Download or read book Girl Defined written by Kristen Clark and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a Culture of Distortions, Discover God-Defined Womanhood and Beauty In a culture where airbrushed models and career-driven women define beauty and success, it's no wonder we have a distorted view of femininity. Our impossible standards place an incredible burden of stress on the backs of women and girls of all ages, resulting in anxiety, eating disorders, and depression. One question we often forget to ask is this: What is God's design for womanhood? In Girl Defined, sisters and popular bloggers Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal offer women a countercultural view of beauty, femininity, and self-worth. Based firmly in God's design for their lives, this book helps women rethink what true success and beauty look like. It invites them on a liberating journey toward a radically better vision for femininity that ends with the discovery of the kind of hope, purpose, and fulfillment they've been yearning for. Girl Defined helps readers · discover God's design for femininity and his definition of a successful woman · uncover the secrets of lasting worth, purpose, and fulfillment · be equipped and empowered to live out a radically better vision for womanhood · gain personal insight through the chapter-by-chapter study guide

Download or read book Sins of the Father written by Fleur Beale and published by Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The disturbing story of the ruthless exercise of power in a New Zealand religious cult. Charismatic, driven and self-righteous, Neville Cooper set up his own brand of Christian utopia on earth: a reclusive community on the West Coast of New Zealand. For the 400 inhabitants of Gloriavale, his word is law – despite his 1995 conviction for sexual abuse. His son Phil Cooper, as headstrong as his father, had to escape. But Phil’s wife Sandy was bound to the will of Neville and his brand of eternal salvation. And so began the monumental tug-of-war between father and son: a son who wanted to give his children a chance in the world. This is a true story of power and control, of abductions and night raids, of hearts broken and those trying to mend. It’s also the story of the long shadow cast by the unyielding vision of one man, and the hope and resolve of one family to restore its shattered past.

Download or read book I Am Rebecca written by Fleur Beale and published by Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life inside a religious cult becomes too much for 16-year-old Rebecca when she finds out who she is to marry. An award-winning and thrilling sequel to the bestselling classic I am Not Esther, by the acclaimed Fleur Beale. Winner of a Storylines Notable Young Adult Fiction Award 2015 LIANZA Librarian's Choice Award 2015 When she turns 14, Rebecca will find out who she is to marry. All the girls in her strict religious sect must be married just after their 16th birthdays. Her twin sister Rachel desperately wants to marry the boy she's given her heart to. All Rebecca wants is to have a husband who is kind, but both girls know the choice is not theirs to make. But what will the future hold for Rebecca? Is there a dark side to the rules which have kept her safe? Can the way ahead be so simple when the community is driven by secrets and hidden desires? Award-winning YA writer Fleur Beale's gripping sequel to the bestselling classic I am not Esther is a psychological thriller.

Download or read book I Am Not Esther written by Fleur Beale and published by Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited. This book was released on 2012-03-02 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic bestseller that's been in print for over 20 years, this gripping YA thriller follows a teenage girl caught in a religious cult. Imagine that your mother tells you she's going away. She is going to leave you with relatives you've never heard of - and they are members of a strict religious cult. Your name is changed, and you are forced to follow the severe set of social standards set by the cult. There is no television, no radio, no newspaper. No mirrors. You must wear long, modest clothes. You don't know where your mother is, and you are beginning to question your own identity. I am not Esther is a gripping psychological thriller written by New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards-winning children's writer Fleur Beale. In Esther she creates an enthralling and utterly compelling portrait of a teenager going through her worst nightmare.

