The Little Way of Ruthie Leming

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Author :
Publisher : Grand Central Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1455521906
Total Pages : 219 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (555 download)

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Book Synopsis The Little Way of Ruthie Leming by : Rod Dreher

Download or read book The Little Way of Ruthie Leming written by Rod Dreher and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Little Way of Ruthie Leming follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie's death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life. In Louisiana for Ruthie's funeral in the fall of 2011, Dreher began to wonder whether the ordinary life Ruthie led in their country town was in fact a path of hidden grandeur, even spiritual greatness, concealed within the modest life of a mother and teacher. In order to explore this revelation, Dreher and his wife decided to leave Philadelphia, move home to help with family responsibilities and have their three children grow up amidst the rituals that had defined his family for five generations-Mardi Gras, L.S.U. football games, and deer hunting. As David Brooks poignantly described Dreher's journey homeward in a recent New York Times column, Dreher and his wife Julie "decided to accept the limitations of small-town life in exchange for the privilege of being part of a community."

How Dante Can Save Your Life

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1941393772
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (413 download)

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Book Synopsis How Dante Can Save Your Life by : Rod Dreher

Download or read book How Dante Can Save Your Life written by Rod Dreher and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-04-14 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The opening lines of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri launched Rod Dreher on a journey that rescued him from exile and saved his life. Dreher found that the medieval poem offered him a surprisingly practical way of solving modern problems. Following the death of his little sister and the publication of his New York Times bestselling memoir The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Dreher found himself living in the small community of Starhill, Louisiana where he grew up. But instead of the fellowship he hoped to find, he discovered that fault lines within his family had deepened. Dreher spiraled into depression and a stress-related autoimmune disease. Doctors told Dreher that if he didn’t find inner peace, he would destroy his health. Soon after, he came across The Divine Comedy in a bookstore and was enchanted by its first lines, which seemed to describe his own condition. In the months that followed, Dante helped Dreher understand the mistakes and mistaken beliefs that had torn him down and showed him that he had the power to change his life. Dreher knows firsthand the solace and strength that can be found in Dante’s great work, and distills its wisdom for those who are lost in the dark wood of depression, struggling with failure (or success), wrestling with a crisis of faith, alienated from their families or communities, or otherwise enduring the sense of exile that is the human condition. Inspiring, revelatory, and packed with penetrating spiritual, moral, and psychological insights, How Dante Can Save Your Life is a book for people, both religious and secular, who find themselves searching for meaning and healing. Dante told his patron that he wrote his poem to bring readers from misery to happiness. It worked for Rod Dreher. Dante saved Rod Dreher’s life—and in this book, Dreher shows you how Dante can save yours.

Why Place Matters

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Author :
Publisher : Encounter Books
ISBN 13 : 1594037183
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Place Matters by : Wilfred M. McClay

Download or read book Why Place Matters written by Wilfred M. McClay and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary American society, with its emphasis on mobility and economic progress, all too often loses sight of the importance of a sense of “place” and community. Appreciating place is essential for building the strong local communities that cultivate civic engagement, public leadership, and many of the other goods that contribute to a flourishing human life. Do we, in losing our places, lose the crucial basis for healthy and resilient individual identity, and for the cultivation of public virtues? For one can’t be a citizen without being a citizen of some place in particular; one isn’t a citizen of a motel. And if these dangers are real and present ones, are there ways that intelligent public policy can begin to address them constructively, by means of reasonable and democratic innovations that are likely to attract wide public support? Why Place Matters takes these concerns seriously, and its contributors seek to discover how, given the American people as they are, and American economic and social life as it now exists—and not as those things can be imagined to be in some utopian scheme—we can find means of fostering a richer and more sustaining way of life. The book is an anthology of essays exploring the contemporary problems of place and placelessness in American society. The book includes contributions from distinguished scholars and writers such as poet Dana Gioia (former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts), geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, urbanist Witold Rybczynski, architect Philip Bess, essayists Christine Rosen and Ari Schulman, philosopher Roger Scruton, transportation planner Gary Toth, and historians Russell Jacoby and Joseph Amato.

