A New York Times and Los Angeles Times Bestseller “Doughty chronicles [death] practices with tenderheartedness, a technician’s fascination, and an unsentimental respect for grief.” —Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry—especially chemical embalming—and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality.

An epic of World War II, this novel reflects the exciting, tumultuous and brutal world inhabited by soldiers and the women they love. It portrays the consuming conflicts of a generation set afire by the passions and savagery of war.

What does the Word of God have to say about today's issues? Religion writer Kyle Huckins addresses contemporary controversies and ancient biblical wisdom in this collection of more than one hundred of his national award-winning newspaper columns.

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Three classic World War II novels in one collection, including the National Book Award winner From Here to Eternity. An army base at Pearl Harbor. The jungles of Guadalcanal. A veterans hospital on the home front. Inspired by his own experiences in the US Army, author James Jones’s World War II Trilogy stands as one of the most significant achievements in war literature. This compilation includes: From Here to Eternity Pearl Harbor, 1941. A challenging young private is transferred to a unit where the commander is determined to make his life hell. This edition includes scenes and dialogue censored for the novel’s original publication. A true classic, From Here to Eternity was made into an Academy Award–winning film and a television mini-series, as well as adapted for the stage. The Thin Red Line The invasion of Guadalcanal ignites a six-month battle for two thousand square miles of jungle and sand. But the soldiers of Charlie Company are not of the heroic mold. The unit’s captain is too intelligent and sensitive for the job, his first sergeant is half mad, and the enlisted men begin the campaign gripped by cowardice. This searing portrait of jungle combat has been adapted twice for feature films. Whistle After a long journey across the Pacific, a ship finally lands on American soil. For the soldiers’ loved ones, it’s a celebration. But on board, hundreds of men are broken and haunted, survivors of the battle to wrest the South Seas from the Japanese Empire. Though on their way to heal in a Tennessee hospital, their road to recovery will take far more than mending physical wounds. This ebook features an illustrated biography of James Jones including rare photos from the author’s estate.

From "the world's greatest tour guide," a deeply-researched, captivating journey through the rich history of Christianity and the winding paths of the French and Italian countryside that will feed mind, body, and soul (New York Times). "What a wondrous work! This beautifully written and totally clear-eyed account of his pilgrimage will have you wondering whether we should all embark on such a journey, either of the body, the soul or, as in Egan's case, both." --Cokie Roberts "Egan draws us in, making us feel frozen in the snow-covered Alps, joyful in valleys of trees with low-hanging fruit, skeptical of the relics of embalmed saints and hopeful for the healing of his encrusted toes, so worn and weathered from their walk."--The Washington Post Moved by his mother's death and his Irish Catholic family's complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity to explore the religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval trail leading the devout to Rome, and travels overland via the alpine peaks and small mountain towns of France, Switzerland and Italy, accompanied by a quirky cast of fellow pilgrims and by some of the towering figures of the faith--Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Martin Luther. The goal: walking to St. Peter's Square, in hopes of meeting the galvanizing pope who is struggling to hold together the church through the worst crisis in half a millennium. A thrilling journey, a family story, and a revealing history, A Pilgrimage to Eternity looks for our future in its search for God.

"An accessible and engaging exploration of the mysteries of time." -Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe Twenty years ago, Stephen Hawking tried to explain time by understanding the Big Bang. Now, Sean Carroll says we need to be more ambitious. One of the leading theoretical physicists of his generation, Carroll delivers a dazzling and paradigm-shifting theory of time's arrow that embraces subjects from entropy to quantum mechanics to time travel to information theory and the meaning of life. From Eternity to Here is no less than the next step toward understanding how we came to exist, and a fantastically approachable read that will appeal to a broad audience of armchair physicists, and anyone who ponders the nature of our world.