Download or read book The House of Yan written by Lan Yan and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the sweeping cultural and historical transformations of China, entrepreneur Lan Yan traces her family’s history through early 20th Century to present day. The history of the Yan family is inseparable from the history of China over the last century. One of the most influential business leaders of China today, Lan Yan grew up in the company of the country’s powerful elite, including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. Her grandfather, Yan Baohang, originally a nationalist and ally of Chiang Kai-shek, later joined the communists and worked as a spy during World War II, never falling out of favor with Soong May-ling, aka Mrs. Chiang Kai-shek. Lan’s parents were diplomats, and her father, Yan Mingfu, was Mao’s personal Russian translator. In spite of their elevated status, the Yan’s family life was turned upside down by the Cultural Revolution. One night in 1967, in front of a terrified ten-year-old Lan, Red Guards burst into the family home and arrested her grandfather. Days later, her father was arrested, accused of spying for the Soviet Union. Her mother, Wu Keilang, was branded a counter-revolutionary and forced to go with her daughter to a re-education camp for five years, where Lan came of age as a high school student. In recounting her family history, Lan Yan brings to life a century of Chinese history from the last emperor to present day, including the Cultural Revolution which tore her childhood apart. The reader obtains a rare glimpse into the mysteries of a system which went off the rails and would decimate a large swathe of the intellectual, economic and political elite country. The little girl who was crushed by the Cultural Revolution has become one of the most active businesswomen in her country. In telling her and her family’s story, Lan Yan serves up an intimate account of the history of contemporary China.

Download or read book Unfollow written by Megan Phelps-Roper and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The activist and TED speaker Megan Phelps-Roper reveals her life growing up in the most hated family in America At the age of five, Megan Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded by her grandfather and consisting almost entirely of her extended family, the tiny group would gain worldwide notoriety for its pickets at military funerals and celebrations of death and tragedy. As Phelps-Roper grew up, she saw that church members were close companions and accomplished debaters, applying the logic of predestination and the language of the King James Bible to everyday life with aplomb—which, as the church’s Twitter spokeswoman, she learned to do with great skill. Soon, however, dialogue on Twitter caused her to begin doubting the church’s leaders and message: If humans were sinful and fallible, how could the church itself be so confident about its beliefs? As she digitally jousted with critics, she started to wonder if sometimes they had a point—and then she began exchanging messages with a man who would help change her life. A gripping memoir of escaping extremism and falling in love, Unfollow relates Phelps-Roper’s moral awakening, her departure from the church, and how she exchanged the absolutes she grew up with for new forms of warmth and community. Rich with suspense and thoughtful reflection, Phelps-Roper’s life story exposes the dangers of black-and-white thinking and the need for true humility in a time of angry polarization.

Download or read book The War That Killed Achilles written by Caroline Alexander and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Spectacular and constantly surprising." -Ken Burns Written with the authority of a scholar and the vigor of a bestselling narrative historian, The War That Killed Achilles is a superb and utterly timely presentation of one of the timeless stories of Western civilization. As she did in The Endurance and The Bounty, New York Times bestselling author Caroline Alexander has taken apart a narrative we think we know and put it back together in a way that lets us see its true power. In the process, she reveals the intended theme of Homer's masterwork-the tragic lessons of war and its enduring devastation.

Download or read book Quiverfull written by Kathryn Joyce and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2009-03-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kathryn Joyce's fascinating introduction to the world of the patriarchy movement and Quiverfull families examines the twenty-first-century women and men who proclaim self-sacrifice and submission as model virtues of womanhood—and as modes of warfare on behalf of Christ. Here, women live within stringently enforced doctrines of wifely submission and male headship, and live by the Quiverfull philosophy of letting God give them as many children as possible so as to win the religion and culture wars through demographic means.

Download or read book The Cult Next Door written by Judith L. Carlone and published by Two Poles Press, LLC. This book was released on 2017-03-18 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During Thanksgiving vacation of her freshman year at Swarthmore College (1977), Elizabeth, at her mother's insistence, attended a "stress-reduction" session with a biofeedback technician on staff at a Manhattan psychologist's office. During that first visit, this man filled her ears with prophetic visions of a glorious future--the inheritance of those fortunate few who might choose to accompany him. His confidence and charisma entranced her, and she soon recruited two of her college roommates. When the psychologist fired his assistant two years later, Elizabeth and her mother followed. Over the next decade, this man, a malevolent genius and master of manipulating metaphysical concepts to benefit a self-serving agenda, organized a small, dedicated band of followers. "The Group" evolved into an incestuous family--a cult. Their brainwashed minds became fused with a distinctive, New Age doctrine. A coterie of spiritual "Navy Seals", they scrambled in terror, training to survive the inevitable cataclysm--one man's divine vision of Armageddon. Subsequent to a momentous event in August 1994, with the guru as high priest, "The Black Dog Religion" was born. Elizabeth sank into a pit of despair, darker than she ever could have imagined was possible. From the adolescent gullibility which seduced her astray, to the enlightenment which led her to freedom, you will travel an incredible journey. For anyone who has ever been trapped by a person who would not let them go, within this book lies a message of hope.

