“Unless you’re lucky, unless you’re healthy, fertile, unless you’re loved and fed, unless you’re offered what others are offered, you go down in the darkness, down to despair.” Reta Winters has many reasons to be happy: Her three almost grown daughters. Her twenty-year relationship with their father. Her work translating the larger-than-life French intellectual and feminist Danielle Westerman. Her modest success with a novel of her own, and the clamour of her American publisher for a sequel. Then in the spring of her forty-fourth year, all the quiet satisfactions of her well-lived life disappear in a moment: her eldest daughter Norah suddenly runs from the family and ends up mute and begging on a Toronto street corner, with a hand-lettered sign reading GOODNESS around her neck. GOODNESS. With the inconceivable loss of her daughter like a lump in her throat, Reta tackles the mystery of this message. What in this world has broken Norah, and what could bring her back to the provisional safety of home? Reta’s wit is the weapon she most often brandishes as she kicks against the pricks that have brought her daughter down: Carol Shields brings us Reta’s voice in all its poignancy, outrage and droll humour. Piercing and sad, astute and evocative, full of tenderness and laughter, Unless will stand with The Stone Diaries in the canon of Carol Shields’s fiction.

Dissects the construction ecology, material geographies, and world-systems of a most modern of modern architectures: the Seagram Building. In doing so, it aims to describe how humans and nature interact with the thin crust of the planet through architecture. In particular, the immense material, energy and labor involved in building require a fresh interpretation that better situates the ecological and social potential of design. The enhancement of a particular building should be inextricable from the enhancement of its world-system and construction ecology. A “beautiful” building engendered through the vulgarity of uneven exchanges and processes of underdevelopment is no longer a tenable conceit in such a framework. Unless architects begin to describe buildings as terrestrial events and artifacts, architects will—to our collective and professional peril—continue to operate outside the key environmental dynamics and key political processes of this century.

A dramatic, moving memoir of coming of age amid the chaos and terror of WWII combat by a member of the 87th Infantry Division. Gene Garrison spent a terrifying nineteenth birthday crammed into a muddy foxhole near the German border in the Saar. He listened helplessly to cries of wounded comrades as exploding artillery shells sent deadly shrapnel raining down on them. The date was December 16, 1944, he was a member of a .30-caliber machine gun crew with the 87th Infantry Division, and this was his first day in combat. Less than a year earlier, he’d entered college as a fresh-faced kid from the farmlands of Ohio. Now, as the night closed around Garrison, slices of light pierced the darkness with frightening brilliance. Battle-hardened German SS troopers using flashlights infiltrated the line of the young, untested American soldiers. Someone screamed “Counterattack!” In the maelstrom of gunfire that followed, the teenage Garrison struggled to comprehend the horrors of the present, his entire future reduced to a prayer that he would be alive at daybreak. From those first frightening, confusing days in combat until the war ended five months later, Gene Garrison saw many of his buddies killed or wounded, each loss reducing his own odds of survival. Convinced before one attack that his luck had deserted him, he wrote a final letter to his family to say goodbye, handing it to a friend with instructions to mail it if he died. From the bitter fighting west of Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge to the end of the war on the Czechoslovakian border, Garrison describes the degradation of war with pathos and humor. His story is told through the eyes of the common soldier who might not know the name of the town or the location of the next hill that he and his comrades must grimly wrestle from the enemy but who is willing to die in order to carry the war forward to the hated enemy. He writes of the simple pleasure derived from finding a water-filled puddle deep enough to fill his canteen; a momentary respite in a half-destroyed barn that shields him from the bitter cold and penetrating wind of an Ardennes winter; the solace of friendship with veterans whose lives hang upon his actions and whose actions might help him survive the bitter, impersonal death they all face. The rich dialogue and a hard-hitting narrative style bring the reader to battlefield manhood alongside Garrison, to each moment of terror and triumph faced by a young soldier far from home in the company of strangers.

I haven’t dated or kissed a woman, since 2006. I was working through some things. Once I emerged, I started praying before bed that God allow me to spend time with a woman who was best for me and I her while we slept...dreamed, so we could develop a rapport. I wanted to relieve us of the fear and awkwardness, and move us toward love. The poems are an awakening. Allowing myself to open up to being vulnerable, loving and being loved.

An irreverent and unusual ABCs book featuring a fun and foul cast of characters A is for apple unless you’re being chased by a bloodsucking vampire, then A is for Aaaaaagghhh!! in this irreverent and unusual ABCs book that will have readers laughing, but hopefully not vomiting, all the way from A to Zee End.

Selection of couplets written over a period of thirty years that reflect many voices, many dreams.

This is a biography of G. Christopher Willis, a Canadian missionary to China from 1921-1949. His Christian literature publishing and distribution was the last Protestant missionary work in China after the Communist takeover, continuing for another ten years under Communist rule. At a time when the church in China entered a period of prolonged spiritual famine, there remained a storehouse of Christian literature to feed the hungry and build up spiritual leaders, enabling them to faithfully feed their flocks. Today the church in China is the single most powerful witness of New Testament Christianity, standing as a witness to the Western church as it flounders in materialism and liberalism. This book is also a study of spiritual fruitfulness, using the biography as a case study to understand Jesus' words "Unless a grain of wheat" and their practical meaning in daily life. There is a way forward for a floundering Western church, to follow along the narrow path that Jesus has called it to walk.

Like whispers from the soul, dive into the poetic world of Ronnell Beaty, showcasing the resilience, vulnerability, and triumphs that make us uniquely human…  In You Will Never Understand It - Unless You Go Through It, Ronnell reminds us that true comprehension can only be attained by walking the path ourselves. It serves as an empathetic invitation to step into the shoes of others, foster an understanding of diverse perspectives and nurture the bonds that connect us all. Through poetry's lens, Ronnell Beaty bares his scars, prompting you to reflect, heal or embrace your own spirit. From the hauntingly beautiful 'I Died and Came Back' to the empowering 'Speak It Into Existence,' each poem runs rife with emotion and vulnerability. Inside you'll find: * Thought-provoking free verse that illuminates a collective human experience * A seamless blend of moments, emotions, and reflections * A lens through which you can see your own life from a different perspective * A challenge to listen, empathize, and strive for a deeper understanding * Raw sentiments and candidness throughout Ready to reflect and connect? Get your copy, and let's get right into it!

Success in a chaotic world does not come easily. This is no quick fix because life doesn't work with quick fixes. It takes more than passion, and courage. It requires commitment to a learned pattern of actions... a personal model that you use every day. It doesn't have to be fancy and it includes everything you do. This book sets out elements that you can use as a blueprint to examine your model. It challenges you to search for the "why" in what you do and it helps you to lock in those essentials that will help guarantee success in your personal and professional life. About the Author: Dr. James Akenhead has spent more than four decades helping: hospitals, banks, local government, schools, universities, counseling agencies, nursing homes, law enforcement, unions, and social organizations. Jim has five earned degrees. At twenty-six, he was offered his first school superintendent position. His career includes 23 years in local, county, and city superintendence's as well as 20 years as a consultant in the public and private sector; as a graduate school instructor; and as a board member and administrator in a variety of organizations. Jim was selected as a "Distinguished Graduate", school of technology, at Bowling Green State University, Ohio and, with his wife Charlene, was chosen as "Business and Professional Person of the Year" in their local community. He has been included in seven "who's who" anthologies and The Eye on Education Digest of Innovators. Dr. Akenhead is also the author of A School Leaders Playbook (2004), Uncommon Leadership (2005), School Boards: It's Time To Step Up (2008) and has a chapter titled "Looking at the Frontier" in Focusing the Whole Brain (2004), Edited by Ron Russell. He continues to be active in the Changepoint Consulting group (www.changepoint.org).

Just as the construction of a house requires much thought, preparation, and personal effort, so too does the progression of our spiritual life. A house cannot be built on a foundation that has poor footings. If this happens it will contribute to an improper or substandard base that cannot maintain what is built on top of it. Solomon writes, "Unless the LORD builds the house, its builder's labor in vain..." (Psalms 127:1 NIV). This book, "Construction, Obstruction, or Destruction" is the first volume in a series on the topic of the Lord constructing the perfect house-that is, completing us just the way that He intended us to be. Like building a house, we must follow Him appropriately as He guides us. True spiritual understanding will always manifest itself through application that honors Christ and gives glory to God. Dr. Rock D Moore, author, pastor, husband, and father has an Ed.D. in Human Services/Counseling and has served in various ministerial and leadership roles for over 25 years. Rock and his wife, Michelle, have been married ten years, and have one daughter, Faith. He is currently the pastor of a new church plant in Southern California. His contact information is: www.hishouseinthecanyons.com