The Wind in the Reeds

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698165705
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (981 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wind in the Reeds by : Wendell Pierce

Download or read book The Wind in the Reeds written by Wendell Pierce and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2016 Christopher Award Winner From acclaimed actor and producer Wendell Pierce, an insightful and poignant portrait of family, New Orleans and the transforming power of art. On the morning of August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina barreled into New Orleans, devastating many of the city's neighborhoods, including Pontchartrain Park, the home of Wendell Pierce's family and the first African American middle-class subdivision in New Orleans. The hurricane breached many of the city's levees, and the resulting flooding submerged Pontchartrain Park under as much as 20 feet of water. Katrina left New Orleans later that day, but for the next three days the water kept relentlessly gushing into the city, plunging eighty percent of New Orleans under water. Nearly 1,500 people were killed. Half the houses in the city had four feet of water in them—or more. There was no electricity or clean water in the city; looting and the breakdown of civil order soon followed. Tens of thousands of New Orleanians were stranded in the city, with no way out; many more evacuees were displaced, with no way back in. Pierce and his family were some of the lucky ones: They survived and were able to ride out the storm at a relative's house 70 miles away. When they were finally allowed to return, they found their family home in tatters, their neighborhood decimated. Heartbroken but resilient, Pierce vowed to help rebuild, and not just his family's home, but all of Pontchartrain Park. In this powerful and redemptive narrative, Pierce brings together the stories of his family, his city, and his history, why they are all worth saving and the critical importance art played in reuniting and revitalizing this unique American city.

The Benedict Option

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735213313
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis The Benedict Option by : Rod Dreher

Download or read book The Benedict Option written by Rod Dreher and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Already the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade." —David Brooks In this controversial bestseller, Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life. From the inside, American churches have been hollowed out by the departure of young people and by an insipid pseudo–Christianity. From the outside, they are beset by challenges to religious liberty in a rapidly secularizing culture. Keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House may have bought a brief reprieve from the state’s assault, but it will not stop the West’s slide into decadence and dissolution. Rod Dreher argues that the way forward is actu­ally the way back—all the way to St. Benedict of Nur­sia. This sixth-century monk, horrified by the moral chaos following Rome’s fall, retreated to the forest and created a new way of life for Christians. He built enduring communities based on principles of order, hospitality, stability, and prayer. His spiritual centers of hope were strongholds of light throughout the Dark Ages, and saved not just Christianity but Western civilization. Today, a new form of barbarism reigns. Many believers are blind to it, and their churches are too weak to resist. Politics offers little help in this spiritual crisis. What is needed is the Benedict Option, a strategy that draws on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church. The goal: to embrace exile from mainstream culture and construct a resilient counterculture. The Benedict Option is both manifesto and rallying cry for Christians who, if they are not to be conquered, must learn how to fight on culture war battlefields like none the West has seen for fifteen hundred years. It's for all mere Chris­tians—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox—who can read the signs of the times. Neither false optimism nor fatalistic despair will do. Only faith, hope, and love, embodied in a renewed church, can sustain believers in the dark age that has overtaken us. These are the days for building strong arks for the long journey across a sea of night.

