Download or read book The Patron Saint of Ugly written by Marie Manilla and published by HMH. This book was released on 2014-06-17 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Catholic lore, American tales, and Sicilian superstition blend in this “clever, funny, heartbreaking, and heartwarming” novel (Publishers Weekly). Born with unruly red hair, a sharp tongue, and wine-colored marks all over her body—marks that oddly mimick a map of the world and make her subject to endless ridicule—Garnet Ferrari would hardly consider herself blessed. So when an emissary from the Vatican shows up at her door, convinced that her seeming ability to cure the skin ailments of others qualifies her for sainthood, she’s not quite convinced—or pleased. Garnet sets off on a quest to better understand who she is and where she and her unusual gifts came from. Tracing a twisted path that leads from Sicily to West Virginia, poverty to riches, romance to loss, reality to mythology, Garnet uncovers a truth far more powerful than any dermatological miracle: that the things of which we are most ashamed often become our greatest strengths. “A cleareyed, touching fable of a girl learning the hard truths about herself and others.” —Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls written by Ursula Hegi and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A joy to read." —New York Times Book Review From beloved bestselling author Ursula Hegi, a new novel about three mothers, set on the shores of the Nordsee, perfect for fans of Water for Elephants and The Light Between Oceans. In the summer of 1878, the Ludwig Zirkus arrives on Nordstrand in Germany, to the delight of the island’s people. But after the show, a Hundred-Year Wave roars from the Nordsee and claims three young children. Three mothers are on the beach when it happens: Lotte, whose children are lost; Sabine, a Zirkus seamstress with her grown daughter; and Tilli, just a girl herself, who will give birth later that day at St. Margaret’s Home for Pregnant Girls. After the tragedy, Lotte’s husband escapes with the Zirkus, while she loses the will to care for their surviving son. Tilli steps in, bonding with him in a way she isn’t allowed to with her own baby, taken away at birth. Sabine, struggling to keep her childlike daughter safe in the world, forms a complicated friendship with Lotte. But the mothers' fragile trio is threatened when Lotte and her husband hatch a dangerous plan to reunite their family, and Tilli and Sabine must try to find a way to pull them back to reality. As full of joy and beauty as it is of pain, and told with the luminous power that has made Ursula Hegi a beloved bestselling author for decades, The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls is a shining testament to the ways in which women hold each other up in the most unexpected of circumstances.

Download or read book Patron Saints for Postmoderns written by Chris R. Armstrong and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2009-08-27 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A professor of church history, Armstrong provides rich portraits of ten people from the past who: translated the gospel for their own times; broke down barriers; ministered out of the brokenness we all share; knew what it feels like to live on the margins; believed in the power of stories to bring transformation through Christ. --from publisher description

Download or read book Ugly Time written by Sarah Galvin and published by . This book was released on 2017-03-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry. Sarah Galvin is here, she's queer, and she would like to talk about something else for a moment! After taking a break from poetry to write The Best Party of Our Lives, a book of essays about gay marriages, Galvin's back with her second book of poems. In UGLY TIME, developers are transforming her hometown into a white-washed, glass box jungle. She's barely making rent. Her girlfriend just threw her heart in the garbage. Sex with strangers she meets on the internet is great and then empty and then great and then empty again. The 21st century is changing at hyperspeed, and it seems as if no one has time to talk about an old Kate Bush album or to praise "the patron saint of blowing up rotisserie chickens with fireworks" like they use to. But who's that beautiful person dressed head-to-toe in gold velvet? Did she just put Roy Orbison on the jukebox? Could love still be possible in the time of gentrification? And if so, does it redeem human suffering, sort of like, as Galvin writes, when "you step in human shit / while filming porn, / and notice the cherry petals / floating around you like sparks?" In a series of hilarious, tender, hyperreal poems, Galvin explores the paradox of trying to settle down--even for just a second--in a state of permanent impermanence.