Download or read book Grandpa s Slippers written by Joy Watson and published by . This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All weekend long Grandma tries to dispose of Grandpa's tatty old slippers but he refuses to part with them.

Download or read book The Nature Activity Book written by Rachel Haydon and published by . This book was released on 2020-08-13 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A must-have natural science activity book for young New Zealanders and their families.From experiments and observation to conservation and mindfulness, this appealing, activity-packed book stimulates curious minds and encourages children to relate to the natural world around them. Written by an expert museum educator, its beautifully illustrated pages develop budding research skills, awareness of the environment, and understanding of the natural world.All sorts of learning styles are recognised here, with each activity being open to children who like to draw and those who like to write. The book's journal-like format and activities that range across the seasons make it a long-term and much treasured companion.M?tauranga M?ori concepts and the themes present in Te Papa's award-winning Te Taiao | Nature natural history galleries are an integral part of the content.

Download or read book Create a Better Brain Through Neuroplasticity written by Debi Pearl and published by No Greater Joy Ministries. This book was released on 2019-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if you could equip your child's brain so they can be happier, more self-disciplined, self-confident, and self-motivated? The science of neuroplasticity says you can, and this book shows you how!

Download or read book Destination Flavour written by Adam Liaw and published by . This book was released on 2018-09 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Destination Flavour, food writer and presenter Adam Liaw curates the best recipes and stories from the acclaimed television series, along with dozens of brand new dishes encountered in his travels. Celebrating food, people and places across six chapters, this book features more than 80 authentic and achievable recipes, unique stories of people Adam has met along the way, stunning food and travel photography, behind-the-scenes insights into the making of the show and candid moments from the road. This is the book that fans of the show have been waiting for.

Download or read book All Our Secrets written by Jennifer Lane and published by . This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A girl called Gracie. A town called Coongahoola - on the dark foreboding Bagooli River. Every small town has its secrets: good, bad, funny, sad - and sometimes terrifying. They're mythologised and whispered-about by town gossips and other grown-ups until something happens to snap the past into focus. And something always happens. Things get weird in Coongahoola when 'a sighting' of the Virgin Mary attracts hundreds of 'Believers', who set up camp on the river bank and try to win local souls. Things get scary in Coongahoola when the River Children - born nine months after the town's infamous River Picnic - are targeted by a vicious killer. Gracie Barrett, the savvy storyteller for her chaotic family - promiscuous dad, angry mum, twins Lucky and Grub, Elihah 'the River Child', and prayerful Grandma Bett - believes there's a connection between the weird and the scary. She is the voice for the kids who are taken, and for the lurking fear that locks down the New South Wales town and puts everyone under suspicion. Funny, kind, bullied and anguished, Gracie's young life spirals out of control when she discovers what no one else knows: the identity of the killer. Coongahoola is where hope and fear collide, where tender adolescence is confronted by death, where kindness is a glimmer of light in the dark.

