Loving Arms

Loving Arms examines the war-related writings of five British women whose works explore the connections among gender, war, and story-telling. While not the first study to relate the subjects of gender and war, it is the first within a growing body of criticism to focus specifically on British culture during and after World War II. Evoking the famous "St. Crispin's Day" speech from Henry V and then her own father's account of being moved to tears on V-J Day because he had been too young to fight, Karen Schneider posits that the war story has a far-reaching potency. She admits -- perhaps for all of us -- that such stories "had powerfully shaped my consciousness in ways I could not completely resist." How a story is narrated and by whom are matters of no small importance. As widely defined and accepted, war stories are men's stories. If we are to hear an "other" story of war, then we must listen to the stories women tell. Many of the war stories written by women insist that war is not the condition of men but rather the condition of humanity, beginning with relations between the sexes. For the five women whose work is examined in Loving Arms -- Stevie Smith, Katharine Burdekin, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, and Doris Lessing -- this latter point was particularly relevant. Their positions as women within a patriarchal, militarist culture that was externally threatened by an overtly fascist one led to an acute ambivalence, says Schneider. Though all five women perceived the war from substantially different perspectives, each in her own way exposed and critiqued the seductive power of war and war stories, with their densely interwoven tropes of masculinity and nationalism. Yet these writers' conflicting impulses of loyalty to England and resistance to the war betray their ambivalence. Loving Arms will interest students of twentieth-century British literature and culture, gender studies, and narratology. Even today, we maintain an unabated love affair with the war story. But unless we listen to what the women had to say fifty years ago, we are doomed to hear only "the same old story."

Willamina, or Billie as everyone called her, was a young black woman who could be somewhat messy. The only constant in her life besides her family was the Loving Arms Inn. It was operated by her great aunt and uncle, except during the month of July, when Billie and her family would leave the city and take over running the Inn while her aunt and uncle took a much needed vacation. An incident at the Inn when Billie was six, made her question if she could have seen a ghost. Chocking it up to a little girl’s wild imagination by everyone, she puts it in the back of her mind. Years later, after a very public break-up, Billie decides to leave the city for good and start fresh at the place she loves most. The Loving Arms Inn. There she has a second hilarious reencounter with the ghost she saw as a child. Her life is still messy, but she is determined to get back on tract, until she stumbles over a body. This lighthearted story will have you in suspense while laughing out loud.

Dear Mama's Loving Arms is a touching story about the importance of a mother's embrace and the joy it brings to children, told from the witty perspective of a child. This book is a reminder to all mothers to stop and enjoy the bond we share with our children even when it is most challenging, like those days where all the baby wants is to be held. Despite longing for Dear Mama's embrace, Baby learns to defeat the big, bad daily nap time separation by joining Dear Mama in adventurous safari dreams inspired by Baby's stuffed giraffe pal, Raffie.

A retelling of Bible stories illustrating God's relationship with his people through the history of Israel, the ministry of Jesus, and the early church.

Where Love Grows is an abundantly thorough example of the experience of illness and journey through grief within metastatic breast cancer. It is the authors own personal account of the five stages of grief and how they emerged as unique emotions that are both normal and common to experience when faced with a life-threatening illness. It is through these extreme circumstances that one can become exacerbated with acute grief and the dark journey it takes us through. If you are having a difficult time coping with your own breast cancer diagnosis and related grief, Where Love Grows is a must-read!