The author describes his early years up until the age of ten, growing up on a Missouri farm and how he decided to be a writer.

For six decades, North American Mennonites have walked alongside African Independent Churches (AICs) as they have navigated their faith journey between the ancient traditions of the ancestors and the newer claims of Christ upon their lives. The story of these relationships is a fascinating pilgrimage in partnership, offering hope for a mutuality that slips the knots of colonialism and testifies to the unifying power of the Holy Spirit. Beginning with a historical overview by missiologist Wilbert R. Shenk, this volume contains the reflections of over fifty AIC and Mennonite colleagues concerning the significance and impact of this long-standing partnership. Their stories illustrate the disparate threads of a sixty-year experiment in shared endeavor, while offering insight into the history of the church and missions in Africa. This book is a powerful account of mutual learning, forgiveness, and growth. It is an excellent resource for lovers of story, students of post-colonialism and indigenous Christianity, and all those concerned with building relationships across cultural and racial divides.

"A compelling agricultural story skillfully told; environmentalists will eat it up." - Kirkus Reviews When Bob Quinn was a kid, a stranger at a county fair gave him a few kernels of an unusual grain. Little did he know, that grain would change his life. Years later, after finishing a PhD in plant biochemistry and returning to his family’s farm in Montana, Bob started experimenting with organic wheat. In the beginning, his concern wasn’t health or the environment; he just wanted to make a decent living and some chance encounters led him to organics. But as demand for organics grew, so too did Bob’s experiments. He discovered that through time-tested practices like cover cropping and crop rotation, he could produce successful yields—without pesticides. Regenerative organic farming allowed him to grow fruits and vegetables in cold, dry Montana, providing a source of local produce to families in his hometown. He even started producing his own renewable energy. And he learned that the grain he first tasted at the fair was actually a type of ancient wheat, one that was proven to lower inflammation rather than worsening it, as modern wheat does. Ultimately, Bob’s forays with organics turned into a multimillion dollar heirloom grain company, Kamut International. In Grain by Grain, Quinn and cowriter Liz Carlisle, author of Lentil Underground, show how his story can become the story of American agriculture. We don’t have to accept stagnating rural communities, degraded soil, or poor health. By following Bob’s example, we can grow a healthy future, grain by grain.

A dazzling, genre-defying novel in verse from the author Delia Owens says “tackles the absurdities, injustices, and corruption of a continent” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s novels and memoirs have received glowing praise from the likes of President Barack Obama, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, and NPR; he has been a finalist for the Man International Booker Prize and is annually tipped to win the Nobel Prize for Literature; and his books have sold tens of thousands of copies around the world. In his first attempt at the epic form, Ngũgĩ tells the story of the founding of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya, from a strongly feminist perspective. A verse narrative, blending folklore, mythology, adventure, and allegory, The Perfect Nine chronicles the efforts the Gĩkũyũ founders make to find partners for their ten beautiful daughters—called “The Perfect Nine” —and the challenges they set for the 99 suitors who seek their hands in marriage. The epic has all the elements of adventure, with suspense, danger, humor, and sacrifice. Ngũgĩ’s epic is a quest for the beautiful as an ideal of living, as the motive force behind migrations of African peoples. He notes, “The epic came to me one night as a revelation of ideals of quest, courage, perseverance, unity, family; and the sense of the divine, in human struggles with nature and nurture.”

This book is a lively exploration of the amazing revelation known to Mormons as the “Word of Wisdom.” It counsels us how and what we should eat to reach our highest potential, both physically and spiritually. New and surprising insights are presented through the perspective of what has been proven to be the healthiest human diet, a way of eating supported both by history and by science: a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) diet. WFPB vegetarian diets have been scientifically proven to both prevent and cure chronic disease, help you achieve your maximum physical potential, and make it easy to reach and maintain your ideal weight. In this book, you’ll find the stories of dozens of people who are enjoying the blessings of following a Word of Wisdom diet, and you’ll get concrete advice on how to get started! You will discover: What we should and should not eat to enjoy maximum physical health. How food is intimately connected to our spiritual well being. Why Latter-day Saints are succumbing to the same chronic diseases as the rest of the population, despite not smoking, drinking, or doing drugs. How the Word of Wisdom was designed specifically for our day. How you can receive the “hidden treasures” and other blessings promised in the Word of Wisdom. Why eating the foods God has ordained for our use is better not just for our bodies, but for the animals and for the earth. You may think you know what the Word of Wisdom says, but you’ll be amazed at what you have missed. Learn why Mormons all over the world are “waking up” to the Word of Wisdom!

