vision has undeniably shaped and transformed a decade of war. He argues that this gray area-and its warriors who occupy the controversial space between public and private-has become an indispensable element of the modern battlefield.
Download or read book A Killing in Amish Country written by Gregg Olsen and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At just 30 years old, with dark-blonde hair and freckles, Barbara Weaver was as pretty as the women depicted on the covers of her favorite "bonnet" stories - romance novels set in Amish America. Barbara had everything she'd ever wanted: five beautiful children, a home, her faith, and a husband named Eli. But while Barbara was happy to live as the Amish have for centuries - without modern conveniences, Eli was tempted by technology: cell phones, the Internet, and sexting. Online he called himself "Amish Stud" and found no shortage of "English" women looking for love and sex. Twice he left Barbara and their children, was shunned, begged for forgiveness, and had been welcomed back to the church. Barb Raber was raised Amish, but is now a Conservative Mennonite. She drove Eli to appointments in her car, and she gave him what he wanted when he wanted: a cell phone, a laptop, rides to his favorite fishing and hunting places, and, most importantly, sex. When Eli starts asking people to kill his wife for him, Barb offers to help. One night, just after Eli had hitched a ride with a group of men to go fishing in the hours before dawn, Barb Raber entered the Weaver house and shot Barbara Weaver in the chest at close range. It was only the third murder in hundreds of years of Amish life in America, and it fell to Edna Boyle, a young assistant prosecutor to seek justice for Barbara Weaver.
Download or read book The Confessions of Frannie Langton written by Sara Collins and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This breathtaking debut, winner of the Costa First Novel Award, is a murder mystery that travels across the Atlantic and through the darkest channels of history. A brilliant, searing depiction of race, class, and oppression that penetrates the skin and sears the soul, it is the story of a woman of her own making in a world that would see her unmade. All of London is abuzz with the scandalous case of Frannie Langton, accused of the brutal double murder of her employers, renowned scientist George Benham and his eccentric French wife, Marguerite. Crowds pack the courtroom, eagerly following every twist, while the newspapers print lurid theories about the killings and the mysterious woman being tried at the Old Bailey. The testimonies against Frannie are damning. She is a seductress, a witch, a master manipulator, a whore. But Frannie claims she cannot recall what happened that fateful evening, even if remembering could save her life. She doesn’t know how she came to be covered in the victims’ blood. But she does have a tale to tell: a story of her childhood on a Jamaican plantation, her apprenticeship under a debauched scientist who stretched all bounds of ethics, and the events that brought her into the Benhams’ London home—and into a passionate and forbidden relationship. Though her testimony may seal her conviction, the truth will unmask the perpetrators of crimes far beyond murder and indict the whole of English society itself.
