The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

Download The Secret Lives of Church Ladies PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : ONE (Pushkin)
ISBN 13 : 9781911590712
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (97 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by : Deesha Philyaw

Download or read book The Secret Lives of Church Ladies written by Deesha Philyaw and published by ONE (Pushkin). This book was released on 2023-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck

Download The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Revell
ISBN 13 : 1493411020
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (934 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck by : Bethany Turner

Download or read book The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck written by Bethany Turner and published by Revell. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming a Christian is the best and worst thing that has ever happened to Sarah Hollenbeck. Best because, well, that's obvious. Worst because, up to this point, she's made her very comfortable living as a well-known, bestselling author of steamy romance novels that would leave the members of her new church blushing. Now Sarah is trying to reconcile her past with the future she's chosen. She's still under contract with her publisher and on the hook with her enormous fan base for the kind of book she's not sure she can write anymore. She's beginning to think that the church might frown on her tithing on royalties from a "scandalous" book. And the fact that she's falling in love with her pastor doesn't make things any easier. With a powerful voice, penetrating insight, and plenty of wit, Bethany Turner explodes onto the scene with a debut that isn't afraid to deal with the thorny realities of living the Christian life.

Revival Season

Download Revival Season PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1982133317
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Revival Season by : Monica West

Download or read book Revival Season written by Monica West and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The daughter of one of the South’s most famous Baptist preachers discovers a shocking secret about her father that puts her at odds with both her faith and her family in this debut novel. “Spellbinding…Revival Season should be read alongside Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.” —The Washington Post A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Every summer, fifteen-year-old Miriam Horton and her family pack themselves tight in their old minivan and travel through small southern towns for revival season: the time when Miriam’s father—one of the South’s most famous preachers—holds massive healing services for people desperate to be cured of ailments and disease. But, this summer, the revival season doesn’t go as planned, and after one service in which Reverend Horton’s healing powers are tested like never before, Miriam witnesses a shocking act of violence that shakes her belief in her father—and her faith. When the Hortons return home, Miriam’s confusion only grows as she discovers she might have the power to heal—even though her father and the church have always made it clear that such power is denied to women. Over the course of the following year, Miriam must decide between her faith, her family, and her newfound power that might be able to save others, but if discovered by her father, could destroy Miriam. Celebrating both feminism and faith, Revival Season is a “tender and wise” (Ann Patchett) story of spiritual awakening and disillusionment in a Southern, Black, Evangelical community.

Milk Blood Heat

Download Milk Blood Heat PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Grove Press
ISBN 13 : 0802158161
Total Pages : 156 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (21 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Milk Blood Heat by : Dantiel W. Moniz

Download or read book Milk Blood Heat written by Dantiel W. Moniz and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Moniz sings of Florida, girlhood, family, loss, and the glorious, ecstatic, devastating human body. A gorgeous debut from a wickedly talented new writer.” —Lauren Groff, New York Times–bestselling author Named a Best Book of the Year by The Atlantic, TIME, Washington Independent Review of Books, Kirkus, Chicago Public Library, Library Journal, Literary Hub, Audible, Largehearted Boy, Entropy, Millions, and Tampa Bay Times Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story in Milk Blood Heat delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning. These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another. A thirteen-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter—whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family’s church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them. Wise and subversive, spiritual and seductive, Milk Blood Heat forms an ouroboros of stories that bewitch with their truth, announcing the arrival of a bright new literary star. “A fresh feel for the intensity and contradictions of girlhood sings across tough stories.” —Entertainment Weekly

The Secret Lives of Saints

Download The Secret Lives of Saints PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Random House Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307371611
Total Pages : 482 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Secret Lives of Saints by : Daphne Bramham

Download or read book The Secret Lives of Saints written by Daphne Bramham and published by Random House Canada. This book was released on 2009-04-03 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Secret Lives of Saints paints a troubling portrait of an extreme religious sect. These zealous believers impose severe and often violent restrictions on women, deprive children of education and opt instead to school them in the tenets of their faith, defy the law and move freely and secretly over international borders. They punish dissent with violence and even death. No, this sect is not the Taliban, but North America's fundamentalist Mormons. Daphne Bramham explores the history and ideas of this surprisingly resilient and insular society, asking the questions that surround its continued existence and telling the stories of the men and women whose lives are so entwined with it—both the leaders and the victims.