An "incredibly timely" global history journeys from the Ukrainian steppe to the American prairie to show how grain built and toppled the world's largest empires (Financial Times). To understand the rise and fall of empires, we must follow the paths traveled by grain—along rivers, between ports, and across seas. In Oceans of Grain, historian Scott Reynolds Nelson reveals how the struggle to dominate these routes transformed the balance of world power. Early in the nineteenth century, imperial Russia fed much of Europe through the booming port of Odessa, on the Black Sea in Ukraine. But following the US Civil War, tons of American wheat began to flood across the Atlantic, and food prices plummeted. This cheap foreign grain spurred the rise of Germany and Italy, the decline of the Habsburgs and the Ottomans, and the European scramble for empire. It was a crucial factor in the outbreak of the First World War and the Russian Revolution. A powerful new interpretation, Oceans of Grain shows that amid the great powers’ rivalries, there was no greater power than control of grain.

A Pollan-esque look at the truth about wheat, with surprising insights on the advantages of eating the world’s most contested grain You owe it to your mind and body to step away from the gluten-free frenzy long enough to do what’s best for your own personal health. Once you separate fad from fact you’ll quickly discover the answer: whole grains, including wheat. Most recently, a Harvard School of Public Health long-term study that followed 117, 500 men and women over a 25-year span revealed that people who eat a whole grain-rich diet lower their risk of cardiovascular disease by 20 percent, and increase their lifespan at least 6 percent. No other food produces similar results. As for the gluten found in wheat, rye and barley—at most six out of a hundred of us have any real problem with it, and less than one percent of us, with celiac disease, cannot tolerate it in any form. So why has wheat become the new asbestos? Why are the shelves of every grocery store and supermarket in America heaped high with gluten-free products? That’s what Stephen Yafa sets out to discover in Grain of Truth—a book drawn in part from personal experience that is as entertaining as it is informative. After hundreds of interviews with food scientists, gluten-sensitive individuals, bakers, nutritionists, gastroenterologists and others, he finds that indeed there is indeed a culprit. But it’s not wheat. It’s not gluten. It’s the way that grain is milled and processed by large industrial manufacturers and bakeries. That discovery spurs him to search out growers, millers and bakers who deliver whole wheat to us the way it was meant to be: naturally fermented, with all parts, bran, germ, and white endosperm intact. Yafa finds a thriving local grain movement gaining strength across the country, much as the organic movement did a few decades back. And as he apprentices with local artisan bakers and make his own sourdough breads at home he learns something that few of us know: naturally fermented over two days, as opposed to four hours in commercial bakeries, whole wheat is easily digested by the vast majority of us, including many who consider themselves gluten-sensitive. The long fermentation processing method breaks down these bulky gluten proteins into tiny fragments while slowing the conversion rate of starch to sugar in our bloodstream. Along the way Grain of Truth challenges many common myths. Yafa shows us the science that proves a gluten-free diet doesn’t lead to weight loss and that it isn't healthier in any way. He counters common assumptions that modern wheat has been genetically manipulated to contain more gluten, and he point out that despite much web chatter to the contrary, there is no GMO wheat. Those are only some of the reasons that Grain of Truth offers a badly needed fact-based response to anti-wheat hysteria. It also offers an ingredient in short supply these days—common sense, measured out with just enough savvy and substance to make you reconsider what's best for you—and to help you find a healthy answer in real, delicious food. For readers of Salt Sugar Fat and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Grain of Truth smoothly blends science, history, biology, economics, and nutrition to give us back our daily bread.

Includes a sneak peek of Undoctored—the new book from Dr. Davis! In this #1 New York Times bestseller, a renowned cardiologist explains how eliminating wheat from our diets can prevent fat storage, shrink unsightly bulges, and reverse myriad health problems. Every day, over 200 million Americans consume food products made of wheat. As a result, over 100 million of them experience some form of adverse health effect, ranging from minor rashes and high blood sugar to the unattractive stomach bulges that preventive cardiologist William Davis calls "wheat bellies." According to Davis, that excess fat has nothing to do with gluttony, sloth, or too much butter: It's due to the whole grain wraps we eat for lunch. After witnessing over 2,000 patients regain their health after giving up wheat, Davis reached the disturbing conclusion that wheat is the single largest contributor to the nationwide obesity epidemic—and its elimination is key to dramatic weight loss and optimal health. In Wheat Belly, Davis exposes the harmful effects of what is actually a product of genetic tinkering and agribusiness being sold to the American public as "wheat"—and provides readers with a user-friendly, step-by-step plan to navigate a new, wheat-free lifestyle. Informed by cutting-edge science and nutrition, along with case studies from men and women who have experienced life-changing transformations in their health after waving goodbye to wheat, Wheat Belly is an illuminating look at what is truly making Americans sick and an action plan to clear our plates of this seemingly benign ingredient.