Live Not by Lies

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0593087402
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Live Not by Lies by : Rod Dreher

Download or read book Live Not by Lies written by Rod Dreher and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling author of The Benedict Option draws on the wisdom of Christian survivors of Soviet persecution to warn American Christians of approaching dangers. For years, émigrés from the former Soviet bloc have been telling Rod Dreher they see telltale signs of "soft" totalitarianism cropping up in America--something more Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty-Four. Identity politics are beginning to encroach on every aspect of life. Civil liberties are increasingly seen as a threat to "safety". Progressives marginalize conservative, traditional Christians, and other dissenters. Technology and consumerism hasten the possibility of a corporate surveillance state. And the pandemic, having put millions out of work, leaves our country especially vulnerable to demagogic manipulation. In Live Not By Lies, Dreher amplifies the alarm sounded by the brave men and women who fought totalitarianism. He explains how the totalitarianism facing us today is based less on overt violence and more on psychological manipulation. He tells the stories of modern-day dissidents--clergy, laity, martyrs, and confessors from the Soviet Union and the captive nations of Europe--who offer practical advice for how to identify and resist totalitarianism in our time. Following the model offered by a prophetic World War II-era pastor who prepared believers in his Eastern European to endure the coming of communism, Live Not By Lies teaches American Christians a method for resistance: • SEE: Acknowledge the reality of the situation. • JUDGE: Assess reality in the light of what we as Christians know to be true. • ACT: Take action to protect truth. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming totalitarianism can't happen in their country. Many American Christians are making that mistake today, sleepwalking through the erosion of our freedoms. Live Not By Lies will wake them and equip them for the long resistance.

Healing Humanity

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Author :
Publisher : Holy Trinity Publications
ISBN 13 : 194269931X
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (426 download)

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Book Synopsis Healing Humanity by : Frederica Mathewes-Green

Download or read book Healing Humanity written by Frederica Mathewes-Green and published by Holy Trinity Publications. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western societies today are coming unmoored in the face of an earth-shaking ethical and cultural paradigm shift. At its core is the question of what it means to be human and how we are meant to live. The old answers are no longer accepted; a dizzying array of options are offered in their stead. Underpinning this smorgasbord of lifestyles is a thicket of unquestioned assumptions, such as the separation of gender from biological sex, which not so long ago would have been universally rejected as radical notions. In the spring of 2019, a group of Orthodox Christian scholars drawn from a wide variety of academic disciplines met together to offer responses to the moral crisis our generation faces, elaborating upon its various forms and facilitating a fuller understanding of some of its theological and philosophical foundations. In doing so they offer support to all those who question the claims that are so forcefully insisted upon today &– a clarity that will aid them in standing up and resisting trends that have already shown to be the cause of great suffering and unhappiness. Among the contributors to this volume are NY Times bestselling author Rod Dreher, Frederica Matthewes-Green, Dr David Bradshaw, Fr Chad Hatfield, and Fr Peter Heers. Collectively, these scholars remind us that it is only through our participation in the life of Christ, God who became man, that we can find the healing of our humanity through the restoration in us of His image, in which we were formed at the beginning of time.

Ordinary

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Publisher : Zondervan
ISBN 13 : 0310517389
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis Ordinary by : Michael Horton

Download or read book Ordinary written by Michael Horton and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Radical. Crazy. Transformative and restless. Every word we read these days seems to suggest there’s a “next-best-thing,” if only we would change our comfortable, compromising lives. In fact, the greatest fear most Christians have is boredom—the sense that they are missing out on the radical life Jesus promised. One thing is certain. No one wants to be “ordinary.” Yet pastor and author Michael Horton believes that our attempts to measure our spiritual growth by our experiences, constantly seeking after the next big breakthrough, have left many Christians disillusioned and disappointed. There’s nothing wrong with an energetic faith; the danger is that we can burn ourselves out on restless anxieties and unrealistic expectations. What’s needed is not another program or a fresh approach to spiritual growth; it’s a renewed appreciation for the commonplace. Far from a call to low expectations and passivity, Horton invites readers to recover their sense of joy in the ordinary. He provides a guide to a sustainable discipleship that happens over the long haul—not a quick fix that leaves readers empty with unfulfilled promises. Convicting and ultimately empowering, Ordinary is not a call to do less; it’s an invitation to experience the elusive joy of the ordinary Christian life.