Download or read book In the Days of Rain written by Rebecca Stott and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2017-07-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A father-daughter story that tells of the author’s experience growing up in a separatist fundamentalist Christian cult, from the author of the national bestseller Ghostwalk Rebecca Stott grew up in in Brighton, England, as a fourth-generation member of the Exclusive Brethren, a cult that believed the world is ruled by Satan. In this closed community, books that didn’t conform to the sect’s rules were banned, women were subservient to men and were made to dress modestly and cover their heads, and those who disobeyed the rules were punished and shamed. Yet Rebecca’s father, Roger Stott, a high-ranking Brethren minister, was a man of contradictions: he preached that the Brethren should shun the outside world, yet he kept a radio in the trunk of his car and hid copies of Yeats and Shakespeare behind the Brethren ministries. Years later, when the Stotts broke with the Brethren after a scandal involving the cult’s leader, Roger became an actor, filmmaker, and compulsive gambler who left the family penniless and ended up in jail. A curious child, Rebecca spent her insular childhood asking questions about the world and trying to glean the answers from forbidden library books. Only when she was an adult and her father was dying of cancer did she begin to understand all that had occurred during those harrowing years. It was then that Roger Stott handed her the memoir he had begun writing about the period leading up to what he referred to as the traumatic “Nazi decade,” the years in the 1960s in which he and other Brethren leaders enforced coercive codes of behavior that led to the breaking apart of families, the shunning of members, even suicides. Now he was trying to examine that time, and his complicity in it, and he asked Rebecca to write about it, to expose all that was kept hidden. In the Days of Rain is Rebecca Stott’s attempt to make sense of her childhood in the Exclusive Brethren, to understand her father’s role in the cult and in the breaking apart of her family, and to come to be at peace with her relationship with a larger-than-life figure whose faults were matched by a passion for life, a thirst for knowledge, and a love of literature and beauty. A father-daughter story as well as a memoir of growing up in a closed-off community and then finding a way out of it, this is an inspiring and beautiful account of the bonds of family and the power of self-invention. Praise for In the Days of Rain “A marvelous, strange, terrifying book, somehow finding words both for the intensity of a childhood locked in a tyrannical secret world, and for the lifelong aftershocks of being liberated from it.”—Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill “Writers are forged in strange fires, but none stranger than Rebecca Stott’s. By rights, her memoir of her father and her early childhood inside a closed fundamentalist sect obsessed by the Rapture ought to be a horror story. But while the historian in her is merciless in exposing the cruelties and corruption involved, Rebecca the child also lights up the book, existing in a world of vivid play, dreams, even nightmares, so passionate and imaginative that it helps explain how she survived, and—even more miraculous—found the compassion and understanding to do justice to the story of her father and the painful family life he created.”—Sarah Dunant, author of The Birth of Venus

Download or read book My Life as a Sister Wife written by Karen Miller and published by . This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a young girl, Karen Miller lived a quiet life in Australia. She never imagined when she grew up, she'd be lured into a polygamous marriage, spend her spare time dumpster diving to feed her kids, and fighting to escape her increasingly demented husband. How was she lured into such a lifestyle? What was day to day life like in the polygamous community? What eventually drove Miller to seek a new way of life? My Life As a Sister Wife: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You is the gripping, true-life story of Miller's life, beginning with her traumatic childhood and ending with her eventual freedom from a polygamous cult in Utah.

Download or read book The Heart of Jes s Valentino written by Emma Gilkison and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Emma Gilkison is thrilled to be pregnant. She and her partner Roy have been trying for a year and finally it's happened. But during a routine twelve-week ultrasound she notices something strange: it looks as though their baby has a marble rolling on his chest. In fact, the baby's heart is growing outside his body - an extremely rare and usually fatal condition called ectopia cordis.The couple immediately begin researching the possibilities for surgery. When this is finally ruled out Emma is almost twenty weeks pregnant. They now face a heartbreaking decision. Should they end the pregnancy, or continue in the knowledge their baby will die?From different cultures - Emma raised in New Zealand and Roy in Peru - they walk an emotional minefield as they struggle to agree on a way forward. Seeking help and spiritual counsel from people of many different views and beliefs, they find hope, meaning and consolation in unexpected places.The Heart of Jesús Valentino is an extraordinary story about a young couple forced to go beyond their everyday experience and confront head-on issues of life and death. Powerful, honest and beautifully written, it moves all who read it, and is creating ripples in the medical world"--Back cover.