Hell-Heaven


Book Description

A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection Pranab Chakraborty was a fellow Bengali from Calcutta who had washed up on the shores of Central Square. Soon he was one of the family. From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, a staggeringly beautiful and precise story about a Bengali family in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the impossibilities of love, and the unanticipated pleasures and complications of life in America. “Hell-Heaven” is Jhumpa Lahiri’s ode to the intimate secrets of closest kin, from the acclaimed collection Unaccustomed Earth. An eBook short.




Heaven and Hell


Book Description

Over half of Americans believe in a literal heaven, in a literal hell. Most people who hold these beliefs are Christian and assume they are the age-old teachings of the Bible. Ehrman shows that eternal rewards and punishments are found nowhere in the Old Testament, and are not what Jesus or his disciples taught. He recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. Ehrman shows that competing views were intimately connected with the social, cultural, and historical worlds out of which they emerged. -- adapted from jacket




Up to Heaven and Down to Hell


Book Description

A riveting portrait of a rural Pennsylvania town at the center of the fracking controversy Shale gas extraction—commonly known as fracking—is often portrayed as an energy revolution that will transform the American economy and geopolitics. But in greater Williamsport, Pennsylvania, fracking is personal. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account of what happens when one of the most momentous decisions about the well-being of our communities and our planet—whether or not to extract shale gas and oil from the very land beneath our feet—is largely a private choice that millions of ordinary people make without the public's consent. The United States is the only country in the world where property rights commonly extend "up to heaven and down to hell," which means that landowners have the exclusive right to lease their subsurface mineral estates to petroleum companies. Colin Jerolmack spent eight months living with rural communities outside of Williamsport as they confronted the tension between property rights and the commonwealth. In this deeply intimate book, he reveals how the decision to lease brings financial rewards but can also cause irreparable harm to neighbors, to communal resources like air and water, and even to oneself. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell casts America’s ideas about freedom and property rights in a troubling new light, revealing how your personal choices can undermine your neighbors’ liberty, and how the exercise of individual rights can bring unintended environmental consequences for us all.




Heaven and Hell


Book Description




Heaven and Hell


Book Description

After making a bad decision when she was very young, Kia Clementine finds herself in hell. Then, suddenly, within the time it takes for a shotgun to blast, her hell changes. Out of the blue she sees Sampson Cooper, her celebrity crush. A man the whole world knows is decent, loyal, good. All of these very unlike her now dead husband. He’s sitting at a table right next to hers. And she catches his eye. Terrified of the interest Sam shows in her, Kia still finds the courage to go out with him. Not long after, she shares her dark secrets, and Sam shares that he’ll stop at nothing to gain her trust. As Sam leads Kia to heaven, Kia realizes Sam is living his own hell. But although he gives her beauty, and she gives him everything, he withholds his trust. Even with the beauty, Kia wants it all. But Sam forces Kia to make a heartbreaking decision, and only she can decide. Is it all? Or nothing?




Heaven No Hell


Book Description

"One of the most inventive and prolific cartoonists working today."—Vulture In the past ten years, Michael DeForge has released eleven books. While his style and approach have evolved, he has never wavered from taut character studies and incisive social commentary with a focus on humor. He has deeply probed subjects like identity, gentrification, fame, and sexual desire. In “No Hell,” an angel’s tour of the five tiers of heaven reveals her obsession with a haunting infidelity. In “Raising,” a couple uses an app to see what their unborn child would look like. Of course, what begins as a simple face-melding experiment becomes a nightmare of too-much-information where the young couple is forced to confront their terrible choices. “Recommended for You” is an anxious retelling of our narrator’s favorite TV show—a Purge-like societal collapse drama—as a reflection of our desire for meaning in pop culture. Each of these stories shows the inner turmoil of an ordinary person coming to grips with a world vastly different than their initial perception of it. The humor is searing and the emotional weight lingers long after the story ends. Heaven No Hell collects DeForge’s best work yet. His ability to dig into a subject and break it down with beautiful drawings and sharp writing makes him one of the finest short story writers of the past decade, in comics or beyond. Heaven No Hell is always funny, sometimes sad, and continuously innovative in its deconstruction of society.