Download or read book Black Bottom Saints written by Alice Randall and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enthralling literary tour-de-force that pays tribute to Detroit's legendary neighborhood, a mecca for jazz, sports, and politics, Black Bottom Saints is a powerful blend of fact and imagination reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow's classic novel Ragtime and Marlon James' Man Booker Award-winning masterpiece, A Brief History of Seven Killings. From the Great Depression through the post-World War II years, Joseph “Ziggy” Johnson, has been the pulse of Detroit’s famous Black Bottom. A celebrated gossip columnist for the city’s African-American newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle, he is also the emcee of one of the hottest night clubs, where he’s rubbed elbows with the legendary black artists of the era, including Ethel Waters, Billy Eckstein, and Count Basie. Ziggy is also the founder and dean of the Ziggy Johnson School of Theater. But now the doyen of Black Bottom is ready to hang up his many dapper hats. As he lays dying in the black-owned-and-operated Kirkwood Hospital, Ziggy reflects on his life, the community that was the center of his world, and the remarkable people who helped shape it. Inspired by the Catholic Saints Day Books, Ziggy curates his own list of Black Bottom’s venerable "52 Saints." Among them are a vulnerable Dinah Washington, a defiant Joe Louis, and a raucous Bricktop. Randall balances the stories of these larger-than-life "Saints" with local heroes who became household names, enthralling men and women whose unstoppable ambition, love of style, and faith in community made this black Midwestern neighborhood the rival of New York City’s Harlem. Accompanying these “tributes” are thoughtfully paired cocktails—special drinks that capture the essence of each of Ziggy’s saints—libations as strong and satisfying as Alice Randall’s wholly original view of a place and time unlike any other.

Download or read book Mercy Matters written by Mathew N. Schmalz and published by Our Sunday Visitor. This book was released on 2016-04-18 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Wherever there are Christians, everyone should find an oasis of mercy.” —Pope Francis Whether dealing with adoption, sobriety, bullying, the Boston Marathon bombing, or friendship with a Jehovah’s Witness, Mathew Schmalz’s own life serves as the backdrop for his reflections on the complex nature of mercy—how we give it, and how we receive it. From a home for lepers in India to a halfway house in the Bronx, the author probes his experiences to reveal mercy as a virtue that doesn’t necessarily come easily, but is infinitely rewarding. Discussion and reflection questions at the end of each chapter allow you to dig deeper into your own ideas about mercy, what it looks like in your life, and how to move toward a more merciful existence. Perfect for individual or group study.

Download or read book The Patron Thief of Bread written by Lindsay Eagar and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2023-10-10 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautifully crafted middle-grade novel spiced with magic--and gargoyles!--from the acclaimed author of Hour of the Bees and Race to the Bottom of the Sea. Fished from the river as an infant and raised by a roving band of street urchins who call themselves the Crowns, eight-year-old Duck keeps her head down and her mouth shut. It's a rollicking life, always thieving, always on the run--until the ragtag Crowns infiltrate an abandoned cathedral in the city of Odierne and decide to set down roots. It's all part of the bold new plan hatched by the Crowns' fearless leader, Gnat: one of their very own will pose as an apprentice to the local baker, relieving Master Griselde of bread and coin to fill the bellies and line the pockets of all the Crowns. But no sooner is Duck apprenticed to the kindly Griselde than Duck's allegiances start to blur. Who is she really--a Crown or an apprentice baker? And who does she want to be? Meanwhile, high above the streets of Odierne, on the roof of the unfinished cathedral, an old and ugly gargoyle grows weary of waiting to fulfill his own destiny--to watch and protect. Told in alternating viewpoints, this exquisite novel evokes a timeless tale of love, self-discovery, and what it means to be rescued.

Download or read book Strange Beauty written by Cynthia Jean Hahn and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A study of reliquaries as a form of representation in medieval art. Explores how reliquaries stage the importance and meaning of relics using a wide range of artistic means from material and ornament to metaphor and symbolism"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Against Jovinianus written by St. Jerome and published by Dalcassian Publishing Company. This book was released on 2019-12-07 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jovinianus, about whom little more is known than what is to be found in Jerome's treatise, published a Latin treatise outlining several opinions: That a virgin is no better, as such, than a wife in the sight of God. Abstinence from food is no better than a thankful partaking of food. A person baptized with the Spirit as well as with water cannot sin. All sins are equal. There is but one grade of punishment and one of reward in the future state. In addition to this, he held the birth of Jesus Christ to have been by a "true parturition," and was thus refuting the orthodoxy of the time, according to which, the infant Jesus passed through the walls of the womb as his Resurrection body afterwards did, out of the tomb or through closed doors.

