A fresh exploration of ten of Jesus’ stories through the lives of real people living today. Author Michelle Van Loon grappled with what it means to live a believer’s life and found the answers through the people she met on the streets, in art galleries and coffee houses.

A contemporary retelling of ten of Jesus’s parables. The second in author Michelle Van Loon’s series (Parable Life, FaithWalk 2005) that share the parables as told in the Bible and then retells the same parable through the stories of real life people living today. Thoughts and questions are included in each chapter to help readers connect with God while sparking dialogue with others. A powerful look at the process of spiritual growth, not as a “how to” but as a “why to.”

Ugandan Mary Tendo worked for many years in the white middle-class Henman household in London, cleaning for Vanessa and looking after her only child, Justin. More than ten years after Mary has left, Justin - now twenty-two - is too depressed to get out of bed. To his mother's surprise, he asks for Mary. When Mary responds to Vanessa's cry for help and returns from Uganda to look after Justin, the balance of power in the house shifts dramatically. Both women's lives change irrevocably as tensions build towards a climax on a snowbound motorway. 'Beautifully observed, intelligent and moving ... a carefully wrapped surprise that gets better and better with the unravelling.' The Scotsman 'A moving, funny, engrossing book.' The Observer 'Gee satirises the liberal conscience of the chattering classes with uncomfortable perception in this hugely enjoyable novel ... her portrayal of Britain's new underclass of immigrant workers is presented with her trademark stinging clarity.' Metro 'Maggie Gee is a superb and pitiless analyser of middleclass angst. Elegant, humorous and surprising, this is a classy performance.' The Times 'It's amazing how many details, characters, stories within stories, Maggie Gee's unquenchable exuberance crams into this comparatively short book.' The Spectator An intelligent and satisfying read.' The Sunday Times 'A masterful study in Africa/UK relations which manages to be supremely uncomfortable without being cynical, and clever without being calculating.' Big Issue 'The Flood was chillingly predictive. My Cleaner is a calmer, happier novel. Yet a gnawing tragedy lies in the shadows, all the more poignant for the deftness with which it's brushed aside.' The Independent

Celebrating the joyous art of being a mother, MOMumental offers an inspiring, honest, and infectiously humorous look at the perils and pleasures of raising a family in the real world. Once a devout believer in the myth of the perfect mother, author Jennifer Grant now has a more realistic yet still upbeat view of parenting and families. Instead of focusing on creating a conflict-free home, raising picture-perfect kids, and being an ideal mother, Grant offers a wiser and more down-to-earth way to love your children that makes room for mistakes and imperfections. She says, "I share stories about family life and how I've come to appreciate the mess of it. I am grateful for my own happy, idiosyncratic, and imperfect family." MOMumental is one mother's account of the unpredictable, creative, sometimes hilarious, and always rewarding process of raising a family. It's filled with funny and poignant stories from her everyday life-a life that mothers everywhere can identify with. MOMumental is a book about parenting, family, and intentional relationships for readers who normally avoid such fare like an overzealous street evangelist. (Raises hand.) Its wit and wisdom completely enraptured me. A delightful and surprising gift to us all. Cathleen Falsani award-winning journalist and author

Tamara Park and a couple of friends flew to Rome and from there followed the footsteps of Helena, mother of the first Christian emperor of ancient Rome, on a meandering path to Jerusalem. Along the way, she sat on all sorts of benches and talked with all sorts of people about how they thought of God. This book is that story.

The parables of Jesus seem designed to sneak up on us and upend our assumptions. The familiar takes an unexpected turn and the listener's secret thoughts are exposed. In these twelve-session LifeGuide® Bible Study, John White invites us to lend an ear to thes greatest stories ever told—stories with power to reveal us to ourselves.

The intellectual relationship between Henry James and his father, who was a philosopher and theologian, proved to be an influential resource for the novelist. Andrew Taylor explores how James's writing responds to James Senior's epistemological, thematic and narrative concerns, and relocates these concerns in a more secularised and cosmopolitan cultural milieu. Taylor examines the nature of both men's engagement with autobiographical strategies, issues of gender reform, and the language of religion. He argues for a reading of Henry James that is informed by an awareness of paternal inheritance. Taylor's study reveals the complex and at times antagonistic dialogue between the elder James and his peers, particularly Emerson and Whitman, in the vanguard of mid nineteenth-century American Romanticism. Through close readings of a wide range of novels and texts, he demonstrates how this dialogue anticipates James's own theories of fiction and selfhood.

Wyatt Underwood writes poems about the world he loves and has loved: the desert, the mountains, the forest, the beach, and sometimes the city - oh, and about women. He writes in a tradition he thinks of as Southwestern although it has roots in classical poetry as well. Come sample his poems or read the whole book. Perhaps you'll savor the humanity and the solitude in the poems.