Notes From The Tilt A Whirl

What is this World? What kind of place is it? “The round kind. The spinning kind. The moist kind. The inhabited kind. The kind with flamingos (real and artificial). The kind where water in the sky turns into beautifully symmetrical crystal flakes sculpted by artists unable to stop themselves (in both design and quantity). The kind of place with tiny, powerfully jawed mites assigned to the carpets to eat my dead skin as it flakes off . . . The kind with people who kill and people who love and people who do both . . . This world is beautiful but badly broken. “I love it as it is, because it is a story, and it isn’t stuck in one place. It is full of conflict and darkness like every good story, a world of surprises and questions to explore. And there’s someone behind it; there are uncomfortable answers to the hows and whys and whats. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through Him were all things made . . . Welcome to His poem. His play. His novel. Let the pages flick your thumbs.”

A poetic portrait of faith, futility, and the joy of this mortal life. In this astoundingly unique book, bestselling author N.D. Wilson reminds each of us that to truly live we must recognize that we are dying. Every second we create more of our past—more decisions, more breathing, more love and more loathing, all of it slides by into the gone as we race to grab at more moments, at more memories made and already fading. We are all authors, creators of our own pasts, of the books that will be our lives. We stare at the future or obsess about the present, but only the past has been set in stone, and we are the ones setting it. When we race across the wet concrete of time without purpose, without goals, without laughter and love and sacrifice, then we fail in our mortal moment. We race toward our inevitable ends without artistry and without beauty. All of us must pause and breathe. See the past, see your life as the fruit of providence and thousands of personal narratives. What led to you? You did not choose where to set your feet in time. You choose where to set them next. Then, we must see the future, not just to stare into the fog of distant years but to see the crystal choices as they race toward us in this sharp foreground we call the present. We stand in the now. God says create. Live. Choose. Shape the past. Etch your life in stone, and what you make will be forever.

Life is messy for each of us. But Jen Hatmaker reminds us that it's okay to admit that we're all in the same boat. Join New York Times bestselling author and honorary big sister Jen as she shares hilarious tales, shameless honesty, and unconditional hope for the woman who's forgotten her moxie. We will endure discouragement, heartbreak, failure, and suffering. All of us. And more than once. But we are the very same folks who can experience triumph, perseverance, joy, and rebirth. More than once. And in more than one category. And in more than one season. And that? That's moxie. Moxie reaches for laughter, for courage, for the deep and important truth that women are capable of weathering the storm. We are not victims, we are not weak, we are not a sad, defeated group of sob sisters. Yes, life is hard, but we are incredibly resilient. Of Mess and Moxie shines a light on Jen's own triumphs and tragedies into a sigh of relief for all normal, fierce women everywhere. Whether it's the time she drove to the wrong city for a fourth-grade field trip or the way she learned to truly forgive, she offers a reminder to those of us who sometimes hide in the car eating crackers that we do actually have the moxie to get back up and face our messes head-on. After all, this race is not a contest--there's enough abundance to go around. This book will give you the encouragement you need to remember that: Your mess is normal You are not in competition with your peers--your seat at the table is secure You have incredible gifts to offer Come alongside Jen as she teaches us that we can all choose to live undaunted and in the moment, no matter what the moments hold, and we really can lead vibrant, courageous, grace-filled lives.

