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When I was going to church as a kid, I noticed there were a lot of things about faith that were really important to people but that they rarely talked about. In my work as a pastor, professor, and church historian, I’ve tried to identify and name those core values, so that we can learn from one another, share our beliefs in meaningful and respectful ways, and grow together as we explore life’s big questions and practice living out our beliefs in the here and now.
This little book is among the best pieces of Christian literature ever written. Here the church reformer Martin Luther pondered the “both/and” reality of Christians: that believers are entirely set free by Jesus and that believers are totally bound to serve others because Jesus is the one they follow. This book perfectly describes the Lutheran Reformation’s conviction that faith is a living and active experience that transforms people and communities through trust in God and love of neighbors.
Timothy J. Wengert skillfully provides a clear understanding of the historical context from which the treatise The Freedom of a Christian and his accompanying Letter to Pope Leo X arose. As controversy concerning his writings grew, Luther was instructed to write a reconciliation-minded letter to Pope Leo X (14751521). To this letter he appended a nonpolemical tract describing the heart of his beliefs, The Freedom of a Christian. Luthers Latin version added an introduction and a lengthy appendix not found in the German edition. The two editions arose out of the different audiences for them: the one addressed to theologians,…
When I was going to church as a kid, I noticed there were a lot of things about faith that were really important to people but that they rarely talked about. In my work as a pastor, professor, and church historian, I’ve tried to identify and name those core values, so that we can learn from one another, share our beliefs in meaningful and respectful ways, and grow together as we explore life’s big questions and practice living out our beliefs in the here and now.
Because the Reformation took place in 16th century Germany, it’s common to wonder how ideas that were popular 500 years ago in Central Europe might have anything to say to today’s global realities. In this book, Brazilian Lutheran professor Walter Altmann explores the ways that Martin Luther’s teachings resonate with the contemporary concerns of Latin American theologies of liberation. Altmann’s approach sets a great model for how people today can apply the spiritual riches of the past to the practical needs of the present.
With the approach of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's inauguration of the Protestant Reformation and the burgeoning dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans opened under Pope Francis, this new edition of Walter Altmann's Luther and Liberation is timely and relevant. Luther and Liberation recovers the liberating and revolutionary impact of Luthers theology, read afresh from the perspective of the Latin American context. Altmann provides a much-needed reassessment of Luther's significance today through a direct engagement of Luther's historical situation with an eye keenly situated on the deeply contextual situation of the contemporary reader, giving a localized reading from the author's…
When I was going to church as a kid, I noticed there were a lot of things about faith that were really important to people but that they rarely talked about. In my work as a pastor, professor, and church historian, I’ve tried to identify and name those core values, so that we can learn from one another, share our beliefs in meaningful and respectful ways, and grow together as we explore life’s big questions and practice living out our beliefs in the here and now.
With two other women, Leymah Gbowee received the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her peace activism that helped end the 1999-2003 civil war in Liberia. Using tactics that included daily protests, a sex strike, and rehabilitation of child soldiers, Gbowee and her coworkers effectively combined religious values, social service, and direct action to advocate for peace. Although not directly about theology, Gbowee’s church and personal faith provided important motivation, resilience, and organizational support. This memoir is both honest about her struggles and provides an inspiring witness to social change.
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize shares her inspirational, powerful story of how a group of women working together created an unstoppable force that brought peace to Liberia.
As a young woman, Leymah Gbowee was broken by the Liberian civil war, a brutal conflict that destroyed her country and claimed the lives of countless relatives and friends. Propelled by her realization that it is women and girls who suffer most during conflicts, she found the courage to turn her bitterness into action.
She helped organize and then lead the Liberian Mass Action for Peace, which brought together Christian and…
When I was going to church as a kid, I noticed there were a lot of things about faith that were really important to people but that they rarely talked about. In my work as a pastor, professor, and church historian, I’ve tried to identify and name those core values, so that we can learn from one another, share our beliefs in meaningful and respectful ways, and grow together as we explore life’s big questions and practice living out our beliefs in the here and now.