Spectacle

Download Spectacle PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Graywolf Press
ISBN 13 : 1555970648
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (559 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Spectacle by : Susan Steinberg

Download or read book Spectacle written by Susan Steinberg and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inventive new collection from the author of Hydroplane and The End of Free Love * A San Francisco Chronicle, Complex, Flavorwire, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Largehearted Boy and Slaughterhouse 90210 Best Book of the Year * In these innovative linked stories, women confront loss and grief as they sift through the wreckage of their lives. In the title story, a woman struggles with the death of her friend in a plane crash. A daughter decides whether to take her father off life support in the Pushcart Prize-winning "Cowboys." And in "Underthings," when a man hits his girlfriend, she calls it an accident. Spectacle bears witness to alarming and strange incidents: carnival rides and plane crashes, affairs spied through keyholes and amateur porn, vandalism and petty theft. These wounded women stand at the edge of disaster and risk it all to speak their sharpest secrets. In lean, acrobatic prose, Susan Steinberg subverts assumptions about narrative and challenges conventional gender roles. She delivers insight with a fierce lyric intensity in sentences shorn of excessive sentiment or unnecessary ornament. By fusing style and story, Steinberg amplifies the connections between themes and characters so that each devastating revelation echoes throughout the collection. A vital and turbulent book from a distinctive voice, Spectacle will break your heart, and then, before the last page is turned, will bind it up anew. "Experimental but never opaque, Steinberg's stories seethe with real and imagined menace." —Publishers Weekly

The Necessity of Certain Behaviors

Download The Necessity of Certain Behaviors PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822991241
Total Pages : 156 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Necessity of Certain Behaviors by : Shannon Cain

Download or read book The Necessity of Certain Behaviors written by Shannon Cain and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2011-09-25 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2011 Drue Heinz Literature Prize Shannon Cain’s stories chart the treacherous territory of the illicit. They expose the absurdity of our rituals, our definitions of sexuality, and above all, our expectations of happiness and self-fulfillment. Cain’s protagonists are destined to suffer—and sometimes enjoy—the consequences of their own restless discontent. In the title story, Lisa, a city dweller, is dissatisfied with her life and relationships. Her attempt at self-rejuvenation takes her on a hiking excursion through a foreign land. Lisa discovers a remote village where the ritualized and generous bisexual love of its inhabitants entrances her. She begins to abandon thoughts of home. In “Cultivation,” Frances, a divorced mother strapped with massive credit card debt, has become an expert at growing pot. When she packs her three children and twelve pounds of homegrown into the minivan and travels cross-country to sell the stash, their journey becomes one of anguish, revelation, and ultimately transformation. “Cultivation,” like many of the stories in The Necessity of Certain Behaviors, follows a trail of broken relationships and the unfulfilled promises of modern American life. Told in precise, evocative prose, these memorable stories illuminate the human condition from a compelling, funny, and entirely original perspective.

Long Division

Download Long Division PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1982174838
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Long Division by : Kiese Laymon

Download or read book Long Division written by Kiese Laymon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Fiction From Kiese Laymon, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Heavy, comes a “funny, astute, searching” (The Wall Street Journal) debut novel about Black teenagers that is a satirical exploration of celebrity, authorship, violence, religion, and coming of age in post-Katrina Mississippi. Written in a voice that’s alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, Long Division features two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen “City” Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he’s sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie, where a young girl named Baize Shephard has recently disappeared. Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson—but Long Division is set in 1985. This 1985-version of City, along with his friend and love interest, Shalaya Crump, discovers a way to travel into the future, and steals a laptop and cellphone from an orphaned teenage rapper called...Baize Shephard. They ultimately take these items with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet to protect his family from the Ku Klux Klan. City’s two stories ultimately converge in the work shed behind his grandmother’s house, where he discovers the key to Baize’s disappearance. Brilliantly “skewering the disingenuous masquerade of institutional racism” (Publishers Weekly), this dreamlike “smart, funny, and sharp” (Jesmyn Ward), novel shows the work that young Black Americans must do, while living under the shadow of a history “that they only gropingly understand and must try to fill in for themselves” (The Wall Street Journal).

In Every Mirror She's Black

Download In Every Mirror She's Black PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1728240395
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (282 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis In Every Mirror She's Black by : Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström

Download or read book In Every Mirror She's Black written by Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Good Morning America Buzz Pick! As seen in Vulture, Essence, Good Morning America, The Independent, Goodreads, PureWow, and many more! "A sexy, surprising, searing debut about love, loss, desire, and the many dimensions of Black womanhood."—Deesha Philyaw, 2020 National Book Award Finalist & award-winning author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies An arresting debut for anyone looking for insight into what it means to be a Black woman in the world. Three Black women are linked in unexpected ways to the same influential white man in Stockholm as they build their new lives in the most open society run by the most private people. Successful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi is lured from the U.S. to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, CEO of the nation's largest marketing firm, to help fix a PR fiasco involving a racially tone-deaf campaign. A killer at work but a failure in love, Kemi's move is a last-ditch effort to reclaim her social life. A chance meeting with Jonny in business class en route to the U.S. propels former model-turned-flight-attendant Brittany-Rae Johnson into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege—a life she's not sure she wants—as the object of his unhealthy obsession. And refugee Muna Saheed, who lost her entire family, finds a job cleaning the toilets at Jonny's office as she works to establish her residency in Sweden and, more importantly, seeks connection and a place she can call home. Told through the perspectives of each of the three women, In Every Mirror She's Black is a fast-paced, richly nuanced yet accessible contemporary novel that touches on important social issues of racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism, and what it means to be a Black woman navigating a white-dominated society. Praise for In Every Mirror She's Black: "In Every Mirror She's Black is a wise and complicated exploration of the lives of three Black women in America and Sweden. Lola Akinmade Åkerström offers a sharply written story with messy, deeply moving characters, raising brutal questions and steering clear of easy answers. A book that will stick with you long after you've turned the last page." —Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six and Malibu Rising "In Every Mirror She's Black highlights the struggles of three women fighting to assimilate into a society that ignores their worth. These characters will pull at your heartstrings. Lola writes with a contemporary flair, highlighting the layered subtleties of the Black woman's plight. In Every Mirror She's Black will stay with readers for a long time." —Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of bestselling novels Here Comes the Sun and Patsy "In her debut novel, Lola Akinmade Akerstrom has given us a story that is at once enjoyable and disturbing as it explores the painful price millions of women around the world pay for walking around with black skin." —Imbolo Mbue, New York Times bestselling author of Behold the Dreamers

Walking on Cowrie Shells

Download Walking on Cowrie Shells PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Black Spot Books
ISBN 13 : 1911648349
Total Pages : 198 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (116 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Walking on Cowrie Shells by : Nana Nkweti

Download or read book Walking on Cowrie Shells written by Nana Nkweti and published by Black Spot Books. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “boisterous and high-spirited debut” (Kirkus starred review)“that enthralls the reader through their every twist and turn” (Publishers Weekly starred review), named one of the Most Anticipated Books for Brittle Paper, The Millions, and The Rumpus, penned by a finalist for the AKO Caine PrizeIn her powerful, genre-bending debut story collection, Nana Nkweti's virtuosity is on full display as she mixes deft realism with clever inversions of genre. In the Caine Prize finalist story “It Takes a Village, Some Say,” Nkweti skewers racial prejudice and the practice of international adoption, delivering a sly tale about a teenage girl who leverages her adoptive parents to fast-track her fortunes. In “The Devil Is a Liar,” a pregnant pastor's wife struggles with the collision of western Christianity and her mother's traditional Cameroonian belief system as she worries about her unborn child.In other stories, Nkweti vaults past realism, upending genre expectations in a satirical romp about a jaded PR professional trying to spin a zombie outbreak in West Africa, and in a mermaid tale about a Mami Wata who forgoes her power by remaining faithful to a fisherman she loves.

Meet Behind Mars

Download Meet Behind Mars PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Wayne State University Press
ISBN 13 : 0814345131
Total Pages : 125 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (143 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Meet Behind Mars by : Renee Simms

Download or read book Meet Behind Mars written by Renee Simms and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I feel like I can’t tell one story about a giant mustard penis because it’s not about a mustard penis only, but about all of these incidents together, in context, and through time." So begins the title story in Renee Simms’s debut short story collection, Meet Behind Mars—a revealing look at how geography, memory, ancestry, and desire influence our personal relationships. In many of her stories, Simms exposes her own interest in issues concerning time and space. For example, in "Rebel Airplanes," an L.A. engineer works by day on city sewers and by night on R-C planes that she yearns to launch into the cosmos. The character-driven stories in Meet Behind Mars offer beautiful insight into the emotional lives of caretakers, auto workers, dancers, and pawn shop employees. In "High Country," a frustrated would-be novelist considers ditching her family in the middle of the desert. In "Dive," an adoptee returns to her adoptive home, still haunted by histories she does not know. Simms writes from the voice of women and girls who struggle under structural oppression and draws from the storytelling tradition best represented by writers like Edward P. Jones, whose characters have experiences that are specific to black Americans living in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. One instance of this is in "The Art of Heroine Worship," in which black families integrate into a white suburb of Detroit in the 1970s. The stories in this collection span forty years and two continents and range in structure from epistolary to traditionally structured realism, with touches of absurdity, humor, and magic. Meet Behind Mars will appeal to readers interested in contemporary literary fiction.

