Descent Into Paradise

‘Rich and valuable’ ANJAN SUNDARAM ‘Honest ... written in sharp, rippling prose’ ANDREW FIDEL FERNANDO ‘A brave and timely effort’ JASON BURKE ‘Immersive and eye-opening’ HASSAN UGAIL ‘A moving, personal and heartfelt tale of the real Maldives: far deeper and more sinister waters than the azure lagoons of the resorts for which it is famed’ JJ ROBINSON In the autumn of 2011, the postman-turned-journalist Daniel Bosley embarked on an unexpected adventure which started as an internship in London’s Maldives High Commission – the diplomatic mission of the Indian Ocean tourism hotspot. Little did he know that he would soon set off on an odyssey through an imperilled island nation undergoing one of the most tumultuous periods in its history. Over the next seven years, Bosley worked as a journalist in the Maldives, reporting on its volatile political landscape and shattering the picture-perfect view of this supposed paradise. Taking us into a nation of a thousand isles, he reveals a shaded past of sultans, imperialists and Western explorers before a modern-day dictatorship was finally overturned by a democracy that immediately plunged into turmoil. While dissenters and intrepid reporters faced abduction, imprisonment, and even death, the climate crisis and Islamist zealots posed ever greater threats to the country’s vulnerable environment and its ancient culture. As the editor of the Maldives’ main English-language news website, Bosley witnessed some of these events first-hand, his personal distress assuaged only by the love and hope he would come to find – against all odds – within these isolated atoll communities. Richly observed and infused with empathy and essential humour, Descent into Paradise thoroughly alters our understanding of the Maldives, a place where magical waters and surreal skies hide unthinkable dangers even as the struggle for justice risks submersion.

A place to live: Some people might think it's odd when a teenage boy starts making movies of his classmates kissing, but the aspiring filmmaker's project turns into a protest against authoritarianism that could get him kicked out of school, and expose his surprising feelings for his best friend.

When the new kid from Afghanistan is put in Martin’s class, Martin ridicules his clothes and nicknames him “Taliban.” But the two realize they have more in common than they thought, and unexpectedly become friends—until a brutal drug bust at school tears them apart ... maybe forever. DESCENT INTO PARADISE confronts the hypocrisies of Western society, and questions whether we aren’t all just strangers in a foreign land.

This in-depth study on the realm of death presents a message of hope held by the first generation of Christians and the early church. Using Scripture, patristic tradition, early Christian poetry, and liturgical texts, Archbishop Hilarion explores the mysterious and enigmatic event of Christ⿿s descent into Hades and its consequences for the human race. Insisting that Christ entered Sheol as Conqueror and not as victim, the author depicts the Lord⿿s descent as an event of cosmic significance opening the path to universal salvation. He also reveals Hades as a place of divine presence, a place where the spiritual fate of a person may still change. Reminding readers that self-will remains the only hindrance to life in Christ, he presents the gospel message anew, even in the shadow of death.

An award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker chronicles her personal year-long journey to discover the truth about her ancestry through DNA testing, sharing her findings as well as her insights into controversies surrounding modern Latino identity.

On December 7, 1941, as the great battleships Arizona, Oklahoma, and Utah lie paralyzed and burning in the aftermath of the Japanese ttack on Pearl Harbor, a crack team of U.S. Navy salvage divers headed by Edward C. Raymer are hurriedly flown to Oahu from the mainland. The divers have been given a Herculean task: rescue the sailors and Marines trapped below, and resurrect the pride of the Pacific fleet. Now for the first time, the chief diver of the Pearl Harbor salvage operations, Cmdr. Edward C. Raymer, USN (Ret.), tells the whole story of the desperate attempts to save crewmembers caught inside their sinking ships. Descent into Darkness is the only book available that describes the raising and salvage operations of sunken battleships following the December 7th attack. Once Raymer and his crew of divers entered the interiors of the sunken shipwrecks—attempting untested and potentially deadly diving techniques—they experienced a world of total blackness, unable to see even the faceplates of their helmets. By memorizing the ships’ blueprints and using their sense of touch, the divers groped their way hundreds of feet inside the sunken vessels to make repairs and salvage vital war material. The divers learned how to cope with such unseen dangers as falling objects, sharks, the eerie presence of floating human bodies, and the constant threat of Japanese attacks from above. ​Though many of these divers were killed or seriously injured during the wartime salvage operations, on the whole they had great success performing what seemed to be impossible jobs. Among their credits, Raymer’s crew raised the sunken battleships West Virginia, Nevada, and California. After Pearl Harbor they moved on to other crucial salvage work off Guadalcanal and the sites of other great sea battles.

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD In 1960, Harvard’s sister college, Radcliffe, announced the founding of an Institute for Independent Study, a “messy experiment” in women’s education that offered paid fellowships to those with a PhD or “the equivalent” in artistic achievement. Five of the women who received fellowships—poets Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin, painter Barbara Swan, sculptor Marianna Pineda, and writer Tillie Olsen—quickly formed deep bonds with one another that would inspire and sustain their most ambitious work. They called themselves “the Equivalents.” Drawing from notebooks, letters, recordings, journals, poetry, and prose, Maggie Doherty weaves a moving narrative of friendship and ambition, art and activism, love and heartbreak, and shows how the institute spoke to the condition of women on the cusp of liberation. “Rich and powerful. . . . A love story about art and female friendship.” —Harper’s Magazine “Reads like a novel, and an intense one at that. . . . The Equivalents is an observant, thoughtful and energetic account.” —Margaret Atwood, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)