In a small Missouri town during the 1920s, Clem is torn between family responsibility and the life he wishes to lead when he must begin working in the lead mine on his thirteenth birthday to help pay for his sister's medical care.

Sally O'Malley made a promise to her daddy before he died. She swore she'd look after her sister, Troo. Keep her safe. But like her Granny always said, actions speak louder than words. And Sally would have to agree with her. Because during the summer of 1959, the girls' mother is hospitalized, their stepfather has abandoned them for a six pack, and their big sister, Nell, who was left strict instructions to take care of them, is too busy making out...

Lucienne S. Bloch's beautifully written personal essays explore her world on the Upper West Side of New York City. Growing up in the 1950s as the daughter of refugees from Hitler's Europe who longed for their former lives and culture, these essays explore her youth, her mother's Viennese upbringing, her father's work in the diamond business and long battle with Alzheimer's, her typewriter, the landscapes of New York, her ongoing sense of alienation,...

Awry and thought-provoking jaunt through the spiritual terrain of our everyday language -- a lexicon of uncommon insight to jar the mind and nourish the soul. "I think of faith as a kind of whistling in the dark, because in much the same way," writes Buechner, "it helps to give us courage and to hold the shadows at bay."

Liverpool, 1940: Thirteen-year-old Joan's home is under constant threat from the Nazis' terrifying nightly air raids. Everyone is on edge, faced with strict food rationing, curfews, and blackouts. It's not an easy time to be a teenager. Joan's one solace is going to the movies with her best friend, the unflappable Doreen, but when the bombings intensify, even that becomes too dangerous. There's also the matter of a strange man who Joan sees lurking...

This book is not about formulas, even though we oftentimes wish that we had a fail-safe method that might be employed to insulate us from the harsh realities of life that grate at the core of our being; it is a book about faith. Not a sentimental or simplistic whistling in the dark kind of faith, but the kind of faith that is anchored in a God that empowers us to move on up the rough side of the mountain even when all the external evidence tell us...

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The future is by definition the unsayable and the uncontrollable, and it is filled with paradoxes, mysteries, and confusions. It is an imperfect world at every level. Thus, the future is always, somehow, scary. We attempt to build for ourselves many protections against this imperfection, even in the patterns of our mind. #2 If you surrender to the fear of uncertainty,...

The Fascist Groove Thing had many names: Thatcherism, monetarism, neoliberalism, individualism, militarism, nationalism, racism, and anti-unionism for a start. Popular music in Britain responded to this monster either by pretending it didn't exist or by throwing every weapon it could muster at it. This book collects five hundred interesting songs that addressed one alarming feature of Thatcher's Britain or another: the notional mixtape "Whistling...

"In this gorgeous third collection, Sandra Lim investigates desire, sexuality, and dream with sinewy intelligence and a startling freshness. Intense and searching, the poems of The Curious Thing explore passion, self-scrutiny, and female rage with glittering precision and peerless fluency. Lim writes fearless lyrics anchored by generosity, stinging wit, and a tough-minded approach to her own experiences. With fiery emotional clarity and a "whistle-in-the-dark...