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House

Download How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316537004
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (165 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by : Cherie Jones

Download or read book How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House written by Cherie Jones and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Zadie Smith and Marlon James, a brilliant Caribbean writer delivers a powerful story about four people each desperate to escape their legacy of violence in a so-called "paradise." In Baxter’s Beach, Barbados, Lala’s grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister. It’s a cautionary tale, about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers and go into the Baxter’s Tunnels. When she’s grown, Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences. A gunshot no one was meant to witness. A new mother whose baby is found lifeless on the beach. A woman torn between two worlds and incapacitated by grief. And two men driven into the Tunnels by desperation and greed who attempt a crime that will risk their freedom – and their lives. How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is an intimate and visceral portrayal of interconnected lives, across race and class, in a rapidly changing resort town, told by an astonishing new author of literary fiction. One of 2021's Most Anticipated New Fiction The Millions * Lit Hub * O Magazine * Elle.com * Entertainment Weekly * Minneapolis Star-Tribune * Bustle

Midnight at the Organporium

Download Midnight at the Organporium PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781619761636
Total Pages : 128 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (616 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Midnight at the Organporium by : Tara Campbell

Download or read book Midnight at the Organporium written by Tara Campbell and published by . This book was released on 2019-04 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do a homicidal houseplant, an enchanted office picnic, sentient fog, and the perfect piece of toast have in common? They're all part of the world of Midnight at the Organporium. At turns droll, wicked, and surreal, these tales cover topics from white flight, to the Princess and the Pea, to marriage in the afterlife. Visit Midnight at the Organporium for a dose of twisted obsession, covert complicity, and peculiar empowerment - and don't forget to pick up your spare heart while you're there.

The Last Cruze

Download The Last Cruze PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780941548793
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (487 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Last Cruze by : LaToya Ruby Frazier

Download or read book The Last Cruze written by LaToya Ruby Frazier and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio halted production and faced possible closure, displacing its workers, artist LaToya Ruby Frazier joined with these workers, their families, and their local union leaders to tell the story of the plant in its final days. After more than fifty years of automobile production and a commitment to manufacture the Chevrolet Cruze until 2021, the facility was recently "unallocated" by GM, as the company shifts its focus toward overseas manufacturing and the production of electric and autonomous vehicles. For many, this meant uprooting their families and giving up the support of a close-knit community. Those who turned down transfers to GM plants in other states lost their income, pensions, and benefits. The Last Cruze, which sets out to amplify the voices of the auto workers in Lordstown, introduces a new chapter to Frazier's work in investigating labor, family, community, and the working class. Exhibited at the Renaissance Society in 2019, this body of work includes over sixty photographs, alongside the written stories of the workers, and was staged within an installation that echoes the structure of the plant's assembly line. This substantial catalogue includes extensive documentation of the work and introduces new essays and dialogues by contributors including Coco Fusco, David Harvey, Werner Lange, Lynn Nottage, Julia Reichert, Benjamin Young, and members of the local chapter of the United Auto Workers.

Full Grown People

Download Full Grown People PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780990830108
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (31 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Full Grown People by : Jennifer Niesslein

Download or read book Full Grown People written by Jennifer Niesslein and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology of thirty essays from the site fullgrownpeople.com.

Hemming the Water

Download Hemming the Water PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Stahlecker Selections
ISBN 13 : 9781935536321
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (363 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Hemming the Water by : Yona Harvey

Download or read book Hemming the Water written by Yona Harvey and published by Stahlecker Selections. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often mimicking fairy tales or ancient fables, these are poems wrought from daughterhood, motherhood, siblinghood, and the love of music

The Collection Plate

Download The Collection Plate PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0063048507
Total Pages : 113 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (63 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Collection Plate by : Kendra Allen

Download or read book The Collection Plate written by Kendra Allen and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deeply wrought and joyful debut poetry collection from an exciting new voice Looping exultantly through the overlapping experiences of girlhood, Blackness, sex, and personhood in America, award-winning essayist and poet Kendra Allen braids together personal narrative and cultural commentary, wrestling with the beauty and brutality to be found between mothers and daughters, young women and the world, Black bodies and white space, virginity and intrusion, prison and freedom, birth and death. Most of all, The Collection Plate explores both how we collect and erase the voices, lives, and innocence of underrepresented bodies—and behold their pleasure, pain, and possibility Both formally exciting and a delight to read, The Collection Plate is a testament to Allen’s place as the voice of a generation—and a witness to how we come into being in the twenty-first century.