School Days

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101205512
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (12 download)

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Book Synopsis School Days by : Robert B. Parker

Download or read book School Days written by Robert B. Parker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-09-27 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A horrifying school shooting draws Boston PI Spenser into a harrowing investigation in this thriller by New York Times bestselling author Robert B. Parker. When a Massachusetts boy is accused of mass murder, his socially prominent grandmother is convinced of his innocence and is willing to fight for him. But based on the boy’s resigned attitude and the evidence stacked against him, Spenser isn’t convinced of anything—except that there’s trouble ahead...

The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019983167X
Total Pages : 172 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (998 download)

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Book Synopsis The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by : Alan Jacobs

Download or read book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction written by Alan Jacobs and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, cultural commentators have sounded the alarm about the dire state of reading in America. Americans are not reading enough, they say, or reading the right books, in the right way. In this book, Alan Jacobs argues that, contrary to the doomsayers, reading is alive and well in America. There are millions of devoted readers supporting hundreds of enormous bookstores and online booksellers. Oprah's Book Club is hugely influential, and a recent NEA survey reveals an actual uptick in the reading of literary fiction. Jacobs's interactions with his students and the readers of his own books, however, suggest that many readers lack confidence; they wonder whether they are reading well, with proper focus and attentiveness, with due discretion and discernment. Many have absorbed the puritanical message that reading is, first and foremost, good for you--the intellectual equivalent of eating your Brussels sprouts. For such people, indeed for all readers, Jacobs offers some simple, powerful, and much needed advice: read at whim, read what gives you delight, and do so without shame, whether it be Stephen King or the King James Version of the Bible. In contrast to the more methodical approach of Mortimer Adler's classic How to Read a Book (1940), Jacobs offers an insightful, accessible, and playfully irreverent guide for aspiring readers. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of approaching literary fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and the book explores everything from the invention of silent reading, reading responsively, rereading, and reading on electronic devices. Invitingly written, with equal measures of wit and erudition, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction will appeal to all readers, whether they be novices looking for direction or old hands seeking to recapture the pleasures of reading they first experienced as children.

Accidental Saints

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Author :
Publisher : Canterbury Press
ISBN 13 : 1848258259
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (482 download)

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Book Synopsis Accidental Saints by : Bolz-Weber Nadia

Download or read book Accidental Saints written by Bolz-Weber Nadia and published by Canterbury Press. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if the annoying person you try to avoid is actually an accidental saint in your life? What if, even in our failings, holy moments are waiting to happen? Nadia Bolz-Weber demonstrates what happens when ordinary people meet to explore the Christian faith. Their faltering steps towards wholeness will ring true for believer and sceptic alike.

Back to Blood

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Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316214582
Total Pages : 407 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (162 download)

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Book Synopsis Back to Blood by : Tom Wolfe

Download or read book Back to Blood written by Tom Wolfe and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2012-10-23 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A big, panoramic story of the new America, as told by our master chronicler of the way we live now. As a police launch speeds across Miami's Biscayne Bay -- with officer Nestor Camacho on board -- Tom Wolfe is off and running. Into the feverous landscape of the city, he introduces the Cuban mayor, the black police chief, a wanna-go-muckraking young journalist and his Yale-marinated editor; an Anglo sex-addiction psychiatrist and his Latina nurse by day, loin lock by night-until lately, the love of Nestor's life; a refined, and oh-so-light-skinned young woman from Haiti and her Creole-spouting, black-gang-banger-stylin' little brother; a billionaire porn addict, crack dealers in the 'hoods, "de-skilled" conceptual artists at the Miami Art Basel Fair, "spectators" at the annual Biscayne Bay regatta looking only for that night's orgy, yenta-heavy ex-New Yorkers at an "Active Adult" condo, and a nest of shady Russians. Based on the same sort of detailed, on-scene, high-energy reporting that powered Tom Wolfe's previous bestselling novels, Back to Blood is another brilliant, spot-on, scrupulous, and often hilarious reckoning with our times.

