The bestselling author's inspiring account of her spiritual journey into discovering the love of God. "Beautifully written . . . the message and challenge of the book is profound. . . . This book will awaken your longing and set you off on your own spiritual journey."—Today's Christian Woman "A joy to read from beginning to end."—Virtue Magazine Sue Monk Kidd explores the thrilling possibilities of God's everlasting love. God's Joyful Surprise makes an important statement about devotion to God rather than activity. Strands of humor and warmth woven throughout make it a joy to read from beginning to end.

The stories of Jesus, placed in the context of the familiar and factual, are filled with metaphors that audiences can understand and appreciate. Metaphors not only inform and persuade, but also fire up readers' imaginations and get them involved as participants. Humans are primed to think and feel metaphorically, and so Garden of the Soul aims to metaphorically explore five landscapes that feature prominently in the Bible. Each metaphorical landscape throws light on an aspect of spiritual life. The bountiful garden speaks of growth, the flowing river calls for unceasing prayer, the raging sea mirrors the turbulence of a journey of faith, the barren desert transforms by emptying life's clutter, and the high mountain challenges readers to scale its peak to glimpse a transcendent vision of God. This book will inform, enrich, and challenge readers' spiritual lives throughout their journey from garden to mountain.

Database Aesthetics examines the database as cultural and aesthetic form, explaining how artists have participated in network culture by creating data art. The essays in this collection look at how an aesthetic emerges when artists use the vast amounts of available information as their medium. Here, the ways information is ordered and organized become artistic choices, and artists have an essential role in influencing and critiquing the digitization of daily life. Contributors: Sharon Daniel, U of California, Santa Cruz; Steve Deitz, Carleton College; Lynn Hershman Leeson, U of California, Davis; George Legrady, U of California, Santa Barbara; Eduardo Kac, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Norman Klein, California Institute of the Arts; John Klima; Lev Manovich, U of California, San Diego; Robert F. Nideffer, U of California, Irvine; Nancy Paterson, Ontario College of Art and Design; Christiane Paul, School of Visual Arts in New York; Marko Peljhan, U of California, Santa Barbara; Warren Sack, U of California, Santa Cruz; Bill Seaman, Rhode Island School of Design; Grahame Weinbren, School of Visual Arts, New York. Victoria Vesna is a media artist, and professor and chair of the Department of Design and Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles.

A repackaged edition of the revered author’s spiritual memoir, in which he recounts the story of his divine journey and eventual conversion to Christianity. C. S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and bestselling author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—takes readers on a spiritual journey through his early life and eventual embrace of the Christian faith. Lewis begins with his childhood in Belfast, surveys his boarding school years and his youthful atheism in England, reflects on his experience in World War I, and ends at Oxford, where he became "the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." As he recounts his lifelong search for joy, Lewis demonstrates its role in guiding him to find God.