Monsters and Miracles is the story of a complex and conflicted warrior for children and animals who changed the consciousness of a nation more than a century ago. As an animal advocate, I love the story of Henry Bergh, founder of the first animal protection society in America. It is simply a must-read for anyone interested in the humane movement and true American heroes. - Rory Freedman, author of Beg and co-author of Skinny Bitch Henry. Bergh is widely thought to have started the animal protection movement in America and now, thanks to Gary Kaskel's intelligent and compelling biography, we know how how this came to be. Kaskel paints a detailed and personal portrait of the man who taught us to respect animals. This is an important book that will be on the shelf for years to come-and it's a great read. - Elizabeth Hess, author of Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who would Be Human and Lost and Found. Kaskel has woven an urbane and atmospheric tale of New York and Europe in the mid-19th century and an aristocrat's passionate crusade not only to bring America forward on the subject of animal cruelty and children's rights but for meaning and purpose in his own life. - Andrew Gross, author of The Dark Tide and The Blue Zone

A collection of three short stories by the creators of AngryCuddles.com. Do Svidaniya, Sandwich! - In the wake of an outbreak of Zombie Sandwiches, the CIA sends an agent to Russia to work with the FSB on finding a way to fight back. The Perfect Crime - A unique hitman describes his method to a potential client looking to hire him for a corporate assassination. We Are Human - In an alternate earth where the spirit and human realms overlap, Jack goes on a killing spree...to save her sister's life.

--Selected for National Library Board’s READ! Singapore 2013-- What would you do if a tiny monster were to slip out from your sleeve one day? Or if the water in your water bottle suddenly turns into Ribena? And what if you find that you just can’t move, no matter how hard you try? Monsters, Miracles & Mayonnaise is a collection of short comic stories by drewscape, where tales of unexpected encounters with strange beings from another world sit alongside amusing anecdotes based on bewildering real-life encounters and childhood memories. Imaginative and whimsical, this collection will surprise and amuse even the most cynical reader.

Although it's probably the most important job many people will have, most of us enter parenthood seriously unprepared. Regardless of how much we believe we know, we raise our children pretty much by what feels like instinct, doing what our parents did or what we wish they had done. When a child veers off course, our parenting approach has to change. In her book From Monsters to Miracles: Parent-Driven Recovery Tools that Work author Anette Edens, PhD, shares her experience as a parent and psychologist helping families with children who have addictions. From Monsters to Miracles: Parent-Driven Recovery Tools that Work is a must-read for parents of substance-abusing teens. You'll learn how to maneuver through the chaos to create a harmonious family life. Even if your teen is not ready or willing to change, there is help and hope.

The figure of the monster in medieval culture functions as a vehicle for a range of intellectual and spiritual inquiries, from questions of language and representation to issues of moral, theological, and cultural value. Monstrosity is bound up with questions of body image and deformity, nature and knowledge, hybridity and horror. To explore a culture's attitudes to the monstrous is to comprehend one of its most important symbolic tools. The Monstrous Middle Ages looks at both the representation of literal monsters and the consumption and exploitation of monstrous metaphors in a wide variety of high and late-medieval cultural productions, from travel writings and mystical texts to sermons, manuscript illuminations and maps. Individual essays explore the ways in which monstrosity shaped the construction of gender and sexual identity, religious symbolism, and social prejudice in the Middle Ages. Reading the Middle Ages through its monsters provides an opportunity to view medieval culture from fresh perspectives. The Monstrous Middle Ages will be essential reading for anyone interested in the concept of monstrosity and its significance for both medieval cultural production and contemporary critical practice.

Deluxe Edition

This collection of essays examines medieval and early modern perceptions of the marvelous and the monstrous. The essays investigate the nature of those phenomena and how people of these periods experienced them and how they recreated that experience for others. The essays trace the development of representations of marvels and explicate individual incarnations of monster and miracles. They analyze the importance of marvelous difference in defining ethnic, racial, religious, class, and gender identities to ask what legacy the medieval confrontations with marvels left for the modern world. These excellent essays look at issues that have long perplexed readers, such as the meaning of marvels, and whether we can read them in earnest or whether they can be appreciated only as play. The different authors bring their expertise to the fore to discuss the development of thoughts on marvels from the classical tradition through the concept's development in the medieval and early modern tradition. This collection is essential reading for any analysis of the marvelous in these periods and the state of scholarship surrounding them.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People ∙ O: The Oprah Magazine ∙ Financial Times ∙ Kansas City Star ∙ BookPage ∙ Kirkus Reviews ∙ Publishers Weekly ∙ Booklist NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A stunner.”—Justin Cronin “It’s never the disasters you see coming that finally come to pass—it’s the ones you don’t expect at all,” says Julia, in this spellbinding novel of catastrophe and survival by a superb new writer. Luminous, suspenseful, unforgettable, The Age of Miracles tells the haunting and beautiful story of Julia and her family as they struggle to live in a time of extraordinary change. On an ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia awakes to discover that something has happened to the rotation of the earth. The days and nights are growing longer and longer; gravity is affected; the birds, the tides, human behavior, and cosmic rhythms are thrown into disarray. In a world that seems filled with danger and loss, Julia also must face surprising developments in herself, and in her personal world—divisions widening between her parents, strange behavior by her friends, the pain and vulnerability of first love, a growing sense of isolation, and a surprising, rebellious new strength. With crystalline prose and the indelible magic of a born storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker gives us a breathtaking portrait of people finding ways to go on in an ever-evolving world. “Gripping drama . . . flawlessly written; it could be the most assured debut by an American writer since Jennifer Egan’s Emerald City.”—The Denver Post “Pure magnificence.”—Nathan Englander “Provides solace with its wisdom, compassion, and elegance.”—Curtis Sittenfeld “Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more.

Based on the true story of a man who was slave to meth for twenty years, lived the violent lifestyle of a body guard for drug dealers, and served as yard captain for the Aryan Brotherhood while in prison. As a junior in high school, he tried meth for the first time and was instantly hooked on a substance that turned a loveable, hardworking athlete into a monster. Like the prodigal son who wound up in the pig pen, he found himself on the garbage heap of society before crying out to God. The Monster and the Miracle is the gripping story of a man trapped in drug addiction. His story demonstrates the possibility of escape from meth's enslavement through the power of Jesus Christ and shows the extravagant love God has for a hopeless sinner.

""The marvelous follows us always" - or so the Italian philosopher Francesco Patrizi asserted in 1587. The essays in this book collectively make the case that this assertion could be an epigraph for the Renaissance. For Wonder was a concept absolutely central to the early modern period. Encompassing both inquiry and astonishment, "wonder" indeed followed the Renaissance everywhere - into redefinitions of the mind, the body, art, literature, the known world. Often called the age of discovery, the Renaissance should also be seen as the age of the marvelous." "However, defining just what la maraviglia would have meant for Patrizi and his age is no small task." "This volume, then, seeks to explore early modern views of wonder and the marvelous by revealing the complexity of la maraviglia in the Renaissance."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved