Birth of the Kingdom


Book Description

A rousing conclusion to an unforgettable saga—the story of a Swedish warrior’s transformative journey and the enduring love that founded a nation. One of the fiercest and most feared warriors of the Knights Templar, Arn de Gotha can finally return home to his beloved Sweden, now that Jerusalem has been lost to Saladin. But during his twenty years of exile, Arn’s homeland has been torn apart by warring clans—and the brave nobleman soldier is determined to reunite it and establish lasting peace. Waiting for him is his beloved Cecilia, emerging from a convent to join him after their unfathomably long separation, against the stern demands of her clan. Their reunion could incite a war unless they can convince the clan that love ranks higher than politics, and that it can sustain a new quest: to create a new people, a new society, with Arn at its helm.




The Knight Templar


Book Description

Born in 1150 to an aristocratic Swedish family, handsome Arn Magnusson is educated at a Cistercian monastery. As well as training to be a monk, he is to be a warrior, and becomes a master archer and swordsman under the tutelage of the giant Brother Guilbert, a former knight. But Arn is innocent in the ways of the world, and when two beautiful sisters cross his path, despite falling desperately in love with one of them, Cecilia, he is seduced by the other. Such a crime is punishable by both civil and clerical authorities, and, while Cecilia is banished to spend twenty years as a nun, Arn is sentenced to serve the same period as a Knight Templar in the Holy Land. As an occupation officer in Palestine, he discovers that the infidel Saracens don't appear to be brutish and uncivilised as they are portrayed in Christian propaganda. On the contrary, in love and war he learns from the example of his noble adversary Saladin that there's another side to the teachings of the Cistercians¿




The Birth of a Kingdom


Book Description

Book studies in I-II Samuel and I Kings 1-11




In Search of a Kingdom


Book Description

“FASCINATING . . . Dramatic and timely.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice In this grand and thrilling narrative, the acclaimed biographer of Magellan and Columbus reveals the singular adventures of Sir Francis Drake, whose mastery of the seas during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I changed the course of history. “Entrancing . . . Very good indeed.” —Wall Street Journal Before he was secretly dispatched by Queen Elizabeth to circumnavigate the globe, or was called upon to save England from the Spanish Armada, Francis Drake was perhaps the most wanted—and successful—pirate ever to sail. Nicknamed “El Draque” by the Spaniards who placed a bounty on his head, the notorious red-haired, hot-tempered Drake pillaged galleons laden with New World gold and silver, stealing a vast fortune for his queen—and himself. For Elizabeth, Drake made the impossible real, serving as a crucial and brilliantly adaptable instrument of her ambitions to transform England from a third-rate island kingdom into a global imperial power. In 1580, sailing on Elizabeth’s covert orders, Drake became the first captain to circumnavigate the earth successfully. (Ferdinand Magellan had died in his attempt.) Part exploring expedition, part raiding mission, Drake’s audacious around-the-world journey in the Golden Hind reached Patagonia, the Pacific Coast of present-day California and Oregon, the Spice Islands, Java, and Africa. Almost a decade later, Elizabeth called upon Drake again. As the devil-may-care vice admiral of the English fleet, Drake dramatically defeated the once-invincible Spanish Armada, spurring the British Empire’s ascent and permanently wounding its greatest rival. The relationship between Drake and Elizabeth is the missing link in our understanding of the rise of the British Empire, and its importance has not been fully described or appreciated. Framed around Drake’s key voyages as a window into this crucial moment in British history, In Search of a Kingdom is a rousing adventure narrative entwining epic historical themes with intimate passions.




First Kingdom Vol 1: The Birth of Tundran


Book Description

A COMICS ODYSSEY AND SPACE OPERA OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS! A saga that exposes the limitless potential of the comics medium! The first in a series of Homeric, post-apocalyptic graphic novels, following the vein of a futuristic, post-civilization The Odyssey or The Iliad!




Return to the Middle Kingdom


Book Description

The author chronicles three generations of her late husband's family, all of who fought against the injustices they encountered in their homeland of China.




Understanding the Kingdom of God


Book Description

EVERY CHRISTIAN should read this book. It sets out clearly and simply what the kingdom of God is, exactly. You dont need to have a masters degree in theology to understand it, either. The Bible says, Get wisdom and get understanding. This book will build your comprehension in the vital and basic areas of the new birth, discipleship, daily devotions, and the Gospel of the kingdom. Jesus instructed us to seek first the kingdom of God. This book will help anyone who is intent on doing just that.




The Kingdom


Book Description

A sweeping fictional account of the early Christians, whose unlikely beliefs conquered the world Gripped by the tale of a Messiah whose blood we drink and body we eat, the genre-defying author Emmanuel Carrère revisits the story of the early Church in his latest work. With an idiosyncratic and at times iconoclastic take on the charms and foibles of the Church fathers, Carrère ferries readers through his “doors” into the biblical narrative. Once inside, he follows the ragtag group of early Christians through the tumultuous days of the faith’s founding. Shouldering biblical scholarship like a camcorder, Carrère re-creates the climate of the New Testament with the acumen of a seasoned storyteller, intertwining his own account of reckoning with the central tenets of the faith with the lives of the first Christians. Carrère puts himself in the shoes of Saint Paul and above all Saint Luke, charting Luke’s encounter with the marginal Jewish sect that eventually became Christianity, and retracing his investigation of its founder, an obscure religious freak who died under notorious circumstances. Boldly blending scholarship with speculation, memoir with journalistic muckraking, Carrère sets out on a headlong chase through the latter part of the Bible, drawing out protagonists who believed they were caught up in the most important events of their time. An expansive and clever meditation on belief, The Kingdom chronicles the advent of a religion, and the ongoing quest to find a place within it.




Transcendent Kingdom


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK! • Finalist for the WOMEN'S PRIZE Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama. Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief—a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.




Origins


Book Description

Paul presents an in-depth examination of how personalities are formed by biological, social, and emotional factors.