Not For Saints

A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST "Brilliant, honest, and equal parts heartbreaking and soul-healing." --Laurie Halse Anderson, author of SHOUT "A singular voice in the world of literature." --Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down A powerful coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino-American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin's murder. Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story. Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it. As gripping as it is lyrical, Patron Saints of Nothing is a page-turning portrayal of the struggle to reconcile faith, family, and immigrant identity.

Few things bring more happiness than those we achieve with our determination and self-control, when we lose weight, when we quit a bad habit, if we had a dependence on drugs and we are cleaned now, or if we were alcoholic and we overcome this weakness, we get a sense of real accomplishment like no other, because is indeed a monster we have defeated, “our own mind”, this mind guide me through all my life with many mistaken decisions, but I have woken up to the realization that I needed to change, is in our mind the root of all our problems and very little we do to remediate, because of the order we prioritize things we put our minds on autopilot, thinking we don’t need to feed it anymore, but is in there where the secret to very real and permanent changes is hidden, we tend to exaggerate our problems whatever they are and expand them to make others feel sympathy for us, we need so much attention and this is one reason social media is so successful, many different state of minds, depressions and erratic behaviors this is why many jobs can be problematic despite of how great the work environment might be; behind this display of tough or toxic personalities we are in reality very lonely and fragile, there is no doubt we need to change for the people we love, because usually they are always the ones we hurt the most, the great majority of us have a good personality but we mostly reflect on the outside what our present emotions dictate, our minds fly away with so many worries, anxieties, frustrated desires and dreams, and little do we realize is just a decision, a mental attitude, we want the world to be miserable and in line with our mental state, many just become absent their mind is always somewhere distance, a reaction to a frustrated desire or our rejection to the present reality, but in this equation there is a factor that plays a major role in everything we do “our spirit”, this spirit will always be hungry and whatever we feed it, will have serious consequences in our entire existence, present and distance. I apologize for using my personal life as an example in many situations is not to be vain but to help others learn from my mistakes. This book is a little of my personal experience my small token, I’m not a professional nor a religious expert but my personal view from the perspective of a simple man, I have changed many things in my life, I’m always working on some others I still need to change every day, but now I’m aware of this fierce battle within, I take one day at a time, there are some days I lose this battle but I don’t allow this defeats to take over my life, I get up the next day with a will to fight to be better and not just for me anymore but for my creator, for my family and because this world needs so much change, and since we can’t change the world, if we individually change, we will create a chain reaction, if we change, others will change too, our love ones might get the very best version of you and when we feed the spirit properly we will never feel lonely anymore; as with many self-help, spiritual books take only the things that might help you even if you only find something small, a little knowledge may go a long way, my mother always told me, even from the ignorant you can learn something, and in this case, the ignorant is me, take this humble message from my mother and perhaps here you might find something to set you truly free; this book is spiritual but even if you disagree with some things, disregard them and continue, I don’t want to change your mind, I want to change your heart, open your heart; among the pages here you might find be the answer you were looking for, you might find a word to gain strength and a word to stand firm through the hurricanes and tornados of life; you might find some things I mention more than once but I truly believe they are important, nothing is new just a reminder that I wish you will never forget.

One of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year Winner of the Christopher Award Winner of the Catholic Press Association Book Award WITTY, WRYLY HONEST, AND ALWAYS ORIGINAL, My Life with the Saints is James Martin’s story of how his life has been shaped by some surprising friends—the saints of the Catholic Church. In his modern classic memoir, Martin introduces us to saints throughout history—from St. Peter to Dorothy Day, St. Francis of Assisi to Mother Teresa—and chronicles his lifelong friendships with them. Filled with fascinating tales, Martin’s funny, vibrant, and stirring book invites readers to discover how saints guide us throughout our earthly journeys and how they help each of us find holiness in our own lives. Featuring a new chapter from Martin, this tenth-anniversary edition of the best-selling memoir updates readers about his life over the past ten years. In that time, he has been a New York Times best-selling author, official chaplain of The Colbert Report, and a welcome presence in the media whenever there’s a breaking Catholic news story. But he has always remained recognizably himself. John L. Allen, Jr., the acclaimed Catholic journalist, contributes a foreword that shows how Martin has become one of the wisest and most insightful voices of this era. “An outstanding and often hilarious memoir.” —Publishers Weekly“One of the best spiritual memoirs in years.” —Robert Ellsberg“Remarkably engaging.” —U.S. Catholic“Martin’s final word is as Jungian as it is Catholic: God does not want us to be Mother Teresa or Dorothy Day. God wants us to be most fully ourselves.” —The Washington Post Book World

This dystopian tale from Robert Hugh Benson offers a unique spiritual twist on typical end-of-the-world narratives: in Benson's imagined future, it's the Catholic Church that offers the only respite from encroaching doom. Whatever your religious beliefs may be, Lord of the World is a gripping must-read for fans of novels like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984.

WINNER OF THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD “Juju assassins, alternate history, a gritty New York crime story...in a word: awesome.” —N.K. Jemisin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fifth Season The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in Alaya Dawn Johnson's timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City, where an assassin falls in love and tries to change her fate at the dawn of World War II. Amid the whir of city life, a young woman from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to use her knives to strike fear among its most dangerous denizens. Ten years later, Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything—not just her own past, and Dev, the man she loved, but even her own dreams. Still, the ghosts from her past are always by her side—and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she keeps in her heart. And so Phyllis will have to make a harrowing choice, before it’s too late—is there ever enough blood in the world to wash clean generations of injustice? Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel—a magical love story, a compelling exposure of racial fault lines—and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

What if the annoying person you try to avoid is actually an accidental saint in your life? What if, even in our failings, holy moments are waiting to happen? Nadia Bolz-Weber demonstrates what happens when ordinary people meet to explore the Christian faith. Their faltering steps towards wholeness will ring true for believer and sceptic alike.

"A powerful report of the experiences of a physician living and practicing medicine in the inner city ... A deeply disturbing picture of the degradation of ghetto life and a painfully honest account of one man's attempt to do something about it." - Kirkus Reviews

"God helps those who help themselves." - The Bible? "Preach the gospel always; when necessary, use words." - St. Francis of Assisi? Sayings like these are such a part of modern pious tradition that we assume they come from the Bible, the mouths of saints, or the pens of famous Christian writers. In What the Saints Never Said, apologist Trent Horn takes over forty of these well-known but dubious sayings and attempts to track them to their true source. In so doing he finds some that are close to what was really said, many that were mis-attributed or twisted beyond their original meaning, and more than a few that were just plain made up! Trent Horn sets the record straight,