Download or read book The Life of St Gemma Galgani written by Ven. Germanus C.P. and published by TAN Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Lives of Saints written by Leigh Bardugo and published by Imprint. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: See the Grishaverse come to life on screen with the Netflix series, Shadow and Bone. As seen in the show, bring home this artifact from the world, complete with stunning full-color illustrations alongside stories of the Grishaverse’s most infamous saints, including Sankta Alina of the Fold, The Starless Saint, and Sankta Neyar, who forged the legendary blade featured in Season 2 –- streaming now! Dive into the epic world of international bestselling author Leigh Bardugo with this beautifully illustrated replica of The Lives of Saints, the Istorii Sankt’ya, featuring tales of saints drawn from the beloved novels and beyond. Out of the pages of the Shadow and Bone trilogy, from the hands of Alina Starkov to yours, the Istorii Sankt’ya is a magical keepsake from the Grishaverse. These tales include miracles and martyrdoms from familiar saints like Sankta Lizabeta of the Roses and Sankt Ilya in Chains, to the strange and obscure stories of Sankta Ursula, Sankta Maradi, and the Starless Saint. As seen on screen in the Netflix series, this beautiful collection includes stunning full-color illustrations of each story. Read all the books in the Grishaverse! The Shadow and Bone Trilogy (previously published as The Grisha Trilogy) Shadow and Bone Siege and Storm Ruin and Rising The Six of Crows Duology Six of Crows Crooked Kingdom The King of Scars Duology King of Scars Rule of Wolves The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic The Severed Moon: A Year-Long Journal of Magic The Lives of Saints Demon in the Wood Graphic Novel Praise for the Grishaverse “A master of fantasy.” —The Huffington Post “Utterly, extremely bewitching.” —The Guardian “This is what fantasy is for.” —The New York Times Book Review “A world that feels real enough to have its own passport stamp.” —NPR “The darker it gets for the good guys, the better.” —Entertainment Weekly “Sultry, sweeping and picturesque. . . . Impossible to put down.” —USA Today “There’s a level of emotional and historical sophistication within Bardugo’s original epic fantasy that sets it apart.” —Vanity Fair “Unlike anything I’ve ever read.” —Veronica Roth, bestselling author of Divergent “Bardugo crafts a first-rate adventure, a poignant romance, and an intriguing mystery!” —Rick Riordan, bestselling author of the Percy Jackson series

Download or read book Truth Beauty written by Ann Patchett and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A loving testament to the work and reward of the best friendships, the kind where your arms can’t distinguish burden from embrace.” — People New York Times Bestselling author Ann Patchett’s first work of nonfiction chronicling her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy. Ann Patchett and the late Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work. In Gealy's critically acclaimed and hugely successful memoir, Autobiography of a Face, she wrote about losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer, years of chemotherapy and radiation, and endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth & Beauty, the story isn't Lucy's life or Ann's life, but the parts of their lives they shared together. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long cold winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards, to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined...and what happens when one is left behind. This is a tender, brutal book about loving the person we cannot save. It is about loyalty and being uplifted by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest.

Download or read book Lima written by James Higgins and published by Signal Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lima has always dominated national life, as the centre of political and economic power. Long a stronghold of the European elite, the city is now home to millions of Peruvians from the Andean region as well as the descendants of African slaves and migrants from Europe, China and Japan. As a popular saying puts it, the whole of Peru is now in Lima. James Higgins explores the city's history and evolving identity as reflected in its architecture, literature, painting and music. Tracing its trajectory from colonial enclave to modern metropolis, he reveals how the capital now embodies the diversity and dynamism of Peru itself.

Download or read book Superhero Thought Experiments written by Chris Gavaler and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2019-09-15 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the deep philosophical topics addressed in superhero comics, authors Gavaler and Goldberg read plot lines for the complex thought experiments they contain and analyze their implications as if the comic authors were philosophers. Reading superhero comic books through a philosophical lens reveals how they experiment with complex issues of morality, metaphysics, meaning, and medium. Given comics’ ubiquity and influence directly on (especially young) readers—and indirectly on consumers of superhero movies and video games—understanding these deeper meanings is in many ways essential to understanding contemporary popular culture. The result is an entertaining and enlightening look at superhero dilemmas.

