An intensely personal novel about childhood, memory, and history by one of today's most celebrated authors, now available in the US for the first time. Friend of My Youth begins with the novelist Amit Chaudhuri returning to Bombay, the city in which he grew up, to give a reading. Ramu, the friend of his youth, with whom he likes to get together when he comes back, is not there: after years of disabling drug addiction, Ramu has signed up for an intensive rehab program. But Amit Chaudhuri has errands to run in Bombay for his mother and wife, which take him back to the Taj Mahal Hotel, the site, not that long before, of a brutal terrorist attack. Amit Chaudhuri writes novels the way an extraordinary instrumentalist makes music, stating and restating his themes, trying them out in different keys and to various effect, developing and dropping them, only to pick them up again and turn them completely around. He engages both our minds and our hearts. He makes us marvel. Friend of My Youth, his deceptively casual and continually observant and inventive new novel, makes us see and feel the great city of Bombay while bringing us into the quizzical, tender, rueful, and reflective sensibility of its central character, Amit Chaudhuri, not to be confused, we are told, with the novelist who wrote this book. Friend of My Youth reflects on the nature of identity, the passage of time, the experience of friendship, the indignities of youth and middle age, the lives of parents and children, and, for all the humor that seasons its pages, terror, the terror that can strike from nowhere, the terror that is a fact of daily life. Friend of My Youth is fearfully and wonderfully made.

A “wickedly funny” (Newsweek) collection of ten short stories from Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro, “one of the most eloquent and gifted writers of contemporary fiction” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). “Each of her collections demonstrates such linguistic skill, delicacy of vision, and . . . moral strength and clarity.”—Chicago Tribune A woman haunted by dreams of her dead mother. An adulterous couple stepping over the line where the initial excitement ends and the pain begins. A widow visiting a Scottish village in search of her husband’s past—and instead discovering unsetting truths about a total stranger. The miraculously accomplished stories in this collection not only astonish and delight, but also convey the unspoken mysteries at the heart of all human experience. The mastery—the almost numinous ability to say the unsayable—makes Friend of My Youth a genuine literary event.

The story of "The Friend of Youth" is told here in a brief, popular manner for teenagers and adults. A practical joker with a great sense of humor in his youth, St. John Bosco (1815-1888) grew up to become a priest and the founder of the Salesians (the largest order in the Church). Relates the many prophetic dreams he had, how Our Lady called him and helped him to become a priest, his struggles with the devil, and much more! An easy read, and a great book for any Catholic.

OUR DEAR YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN, we have great confidence in you. You are beloved sons and daughters of God and He is mindful of you. You have come to earth at a time of great opportunities and also of great challenges. The standards in this booklet will help you with the important choices you are making now and will yet make in the future. We promise that as you keep the covenants you have made and these standards, you will be blessed with the companionship of the Holy Ghost, your faith and testimony will grow stronger, and you will enjoy increasing happiness.

Offering practical instruction on how to perform the Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation, which will take only minutes a day, many practitioners have experienced benefits, including increased energy, weight loss, better memory, new hair growth, pain relief, better digestion, and feeling overall more youthful. Legend has it that hidden in the remote reaches of the Himalayan mountains lies a secret that would have saved Ponce de Leon from years of fruitless searching for the Fountain of Youth. There, generations of Tibetan monks have passed down a series of exercises with mystical, age-reversing properties. Known as the Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation or the Five Rites, these once-secret exercises are now available to Westerners in Ancient Secret of the Fountain Of Youth. Peter Kelder's book begins with an account of his own introduction to the rites by way of Colonel Bradford, a mysterious retired British army officer who learned of the rites while journeying high up in the Himalayas. Fountain of Youth then offers practical instructions for each of the five rites, which resemble yoga postures. Taking just minutes a day to perform, the benefits for practitioners have included increased energy, weight loss, better memory, new hair growth, pain relief, better digestion, and feeling overall more youthful.

Follows ten teens who are left alone in the wilderness amid a three-day survival test.

While most youth pastors are being regularly evaluated (or even scrutinized) for what they’re doing right now in the youth group, the reality is that the most important thing they are doing won’t actually be evident until much later. That’s because the biggest challenge for any youth ministry is helping teens embrace a whole-hearted devotion to God that lasts far beyond their years in the youth room. Unfortunately, much of youth ministry seems to be designed on the model of setting teenagers up for a “date” with God—a delightful evening that involves music, laughter, food, and light conversation. But what scripture calls us to is not a “one-night stand” with God, but a lifelong love of God that endures.Youth ministry educator and veteran, Duffy Robbins, offers youth workers a blueprint for building that kind of faith in teenagers. In this concise book, ideal for busy youth workers, they’ll be equipped to build a youth ministry that instills that lasting faith in its students.