Carry My Bones

A botched crime forces three men – a sculptor, his son, and the son's septuagenarian friend – to flee their small town in this tragic and moving account of survival in the face of one's own failures. A man kills his wife’s lover… Almost. The criminal is Gideon Banks, a sculptor of modest success who has finally realized that he is incapable of repairing his broken marriage. Now frantically on the run from the law, Gid is joined by Merit – his adopted, introverted son – and Judge Riley, an old turnip-grower, the singer of a thousand songs, and Merit’s best friend. For the length of a college football season the unlikely trio drifts along the highways, backroads and deer trails of Alabama, befriended many times by other solitary Southerners, alone in their work, their addictions, and their restlessness. In Birmingham they meet a young woman who is naively charmed by their tale and, bored with her upper-class upbringing, takes them in. Sheltered in a house of grand portraits and heated floors, the three are afforded the time to face their separate struggles: the old Judge a fever, Gideon his guilt, and Merit the girl who would ruin his ideas about isolation forever.

"Home is a complex ideation for many POC and migrant peoples. I Always Carry My Bones explores how familial history echoes inside a person and the ghosts of lineage dwell in a body. Sometimes we haunt. Sometimes we are the haunted. Pierced by an estranged relationship to Mexican culture, the ethereal ache of an unknown father, the weight of racism and poverty in this country, the indentations of abuse, and a mind/physicality affected by doubt, these poems root in the search for belonging-a belonging inside and outside the flesh. Space-making requires a clawing at the atrocities of today's social injustices. Space-making requires a dismantling of violent systems against brown and black bodies. Home is the place where the horrid and beautiful intertwine and carve a being into existence. At times, the reaction is recoil: "biomimicry-how I adapt away/ from you-biomimicry-as if to chant my way/ into something worthy of your affection." At other times, the reaction is love: "if we fracture a system long enough/ our voices build/ a neoteric system/ with our voices inside." The voices in these poems are never truly singular. POC, trans/queer individuals and all marginalized people hold evolutionary revolutions in our cells. In language and elements, we are a collective. Survival held in our adaptation-another action that culls from us. We summon the magic inside of us to create a world in which we see ourselves beyond the death expected of us. We pray to our own tongues to conjure ourselves into existence. This book longs for a sanctuary of self-the dwelling of initial energy needed for our collective fight for human rights"--

A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life “Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years. Both of Foo’s parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she’d moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD. In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it. Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.

What Do the Five Points of Calvinism Really Mean? Many have heard of Reformed theology, but may not be certain what it is. Some references to it have been positive, some negative. It appears to be important, and they'd like to know more about it. But they want a full, understandable explanation, not a simplistic one. What Is Reformed Theology? is an accessible introduction to beliefs that have been immensely influential in the evangelical church. In this insightful book, R. C. Sproul walks readers through the foundations of the Reformed doctrine and explains how the Reformed belief is centered on God, based on God's Word, and committed to faith in Jesus Christ. Sproul explains the five points of Reformed theology and makes plain the reality of God's amazing grace.

Civil Rights in My Bones: More Colorful Stories from a Lawyer's Life and Work, 2005-2015 is a memoir by Julian L. McPhillips Jr. In a career stretching over forty-plus years, the Montgomery, Alabama, attorney has earned a reputation as a determined advocate for the rights of consumers, victims of police abuse, falsely accused criminal defendants, the unborn, immigrants, and the environment. A previous book, The People’s Lawyer, covered his life and career up to 2005. Civil Rights in My Bones provides additional background about his family roots in Alabama, his parents’ political activism, his education and athletic competition as a champion amateur wrestler, his religious convictions, and his wife, children, and grandchildren. But it also details many of the major cases he has handled in the past decade. These include defenses of consumers victimized by unfair compulsory arbitration clauses, victims of employment discrimination, fellow lawyers and even judges who were unfairly targeted for sanctions for reasons of race or gender, and church congregations at war within themselves over various issues. One fascinating section of the book discusses his and his wife Leslie’s leadership in establishing a new evangelical, healing-spirit Episcopal church and its struggles with the larger church hierarchy. While focused on the author’s life and work, the memoir is also a window into Alabama and Southern life, culture, and politics.

Your first step on the path to total bone health An osteoporosis diagnosis can feel like a debilitating life sentence—one that leaves you feeling stuck with a future of prescription drugs that only might keep the condition from worsening. Mira Calton, CN and Jayson Calton, PhD have discovered a better way to prevent and even reverse the disease through the power of micronutrient therapy. The secret to building strong bones lies in the right combination of micronutrients— the vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and amino acids in the foods we eat and supplements we take. In Rebuild Your Bones, the Caltons reveal how our dietary, lifestyle, and even supplementation routines may be depleting these essential micronutrients, and share the 40 healing habits scientifically proven to build stronger bones. They also provide an easy-to-follow plan to reverse these effects, including recipes and meal plans, exercise advice, and supplement recommendations. If you’re looking for a pharmaceutical-free way to restore your bone health, look no further—this is the definitive guide to safely and naturally stave off osteoporosis and reclaim your health.