The Case for Heaven


Book Description

Bestselling and award-winning author Lee Strobel interviews experts about the evidence for the afterlife and offers credible answers to the most provocative questions about what happens when we die, near-death experiences, heaven, and hell. We all want to know what awaits us on the other side of death, but is there any reliable evidence that there is life after death? Investigative author Lee Strobel offers a lively and compelling study into one of the most provocative topics of our day. Through fascinating conversations with respected scholars and experts--a neuroscientist from Cambridge University, a researcher who analyzed a thousand accounts of near-death experiences, and an atheist-turned-Christian-philosopher--Strobel offers compelling reasons for why death is not the end of our existence but a transition to an exciting world to come. Looking at biblical accounts, Strobel unfolds what awaits us after we take our last breath and answers questions like: Is there an afterlife? What is heaven like? How will we spend our time there? And what does it mean to see God face to face? With a balanced approach, Strobel examines the alternative of Hell and the logic of damnation, and gives a careful look at reincarnation, universalism, the exclusivity claims of Christ, and other issues related to the topic of life after death. With vulnerability, Strobel shares the experience of how he nearly died years ago and how the reality of death can shape our lives and faith. Follow Strobel on this journey of discovery of the entirely credible, believable, and exhilarating life to come.




Heaven and Hell


Book Description

Heaven and Hell takes you on a journey through Heaven and Hell, as viewed through the eyes of Chris and Serena Davis, who come to experience their reality first hand. Through God s mercy, those who dwell in Heaven, have no recollection of loved ones in Hell. At least, most don t. Yet, in the most beautiful place in the universe, one man s troubling dreams lead him to realize that the love of his earth life has been condemned to Satan s realm. Now, with the help of a famous scientist from the past, Chris endeavors to pull off the ultimate prison break.




Visions of Heaven and Hell


Book Description

When the wicked have traveled a course of sin, and discover they have reason to fear the God;s judgement and wrath for their sins, they begin to wish there is no God to punish them, then by degrees they persuade themselves there is no God, and then they set themselves to study the arguments to support their opinion. This excellent book by John Bunyan covers the subject matter of the existence of heaven and hell as well as studies and dispells the arguments presented by sinners who argue there is no heaven and hell. Most do not know that Bunyan wrote some 60 books, and poetry too. And also almost a well-kept secret is that his doctrine was so biblically laced that many good men would call him too severe. He believed in, and taught, ALL the doctrines of grace, including double-predestination, or reprobation. Why then is he not smeared with the name of hyper-Calvinist like Goodwin, Gill, and others? I guess the same people ought to call Luther a hyper-Lutheran, for he believed and taught it, too. Why begin a review of Bunyan's writings with such a view of his doctrine? It is to show that a Pilgrim's Progress can come only from someone who believes and teaches ALL the counsel of God, without flinching, yea, with loving-kindness. Illegally, He sat in a jail cell over a river for 12 years with his Bible, Galatians by Luther, and another book or two. He had the choice of feeling miserable and murmuring, or of filling his time, thoughts, and energies with studying that Bible, and seeking a way to be of help to his more comfortable, but less dedicated, brothers and sisters. Listen, dear saints, you can't do any better than reading Bunyan. Like Gurnall, he covers everything here and there, and with a sweetness that can come only from God. What a shame that his large heart should be encased in such small print. But, like digging gold, it is worth the time and trouble to dig spiritual gold. Bunyan (1628-1688) rose from an humble beginning to being a preacher to a little house church, to 12 years in jail because he would not agree to quit preaching, to a huge church in London. He wrote 66 books, nearly all while in jail.




Journeys to Heaven and Hell


Book Description

A New York Times best-selling scholar's illuminating exploration of the earliest Christian narrated journeys to heaven and hell “[An] illuminating deep dive . . . An edifying origin story for contemporary Christian conceptions of the afterlife.”—Publishers Weekly From classics such as the Odyssey and the Aeneid to fifth-century Christian apocrypha, narratives that described guided tours of the afterlife played a major role in shaping ancient notions of morality and ethics. In this new account, acclaimed author Bart Ehrman contextualizes early Christian narratives of heaven and hell within the broader intellectual and cultural worlds from which they emerged. He examines how fundamental social experiences of the early Christian communities molded the conceptions of the afterlife that eventuated into the accepted doctrines of heaven, hell, and purgatory. Drawing on Greek and Roman epic poetry, early Jewish writings such as the Book of Watchers, and apocryphal Christian stories including the Acts of Thomas, the Gospel of Nicodemus, and the Apocalypse of Peter, Ehrman demonstrates that ancient tours of the afterlife promoted reflection on matters of ethics, faith, ambition, and life’s meaning, the fruit of which has been codified into Christian belief today.