The Merchant And The Thief

Mohan is a poor man who sells fruit door to door. Raj is a rich man who inherited his family’s jewelry business. Mohan knows that Raj is rich, and he decides to steal the jewelry the next time Raj takes his yearly journey. What Mohan doesn’t know is that he will receive treasure, but not the kind that can be carried in a bag or kept under a pillow. In The Merchant and the Thief, Ravi Zacharias takes a clever ancient Indian folk tale and weaves into it a timeless message children will not soon forget.

A classic, prescient work dealing with myth and cult which traces the evolution of Hermes from sacred stoneheap and phallus to Homeric Hymn to Hermes and the Hesiodic poems.

The focus of this text is on the clinical aspects of pastoral psychotherapy—that is, those psychological understandings and approaches that provide the pastor, however he or she is defined, with the skills to understand the underlying dynamics of specific behavioral disorders people bring to them, as well as the art of working with and reeducating those in distress as to healthier, less self-defeating choices they can make in life. In this work, the personality theory, understanding of the dynamics of problematic behaviors, and therapy approach selected as the foundation for pastoral psychotherapy is the school of psychological thought of Alfred Adier. The text is divided into four parts. In Chapters 1-3, the basic principles of Individual Psychology are presented, introducing the pastor to the teleological system of Adier. Additional, the explanations of the dynamics of pathological are presented, with disorders ranging from the minor to the major. Further presented are select, important processes in Individual Psycholo-gy’s method of psychotherapy. In Chapter 4, non-Adlerian approaches are discussed, affording the pastoral psychotherapist the option of expanding his or her repertoire of techniques if he or she feels comfortable employing them. Chapter 5 surveys areas of daily life that all people experience and encounter and presents spiritual understandings and guidance for the (pastor or) individual to use through his or her travels on this planet. Last, Chapter 6 offers a view and opinions as to what the next decade of pastoral psychotherapy may hold. The book will serve as a springboard for further investigation into the various areas covered. It will also assist pastors in their sacred task of spiritually and psychologically helping and healing the distressed.

Welcome to Stonewood. A large and wealthy city where thieves, thugs, and assassins lurk behind every shadow. The powerful Thieves Guild controls the underworld and only members are permitted to commit crimes within their city. This is the tale of Harcourt, a down-on-his-luck thief who desperately needs to gain a membership into the Guild. Jalanna, the love of his life has been scarred in a terrible fire and a priest claims he can heal her scars, but for a hefty price in gold. A near-impossible amount to acquire for a homeless thief without a Guild membership. Luck is not on the rogue's side as his goal slips further and further out of reach. Forces conspire against him. Then a chance encounter on a fateful night, could change Harcourt's life forever.

Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights, this book weaves together the gripping tale of a legendary smuggler, a cowardly prince, and a dangerous quest across the desert to find a legendary, magical lamp. Neither here nor there, but long ago . . . Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land—at the cost of sacrificing all jinn. With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan's oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie's past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything—her enemy, her magic, even her own past—is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality.

The historical literature of political deviance is sparse. This unusual work, chronicling the history of Jonathan Wild, represents an effort to come to terms with one of the more amazing characters of English social history. Wild was both part of the policy system in eighteenth-century England, and also one of the most adroit criminals of the age. In the 1720s, London suffered the worst crime waves in its history. Civic corruption took place on a staggering scale. The government's answer was to pay a bounty for the capture of robbers, thus creating a class of professional informers. Wild was applauded as the most efficient thief hunter and gang breaker in British society; but his own posse of thief catchers was basically a front behind which he was able to control the underground world, through a complex system of blackmail, perjury, and terror which the book details. All who opposed him were betrayed to the law, and in the struggle for power Wild sacrificed several hundred of his own people to the hangman. No one since his time, with the exception of Lavrenti Beria of the late Stalin era GPU so nearly succeeded in bringing the underworld under the control of one system of power. At one level, this is a biography of the world's first supercriminal. At another, it is a sociology of criminal behavior and its political consequences. Howson sheds fresh light, not only on a figure who has become famous in literature, but more important, on the entire structure of gang life. The book is written "as a "terrifying and fascinating study of a historical epoch; it also offers a completely fresh picture of the birth of modern organized-crime families as part of modern organized political systems.

Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights, this book weaves together the gripping tale of a legendary smuggler, a cowardly prince, and a dangerous quest across the desert to find a legendary, magical lamp. Neither here nor there, but long ago . . . Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land—at the cost of sacrificing all jinn. With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan's oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie's past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything—her enemy, her magic, even her own past—is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. “The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times “Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA Today DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.