German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the lamentably few church leaders who took a clear stand against the Nazification of Christianity under the Third Reich. He wrote this wonderful little book about communal life in light of his experiences leading an unauthorized seminary, which the Nazi regime closed in 1937. Bonhoeffer, who was executed in 1945 for his resistance, wisely observed in Life Together that blessings abound when we deal with people as they are, not as we wish they would be.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most influential Christian martyrs in history, bequeathed to humanity a legacy of theological creativity and spirituality that continues to intrigue people from a variety of backgrounds. Life Together gathers Bonhoeffer’s 1938 reflections on the character of Christian community, based on the common life that he and his seminarians experienced at the Finkenwalde Seminary and in the “Brother’s House” there. The stimulus for the writing of Life Together was the closing of the preacher's seminary at Finkenwalde by the Nazis.
While Bonhoeffer wrote with his own seminary community in mind, he intended Life Together to have…
I’m a lifelong fan of George Eliot and other classic psychological novelists such as Tolstoy, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. I read their fiction over and over again. It deepens my understanding of the way people think and feel, how relationships and communities function, and what makes for a good life. Through these books I sort out my own muddled experiences.
For a long time, I assumed that I would find these three novellas about churchmen and parishioners in the English countryside of the late 18th and early 19th centuries sleepy and dull. They’re anything but. Eliot depicts the presence of alcoholism, spousal abuse, loneliness, and life-damaging gossip in her fictional communities. But her signature empathy and wit, already on display in this early work, make it invigorating, not a downer.
'the only true knowledge of our fellow-man is that which enables us to feel with him'
George Eliot's first published work consisted of three short novellas: 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton', 'Mr Gilfil's Love-Story', and 'Janet's Repentance'. Their depiction of the lives of ordinary men and women in a provincial Midlands town initiated a new era of nineteenth-century literary realism. The tales concern rural members of the clergy and the gossip and factions that a small town generates around them. Amos Barton only realizes how much he depends upon his wife's selfless love when she dies prematurely;…
I’ve been fascinated by absurdist comedy and ideas for as long as I can remember. At sixteen, I wrote my first book, Mr A, which followed a man who would turn into a superhero after taking LSD and his talking dog. As an adult, I continue to revel in these types of stories. I brought this passion to my chart-topping debut non-fiction book, where I interviewed several people who believe McDonald’s has interdimensional properties. Now, I hold no bars in fiction writing, having authored a ‘genius of a book’ that follows a talking pencil.
Many of us writers are subject to the terrible cliché of substance abuse, none so much as Charles Bukowski. Having dabbled in the debauched myself, Ham on Rye sadly reflects what life could be like if the idiocy of adolescence continues into adulthood. This book is hilarious, vulgar, shocking, and oddly insightful. Not only is this my favourite Bukowski book, but it’s the book that introduced me to his work and changed my writing forever.
'He brought everyone down to earth, even the angels' LEONARD COHEN
Charles Bukowski is one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century. The autobiographical Ham on Rye is widely considered his finest novel. A classic of American literature, it offers powerful insight into his youth through the prism of his alter-ego Henry Chinaski, who grew up to be the legendary Hank Chinaski of Post Office and Factotum.
I grew up on a family farm surrounded by larger vegetable and dairy operations that used migrant labor. From an early age, my siblings and I were acquainted with the children of these workers, children whom we shared a school desk with one day and were gone the next. On summer vacations, our parents hauled us around in a station wagon with a popup camper, which they parked in out-of-the-way hayfields and on mountainous plateaus, shunning, much to our chagrin, normal campgrounds, and swimming pools. Thus, I grew up exposed to different cultures and environments. My writing reflects my parents’ curiosity, love of books and travel, and devotion to the natural world.
This book centers around the plight of twelve young, urban Native Americans in Oakland, California, who, having lost connection to the land and their heritage, struggle to make sense of their identity. For various reasons, they all travel to and converge at the Big Oakland Powwow.
It is a gut-wrenching story that grapples with the disenfranchisement of Native Americans, starting with the colonies; the novel opens with a true account of the so-called Indian Wars. An account of history that was rewritten to make us feel good about Thanksgiving. I loved it for the opening scene and the historical references. An impossible to put down novel.
** Shortlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award **
One of Barack Obama's best books of 2018, the New York Times bestselling novel about contemporary America from a bold new Native American voice
'A thunderclap' Marlon James 'Astonishing' Margaret Atwood, via Twitter 'Pure soaring beauty' Colm Toibin
Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and hoping to reconnect with her estranged family. That's why she is there. Dene is there because he has been collecting stories to honour his uncle's death, while Edwin is looking for his true father and Opal came to watch her boy Orvil dance.
I teach literature, Labor Studies, and writing at San Diego City College and have written three San Diego-based novels: Drift, Flash, and Last Days in Ocean Beach, along with Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See, a radical history of San Diego that I co-wrote with Mike Davis and Kelly Mayhew. Both as a writer and as a daily wanderer on the streets of San Diego, I have a passion for the psychogeography of the city space and a deep curiosity for and love of the people I encounter there.
Jim Thompson’s novel is arguably San Diego’s greatest classic noir work.
While not a crime novel, it captures wartime San Diego through the glass darkly, and I was moved and unsettled by Thompson’s unsparing forays into the alienation of those who were the most exploited in the city.
San Diego in the years before World War II. James Dillon is barely scraping by working a menial job in manufacturing, trying to raise a family and support his elderly mother and sister Frankie at the same time. He drinks too hard -- just like his father and nearly everyone in his extended family. With so many people crammed into one home, sometimes there's so much fighting he can barely stand it. But if James can survive the chaos of everyday life long enough, maybe -- just maybe -- there's a chance it'll all get better.
Widowed at age fifty and now eighty-four, I know first hand the search for love in late life. I have three adult children and can't avoid bringing baggage to any new relationship, whether with humans or the cats I adore. Coming to writing seriously only after my husband’s death, I remain fascinated by questions of craft, how the story is told (as my recommendations show), and I’ve published several essays on aspects of that subject. My first career in dance, my conversion to Catholicism, and my psychoanalytic therapy have been major parts of my life and play significant roles in my memoir, my novel, and my more recent novella and stories.
This true story of love and lasting marriage in later life is told by the husband and wife in alternating first-person voices. Ingrained habits of social and personal life and relationships with both parents and children all create stumbling blocks as the two lovers strive to create a unified way of life. I admire this book for its frank and vivid presentation of the pitfalls that can threaten a union of two individuals who meet in late middle age, already well set on their paths. In its presentation of problems and solutions, this book offers the most “self-help” of these five recommendations.
Jill Robinson, the author of Bed/Time/Story and Past Forgetting, and her husband, Stuart Shaw, share their true story about finding love when they both had lost faith in romance.
When Stuart and Jill first met, neither felt ready for love. Stuart was recovering from the alcoholism that had wrecked his marriage and ravaged his career. Jill was recovering from a second failed marriage and believed she was done with love forever.
But then, in a crowded Connecticut diner, Jill caught Stuart's eye and shot him a look that she knew would draw him in. What follows is a sexy journey…
I took my first hit of marijuana when I was 9. I had my first drink at 12 and my first shot of heroin at 14. My brother and sister were also alcoholics and ended up taking their own lives. I abused drugs and alcohol for over 30 years, and after many failed attempts to turn my life around, I now have 15 years of continuous sobriety. I’ve also read almost ninety books on the topic of substance abuse and have written several myself about my personal struggles to get clean and sober and stay that way. Addiction, sadly, is a subject I know all too well.
This is one of the first books I read when I realized that I had a serious problem with drinking. Not only did it help me better understand my addiction from a genetic, scientific point-of-view, it also helped me diagnose myself as an alcoholic. Written for the lay-reader, it’s short, packed with hard facts and eye-opening studies about alcoholism. It’s a classic. And it’s also inspiring when it comes to recovery and treatment. I’ve recommended it dozens of times to people who’ve asked me where they could find out more about alcoholism, if not for themselves, then for those they love who have a serious drinking problem.
The now-classic guide to alcoholism returns with new, enlightening research that confirms the revolutionary ideas first trailblazed by this book in a time when such theories were unheard of—now featuring a new foreword, new resources, and the same reliable insights and easy-to-read style.
“This book is truly informative, powerful, and an invaluable resource on overcoming alcoholism.”—Angela Diaz, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.
Ten of millions of Americans suffer from alcoholism, yet most people still wrongly believe that alcoholism is a psychological or moral problem that can be “cured” once the purported underlying psychological problems or moral failings of the alcoholic are addressed.…
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