Publisher Description

A diary of racism in an American church which is incredibly shocking but also true story of a Christina minister and his two colleages evicted from their pastorate because they sought to change the congregation's lily-white racial policy.

Baptists in the South were once considered the last bastions of segregation. From 1957 to 1995, God was at work changing the attitudes of those opposed to the acceptance of all people. The change was so phenomenal that Dr. C. Peter Wagner at Fuller Theological Seminary called Southern Baptists the most open and diverse denomination in the nation. This change did not come by accident. College and seminary professors, denominational servants, women in the Woman's Missionary Union in local churches, average laypeople and many other unnamed persons made it happen. This book tells how God used people and events to bring about unhearalded changes. The book is written from the author's point of view, therefore it is limited in scope. However, because the author had a national platform, the book reflects that perspective as well.

The son of dysfunctional and destitute parents secures employment as a member of the morning breakfast staff in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel. The job affords the boy a respite from his father’s profound apathy and his mother’s obsession with religion. His father Paddy, an ex-British army soldier, considers his marriage to Molly to be a greater threat to his existence than his life and death struggles in the trenches during the Great War. Molly considers her life with the unemployed Paddy and ten children a crucifixion that will ensure her a place in Heaven among her favourite martyrs. In the Shelbourne, the boy encounters Margaret Burke Sheridan, a retired opera diva who in her prime sang at La Scala and Covent Garden. She was Puccini’s favourite Madame Butterfly and a protégé of Marconi, the inventor of the radio. In her present sad and lonely retirement Maggie is considered just a thorn in the side of the hotel staff. But one morning, when the new breakfast boy attempts to serve her breakfast (under the bed), Maggie has an attitude change. She senses she has one last aria to sing in the opera of her life. One that will change the boy’s life forever.

A gorgeously illustrated companion to the fashion documentary of the same name, Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf Goodman is an unforgettable collection of anecdotes, from the hilarious to the poignant, in commemoration of the internationally renowned luxury specialty store’s 111th anniversary. With delightful remembrances from celebrities, designers, and highly regarded fashion insiders—from Manolo Blahnik, Marc Jacobs, and Vera Wang to Joan Rivers, Susan Lucci, and Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen—Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf Goodman also features a foreword by fashion writer Holly Brubach, as well as art and photography from major advertising campaigns and original vintage sketches created by Bergdorf at the collection presentations of designers such as Lanvin, Chanel, and Balenciaga. This is an essential book for anyone who loves fashion, the thrill of a sumptuous shopping experience, and wonderful stories told by and about the famous.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of Bird by Bird comes a personal, wise, very funny, and “life-affirming” book (People) that shows us how to find meaning and hope through shining the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life. "Anne Lamott is walking proof that a person can be both reverent and irreverent in the same lifetime. Sometimes even in the same breath." —San Francisco Chronicle Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are: "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She has a friend whose morning prayer each day is "Whatever," and whose evening prayer is "Oh, well." Anne thinks of Jesus as "Casper the friendly savior" and describes God as "one crafty mother." Despite—or because of—her irreverence, faith is a natural subject for Anne Lamott. Since Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her fans have been waiting for her to write the book that explained how she came to the big-hearted, grateful, generous faith that she so often alluded to in her two earlier nonfiction books. The people in Anne Lamott's real life are like beloved characters in a favorite series for her readers—her friend Pammy, her son, Sam, and the many funny and wise folks who attend her church are all familiar. And Traveling Mercies is a welcome return to those lives, as well as an introduction to new companions Lamott treats with the same candor, insight, and tenderness. Lamott's faith isn't about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, "My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers."

This landmark collection of essays by one of the world's greatest living authors makes Durs Grünbein's wide-ranging and multifaceted prose available in English for the first time, and is a welcome complement to Ashes for Breakfast, his first book-length collection of poetry in English. Covering two decades, The Bars of Atlantis unfurls the entire breadth and depth of Grünbein's essayistic genius. Memoiristic and autobiographical pieces that introduce Grünbein, the man and the author, and tell the story of the making of a poet and thinker toward the end of a century marked by global political strife, unprecedented human suffering, long decades of totalitarian rule, and, in its final quarter, the dawn of a new, post–Cold War world order; essays that focus on Grünbein's major philosophical and aesthetic concerns, such as the intersection of art and science, literature and biology; extended reflections on the existential, cultural, political, and ethical import of the poet's craft in the contemporary world; and, finally, explorations of the meaning of classical antiquity for the present—all contribute to making.