Thirteen year-old Daniel McCarty and his family are starving in Ireland at the height of the potato famine. The crop that feeds 60% of the entire population and 100% of the poor has completely failed. Daniels sister dies and his father is killed in a bar fight. The English landowner evicts Daniel and his mother from the squalid hut. The intrepid lad vows to emigrate to America. The journey is far more arduous than anticipated. The McCartys settle in the dangerous, gang infested, Five Points area of New York. The boy inherits a fishing boat and sails to Norfolk where he becomes involved in the famous sea battle between Merrimack and Congress. In Richmond, Daniel meets Harriett Hampton, daughter of Abner, who deceitfully arranges for the youngster to be conscripted into the Confederate Army as it prepares to march toward Gettysburg. Tragedy strikes the lovers at the end of the war, forcing Daniel to head west. In the cattle town of Abilene, all the characters converge in a smoky shootout that provides a startling conclusion to the action-packed story.

The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

If you care at all about the Christian church you must brace yourself for a roller coaster of emotions as you read A Sad Departure. The title contains a double entendre. On the one hand it alludes to the departure from the Church of Scotland of about forty ministers and many members. On the other hand it refers to the catalyst of these actions the departure of the Kirk from its moorings in the authority of Scripture by its decisions on 'the gay question'. It tells a dark story, almost novelesque in character. A church's Theological Commission reaches a unanimous conclusion on the teaching on marriage given in its ultimate authority, the Bible. But then its General Assembly acts in a way that ignores, demeans, and rejects that teaching. Thus behind these sad departures lies the prior and much sadder departure of the Kirk from its sacred constitution. This is a thoughtful, honest and solemnising book written out of a deep personal and pastoral concern for the cause of the gospel.

There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened. I invite you to turn from the dulling effects of food and the dangers of idolatry, and to say with some simple fast: "This much, O God, I want you." Our appetites dictate the direction of our lives - whether it be the cravings of our stomachs, the passionate desire for possessions or power, or the longings of our spirits for God. But for the Christian, the hunger for anything besides God can be an arch-enemy. While our hunger for God - and Him alone - is the only thing that will bring victory. Do you have that hunger for Him? As John Piper puts it: "If we don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great." If we are full of what the world offers, then perhaps a fast might express, or even increase, our soul's appetite for God. Between the dangers of self-denial and self-indulgence is this path of pleasant pain called fasting. It is the path John Piper invites you to travel in this book. For when God is the supreme hunger of your heart, He will be supreme in everything. And when you are most satisfied in Him, He will be most glorified in you.

Lake was originally from Ontario, Canada. He was from a large family, which was continually affected with illness. At the age of twenty-one, he became a Methodist minister; however, he chose to enter the business world instead of accepting a church ministry. Lake was a very industrious businessman and started two newspapers before beginning a very successful career in real estate. Early in his career, Lake's wife, whom he deeply loved, fell ill with a life threatening illness. Having a lifetime of suffering and bereavement behind him, he refused to accept this. He took the radical step of taking 'his brother who had been an invalid for 22 years to Chicago see John Alexander Dowie . In a matter of just moments after healing ministers laid their hands on him, he was healed -- he got up and walked out! Next, the Lakes took their 34-year-old sister who was dying from breast cancer. She had been operated on five times and had to be carried on a stretcher. She too was healed!

Many Christians believe that they have to understand everything about their faith for that faith to be genuine. This isn't true. There are many things we don't understand about God, His Word, and His works. And this is actually one of the greatest things about the Christian faith: that there are areas of mystery that lie beyond the keenest scholarship or even the most profound spiritual exercises. Sadly, for many people these problems raise so many questions and uncertainties that faith itself becomes a struggle. But questions, and even doubts, are part of faith. Chris Wright encourages us to face the limitations of our understanding and to acknowledge the pain and grief they can often cause. In The God I Don't Understand, he focuses on four of the most mysterious subjects in the Bible and reflects upon why it's important to ask questions without having to provide the answer: The problem of evil and suffering. The genocide of the Canaanites. The cross and the crucifixion. The end of the world. "However strongly we believe in divine revelation, we must acknowledge both that God has not revealed everything and that much of what he has revealed is not plain. It is because Dr. Wright confronts biblical problems with a combination of honesty and humility that I warmly commend this book." —John Stott