There are those who are popular. There are those who are outcasts. And there are those who must choose between the two. Megan Tuw has always been popular. As a leader of her high school’s most cliquish group, she’s among the anointed girls who think nothing of ridiculing those who don’t fit in. That includes Perdita Wiguiggan—a classmate Megan and her friends openly refer to as the Freak. But Megan doesn’t know the first thing about Perdita, since she would never dream of talking to her. Only when the two girls are thrown together in detention does Megan begin to see Perdita as more than someone with an odd last name, as more than the school outcast. And slowly, Megan finds herself drawn into an almost-friendship. Then Megan faces a choice: Perdita or the group?

'Dazzlingly effective . . . not easy to forget' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Continually surprising, witty and often disquieting, Walking Naked is one of Nina Bawden's most impressive novels' COSMOPOLITAN 'Among the most perceptive and accomplished novelists writing today' P. D. JAMES Laura is happily married, a mother and a successful novelist. Although she is prey to night terrors, she is adept at smoothing the disorder of reality into controlled prose. Walking Naked telescopes the whole of Laura's life - childhood, marriages, triumphs and disappointments - into a day in which the past and present converge. It begins with a game of tennis played for duty rather than amusement and progresses, via an afternoon party of old friends and jaded emotions, to a bewildering visit to Laura's son, imprisoned on a drugs' charge. At its close, the possibility of death within the family hauls unresolved conflicts centre stage and Laura strips herself of the posturing and self-deceit with which she has cloaked her vulnerability.

"This study is an attempt to write the history of women in relation to spirituality and spiritual movements. The Deccan and the region south of the Vindhyas form its geographical limits. It cuts across time and space to look at the issue of gender inequalities in south Indian societies and at spirituality as a powerful form of women's self-expression."--p.[xi].

Imagine yourself a newly married nineteen year old American woman thrust into living in a foreign country, where your new husband is the only person you know. Now imagine that foreign country is not just any country; it's Iran. Back in 1975, Ann Craig-Cinnamon, a teenager from Kentucky, rather brashly married a man nine years her senior who she had dated for only a few months and moved to Tehran, Iran where she lived for a year and a half. Walking Naked in Tehran tells the story of her time in Iran. Living there was difficult and challenging but was also an incredible, rich life experience which she tells with candor and wit. It's also a look inside a country and culture that has been closed off to much of the world for decades. This story is inspiring and has a message for others about the journey to find oneself and the relationships along the way that help to mold you. Ann Craig-Cinnamon is a broadcast professional with thirty years of experience in both radio and television. For most of her career, she served as the host of popular high profile morning radio shows. She also has been a TV anchor/reporter and the News Director of a statewide radio network. Ann and her husband, John, are currently the publishers of an Indianapolis area magazine and she writes regularly for several other publications as well. In addition, she and John have owned numerous other businesses and currently own a travel company. Owning a travel business fits perfectly with Ann's passion for travel which she developed during her time living in Tehran, Iran, the inspiration for Walking Naked in Tehran. A popular travel public speaker, Ann has visited all fifty states, more than seventy countries and all seven continents. Her proudest accomplishment, however, is being the mother of two sons.

In 1929, a small group of men and women threw off their clothes and began to exercise in a New York City gymnasium, marking the start of the American nudist movement. While countless Americans had long enjoyed the pleasures of skinny dipping or nude sunbathing, nudists were the first to organize a movement around the idea that exposing the body corrected the ills of modern society and produced profound benefits for the body as well as the mind. Despite hostility and skepticism, American nudists enlisted the support of health enthusiasts, homemakers, sex radicals, and even ministers, and in the process, redefined what could be seen, experienced, and consumed in twentieth-century America. Naked gives a vibrant, detailed account of the American nudist movement and the larger cultural phenomenon of public nudity in the United States. Brian S. Hoffman reflects on the idea of nakedness itself in the context of a culture that wrestles with an inherent sense of shame and conflicting moral attitudes about the body. In exploring the social and legal history of nudism, Hoffman reveals how anxieties about gender, race, sexuality, and age inform our conceptions of nakedness. The book traces the debates about distinguishing deviant sexualities from morally acceptable display, the legal processes that helped bring about the dramatic changes in sexuality in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the explosion in eroticism that has increasingly defined the modern American consumer economy. Drawing on a colorful collection of nudist materials, films, and magazines, Naked exposes the social, cultural, and moral assumptions about nakedness and the body normally hidden from view and behind closed doors.

The cross of Christ is undeniably central to the Christian faith. But, how can the cruelty and brutality of a two-thousand-year-old Roman cross touch base with a hedonistic world that has been so desensitized towards violence? Within the postmodern setting of a body-obsessed culture, Christianity urgently requires an innovative and stimulating way of understanding the cross and its atoning significance. At the heart of this book is the Naked Christ--an emblem through which the author draws on the rich resources of the Christian tradition in its portrayal of the cross. He explores how the metaphors of nakedness and clothing can encapsulate aspects of atonement and enable them to be understood within a variety of contemporary contexts. The Naked Christ is a useful resource for anyone seeking fresh ways to express what the cross of Christ means to contemporary culture.

Across Africa, mature women have for decades mobilized the power of their nakedness in political protest to shame and punish male adversaries. This insurrectionary nakedness, often called genital cursing, owes its cultural potency to the religious belief that spirits residing in women's bodies can be unleashed to cause misfortune in their targets, including impotence, disease, and death. In Naked Agency, Naminata Diabate analyzes these collective female naked protests in Africa and beyond to broaden understandings of agency and vulnerability. Drawing on myriad cultural texts from social media and film to journalism and fiction, Diabate uncovers how women create spaces of resistance during socio-political duress, including such events as the 2011 protests by Ivoirian women in Côte d’Ivoire and Paris as well as women's disrobing in Soweto to prevent the destruction of their homes. Through the concept of naked agency, Diabate explores fluctuating narratives of power and victimhood to challenge simplistic accounts of African women's helplessness and to show how they exercise political power in the biopolitical era.

Four fabulous authors deliver the whole truth and nothing but the truth about men, women, and the delicious games they play when it comes to love. Is he into me? Is he just playing games? Falling in love is never easy, but there’s nothing like it to keep you on your toes. There are no rules to romance—and usually the only way to get a little is to take the plunge. Here are four new stories about four bold women who risk it all to win at the unpredictable game of love.

"On every continent, in every nation, God is at work in and through the lives of believers. From the streets of Amsterdam to remote Pacific islands to the jungles of Ecuador and beyond, each international adventure that emerges is a dramatic episode that could be directed only by the hand of God. Stories from the Philippines bring a challenge to a deeper, tested faith that will change believers' lives and the lives of those they encounter.