Systematic Theology

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Publisher : Fortress Press
ISBN 13 : 1451496656
Total Pages : 567 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis Systematic Theology by : Katherine Sonderegger

Download or read book Systematic Theology written by Katherine Sonderegger and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This systematic theology begins from the treatise De Deo Uno and develops the dogma of the Trinity as an expression of divine unicity, on which will depend creation, Christology, and ecclesiology. The Invisible God must be seen and known in the visible. In this way, God and God's relation to creation are distinguished—but not separated—from Christology, the doctrine of perfections from redemption. In the end, the transcendent beauty who is God can be known only in worship and praise.

I Can Barely Take Care of Myself

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476739943
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

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Book Synopsis I Can Barely Take Care of Myself by : Jen Kirkman

Download or read book I Can Barely Take Care of Myself written by Jen Kirkman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir from the stand-up comedian, writer, and actress that focuses on her oft-questioned (by others) decision to remain childless.

Mr. Clarinet

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Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0061844438
Total Pages : 468 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (618 download)

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Book Synopsis Mr. Clarinet by : Nick Stone

Download or read book Mr. Clarinet written by Nick Stone and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A disgraced former Miami cop takes a suicide mission to track down a missing child in Haiti in this Silver Dagger Award–winning thriller series debut. There was nothing waiting for ex-cop Max Mingus when he walked out of Attica Prison after doing hard time for murder. Now Miami’s one-time top detective is haunted by an empty house, bad memories . . . and an impossible job offer for obscenely good money. Three years ago, Charlie Carver, the five-year-old son of a powerful Haitian billionaire, vanished. His father is offering Max $15 million to bring the boy back—or at least find his body and deliver his abductors. Max has every reason to turn the case down: there’s no way the boy is still alive, and the last three detectives to take the job are dead. But with nothing left to lose, Max plunges headfirst into Haiti—a steaming island hotbed of crime, greed, voodoo, and corruption—to find the boy. His investigation stirs up a murky evil that can swallow a man whole . . . and leads Mingus to the soul-destroying truth about a terrifying local myth, a child-stealing nightmare called “Mr. Clarinet.”

Crunchy Cons

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Author :
Publisher : Three Rivers Press
ISBN 13 : 9781400050659
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (56 download)

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Book Synopsis Crunchy Cons by : Rod Dreher

Download or read book Crunchy Cons written by Rod Dreher and published by Three Rivers Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a colleague teased writer Dreher one day about his visit to the "lefty" local food co-op, he started thinking about the ways he and his conservative family lived that put them outside the bounds of conventional Republican politics. Shortly thereafter, Dreher wrote an essay about "crunchy cons," people whose "Small Is Beautiful" style of conservative politics often put them at odds with GOP orthodoxy. Dreher was deluged by e-mails from conservatives across America saying "Hey, me too!" Here, Dreher reports on the depth and scope of this phenomenon, which is redefining the taxonomy of America's political and cultural landscape. At a time when the Republican party, and the conservative movement in general, is bitterly divided over what it means to be a conservative, Dreher introduces us to people who are pioneering a way back to the future by reclaiming what they feel is best in conservatism.--From publisher description.

An American Childhood

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Author :
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 006184313X
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (618 download)

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Book Synopsis An American Childhood by : Annie Dillard

Download or read book An American Childhood written by Annie Dillard and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An American Childhood more than takes the reader's breath away. It consumes you as you consume it, so that, when you have put down this book, you're a different person, one who has virtually experienced another childhood." — Chicago Tribune A book that instantly captured the hearts of readers across the country, An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard's poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s and 60s. Dedicated to her parents—from whom she learned a love of language and the importance of following your deepest passions—Dillard's brilliant memoir will resonate with anyone who has ever recalled with longing playing baseball on an endless summer afternoon, caring for a pristine rock collection, or knowing in your heart that a book was written just for you.