Before he wrote the bestselling 100 Cupboards trilogy and Ashtown Burials series, N. D. Wilson delighted readers with his first unforgettable action-adventure story of survival. . . . Thomas Hammond has always lived next to Leepike Ridge, but he never imagined he might end up lost beneath it! The night Tom’s schoolteacher comes to dinner and asks Tom’s mother to marry him, Tom slips out of the house and escapes down a nearby stream on a floating slab of packing foam. The night and stars lull Tom to sleep, and when he wakes, he has ridden his foam raft all the way to the ridge, where the stream dives underground. Flung over rapids and tossed through chasms, Tom finally hits shore, sore but alive. What Tom finds under Leepike Ridge—a dog, a flashlight, a castaway, a tomb, and buried treasure—will answer questions he hadn’t known to ask, and change his life forever. Now, if only he can find his way home again. . . . In the grand tradition of Robinson Crusoe, Hatchet, and Tom Sawyer, N. D. Wilson’s first book for young readers is a remarkable adventure, a journey through the dark and back into the light. A New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing “This is a ripping good adventure yarn. . . . Here’s the perfect remedy for any summer that’s been disappointingly short on thrills.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, Starred “Wilson’s debut is a literate, sometimes humorous page-turner in the classic tradition. Well-read adventure lovers are in for a treat looking for echoes of The Odyssey and Tom Sawyer.”—Kirkus Reviews “Tom’s adventures have several literary ancestors, including Tom and Huck in the cave, and the inventive Swiss Family Robinson, but this is solidly set in the present, standing on its own with well-crafted suspense and fascinating survival detail. . . . [M]iddle-grade readers will also relish the physicality of the journey: underwater swims, tight passages, and rock climbing. . . . [An] appealing and easy-to-booktalk package.”—Booklist “Wilson sets the scene vividly, from Tom’s home to the labyrinth of tunnels and caverns under the mountain, and the central characters’ emotional lives develop both naturally and affectingly. [Readers] will appreciate both the fast-paced adventure and Tom’s determination to make the impossible journey back home.”—The Horn Book Magazine “Wilson’s rich imagination and his quirky characters are a true delight.”—School Library Journal

As Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, Gashmu and the enemies of Israel mocked him: "It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel..." (Neh. 6:6). Too many Christians building communities today take the taunts of every modern-day Gashmu seriously. Community is a buzzword, and it turns out there's a lot of bad advice about how to build one. In Gashmu Saith It, Douglas Wilson includes forty years of experience for Christians wanting to build robust communities without retreat or compromise on the foundation of the Gospel. This book is full of wisdom: Get calluses. Be loyal. Fight sin. Build walls on the outside and a church in the middle.

The bestselling and highly acclaimed 100 Cupboards series continues with its action-packed second book, Dandelion Fire. Perfect for readers who love Percy Jackson, the Unwanteds, and Beyonders! Henry has discovered that the 100 cupboard doors hidden behind his bedroom wall are actually portals to other worlds. Now he must go through the cupboards to find the truth about where he’s from and who his real parents are. Along the way, Henry is suddenly struck with a gift of magic—a magic that burns so brightly it attracts unwanted attention. As he discovers the strength of his new powers, he is chased by wizards and faeren and ultimately forced into battle with Nimiane, the evil witch-queen. And this time, the witch is not alone…. "A must-read series." —The Washington Post

There isn't much sun in the fun when a billionaire real estate tycoon is found murdered on the Tilt-A-Whirl at a seedy seaside amusement park in the otherwise quiet summer tourist town of Sea Haven. John Ceepak, a former MP just back from Iraq, has just joined the Sea Haven police department. The job offer came from an old army buddy who hoped to give Ceepak at least a summer's worth of rest and relaxation to help him forget the horrors of war. Instead, Ceepak will head up the murder investigation. He is partnered with Danny Boyle, a 24-year-old part-time summer cop who doesn't carry a gun and only works with the police by day so he has enough pocket money left over to play with his beach buddies at night. In the first novel in a new series written in the spirit of Carl Hiaasen's work, the Tilt-A-Whirl murder pushes Ceepak's deep sense of honor and integrity to the limits, as unexpected twists and turns keep the truth spinning wildly in every direction.

My Soft Response To The Wars is the debut poetry collection from Canadian Poetry Slam Champion, RC Weslowski. With a clown's eye and a trickster's lip these poems work to rewrite the trauma of childhood sexual abuse with the scissors of surrealism and absurdity. Love and how to survive its loss and transform it into something we can carry forward no matter how wretched, weird and ridiculous it may seem in the aftermath of betrayal is the driving principle in all these poems. Whether embracing faith through doubt in "Let's Not Get It Together" or covering himself in grease and blood in the inspirational "It Begins" to the feverish twin exhortations of "I've Been Thinking" and "There's No Fucking Time To Fucking Live" RC Weslowski asks us to follow him into the whirlwind and have whatever mule hair we have left to be blown back into our faces while looking our best in "Dead Horse Mascara." The poems in this collection invite you to ride the Tilt o Whirl backwards and find your own "P.N.E. Love Affair." Put a pair of diapers on the ass of your logic and allow it to shit itself and find the meaning beyond the meaning by reveling in the joy and sacrilege of these words.