A look not only at the inner man but also at the environments that shaped Leonard Cohen, from the rock scene of New York in the 1960s to the remote Zen monastery where Cohen spent years later in life.

Praised as "brilliantly revelatory...a masterful work of critical journalism" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), The Holy or the Broken is the fascinating account of one of the most-performed rock songs in history--Leonard Cohen's heartrending "Hallelujah." How did one obscure song become an international anthem for human triumph and tragedy, a song each successive generation seems to feel they have discovered and claimed as uniquely their own? Celebrated music journalist Alan Light follows the improbable journey of "Hallelujah" straight to the heart of popular culture.

Marking the fiftieth anniversary of Kazantzakis's death, author Darren J. N. Middleton looks back on Kazantzakis's life and literary art to suggest that, contrary to popular belief, Kazantzakis and his views actually comport with the ideals of Christianity.

Jack Butler’s Broken Hallelujah: New and Selected Poems is a celebration that refuses to explain away pain and trouble, or to oversell the very transcendence it seeks. Its poems are always musical, whether formal, improvisational, or written according to the music of speech itself. Butler understands poetry more nearly as the essence of that speech than as one of its products, the heart of the ways we know each other. Some of these forms are as old as English, but the voice stays immediate; and whether dark or hopeful, comic or sober, passionate or calm and knowing, these poems speak with the urgency of praise itself.

The losses in our lives are both big and small. We leave home. We experience physical illness. We struggle with vocation. We may long for a spouse or child. We lose people we love to addiction or death. In this book spiritual director Beth Slevcove offers stories of loss from her own life along with distinctive spiritual practices that can guide us back to God.

On a sweltering September night, Long Beach Homicide Detective Danny Beckett is called to a grisly crime scene at the mouth of the Los Angeles River. A defenseless homeless man has been burned to death by three teenagers with gang ties. The suspects are already in custody, and the evidence is overwhelming--but when one suspect's brother is targeted for murder, Danny starts to think there may be more to this seemingly clear-cut case. Obsessed with discovering the true identity of the victim, a gentle vagrant who may have been hiding a tortured past, Danny and his team start to uncover a high-reaching conspiracy that puts them all at risk--and threatens to open new wounds that could cut even deeper than Danny's old ones.

A Broken Hallelujah traces a young man's path through the Christian Brothers' regime from Juniorate through the Leaving Certificate year to Teacher Training, and from there to work on the mission. The author describes in intimate detail the experiences and challenges he faces on the way, culminating in the final and most difficult decision of all, whether or not to remain in the fold of the Brothers' Congregation. This unique story recalls a type of education which has long since passed out of use, and has become, for many, a piece of history in itself. In detailing his experiences, the author describes the dilemmas faced by a great number of people, dilemmas which reflect many of the choices and difficulties that have shaped the Ireland of today.