Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times called him “one of the unsung heroes of modern times.” Fazle Hasan Abed was a mild-mannered accountant who may be the most influential man most people have never even heard of. As the founder of BRAC, his work had a profound impact on the lives of millions. A former finance executive with almost no experience in relief aid, he founded BRAC, originally the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee, in 1972, aiming to help a few thousand war refugees. A half century later, BRAC is by many measures the largest nongovernmental organization in the world—and by many accounts, the most effective anti-poverty program ever. BRAC seems to stand apart from countless failed development ventures. Its scale is massive, with 100,000 employees reaching more than 100 million people in Asia and Africa. In Bangladesh, where it began, Abed’s work gave rise to “some of the biggest gains in the basic condition of people’s lives ever seen anywhere,” according to The Economist. His methods changed the way global policymakers think about poverty. By the time of his death at eighty-three in December 2019, he was revered in international development circles. Yet among the wider public he remained largely unknown. His story has never been told—until now. Abed avoided the limelight. He thought his own story was of little consequence compared to the millions of women who rose from poverty with BRAC’s help, bending the arc of history through their own tenacity and grit. The challenges he faced often seemed insurmountable. Abed’s personal life was a tapestry of love and grief—a lover’s suicide, a wife who died in his arms. He was a taciturn man with a short temper that erupted on rare occasions. Many of his ventures failed, but Abed persevered. This book is also the biography of an idea—the idea that hope itself has the power to overcome poverty. “For too long, people thought poverty was something ordained by a higher power, as immutable as the sun and the moon,” Abed wrote in 2018. His life’s mission was to put that myth to rest. This is the story of a man who lived a life of complexity, blemishes and all, driven by the conviction that in the dominion of human lives, hope will ultimately triumph over fate.

At present the battle over who defines our future is being waged most publicly by secular and religious fundamentalists. Hope and the Longing for Utopia offers an alternative position, disclosing a conceptual path toward potential worlds that resist a limited view of human potential and the gift of religion. In addition to outlining the value of embracing unknown potentialities, these twelve interdisciplinary essays explore why it has become crucial that we commit to hoping for values that resist traditional ideological commitments. Contextualized by contemporary writing on utopia, and drawing from a wealth of times and cultures ranging from Calvin's Geneva to early twentieth-century Japanese children's stories to Hollywood cinema, these essays cumulatively disclose the fundamental importance of resisting tantalizing certainties while considering the importance of the unknown and unknowable. Beginning with a set of four essays outlining the importance of hope and utopia as diagnostic concepts, and following with four concrete examples, the collection ends with a set of essays that provide theological speculations on the need to embrace finitude and limitations in a world increasingly enframed by secularizing impulses. Overall, this book discloses how hope and utopia illuminate ways to think past simplified wishes for the future.

A man with no faith; a woman with a callous view of the world; a boy who desperately needs to be loved. Each of them—Winston, Ann, and Sheldon—must face a challenge. They must dig deep within themselves to face their greatest fears as they stand trial for the sins of humanity. No courtroom, no jury, and only one chance to get it right. If only they knew they were on trial to begin with…

The continuation of the Rhyn Trilogy saga. Death Finds Love. Recently appointed as Death, Gabriel’s life can’t get much worse. His underworld is in shambles, and he’s racing demons to collect souls in the human world. To add to his mess, he discovers that his predecessor raised an unwelcome Immortal from the dead, one who threatens the Immortal Council that his friend, the Ancient Rhyn, is trying to hold together. When the underworld shuts Gabriel out, he’s convinced he’s hit rock bottom. Until he meets her, and he realizes things can get worse. Much worse. Now in human form, Deidre – Gabriel’s predecessor and long-time tormenter – is dying from a brain tumor. Rather than mourn, she decides to enjoy the rest of her short life by checking off every box on her bucket list. Little does she suspect that a weekend getaway to the beach will throw her into the hands of Death himself and overturn everything she knows about her world. Deidre has no idea who she was in her past life, but she must learn fast, or she’ll never understand why the Immortals, demons and Death alike are after her. The secret is buried in her head, and the only way to uncover it will kill her. To survive, she must reach the wounded man behind the mask of Death and show him that the world is filled with more than tragedy and pain.

Ragnarök has been fought and the entire Galaxy has been destroyed. We were promised that a new realm would be created for the surviving gods to occupy, so that Life could return. Yahweh intends to fulfill this promise. He creates a new being, William, and instills the Light within him to give him strength as he ventures into the wasteland that remains in the wake of the Galactic apocalypse. His task is to find a way to redeem existence so that a new Galaxy can be created to support Life. The Darkness that dominates the wasteland will do everything it can to try to kill William, but he finds a few unlikely allies along the way to aid him on his journey. The trials he must face would break any ordinary man, but William’s Father comes to his aid in times of weakness and he presses on, hoping he will be able to unravel the Divine Mysteries and piece together a new theology that will promote peace and harmony to prevent another Ragnarök from ever happening. The struggle between the Darkness and Light is as ancient as the Universe, but can all this fighting be brought to an end?

In the hazy history of the Old Norse… When Gisle and Geir come back from a day’s hunting, they find their farm devastated, their parents and farmhands killed, and the women of the farm gone, including their sisters Gunn and Ginna. Since their older brother Olof is trading goods in Friesland, they take shelter with their uncle Fridbjörn and his wife Holmdis, the skillful seer. No one travels through the dark night – no one but Nattfari. One dull autumn evening he knocks on the door and asks for lodging. Then he makes predictions about friends and kin, astray and in foreign lands. He tells of Olof and Gangulf in Friesland, he foretells the fate of the sisters on Zealand, and he warns of misfortune and death. Fate’s Weave is a historical adventure novel, a story of life and death far back in time, in the historical haze of Europe’s migration era. Meet the depressed berserker, Gangulf; sisters Gunn and Ginna, who sleep with three kings before winter turns to spring; the Anglo-Saxons Hewald and Hewald, who preach the word of God to Frisians and other heathens; Styrbjörn and Hreppir, who find each other in Gypeswic’s mud; the old edda Crust, decrepit but with a mind of steel, thrusting her spear at warriors; as well as Finnvid, the Finnveding who executes a splendid Yule blót at Bolmsö, thus overthrowing the invasive king Ingvald. Meet Harald and Vigr, Eirbjorg and her daughters, King Erik in Uppsala, and, last but not least, Nattfari. The Nattfari who travels far and wide and who is called by many names... Meet them and many more, whose threads of fate run together and form a strange and mighty weave.