Due to bullying in school, fifteen-year-old Pearl Armstrong longs to leave her repressive and unfair life on a Canadian farm. Thus, she runs away to San Francisco, the epicenter of the 1960’s counterculture movement. Pearl leaves behind her distraught mother and is introduced to mind-altering drugs, free love, communal living, war-time politics, racism and unexpected friendships. It is only after her immersion into that unfamiliar and surreal world that Pearl belatedly realizes that the adventures and freedom she so desperately sought are neither as enticing nor exciting as she had once imagined.

Set in the haunting landscape of everyday life, a young couple's apartment, a Greyhound bus drifting through the midwest, an old man's bench in Los Angeles, the ten stories in Destination evoke new insight into the familiar. A man confesses adultery to clear his conscience. A husband witnesses a murder that fortells the end of his marriage. A female student confronts an intruder climbing through her dorm window. These and more generate an exquisite collection in this powerful new work.

This anthology provides you with a great selection of dramatic material for memorable Advent and Christmas worship. With a variety of approaches, there's ample material to choose from to fit your needs, whatever your congregation's size or worship style. Included are a set of brief dramatic sketches for Advent candle lighting, an entertaining and educational presentation that combines the stories of several beloved Christmas carols with the story of Jesus' birth, a five-scene play telling the traditional Christmas story with a touch of humor and a few unexpected twists, and a Christmas pageant and congregational worship service that lets audiences eavesdrop on the thoughts, stories, and questions of ancient travelers as they make their way to Bethlehem.

From the internationally bestselling author of The Windfall. . . . What could go wrong at a lavish Indian wedding with your best friend and your entire family? Tina Das wants to belong, but she just isn't sure where. India or America? Brooklyn or Bombay? Manhattan or Delhi? Or start from scratch in London--she still has fond memories of her one-night stand with Rocco Gallagher, the handsome Australian, as they traipsed through Covent Garden and Seven Dials, but he never called back so maybe it's time to let that dream go, and focus on finding the next big story for her streaming network instead. She's hoping she'll find it at her cousin's lavish, weeklong Delhi wedding, and has taken her best friend Marianne Laing along for the ride to Delhi's poshest country club, Colebrookes. Marianne has always had international tastes, in life and in love, yet can't help but think of sweet, steady, khaki-clad Tom back home in New York. Also in attendance are Tina's divorced parents: her mother, Radha, who's bringing her American "boyfriend," David, to the wedding, and her father, Neel, who's using the visit to India to explore the idea of dating again, only to discover it and he have both changed completely in the decades he's been away. Infused with warmth, charm, and wicked humor, Destination Wedding grapples with the challenges of work, love, and finding the people who make a place feel like home.

‘Brilliant, life-affirming, perfect escapism.’ Heat What if you had a second chance... to find yourself?

First published in 1957, Destination Mecca was both an ambitious travel book and a work of ethnographic and cultural research.Shah documents a wide range of fascinating journeys, from his quest for the gold mines of King Solomon on Sudan's Red Sea Coast, to encounters in desert caravanserais and sojourns with Mediterranean contraband smugglers, to his time as a personal guest of the elderly King Ibn Saud.As readable now as it was when first published, Destination Mecca acts as a beacon for hands on adventurers and those of a more sedate kind.