Over one hundred vignettes in Stories of Life and Death create haunting images of the author's favorite subjects: women in love, children coping with tragedy, eccentrics, the emotions of compassion, bitterness, envy and longing.Meet Mercedita Saro, the shy, perfectly-groomed beggar-child of the local drunk, whom Jimenez loves, protects, and treats with sweets, forbidden by her father. And Max, "the blue child," a West Indian boy traveling on the same ship as Jimenez to live with relatives in South America, who covered his black face with white powder "to look whiter to my brothers." See a woman in love, "white tender, bray, submissive, delicate." and the tiny ray of sun awakening a baby, which "has opened in his eyes a magic and flowery garden that holds him bewitched." Feel sadness at the death of a village girl, empathy for the mother of a sailor lost at sea, and compassion for an angry man who gets drunk for the first time.The author creates an impressionistic landscape with subtle nuances of light and shadow, leaving tantalizing ambiguities to be resolved only in the eye of the beholder.As might be assumed from the title bestowed on this work, Jimenez's prose and poetical observations of the world around him, previously encountered in Platero and I, take on a somewhat darker more transcendent hue in this further collection. Gone is the unifying theme of itinerant man and donkey, and the physical boundaries of time and space. Here Jimenez allows his poetic vision to sweep far and wide, distilling and concentrating his art into thumbnail sketches of such disparate characters among many are a beggar-girl, a grape-harvester, an elderly canary and even the moon itself. Prefaced by a scholarly introduction from the translator, this is a fine and sensitive translation which captures gloriously the sheer lyrical beauty of Jimenez's writing. British Bulletin of Publications

Any book of stories from Bernard MacLaverty is a cause for celebration, but Matters of Life and Death is more than that, as it is - without question - one of the finest contemporary examples of the short story as a genre. Beginning with the sudden, nauseating terror of a family caught up in an explosion of shocking sectarian violence and ending with the white-out of an Iowa blizzard and a different kind of fear, Matters of Life and Death is a book about bonds and connections, made and broken, secret and known. Vivid, beautifully controlled and written with effortless skill and empathy, these stories are object lessons in the art of short fiction.

A speckled horse wonders why he was made a horse and discovers that everything in the world has purpose, created to bring joy to someone or something else.

A woman who spent more than six years in solitary confinement during Communist China's Cultural Revolution discusses her time in prison. Reissue. A New York Times Best Book of the Year.

The poignant, “powerful” (The Boston Globe) look at how to appreciate life from an extraordinary professor who teaches about death: “Poetic passages and assorted revelations you’ll likely not forget” (Chicago Tribune). Why does a college course on death have a three-year waiting list? When nurse Norma Bowe decided to teach a course on death at a college in New Jersey, she never expected it to be popular. But year after year students crowd into her classroom, and the reason is clear: Norma’s “death class” is really about how to make the most of what poet Mary Oliver famously called our “one wild and precious life.” Under the guise of discussions about last wills and last breaths and visits to cemeteries and crematoriums, Norma teaches her students to find grace in one another. In The Death Class, award-winning journalist Erika Hayasaki followed Norma for more than four years, showing how she steers four extraordinary students from their tormented families and neighborhoods toward happiness: she rescues one young woman from her suicidal mother, helps a young man manage his schizophrenic brother, and inspires another to leave his gang life behind. Through this unorthodox class on death, Norma helps kids who are barely hanging on to understand not only the value of their own lives, but also the secret of fulfillment: to throw yourself into helping others. Hayasaki’s expert reporting and literary prose bring Norma’s wisdom out of the classroom, transforming it into an inspiring lesson for all. In the end, Norma’s very own life—and how she lives it—is the lecture that sticks. “Readers will come away struck by Bowe’s compassion—and by the unexpectedly life-affirming messages of courage that spring from her students’ harrowing experiences” (Entertainment Weekly).

Ghosts are speaking to Alex, but can he bring them justice? Alex is a troubled teen with a checkered past, a broken home, and a surprising ability: psychometry. When he touches items murder victims held in their final moments, he relives the events in gruesome detail. But who will believe a troubled teen, especially when murders implicate the town's founding family? If you like amazing supernatural stories that are intense, powerful, and fraught with emotion, then you'll love Weston Kincade's suspenseful coming-of-age trilogy, A Life of Death. Ghosts are speaking, and they want answers. Heed the call. Buy A Life of Death.

After the tumultuous events of last winter, Kate, Michael, and Emma long to continue the hunt for their missing parents. But they themselves are now in great danger, and so the wizard Stanislaus Pym hides the children at the Edgar Allan Poe Home for Hopeless and Incorrigible Orphans. There, he says, they will be safe. How wrong he is. The children are soon discovered by their enemies, and a frantic chase sends Kate a hundred years into the past, to a perilous, enchanted New York City. Searching for a way back to her brother and sister, she meets a mysterious boy whose fate is intricately—and dangerously—tied to her own. Meanwhile, Michael and Emma have set off to find the second of the Books of Beginning. A series of clues leads them into a hidden world where they must brave harsh polar storms, track down an ancient order of warriors, and confront terrible monsters. Will Michael and Emma find the legendary book of fire—and master its powers—before Kate is lost to them forever? Exciting, suspenseful, and brimming with humor and heart, the next installment of the bestselling Books of Beginning trilogy will lead Kate, Michael, and Emma closer to their family—and to the magic that could save, or destroy, them all.

Each of us is in the middle of a story. In this astoundingly unique book, bestselling author N.D. Wilson reminds us that to truly live we must recognize that we are dying. Cause of death: life. Death by Living is a poetic exploration of faith, futility, and the incredible joy of this mortal life. N.D. Wilson recounts stories from his life in poetic prose, giving perspective on the life we're given by God. Death by Living explores the topics of family, grappling with the death of loved ones, and how to live with intention to get the most out of our time on Earth. Wilson encourages us to live hard and die grateful, and to see Christ in every pair of eyes. To write a past we won’t regret. All of us must pause and breathe. See the past, see life as the fruit of providence and thousands of personal narratives. We did not choose where to set our feet in time, but we choose where to set them next. We stand in the now. God says create. Live. Choose. Shape the past. Etch your life in stone, and what you make will be forever. In Death by Living, you will: Experience life with renewed wonder Recognize mundane moments as opportunities Learn to live hard and die grateful Recognize death as a gift instead of something to be feared At once inspiring, humorous, and unbelievably moving, this a book that you will read again and again, finding fresh perspective each time you open it.

No institution has so captivated and intrigued Americans as the hospital. It is where the miracles of modern medicine meet the mysteries of the human body. It is where life begins-- and often ends. It embodies our hopes and fears, our capacity for heroism and compassion. Now, based on an unforgettable series of first-person narratives, LIFE AND DEATH takes us behind the scenes for an intimate and inspiring look at one of the best hospitals in the country, New York's Columbia-Presbyterian. We witness the pressure-packed decision-making process of the hospital's elite heart transplant team; spend a morning in the delivery room as twelve new lives enter the world; share the emergency staff's struggle to care for one midsummer night's wounded in New York City. From the ravages of AIDS and cocaine to the rigors of internship to the remarkable redemptive powers of our great healers, LIFE AND DEATH captures the entire range of human experience -- the poignancy, pain, and humor that are all part of a day's work at this extraordinary institution.