If These Walls Could Speak

If the Walls Could Speak focuses on the lives of women in prison in postwar communist Poland and how they took on different roles and personalities to protect themselves and create a semblance of normality, despite abuses and prison confinement, and reveals how life in a Stalinist prison adds to our understanding of coercion and resistance under totalitarian regimes. (source : éditeur).

Philadelphia's community muralism movement is transforming the City of Brotherly Love into the Mural Capital of the World. This remarkable groundswell of public art includes some 3,500 wall-sized canvases: On warehouses and on schools, on mosques and in jails, in courthouses and along overpasses. In If These Walls Could Talk, Maureen O'Connell explores the theological and social significance of the movement. She calls attention to some of the most startling and powerful works it has produced and describes the narratives behind them. In doing so, O'Connell illustrates the ways that the arts can help us think about and work through the seemingly inescapable problems of urban poverty and arrive at responses that are both creative and effective. This is a book on American religion. It incorporates ethnography to explore faith communities that have used larger-than-life religious imagery to proclaim in unprecedented public ways their self-understandings, memories of the past, and visions of the future. It also examines the way this art functions in larger public discourse about problems facing every city in America. But If These Walls Could Talk is also theological text. It considers the theological implications of this most democratic expression of public art, mindful of the three components of every mural: the pieces themselves, those who create them, and those who interpret them. It illuminates a kind of beauty that seeks after social change or, in other words, the largely unexplored relationship between theological aesthetics and ethics.

It’s a beautiful, clear spring day, and soon the cherry blossoms will fall from the trees and blanket the ground like snow. This season promises to be extraordinary, but it won’t be the same without Da, who passed away at Christmastime. Finn O’Brine stares out the window, taking it all in. He can’t believe his father will never spend time with him again. And he can’t believe there’s a bat at his window—talking to him. Before his death, Mr. O’Brine told Finn many stories about colossal dragons, sorcery, and the magic of Wickum Mannor in Ireland—but they couldn’t possibly be real, right? Wrong! Magic runs in the O’Brine family; it’s part of their heritage. Now thirteen, Finn will begin to show signs of his magical inheritance any day now. It’s time for Finn; his twin sister, Neave; his younger brother, Jack; and his mother, Ailish, to leave the comfort of their home in America and journey to Wickum Manor themselves. They expect a summerlong adventure, but the O’Brine children may not be as ready as they think. With all the fantastic things to experience and discover on the four-hundred-acre estate, will Finn want to enroll at the magical Wickum Academy, or will he choose to return to his friends and classes in America at summer’s end?

What if the walls of our homes could talk? What stories would they tell about the people they've sheltered over the years?The house on the corner of Third and Oak in a small Nebraska town has some stories to tell. Six families have lived there. They experienced wars, illness, death, racism. But also many happy times: babies born, holidays celebrated, times together with family and friends. Some loved living there, others not so much. But for a little piece of time, each family called that place home. Here are their stories.

Led by stars like Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, and Brent Seabrook, the Chicago Blackhawks are a modern NHL powerhouse, as much a part of Chicago as the Willis Tower or The Bean at Millennium Park. In If These Walls Could Talk: Chicago Blackhawks, Mark Lazerus chronicles the team's rise from the dark ages of the 2000s to the golden age of the 2010s through never-before-told stories from inside the dressing room, aboard the team plane, at the players' homes, and — especially in the case of the rowdy 2009-2010 team that started it all — in countless Chicago bars. If These Walls Could Talk: Chicago Blackhawks will bring readers closer to their favorite players than ever before. It's a book Hawks fans won't want to be without.

Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did Samuel Pepys never give his mistresses an orgasm? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two 'dirty centuries'? Why did gas lighting cause Victorian ladies to faint? Why, for centuries, did people fear fruit? All these questions - and more - are answered in this juicy, truly intimate history of the home. Through the bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen, Lucy Worsley explores what people actually did in bed, in the bath, at the table, and at the stove. From sauce-stirring to breast-feeding, teeth-cleaning to masturbation, getting dressed to getting married, this book will make you see your home with new eyes.

Now fully revised and updated for 2023! Chronicling the Brewers from the Suds Series of 1982 to the MVP season of Christian Yelich in 2018, and from Bambi's Bombers of the late '70s to Harvey's Wallbangers of the early '80s, Bill Schroeder, a longtime Brewers color commentator and former Brewers catcher, provides insight into the Brewers inner sanctum as only he can. Read about what goes on in the equipment and training rooms, how batting practice can be chaotic, what it's like to travel with the team, and off-the-wall anecdotes, like the time Steve Sparks injured his shoulder trying to rip a phone book in half after listening to a motivational speaker.

Richard Wurmbrand, a Romanian pastor, was tortured and imprisoned for a total of 14 years by Communists for his Christian faith. The sermons in this book are glimpses into how torture and isolation affect the Christian's mind and faith.