How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong?


Book Description

"Faith does not break lose in my head with a whooping, 'Hurrah for God!' Believing sneaks into my soul while my head is saying, 'My God, where were you when I needed you?'" Lewis Smedes does not explain away pain or deny that things get bad and that life is hard. Instead he helps us move beyond a disheartening present by being open to God and the certainty that things are, somehow, fundamentally right. This book is about grace. Grace is the courage to go on believing in the presence of suffering and death. This is real believing, not just the intellectual kind. "The thinking part is not all that hard. IT is the feeling part that comes hard, the part that lets you know in the deep places of your soul that it is all right even when your head tells you everything is ghastly."




September Twelfth


Book Description

An elementary school class offers words of reassurance that even after the horrors of September 11, 2001, life will go on.




Everything Is Fine


Book Description

Granata was a thousand miles from home when he received shocking news that his younger brother, Tim, propelled by unchecked schizophrenia, had killed their mother in their childhood home. Devastated by the grief of losing his mother, Granata was also consumed by the act itself, so incomprehensible that it overshadows every happy memory of life growing up in a seemingly idyllic middle-class family. He decides to examine the disease that irrecoverably changed his family's destiny and piece together his brother's story. In the painstaking process of recovering the image of his remarkable mother and salvaging the love for his brother as Tim faces trial for their mother's murder, Granata provides a powerful and reaffirming portrait of loss and forgiveness. -- adapted from jacket




Everything Is Just Fine


Book Description

In this brilliant, laugh-out-loud satire, named one of Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite Books of 2019, image-conscious parents on a Beverly Hills junior soccer team struggle to keep up appearances as their private lives careen out of control. "You'll wince, laugh out loud, relate to, and relish this unsparing satirical send up."---Wednesday Martin, New York Times bestselling author Coach Randy is working mightily to keep it together, and not simply with his vaguely unhappy wife, distant child, and a new boss who's eliminating half the sales force. This season's soccer parents are a demanding bunch. Diane's wine-fueled group e-mails are almost unintelligible; team mom Jacqui's enthusiasm for the league verges on manic; a divorced couple can barely conceal their murderous rage at each other; and another mom is laser-focused on schooling everyone on what constitutes a healthy snack option. All the secrets and lies bubbling below the surface of their membrane-thin civility threaten to combust when Alejandro, a young, foreign assistant coach refuses to play by the Beverly Hills code, which is to mind your own business and don't look too deeply into anyone's soul. Especially your own. Brett Paesel brings hilarity and huge heart to a world that looks enviable and shiny on the outside but is, in truth, filled with aching for connection on the inside. In the vein of Perotta and Semple, everyday life in Paesel's deft rendering is anything but.




Everything Will Be All Right


Book Description

Splintered by emigration, World War Two and long-kept secrets, the Prestons are a family grappling with the past and dislocation. Belfast, 1941. Meg Preston’s seventeen-year-old nephew Robert Henderson is planning to enlist in the Royal Navy, both to escape his smothering parents and the dawning knowledge that he is gay. Meanwhile, Meg and her partner Lillian Watson escape the bombing of Belfast to the Causeway Coast of Northern Ireland. Years later, the post mid-century sectarian violence, known as The Troubles, erupts. Throughout their lives, members of the Preston family are split into strongly supporting one another, or barely holding together. Facing the misogynistic mores of their time, can they find the strength to reunite? Enduring the stresses of intimate relationships and global catastrophes, but thriving due to the relief found in community both inside and outside of the family, the Prestons' story is one that resonates during our own, stressful times as well.




