Slow Samson

Everyone likes Samson the sloth, and he gets lots of invitations to parties. The problem is that he's far too slow to ever get there on time. When Samson finally makes it to the celebration the cake is eaten and the party games are finished. Luckily Samson's resourceful friends have a plan!

“I was twenty-three and I had set off for Asia to become a writer, intrigued by lurid tales of booms, busts, drugs, sex, violence, magic. There was a wicked sorcery in Asia, in the economic profligacy of the early nineties, in the way financiers and businessmen took a rapidly wiring and developing continent and looted billions, like a titanic parlor trick converting all that wealth into abandoned office complexes and half-completed shopping malls. . . . I wanted it all—the money, the sex, the drugs. And to this day I believe that if I am honest with myself, despite all I have learned the hard way over the past decade, I would still want it all again, the fucking and the getting loaded and the scheming to get enough money to pay for that life.” In the late 1980s, not long out of college, Karl Taro Greenfeld found himself stranded in New York, a failed writer before his career had even begun. His Jewish-American father angrily cut off support; his Japanese mother suggested he go to Japan to teach English. He did, accepting a job with no more promise than he’d had before. But he stayed in Asia for the next several years, working his way through a series of journalistic posts, watching a culture erupt before his eyes and facing his own demons. Through a series of vividly imagistic stories that range from the rigidly journalistic to the deeply intimate, Standard Deviations recounts Greenfeld’s experiences—both professional and personal—during Asia’s wild ride at the end of the twentieth century. Whether drinking Japanese cough syrup to get high with other Western expatriates, visiting a free-sex ashram in Bombay, or watching a former high school pal self-destruct as an equity analyst in Jakarta, Greenfeld evokes the spirit of a continent in flux at an explosive “bubble” economy’s end—and a man confronting his own identity and aspirations. Raunchy, insightful, eloquent and moving, Standard Deviations is an uncompromising work of cultural observation and self-exploration.

“You are a man who has vowed to protect his family, even at the cost of your own life. So you have no other choice. . . . You must fight, Samson. You must.” The year is 1941, and Samson Abrams makes a life-or-death decision that lands him, and his entire family, in the notorious concentration camp Auschwitz. When Samson is recognized by Dr. Josef Mengele and Commandant Rudolf Höss as a former boxing champion, he is ordered box for their entertainment. A win means extra rations, but the penalty for losing is death in the gas chambers. One question haunts Samson as he and his family face one atrocity after another: Where is God in the face of such evil? An unexpected friendship between the Jewish Samson and the Polish Catholic priest Maximilian Kolbe challenges Samson to examine what little is left of his faith, but will it give him strength when he needs it most? Based on true stories, Samson: A Savior Will Rise blends Shawn Hoffman’s thorough research with a compelling narrative that provokes questions about faith, hope, and love.

In 1889 a gold rush broke out on the Witwatersrand, changing South Africa's history forever. More than 130 years later the mining industry is still one of the biggest drivers of the economy, but at the expense of those who work underground. Broke & Broken is the story of the thousands of men from South Africa and beyond its borders who paid with their lives for generations. These are men who left their homes as healthy, ambitious youngsters and returned broke, broken and bitter; victims of the shameful legacy of gold mining. The book seeks to say the names of the mineworkers who have built this country's economy, because their own stories and their own spirits need to be magnified. The precious stone they spent most of their lives digging brought no shine to their lives - only pain, tears and death.

In an effort to protect her child from the harsh realities of her impending death, Mary pours her heart into a diary, her legacy to her challenged ten-year-old son, Samson. After her passing, the grief-stricken child writes longingly to his lost momma, in the hopes that his fervent words might reach her in the great beyond. Born with extraordinary powers found only in the primate world, he is a mystery to the medical world. His doctors know of a progressive tumor on his thyroid, but even that can t explain his gigantism. At ten, he is 6 9 and weighs 175 pounds. Nora, his devoted nanny, loves him as if he was her own flesh and blood, and she does her best to encourage the boy. When his mental abilities also begin to grow beyond expectations, only his father believes that it is the work of Mary, his dead wife. At sixteen, 7 6, and 275 pounds, he s on the verge of harnessing his true potential. Soon, he s on his way to glory in professional sports and folk-hero status, but there s a powerful emptiness to his life. Tragedy follows him everywhere. He continues to write to his momma, desperate to know why he keeps losing the ones he loves. At nineteen, undaunted by his doctor s fears that physical exertion will kill him, he experiences a mystical transformation, with his momma and a phalanx of angels to guide him. When his body betrays him, can they or should they save him?"

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