Download or read book Dead Things written by Stephen Blackmoore and published by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.. This book was released on 2020-12-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first novel Stephen Blackmoore's noir urban fantasy series, in which necromancer Eric Carter returns home to find his sister’s killer—and send them straight to hell... Eric Carter has a unique skill—he can talk to the dead. Specifically, communicating with restless spirits—or other, even worse entities—and getting them to move on or move out. Sometimes, they take a lot of convincing. And sometimes, they straight up try to kill him. It’s not your typical way to make a living, but Carter’s managed to make it work. Life is pretty good. At least it was. Because Carter’s little sister has just been brutally killed. By something nightmarish. To find the killer Eric Carter is going to have to return to L.A., which he left fifteen years ago when he made a lot people—and paranormal entities—very angry. And those people have long, unforgiving memories. But Carter is no pushover. He’s got more heavy-duty magical power than most of those with his skill set, and he’s more than happy to use it on anyone or anything who tries to stop him from finding his sister’s killer. And when he does, he is going to make them pray for death—and then he’s going to answer their prayers... Praise for the Eric Carter series: “Blackmoore employs Chandleresque prose to smoothly incorporate a hard-boiled sense of urban despair into a paranormal plot, with occasional leavening provided by smart-aleck humor.” — Publishers Weekly on Dead Things "In a world where Aztec Mythology, dark magic and grim reality blend together, nothing is what it appears to be... Best of all, Blackmoore’s chillingly good storytelling skills ensures that fans will enjoy every step of this adrenaline fueled journey.” — RT Book Reviews (Top Pick) on Broken Souls “This series is so fucking good. Blackmoore can’t write these books fast enough to suit me. BROKEN SOULS is hyper-caffeinated, turbo-bloody face-stomping fun. This is the L.A-noir urban fantasy you’ve been looking for.” — Kevin Hearne, Author of The Iron Druid Chronicles "Carter’s wry voice is amusing as ever, but the grief he carries is palpable, adding depth and a sense of desperation to this action-packed adventure. Readers will be eager for more after this thrilling, emotionally fraught installment.” — Publishers Weekly on Ghost Money, Starred Review Series Order: 1. Dead Things 2. Broken Souls 3. Hungry Ghosts 4. Fire Season 5. Ghost Money 6. Bottle Demon

Download or read book The Heart of Perfection written by Colleen Carroll Campbell and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2020 Catholic Press Association Book Award In a book hailed as “liberating” (Gary Chapman, New York Times bestselling author), an award-winning author and mother of four weaves her own stories and struggles with those of seven ex-perfectionist saints (and one heretic) who show us how to pursue a new kind of perfection: freedom in Christ. Spiritual perfectionism—an obsession with flawlessness rooted in the belief that we can earn God’s love—is dangerous because so many of us mistake it for virtue. Its toxic cycle of pride, sin, shame, blame, and despair distorts our vision, dulls our faith, and leads us to view others through the same hypercritical lens we think God is using to view us. As a lifelong overachiever who drafted her first résumé in sixth grade and spell-checked her high school boyfriend’s love letters, Colleen Carroll Campbell knows something about the perfectionist trap. But it was only after she became a mother that she started to see how insidiously perfectionism had infected her spiritual life, how lethal it could be to her happiness and her family, and how disproportionately it afflicts the people working hardest to serve God. In the ruins of her own mistakes, Colleen dug into Scripture and the lives of the canonized saints for answers. She discovered to her surprise that many holy men and women were, in fact, recovering perfectionists. And their grace-fueled victory oer this malady—not perfectionist striving—was the key to their heroic virtue and contagious joy. In The Heart of Perfection, Colleen weaves the stories and wisdom of seven ex-perfectionist saints (and one heretic) with Scripture and beautifully crafted tales of her own trial-and-error experiments in applying that wisdom to her life. Gorgeously written and deeply insightful, Colleen Carroll Campbell’s The Heart of Perfection is a “must-read” (Jeannie Gaffigan, executive producer of The Jim Gaffigan Show) that “gives us permission to…walk in the freedom of God’s unconditional love” (Jennifer Fulwiler, author of One Beautiful Dream). For a free Heart of Perfection reading guide for book clubs, visit Colleen-Campbell.com.

Download or read book Journal of a Soul written by Pope John XXIII, and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2000-07-09 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the age of fourteen until his death at the age of eighty-two, Pope John XXIII kept what he called his 'Journal of a Soul' - the record of his growth in holiness. Elected Pope at the age of seventy-eight he impressed the world with the breadth of his mind but also with his simplicity and his will to be at the service of others. This book covers the full span of his long career from the seminary at Bergamo to his brief but transformative papacy.His journal is a rare and intimate record of the spiritual life of a much-loved figure. As he wrote, 'my soul is in these pages.'