In this lively and intellectually engaging book, Galit Hasan-Rokem shows that religion is shaped not only in the halls of theological disputation and institutions of divine study, but also in ordinary events of everyday life. Common aspects of human relations offer a major source for the symbols of religious texts and rituals of late antique Judaism as well as its partner in narrative dialogues, early Christianity, Hasan-Rokem argues. Focusing on the "neighborhood" of the Galilee that is the birthplace of many major religious and cultural developments, this book brings to life the riddles, parables, and folktales passed down in Rabbinic stories from the first half of the first millennium of the Common Era.

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Do ghosts really exist, or is "ghostly phenomena" just strange stuff that gets blamed on dead people? Giving you the real story, professional ghostbuster and skeptic Adam Selzer of Weird Chicago Tours delves into a mysterious death at a former funeral parlor, nightly ghost sightings at Hull House, and more. Proving that not all ghost hunters are kooks (some are just geeks gone wild), Selzer showcases true spooky tales worldwide, a history of hauntings, the art of ghost hunting, and cool evidence of paranormal phenomena and the supernatural. These ghost stories will make you want to investigate that cemetery down the road to see if it's haunted—or just dark and creepy.

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE A thrilling tale of desire and Peruvian corruption swirls around a scandalous exposé that leads to murder From the Nobel Laureate comes a politically charged detective novel weaving through the underbelly of Peruvian privilege. In the 1990s, during the turbulent and deeply corrupt years of Alberto Fujimori’s presidency, two wealthy couples of Lima’s high society become embroiled in a disturbing vortex of erotic adventures and politically driven blackmail. One day Enrique, a high-profile businessman, receives a visit from Rolando Garro, the editor of a notorious magazine that specializes in salacious exposés. Garro presents Enrique with lewd pictures from an old business trip and demands that he invest in the magazine. Enrique refuses, and the next day the pictures are on the front page. Meanwhile, Enrique’s wife is in the midst of a passionate and secret affair with the wife of Enrique’s lawyer and best friend. When Garro shows up murdered, the two couples are thrown into a whirlwind of navigating Peru’s unspoken laws and customs, while the staff of the magazine embark on their greatest exposé yet. Ironic and sensual, provocative and redemptive, the novel swirls into the kind of restless realism that has become Mario Vargas Llosa’s signature style. A twisting, unpredictable tale, The Neighborhood is at once a scathing indictment of Fujimori’s regime and a crime thriller that evokes the vulgarity of freedom in a corrupt system.

Tippy the neighborhood dog loves helping Farmer John. But even when he is chasing cattle, Tippy is lonely. One day while Tippy is herding cattle into their pen, he hears a strange noise. After his curiosity leads him to investigate, Tippy finds all sorts of fun and learns that it is perfectly okay for a dog to have more than one home. Tippy Tales shares the charming tale of a neighborhood dog who becomes a part of every family he visits.

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and text highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! Join Malik's search for his neighbor's lost dog! He's helping to find Buddy by looking everywhere in his neighborhood—from the park to the coffee shop. Along the way, see the people and places that make up a neighborhood. How is Malik's neighborhood different from or similar to the place where you live? Oh, and look carefully—Buddy might be hiding in plain sight!

San Carlos was a bedroom community located fifteen miles east of the Pacific Ocean. After WWII and the Korean War, veterans and their families lined up to buy one of the tract homes that made up the new suburbia. The baby boom had begun in San Diego. Directly west of San Carlos, Ocean Beach, a laid-back enclave consisting of seven square miles, was the bohemian jewel of the Point Loma Peninsula. The common thread that tied these two communities together in the seventies was not just beautiful weather. Two outlaw motorcycle clubs immersed in a territorial war, the rampant abuse of illegal drugs, sociopathic serial killers, and suicide stained, for those of us who lived there and then, what should have been an idyllic existence. There Goes the Neighborhood is a tale of two communities forever changed by the dark cloud that blotted the light of day from those who called either community home.

NPR commentator Hollis Gillespie's outrageously funny -- and equally heartbreaking -- collection of autobiographical tales chronicles her journey through self-reckoning and the worst neighborhoods of Atlanta in search of a home she can call her own. The daughter of a missile scientist and an alcoholic traveling trailer salesman, Gillespie was nine before she realized not everybody's mother made bombs, and thirty before she realized it was possible to live in one place longer than a six-month lease allows. Supporting her are the social outcasts she calls her best friends: Daniel, a talented and eccentric artist; Grant, who makes his living peddling folk art by a denounced nun who paints plywood signs with twisted evangelical sayings; and Lary, who often, out of compassion, offers to shoot her like a lame horse. Hollis's friends help her battle the mess of obstacles that stand in her way -- including her warped childhood, in which her parents moved her and her siblings around the country like carnival barkers, chasing missile-building contracts and other whimsies, such as her father's dream to patent and sell door-to-door the world's most wondrous key-chain. A past like this will make you doubt you'll ever have a future, much less roots. Miraculously, though, Gillespie manages to plant exactly that: roots, as wrested and dubious as they are. As Gillespie says, "Life is too damn short to remain trapped in your own Alcatraz." Follow her on this wickedly funny journey as she manages to escape again and again.