An Island In The Lake Of Fire

The Religious Right's most dogmatic and resolute faction has its roots in three generations of the Bob Jones family of Greenville, South Carolina. An Island in the Lake of Fire is the first in-depth history of this militantly separatist, ultrafundamentalist dynasty to be written by an "outsider" with the Joneses' cooperation. Mark Taylor Dalhouse focuses on Bob Jones University (BJU) and the three colorful, charismatic Jones patriarchs, who, in succession, have led the school. Founded in 1927, BJU has a student population of five thousand; in addition, it boasts thousands more loyal, well-placed alumni not only in pulpits and Christian day schools across the country but also in elective offices and major corporations. Through their BJU network, and by their vigilance as self-appointed theological watchdogs, the Joneses have, since the 1950s, played a pivotal role in defining the extreme limits of American religious and cultural conservatism. Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell (whom Bob Jones Jr. labeled the "most dangerous man in America") are among the leading figures who have not measured up to BJU's fundamentalist standards. The defining doctrine at BJU, says Dalhouse, is separation from secularism in the modern world. Drawing on interviews with Bob Jones Jr., Bob Jones III, and others at BJU, as well as on hitherto inaccessible archival sources at the school, Dalhouse discusses the school's separatism in light of such factors as its refusal to seek accreditation and the stringent codes of dress, conduct, and even thought to which BJU students submit themselves. Attuned to the ironies and contradictions of the Joneses' separatist enterprise, Dalhouse points to the high proportion of accounting and finance degrees awarded at BJU, the school's widely admired cinema department (which has a Cannes Film Festival award to its name), and its nationally acclaimed Baroque and Renaissance art gallery. Dalhouse also challenges some widely held impressions about BJU that have circulated among its detractors, including assumptions about the regional makeup of the student body, and about the prospects of BJU students to gain entry into graduate programs at other schools. Filled with insights into the attitudes and personalities of the Joneses, An Island in the Lake of Fire offers a unique window into their influential, yet generally unrecognized, place in right-wing Christianity.

In "Lake of Fire" our main character travels through the world, escaping mental institutions and jobs to keep one step ahead of his father (whose name is Dr. Crabb) who is pursuing him to take over the family business. What is the family business? Nothing short of (eventual) world domination. Our main character finds that the farther he runs from his father, the more he becomes him, discovering that he has been inside of him all along. In a final climactic scene, father and son, reunited descend into the firey depths of the Lake of Fire. In the second part of our book, "A Fire in the Heart" we experience episodes of miracle and of nightmare as the world is examined on an autopsy table of the author's dreams and fears. In the third book, "Jupiter's Hills" I weep for the beauty of the world. Ostensibly a story about Jupiter's Hills, history is examined. The hills are from Jupiter, belong to the God Jupiter or are just red hills here on Earth that suggest a strata of reality and detail that is other-worldly.

The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

The Lake on Fire is an epic narrative that begins among 19th century Jewish immigrants on a failing Wisconsin farm. Dazzled by lore of the American dream, Chaya and her strange, brilliant, young brother Asher stowaway to Chicago; what they discover there, however, is a Gilded Age as empty a façade as the beautiful Columbian Exposition luring thousands to Lake Michigan’s shore. The pair scrapes together a meager living—Chaya in a cigar factory; Asher, roaming the city and stealing books and jewelry to share with the poor, until they find different paths of escape. An examination of family, love, and revolution, this profound tale resonates eerily with today’s current events and tumultuous social landscape. The Lake on Fire is robust, gleaming, and grimy all at once, proving that celebrated author Rosellen Brown is back with a story as luminous as ever.

In "Lake of Fire" our main character travels through the world, escaping mental institutions and jobs to keep one step ahead of his father (whose name is Dr. Crabb) who is pursuing him to take over the family business.What is the family business? Nothing short of (eventual) world domination. Our main character finds that the farther he runs from his father, the more he becomes him, discovering that he has been inside of him all along. In a final climactic scene, father and son, reunited descend into the firey depths of the Lake of Fire. In the second part of our book, "A Fire in the Heart" we experience episodes of miracle and of nightmare as the world is examined on an autopsy table of the author's dreams and fears. In the third book, "Jupiter's Hills" I weep for the beauty of the world. Ostensibly a story about Jupiter's Hills, history is examined. The hills are from Jupiter, belong to the God Jupiter or are just red hills here on Earth that suggest a strata of reality and detail that is other-worldly.

Frances FitzGerald's landmark history of Vietnam and the Vietnam War, "a compassionate and penetrating account of the collision of two societies that remain untranslatable to one another." (New York Times Book Review) This magisterial work, based on Frances FitzGerald's many years of research and travels, takes us inside the history of Vietnam -- the traditional, ancestor-worshiping villages, the conflicts between Communists and anti-Communists, Catholics and Buddhists, generals and monks, the disruption created by French colonialism, and America's ill-fated intervention -- and reveals the country as seen through Vietnamese eyes. Originally published in 1972, Fire in the Lake was the first history of Vietnam written by an American and won the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the National Book Award. With a clarity and insight unrivaled by any author before it or since, Frances FitzGerald illustrates how America utterly and tragically misinterpreted the realities of Vietnam.

Laki is Iceland's largest volcano. Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great, untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight long months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years. It caused the deaths of people as far away as the Nile and created catastrophic conditions throughout Europe. Island on Fire is the story not only of a single eruption but the people whose lives it changed, the dawn of modern volcanology, as well as the history and potential of other super-volcanoes like Laki around the world. And perhaps most pertinently, in the wake of the eruption of another Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, which closed European air space in 2010, acclaimed science writers Witze and Kanipe look at what might transpire should Laki erupt again in our lifetime.