This volume is a stimulating series of spiritual reflections which will prove helpful for all struggling to find the meaning of human existence and to live the richest, fullest and noblest life. --Chicago Tribune

This meditative prose conveys the essence of the human place in the world -- past and present.

This is the book about immigration detention that all Australians need to read. During the time of the Gillard government, 24-year-old Sydneysider Adele Dumont accepted a volunteer position to teach English to men in immigration detention on Christmas Island. She did not expect to find the work so rewarding or the people she met so interesting. When she was offered a job working at Curtin detention centre near Derby in Western Australia, she took it. Working at Curtin required her to live a fly-in fly-out lifestyle, feeling never quite settled in one place or the other. She lived in a donga when she was in WA, her life full of bus trips to the detention centre and the work she did there; back home in Sydney, she was overwhelmed by the choices people had and the things they didn't do with those choices. What kept her returning to Curtin were her students: men from many lands who had sacrificed all they knew for a chance to live in Australia; men who were unfailingly polite to her in a situation that was barbarous. Slowly, falteringly, these men learned her language and taught her things about their culture. No Man is an Island is the story that will make the issue of immigration detention accessible to far more interested Australians than any number of stern newspaper articles. It is a vividly told story that is full of characters and humanity. It is the story about immigration detention that all Australians need to read.

From the author of "The Cheese and the Worms" comes a quartet of luminous explorations into English literature, from Sir Thomas More to Robert Louis Stevenson. 14 illustrations.

In the critically acclaimed memoir Girl Meets God, Lauren F. Winner chronicled her sojourn from Judaism to Christianity. Now, in Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, Winner describes how experiences of loss and failure unexpectedly slam her into a wall of doubt and spiritual despair: “My belief has faltered, my sense of God’s closeness has grown strained, my efforts at living in accord with what I take to be the call of the gospel have come undone.” Witty, relatable, and fiercely honest, Winner lays bare her experience of what she calls the “middle” of the spiritual life. In elegant and spare prose, she explores why—in the midst of the overwhelming anxiety, loneliness, and boredom of her deepest questioning about where (or if) God is—the Christian story still explains who she is better than any other story she’s ever known. Still is an absorbing meditation combining literary grace with spiritual wisdom. It is sure to resonate with anyone looking to sustain a spiritual life in the midst of real life.