Ashes For Breakfast

The first English translation of Germany's leading contemporary poet. ...what is the whole surreal jokeshop of terrors compared to the infinitely chance little tricks of a poem. --from "MonoLogical Poem #1" Born in Dresden in 1962, Durs Grünbein is the most significant and successful poet to emerge from the former East Germany, a place where, he wrote, "the best refuge was a closed mouth." In unsettling, often funny, sometimes savage lines whose vivid images reflect his deep love for and connection with the visual arts, Grunbein is reinventing German poetry and taking on the most pressing moral concerns of his generation. Brilliantly edited and translated by the English poet Michael Hofmann, Ashes for Breakfast expertly introduces Germany's most highly acclaimed contemporary poet to American readers.

A diary of racism in an American church which is incredibly shocking but also true story of a Christina minister and his two colleages evicted from their pastorate because they sought to change the congregation's lily-white racial policy.

Baptists in the South were once considered the last bastions of segregation. From 1957 to 1995, God was at work changing the attitudes of those opposed to the acceptance of all people. The change was so phenomenal that Dr. C. Peter Wagner at Fuller Theological Seminary called Southern Baptists the most open and diverse denomination in the nation. This change did not come by accident. College and seminary professors, denominational servants, women in the Woman's Missionary Union in local churches, average laypeople and many other unnamed persons made it happen. This book tells how God used people and events to bring about unhearalded changes. The book is written from the author's point of view, therefore it is limited in scope. However, because the author had a national platform, the book reflects that perspective as well.

Durs Grünbein is the most significant poet and essayist in German today. No other modern German poet has written from such an emphatically European and global perspective, and this volume seeks to present the poet and his work to the English-speaking world in all their significance and breadth. Written by a line-up of international scholars and critics, the volume offers highly readable and wide-ranging essays on Grünbein’s substantial œuvre, complemented by specially commissioned material and an interview with the poet. It covers the German and European traditions, and engages with Grünbein’s works in the context of a number of relevant topics, such as ‘memory’, ‘urban life’, ‘mortality’, ‘love’, and ‘presence’; it also probes Grünbein’s sustained dialogue with the natural sciences and the visual arts.

The author recounts his childhood in Depression-era Brooklyn as the child of Irish immigrants who decide to return to worse poverty in Ireland when his infant sister dies

After the tragic death of her husband, Joe, Marie Maxwell and her children embrace becoming squatters. As they learn to rebuild their lives, they befriend Fiona (a.k.a. Feodora) who is hiding from the Russian mob. Martha, a lost heiress, and Rosa and George, a displaced family she takes in. As she becomes a famous ceramist and finds love again, her life and her children are tormented by nightmares of her dead husband. Will she find peace in her new life as Joe's secret is revealed?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of Bird by Bird comes a personal, wise, very funny, and “life-affirming” book (People) that shows us how to find meaning and hope through shining the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life. "Anne Lamott is walking proof that a person can be both reverent and irreverent in the same lifetime. Sometimes even in the same breath." —San Francisco Chronicle Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are: "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She has a friend whose morning prayer each day is "Whatever," and whose evening prayer is "Oh, well." Anne thinks of Jesus as "Casper the friendly savior" and describes God as "one crafty mother." Despite—or because of—her irreverence, faith is a natural subject for Anne Lamott. Since Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her fans have been waiting for her to write the book that explained how she came to the big-hearted, grateful, generous faith that she so often alluded to in her two earlier nonfiction books. The people in Anne Lamott's real life are like beloved characters in a favorite series for her readers—her friend Pammy, her son, Sam, and the many funny and wise folks who attend her church are all familiar. And Traveling Mercies is a welcome return to those lives, as well as an introduction to new companions Lamott treats with the same candor, insight, and tenderness. Lamott's faith isn't about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, "My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers."