Luther Gray was what you’d call an oddball because of his fascination with the dead. Luther always wanted to be a doctor but never got the opportunity because his father wanted him to inherit the family business and carry on the tradition like he did for his father when the business was passed on to him after his father died. Education was never stressed in his family and if Luther made bad grades at school his father could care less so with no one to encourage Luther to excel at school he just dropped out in the eighth grade and helped his father with odd jobs at the funeral home. As Luther got older his brain never developed beyond his eighth-grade education which caused him to be shy and reserved with no friends outside the funeral home. He was very proud of his work at his father’s funeral home, but he soon became bored with just draining dead people’s blood from their bodies on the cold slab. One day when his father had to go into town and run some errands, this gave Luther a great opportunity to act out his fantasy. Luther said to himself while he was wiping the dripping blood from the shiny blade he used a thousand times on the dead on the cold slab, “I’ll just remove one organ and my father will never know.” Luther removed the intestines to make himself a belt to hold up his baggy pants. Luther felt really cool about what he had done and that his father would never find out his dirty little secret. Luther didn’t realize he desecrated a human body because the organ that he removed wasn’t for science but for Luther’s own sick pleasure. Luther’s father returned shortly after finishing his last errand and said to Luther “Is everything okay?” Luther replied, “Everything is just fine Father.” Unbeknownst to his father this was just the start of Luther’s peculiar behavior.

This revised collection includes both original works and familiar hymn arrangements by noted composer and organist Robert Hebble. The pieces range from grandiose to reflective, and are useful in worship settings or concerts. A history of the actual Crystal Cathedral organ is also included along with an update on additions by Fred Swann. Titles: * Celebration * Diptych (Orientis Partibus) * Heraldings * Meditation on My Shepherd Will Supply My Need * Nave (Divinum Mysterium) * Toccata on Old Hundredth * Pastel * Prelude on I Wonder As I Wander * Psalm Prelude * Schematics (Ton y Botel and Ebenezer) * Seven Palette Sketches of Utrillo * Soft Stillness and the Night

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks meets Get Out in this “startling…powerful” (Kirkus Reviews) investigation of racial inequality at the core of the heart transplant race. In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a black man, went into Virginia’s top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart taken out of his body and put into the chest of a white businessman. Now, in The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker’s death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family’s permission or knowledge. The circumstances surrounding his death reflect the long legacy of mistreating African Americans that began more than a century before with cadaver harvesting and worse. It culminated in efforts to win the heart transplant race in the late 1960s. Featuring years of research and fresh reporting, along with a foreword from social justice activist Ben Jealous, “this powerful book weaves together a medical mystery, a legal drama, and a sweeping history, its characters confronting unprecedented issues of life and death under the shadows of centuries of racial injustice” (Edward L. Ayers, author of The Promise of the New South).

A collection of stories by individuals whom have given or received an organ, or donated the organs of a loved one.

Thanks to the technological miracle of artiforgs, now you can live virtually forever. Nearly indestructible artificial organs, these wonders of metal and plastic are far more reliable and efficient than the cancer-prone lungs and fallible kidneys you were born with—and the Credit Union will be delighted to work out an equitable payment plan. But, of course, if you fall delinquent, one of their dedicated professionals will be dispatched to track you down and take their product back. This is the story of the making—and unmaking—of the best Bio-Repo Man in the extraction business, who finds his soul when he loses his heart . . . and then he has to run.