Empty Places

It is 1932, in Harlan County, Kentucky. Times are tough in the mining community, especially for thirteen-year-old Adabel Cutler's family. As they fight to survive, Adabel has to figure out her own identity while dealing with her volatile father, her dutiful sister, her defiant brother, and her mother's disappearance, which she can't seem to remember. This is a beautifully written and deeply felt coming-of-age novel by the acclaimed author of Like a River. Includes an author's note, bibliography, and archival images.

For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope, and a future. Then you will call upon me, and I will listen to you, you will seek me, with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:1113) Destiny in Empty Places is a book that is a result of every man and womans journey, a journey many lives follow every day, going through life just merely existing. The average life is lived trying to seek out and fulfill a purpose, looking for meaning and seeking an understanding of the broken pieces in their lives. The average life in humanity is also void for years and years without a single purpose. One never knows where his or her absolute destiny lies. We spend a lifetime fulfilling either our parents dreams or that which we think we should be. We have even convinced ourselves that our chosen purpose is clearly what we were created to be. If one would go beyond their past and look beyond their natural essence, back to their spiritual essence, one would then find purpose for his or her own life. This book, Destiny in Empty Places, challenges every traveler on the road of destiny. Your road to destiny is predetermined but not by you who travels it. This simply means that God has given you a destiny that is predetermined. Whether or not you will travel or find that road of destiny will be up to your wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of God, of who he is, and your purpose in destiny. According to statistical research, there are approximately 6,670,985,957 people in the world who live their lives from day to day without purpose, plan, or form. Purpose is the intent that is set up for us as an object or an end to attain; the intention at the end; a resolution, determination, the action in course of execution. People have arrived at a place in life where it looks like they are not accomplishing anything. Their lives are spent as if they are traveling in a circle. People are seeking out randomly, striving to fill the void in their lives, leaving them discouraged and vacillated into an empty place. This emptiness is only on the surface of the face of the deep. At your choice lies your destiny.

The world has its empty places, and so does the heart. Ellie Freeman, a low-level federal employee, is stuck in a dead-end desert town that no longer feels like home. What makes things worse are the threatening phone calls she's been getting. When Duncan Harris, a British journalist, stops by to interview her for a series he's writing, Ellie feels something close to hope that there's still good to be salvaged from her life. But before that hope can be fulfilled, Ellie is kidnapped. When Duncan finds out what has happened to Ellie, he throws his journalist's neutrality out of the window and heads off to find her. What he discovers is a cult led by a deluded but charismatic leader. Somehow, he has to get Ellie out of his clutches and he'll do whatever it takes. When the cult leader raises the stakes, the mission becomes very personal indeed.

". . . intriguing, both a solid refresher on our savage colonial history and a smart rumination on what it means to get lost. ― Outside First time in paperback, ebook, and audio editions Part travel adventure, part history, part exploration Features four specific "blank spots" from across the country and delves into our human relationships with place In The Last Empty Places, bestselling author Peter Stark takes the reader to four of the most remote, wild, and unpopulated areas of the United States outside of Alaska and mainly not part of protected wilderness: the rivers and forests of Northern Maine; the rugged, unpopulated region of Western Pennsylvania that lies only a short distance from the East’s big cities; the haunting canyons of Central New Mexico; and the vast, arid basins of Southeast Oregon. Stark discovers that the places he visits are only "blank" in terms of a lack of recorded history. In fact, each place holds layers of history, meaning, and intrinsic value and is far from being blank. He also finds that each region has played an important role in shaping our American idea of wilderness through the influential "natural philosophers" who visited these places and wrote about their experiences--Henry David Thoreau, William Bartram, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold. It’s a fascinating look at the value of nature, the ways humans use and approach it, and what it means to seek out empty places in today’s world.

"Empty Spaces, Empty Places" revisits the manger, cross and tomb through interviews with the innkeeper's wife, the Centurion and Mary Magdalene. By remembering the stories of Jesus' birth, death and resurrection, believers see the lives He touched then and continues to touch today.

In this paean to the wild lands of the American West, Paul Gruchow celebrates the intrinsic value of places that resist human exploitation. Whether he's rambling through the Minnesota Blue Mounds, spying on migrating cranes in the Nebraska sandhills, lumbering along the Oregon Trail in an old-fashioned wagon train, contemplating the "unearthly spires" of the Dakota Badlands, clambering up Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains, or getting lost in Montana's Beartooth range, Gruchow is an ideal companion, a writer who makes the quirks and curiosities of the natural world come alive.

Fresh from her critically acclaimed international tour, America's premier preformance artist has re-created her startling new work in a lavishly illustrated book. Empty Places includes the complete text of that performance, as well as all the songs on her tie-in album Strange Angels, comedic monologues and 200 dazzling photographs.

"This volume began life as a conference on 'Empty Spaces' held at the Institute of Historical Research in London in 2015"--Page vii.