In Heaven Everything Is Fine


Book Description

On March 3, 1983, Peter Ivers was found bludgeoned to death in his loft in downtown Los Angeles, ending a short-lived but essential pop cultural moment that has been all but lost to history. For the two years leading up to his murder, Ivers had hosted the underground but increasingly popular LA-based music and sketch-comedy cable show New Wave Theatre. The late '70s through early '80s was an explosive time for pop culture: Saturday Night Live and National Lampoon were leading a comedy renaissance, while punk rock and new wave were turning the music world on its head. New Wave Theatre brought together for the first time comedians-turned-Hollywood players like John Belushi, Chevy Chase, and Harold Ramis with West Coast punk rockers Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, Fear, and others, thus transforming music and comedy forever. The show was a jubilant, chaotic punk-experimental-comedy cabaret, and Ivers was its charismatic leader and muse. He was, in fact, the only person with the vision, the generosity of spirit, and the myriad of talented friends to bring together these two very different but equally influential worlds, and with his death the improbable and electric union of punk and comedy came to an end. The magnetic, impishly brilliant Ivers was a respected musician and composer (in addition to several albums, he wrote the music for the centerpiece song of David Lynch's cult classic Eraserhead) whose sublime and bizarre creativity was evident in everything he did. He was surrounded by people who loved him, many of them luminaries: his best friend from his Harvard days was Doug Kenney, founder of National Lampoon; he was also close to Harold Ramis and John Belushi. Upon his death, Ivers was just beginning to get mainstream recognition. In Heaven Everything Is Fine is the first book to explore both the fertile, gritty scene that began and ended with New Wave Theatre and the life and death of its guiding spirit. Josh Frank, author of Fool the World: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies, interviewed hundreds of people from Ivers's circle, including Jello Biafra, Stockard Channing, and David Lynch, and we hear in their own words about Ivers and the marvelous world he inhabited. He also spoke with the Los Angeles Police Department about Ivers's still-unsolved murder, and, as a result of his research, the Cold Case Unit has reopened the investigation. In Heaven Everything Is Fine is a riveting account of a gifted artist, his tragic death, and a little-known yet crucial chapter in American pop history.




Alternative Rock


Book Description

Provides profiles of solo performers, bands, producers, and record labels from the alternative rock movement, ranging from the mid-1970s to the present, and includes discographies, album reviews, and photographs.




Everything Will Be Okay


Book Description

THE INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER! Find your inspiration in this motivational book from the bestselling author of And the Good News Is… Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side, beloved co-host of Fox News' The Five and America's Newsroom. EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY is a no-nonsense how-to guide to life for young women looking to reframe their thinking, to believe in themselves, to take risks, to understand their power, and to feel better overall through finding serenity and taking action. Young women seek out advice from Dana Perino every day—at work, through friends, and on social media. The story of her own quarter-life crisis, And the Good News Is… Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side, brought countless readers to her inbox looking for guidance. Through her mentorship program, "Minute Mentoring," Dana quickly realized that quarter-life crises have begun following young women well into their thirties. Many of them are distressed but conceal it with a brave face. Unfortunately, too much of that can be—and is—exhausting. To help address these challenges, EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY covers such topics as: How to manage your relationships (colleagues, family, love)… How to be your best self on the job… How to gauge if you're on the right career path… How to transition from junior staffer to boss lady… How to solve the biggest problems you're facing… How to move past perceived obstacles… For everyone from the job-seeker fresh out of college to the ambitious career woman looking to make her next big jump up the ladder, EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY has tips, advice, and reassurance for young women everywhere.




Ogadinma


Book Description

Ogadinma Or, Everything Will be All Right is a tale of departure, loss and adaptation; of mothers whose experience at the hands of controlling men leave them with burdens they find too much to bear. After an unwanted pregnancy leaves her exiled from her family in Kano, thwarting her plans to go to university, seventeen-year-old Ogadinma is sent to her aunt's in Lagos. When a whirlwind romance with an older man descends into indignity, she is forced to channel her strength and resourcefulness to escape a fate that appears all but inevitable. A feminist classic in the making, Ukamaka Olisakwe's sophomore novel introduces a heroine for whom it is impossible not to root and announces the author as a gifted chronicler of the patriarchal experience. Illuminates a fascinating time in Nigeria's recent past, as the novel's heroine struggles against the shackles of a Church-dominated patriarchal society amid rising political turmoil · Written by a rising star of Nigeria's vibrant literature scene, a finalist for the 2019 Brittle Paper Award for Creative Nonfiction and established screenwriter · An exquisitely written bildungsroman that will appeal equally to readers of literary fiction and a new adult audience




The First 20 Hours


Book Description

Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.




Recent Books