"With its keen attention to the language and tactics of the church, Hall’s memoir is unique among the assortment of Scientology reports and exposés, offering insight into the certainties that its subjects gain." —The Nation In the secluded canyons of 1980s Hollywood, Sands Hall, a young woman from a literary family, strives to forge her own way as an artist. But instead, Hall finds herself increasingly drawn toward the certainty that Scientology appears to offer. Her time in the Church includes the secretive illness and death of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and the ascension of David Miscavige. In this compelling memoir, Hall reveals what drew her into the religion—with its intrigues and unique contemporary vision—and how she came to confront its darker sides and finally escape. "Some of the most penetrating, illuminating prose about how an educated and skeptical person could get so deeply into, and then struggle to escape, what everyone around her warned was a dangerous cult . . . brilliant." —The Underground Bunker "If it is Scientology's offer of a life with meaning that hauls her in . . . it is its approach to meaning that keeps her . . . Hall's fascination with this is palpable." —Camille Ralphs, The Times Literary Supplement

The complex bond and unspoken resentments between sisters . . . the aching search for home and connection and community . . . the ever-changing landscape of family and those who define it . . . Sands Hall weaves these powerful elements into a novel ripe with discovery and wonder. Set against the immutable backdrop of the American Southwest, Catching Heaven illuminates that quiet place in the heart where solitude embraces serenity and dreams meet possibility.

A mainstay of many college writing programs by the best-selling author of Catching Heaven. Sands Hall has developed these essays, stories and exercises during twenty-four years as a writing instructor and freelance editor.

An Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe has always longed for a sense of home. When she was a child, her family moved around frequently, often staying in barely habitable church attics and trailers, dangerous places for young Sasha. With little more to guide her than a passion for the thriving punk scene of the Pacific Northwest and a desire to live up to the responsibility of being the namesake of her beloved great-grandmother—a linguist who helped preserve her Indigenous language of Lushootseed—Sasha throws herself headlong into the world, determined to build a better future for herself and her people. Set against a backdrop of the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land and imbued with the universal spirit of punk, Red Paint is ultimately a story of the ways we learn to find our true selves while fighting for our right to claim a place of our own. Examining what it means to be vulnerable in love and in art, Sasha offers up an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas amplified by the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples. Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience, and, above all, the ability to heal.

"Believe me" may be the most commonly used phrase in Donald Trump's lexicon. Whether about building a wall or protecting the Christian heritage, the refrain is constant. And to the surprise of many, about 80% percent of white evangelicals have believed Trump-at least enough to help propel him into the White House. Historian John Fea is not surprised-and in Believe Me he explains how we have arrived at this unprecedented moment in American politics. An evangelical Christian himself, Fea argues that the embrace of Donald Trump is the logical outcome of a long-standing evangelical approach to public life defined by the politics of fear, the pursuit of worldly power, and a nostalgic longing for an American past. In the process, Fea challenges his fellow believers to replace fear with hope, the pursuit of power with humility, and nostalgia with history

Surveys the online social habits of American teens and analyzes the role technology and social media plays in their lives, examining common misconceptions about such topics as identity, privacy, danger, and bullying.

"What corporations fear most are consumers who ask questions. Naomi Klein offers us the arguments with which to take on the superbrands." Billy Bragg from the bookjacket.

As Jonathan Lethem put, Steve Erickson's journal of the last 18 months of the Trump Presidency "sears the page." Erickson, one of our finest novelists, has long been an astute political observer, and American Stutter, part political declaration, part humorous account of more personal matters, offers a particularly moving reminder of the democratic ideals that we are currently struggling to preserve. Written with wit, eloquence, and a controlled fury as event unfold, Erickson has left us with an essential record of our recent history, a book to be read with our collective breath held.* Steve Erickson is the author of ten novels and two books about American culture. For 12 years he was founding editor of the national literary journal Black Clock. Currently he is the film/television critic for Los Angeles magazine and a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Riverside. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters award, and the Lannan Lifetime Achievement award.

In the beginning, the World Wide Web was exciting and open to the point of anarchy, a vast and intimidating repository of unindexed confusion. Into this creative chaos came Google with its dazzling mission—"To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible"—and its much-quoted motto, "Don’t be evil." In this provocative book, Siva Vaidhyanathan examines the ways we have used and embraced Google—and the growing resistance to its expansion across the globe. He exposes the dark side of our Google fantasies, raising red flags about issues of intellectual property and the much-touted Google Book Search. He assesses Google’s global impact, particularly in China, and explains the insidious effect of Googlization on the way we think. Finally, Vaidhyanathan proposes the construction of an Internet ecosystem designed to benefit the whole world and keep one brilliant and powerful company from falling into the "evil" it pledged to avoid.

Bringing the worlds of neuroscience and social psychology together, this book examines the ethical problems involved in carrying out the required experiments on humans, the limitations of animal models, and the frightening implications of such research. It also explores the history of thought-control and shows how it exists around us.