Piggy, confused to wake up in a beautiful meadow rather than his cage, meets other guinea pigs, Fuzzbuzz and Bubbleberry, who tell him about heaven.

The author of the Blue Kangaroo books offers this tender story that deals with the death of a pet in a heartfelt and reassuring way for younger children. Full color.

Picking up where her modern classic The Bean Trees left off, Barbara Kingsolver’s bestselling Pigs in Heaven continues the tale of Turtle and Taylor Greer, a Native American girl and her adoptive mother who have settled in Tucson, Arizona, as they both try to overcome their difficult pasts. Taking place three years after The Bean Trees, Taylor is now dating a musician named Jax and has officially adopted Turtle. But when a lawyer for the Cherokee Nation begins to investigate the adoption—their new life together begins to crumble. Depicting the clash between fierce family love and tribal law, poverty and means, abandonment and belonging, Pigs in Heaven is a morally wrenching, gently humorous work of fiction that speaks equally to the head and the heart. This edition includes a P.S. section with additional insights from Barbara Kingsolver, background material, suggestions for further reading, and more.

Trying to Save Piggy Sneed contains a dozen short works by John Irving, beginning with three memoirs, including an account of Mr. Irving’s dinner with President Ronald Reagan at the White House. The longest of the memoirs, “The Imaginary Girlfriend,” is the core of this collection. The middle section of the book is fiction. Since the publication of his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968, John Irving has written twelve more novels but only half a dozen stories that he considers “finished”: they are all published here, including “Interiors,” which won the O. Henry Award. In the third and final section are three essays of appreciation: one on Günter Grass, two on Charles Dickens. To each of the twelve pieces, Mr. Irving has contributed his Author’s Notes. These notes provide some perspective on the circumstances surrounding the writing of each piece—for example, an election-year diary of the Bush-Clinton campaigns accompanies Mr. Irving’s memoir of his dinner with President Reagan; and the notes to one of his short stories explain that the story was presented and sold to Playboy as the work of a woman. Trying to Save Piggy Sneed is both as moving and as mischievous as readers would expect from the author of The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, A Prayer of Owen Meany, A Widow for One Year, and In One Person. And Mr. Irving’s concise autobiography, “The Imaginary Girlfriend,” is both a work of the utmost literary accomplishment and a paradigm for living. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

WARNING! This book could make your life messy! Today’s church is continually being confronted with the question, “What is the gospel?” Many churches answer this through strong exposition of biblical truth. Others answer with a focus on community engagement. But doesn’t Christ call us to do both? The covenant of salvation demands a radical re-patterning of relationships. Bryan Lorrits, a pastor in the heart of one of America’s historically racially divided urban centers, seizes the opportunity to engage God, the church, and culture in ways that may challenge your beliefs, practices, and relationships. A Cross-Shaped Gospel clearly articulates the vertical dimension of the Christian faith, as well as looking at the horizontal implications of salvation for growth, service, and community. It provokes readers to think about the implications of living out their faith. What does the gospel mean for issues of: Political engagement? Class distinctions? Race Relations? It is only by reaching upward that we can reach outward in power and with the proper motives, so let A Cross- Shaped Gospel help you in crafting and communicating a biblical philosophy of engaging God and others well!

Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.

From Christian libertarian farmer Joel Salatin, a clarion call to readers to honor the animals and the land, and produce food based on spiritual principles. What on earth is The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs? It's an inspiring call to action for people of faith . . . a heartfelt plea to heed the Bible's guidance . . . . It's an important and thought-provoking explanation of how by simply appreciating the marvelous pigness of pigs, we are celebrating the Glory of God. As a man of deep faith and student of the Bible, and as a respected and successful ecological family farmer, Joel Salatin knows that God created heaven and earth and meant for all living organisms to be true to their nature and their endowed holy purpose. He intended for us to respect and care for His gift of creation, not to ravage and mistreat it for our own pleasure or wealth. The example that inspires the book's title explains what Salatin means: when huge corporate farms confine pigs in cramped and dark pens, inject them with antibiotics and feed them herbicide-saturated food simply to increase profits, they are not respecting them as a creation of God or allowing them to express even their most rudimentary uniqueness - that special role that is part of His design. Every living organism has a God-given uniqueness to its life that must be honored and respected, and too often that is not happening today. Salatin shows us the long overlooked ethics and instructions in the Bible for how to eat, how to shop, how to think about how we farm and feed the world. Through scripture and Biblical stories, he shows us why it's more vital than ever to look to the good book rather than corporate America when feeding the country and your family. Salatin makes a compelling case for Christian stewardship of the earth and how it relates to every action we take regarding our food. He also opens our eyes to a common misconception many Christians may have about environmentalism: it's not a bad thing, and definitely not just the province of secular liberals; it's really a very good thing, part of heeding God's Word. With warmth and with humor, but with no less piercing criticism of the industrial food complex, Salatin brings readers on a fascinating journey of farming, food and faith. Readers will not say grace over their plates the same way ever again.