Bumping And Other Stories

People look for God's presence in many places. They gather in the basilicas of Rome or at the red rocks in Sedona. I find God's presence quite nearby-in the magnificent complexity of the human person. -Dominic Grassi We bump into God's grace every day in all kinds of humorous, serious, mysterious, random, and sometimes completely unlikely ways. This charming collection of thirty-five stories reveals one person's myriad encounters with God in both the mundane and extraordinary moments that make up our days. This is not a book about ideologies, but about people. . . . There are miracles and ordinary moments to celebrate, grace and joy to share, silly folk and saints to relish. -Dominic Grassi A natrual storyteller, Dominic Grassi invites readers to share his warm memories of life in Chicago over the past five decades. He shows how God is reflected in the people we meet every day: a butcher, a bookstore owner, a short-order cook. With rich and often funny descriptions of human triumphs and struggles, laughter and tears, youthful pranks and quiet maturity, Grassi uncovers grace in the most unexpected places. Stories such as Wisdom Teeth and Window Washers and Thumping Watermelons help us see not only moments of grace in Grassi's life but also times when we too have unexpectedly bumped into God.

Discovery and Other Stories is a third collection of short stories by Thomas McCavour. Discovery is a story about the early Vikings and their exploration of America and the Northwest Passage. Marcus and Mark is a story about how two boxers in different eras deal with the problem of drug addiction. Bad Habits is a story about the adopted son of a nun , who becomes a priest. In Flanders Fields recognizes the poet John McRae. True Friends is a story about life in a retirement residence. Thanksgiving is a fun story about how Tom Turkey and Rob Rooster rescue Thanksgiving. ACDC is a story about Alex and Dorothy Cross growing old together. The Carroll Family Choristers tells about how Fred Carroll acquires a large family of singers. Dust to Dust is a story about murder in a love triangle.

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2020 Winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence “A comically dark coming-of-age story about growing up on the South Side of Chicago, but it’s also social commentary at its finest, woven seamlessly into the work . . . Bump’s meditation on belonging and not belonging, where or with whom, how love is a way home no matter where you are, is handled so beautifully that you don’t know he’s hypnotized you until he’s done.” —Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review In this alternately witty and heartbreaking debut novel, Gabriel Bump gives us an unforgettable protagonist, Claude McKay Love. Claude isn’t dangerous or brilliant—he’s an average kid coping with abandonment, violence, riots, failed love, and societal pressures as he steers his way past the signposts of youth: childhood friendships, basketball tryouts, first love, first heartbreak, picking a college, moving away from home. Claude just wants a place where he can fit. As a young black man born on the South Side of Chicago, he is raised by his civil rights–era grandmother, who tries to shape him into a principled actor for change; yet when riots consume his neighborhood, he hesitates to take sides, unwilling to let race define his life. He decides to escape Chicago for another place, to go to college, to find a new identity, to leave the pressure cooker of his hometown behind. But as he discovers, he cannot; there is no safe haven for a young black man in this time and place called America. Percolating with fierceness and originality, attuned to the ironies inherent in our twenty-first-century landscape, Everywhere You Don’t Belong marks the arrival of a brilliant young talent.

When unavoidable accidents cause Thomas the Tank Engine to call upon the help of Bertie the Bus, Thomas worries that he will lose all his passengers.

The Dark Side 2: Day Zero and Other Stories is a mix of stories, dividing broadly between six’horror’ stories and six’thriller’ stories. Horror stories often fill us with dread and show us a much darker side of human behaviour. At the same time, they can be funny and satirical. The other six stories are more varied. Some are thrillers where the main aim is to excite the reader. Some like’Auto Message’ try to say something about how technology is affecting our daily lives. Others like’The Curse’ try to show us, in a humorous way, how greedy people could be. The great thing about stories is that they carry us into another world on top of helping us to learn words, parts of speech and sentence construction. If we dive into the pool of good stories, we’ll learn how to swim – using those good examples in our own writing.

Until the nineteen sixties, proper young women were raised to remain virgins until marriage, to be good mothers and wives, and to depend on husbands for status and economic survival. With the feminist movement, women began to understand they could make decisions regarding their own destiny. Women liked it that they could be equal to men in domestic and public life. Many worked hard to earn that equality. Yet certain issues remain universal - love, controlling partners, career, motherhood and aging - subjects of the stories in this book. Equality, however, has brought its kinks to the story. Join author Barbara Wolfenden in The Accidental Jibe to explore how women might handle common and not-so-common problems. You will be surprised. "These relationship stories are fast-paced and written with beautiful language." Judy Osborne, Author, Wisdom for Separated Parents: Rearranging Around the Children to Keep Kinship Strong (Praeger, 2011)

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