Augusta Gone

"I'm not telling you where I am. Don't try to find me." Remember Go Ask Alice? Augusta, Gone is the memoir Alice's mother never wrote. A single parent, Martha Tod Dudman is sure she is giving her two children the perfect life, sheltering them from the wild tumult of her own youth. But when Augusta turns fifteen, things start to happen: first the cigarette, then the blue pipe and the little bag Augusta says is aspirin. Just talking to her is like sticking your hand in the garbage disposal. Martha doesn't know if she's confronting adolescent behavior, craziness, her own failures as a parent -- or all three. Augusta, Gone is the story of a girl who is doing everything to hurt herself and a mother who would try anything to save her. It is a sorrowful tale, but not a tragic one. Though the book charts a harrowing course through the troubled waters of adolescence, hope -- that mother and daughter will be reunited and will learn to love one another again -- steers them toward a shore of forgiveness and redemption. Written with darkly seductive grace, Augusta, Gone conjures the dangerous thrill of being drawn into the heart of a whirling vortex. This daring book will be admired for its lyricism, applauded for its courage, and remembered for its power. It demands to be read from start to finish, in one breathless sitting.

"Janis Reams Hudson has given us a story so lyrical and yet so earthy, description and action that literally have the reader white-knuckled, and characters so vivid they seem to speak in the reader's ear. "—Affaire de Coeur From the day of his birth, Pace Colton, also known as Fire Seeker, has been something of a troublemaker. Over the years he has grown into a stubborn, angry man who has managed to alienate himself from the very people he loves most. Now a telegram has come from his family asking for his help. He has been asked to go to Mexico and find Joanna, his stepbrother's daughter, captured by the evil, ruthless man known as El Carnicero—the Butcher. In an attempt to swallow his pride and tear down the wall between him and his family, Pace agrees, unaware of the perils that await him. But it's more than danger he finds in the arms of high-spirited and strong willed Joanna, and soon he finds himself fighting not only for their lives, but also for their blossoming love.

What was the world like, and what was going on in it, around the time of Jesus’ death? This study examines this very question, and also seeks to place Jesus in his larger historical context, as a non-citizen resident of the Roman Empire living in Judaea and Galilee in the 20s and 30s AD. The book explores the larger background and context to some of the major power-brokers of the Roman Empire in Jesus’ day, including the emperor Tiberius, his ambitious Praetorian Prefect Sejanus, Judaea’s governor Pontius Pilate, and the client king who governed Galilee, Herod Antipas. It further explores some of the larger historical and cultural context and background of some of the characters who parade through the gospel accounts, including the treacherous informant Judas Iscariot, the tax collector turned apostle, Matthew, and the gruff centurion whose servant Jesus was said to have healed. The study also considers the nature of Jesus’ radical resistance to the Roman Empire, and seeks to contextualize it through comparison with other resistance movements. Attempts to recover the historical Jesus have sought to put him in his immediate context of ancient Galilee, Judaea, and the Jewish community to which he belonged. Instead this book gives the Roman historical background to the time and place of his ministry and death. Cast into relief against the much larger picture of the greater Roman world of which he was a part, the ministry of Jesus is quite radical indeed.

A heartwarming, wry, and often surprising collection of essays about the next rite of passage for Baby Boomers: what happens when the kids leave home As the baby boom generation ages -- the oldest are now turning sixty -- many of them are learning to deal with a whole new way of life, after the last child has finally moved out and they are, once again, alone. It's the same milestone their own parents faced, but as with so many other markers, this generation approaches it in a whole new way. In this fascinating collection, journalist Karen Stabiner has assembled essays from thirty-one writers, including well-known authors such as Anna Quindlen, Ellen Goodman, and Susan Shreve, about their own experience with the empty nest. Parents whose children left home last week join those with grandchildren to explore how life changes once the offspring leave (unless, of course, they move back in again later). They represent the full range of experience -- from traditional nuclear families to single parents to gay parents to grandparents -- with humor, grace, and poignancy.

Representing a broad range of ethnic diversity, these in-depth profiles present fascinating accounts of lives and careers, the circumstances under which works were produced, and their literary significance. Each profile also includes critical evaluation,