Between 1919 and 1941, five relatives of Christopher Lee Manes were diagnosed with an illness then referred to as “leprosy” and now known as Hansen’s disease. After their diagnosis, the five Landry siblings were separated from their loved ones and sent to the National Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana, where they remained in quarantine until their deaths. Drawing on historical documents and imaginative reconstructions, Naming the Leper tells through poetry this family’s haunting story of exile and human suffering. While confined at Carville, the Landry siblings attempted to keep some connection to the outside world by writing letters to family members and other loved ones. Manes incorporates materials from this correspondence, along with medical records, the leprosarium newsletter, and personal interviews, as he crafts poems that reconstruct his relatives’ daily lives at Carville. Although much can only be imagined, their words remain factual and their feelings of loneliness, abandonment, and pain become explicit. Poetry cannot bring Manes’s relatives back to life, nor can it heal wounds nearly a century old, but it can capture the sufferings and traumas caused by disease and exile. As a work of documentary poetry, Naming the Leper demonstrates that a term like “leper,” whether a stigma attached to patients suffering from illness or a word inscribed on the caskets of the deceased, cannot define the lives of individuals or encompass the full extent of their legacies.

The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.

The glamorous world of a silent film star’s wife abruptly crumbles when she’s forcibly quarantined at the Carville Lepers Home in this page-turning story of courage, resilience, and reinvention set in 1920s Louisiana and Los Angeles. Based on little-known history, this timely book will strike a chord with readers of Fiona Davis, Tracey Lange, and Marie Benedict. Based on the true story of America’s only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century. For Mirielle West, a 1920’s socialite married to a silent film star, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her intoxicatingly chic life of bootlegged champagne and the star-studded parties of Hollywood’s Golden Age. When a doctor notices a pale patch of skin on her hand, she’s immediately branded a leper and carted hundreds of miles from home to Carville, taking a new name to spare her family and famous husband the shame that accompanies the disease. At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth while fighting an unchosen fate. As a registered nurse, Amanda Skenandore’s medical background adds layers of detail and authenticity to the experiences of patients and medical professionals at Carville – the isolation, stigma, experimental treatments, and disparate community. A tale of repulsion, resilience, and the Roaring ‘20s, The Second Life of Mirielle West is also the story of a health crisis in America’s past, made all the more poignant by the author’s experiences during another, all-too-recent crisis. PRAISE FOR AMANDA SKENANDORE’S BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY “Intensely emotional…Skenandore’s deeply introspective and moving novel will appeal to readers of American history.” —Publishers Weekly

PBS's The Great American Read named it one of America's best-loved novels. A Separate Peace has been a bestseller in the United States for nearly thirty years, and it is ageless in its depiction of youth during a time when the entire country was losing its innocence to World War II. A Separate Peace is a horrific and brilliant fable about the dark side of adolescence set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II. Gene is an introverted, lonely intellectual. Phineas is a reckless athlete who is attractive and taunts others. Like the war itself, what happens between the two friends one summer robs these guys and their world of their innocence.

A survey of the significance of names, or their absence, in medieval English, French, and Anglo-Norman romance.

The Leper King is a story of authentic history and imaginative fantasy interwoven with faith and love, war and magic set amidst the turbulent times of the Crusades. Upon the premature death of his father, BALDWIN IV, stricken with leprosy from a young age, ascends to the throne of Jherusalem at the age of thirteen. Immediately, enemies threaten his reign as war looms with the great leader of Islam, SALEHDIN. Guided by his trusted friend and Chancellor, Archbishop WILLIAM of Tyre, the young leper sets out to prove himself worthy of the crown, despite the political intrigues of his own High Court. Among those at Court with whom he must contend are his recently returned mother, AGNES de Courtenay, a grasping woman of immoral character, and his sister, SIBYLLA, who comes to Court after spending most of her life shut away from the world in a convent to marry a Western lord against her will. Being a minor, Baldwin must submit to the Regency of his much older cousin, RAYMOND III of Tripoli; but the young king chaffs beneath the Regents authority, longing to put it behind him so he can pursue his own course of action against the enemy. While Raymond continually argues for peace with the Muslims, Baldwin and the new lord of Kerak, REYNALD de Chtillon, hope to bring the Sarrazins to war before the sultans power grows too strong to push back. Unbeknownst to the king and the lords of Outremer, an old and secret cabal of heretic conspirators known only as the Order of Sion led by one, AMALRIC de Lusignan, that seeks to gain control of the kingdom. Their purpose is to proclaim a new form of Christianity with Jherusalem as its ecclesiastical seat of power in opposition to Rome and to crown a sacred king of their own making. That sacred king is none other than Amalrics brother, GUION de Lusignan, whom they claim is a blood descendant of Jhsu Christ. In this conspiracy, two influential men of the kingdom aid them: HERACLIUS, Archbishop of Caesarea and OTHON de Saint-Amant, Master of the famed warrior-monks, the Knights Templar. Saint-Amant, however, is a deeply conflicted man who begins to question how Sion, and the secretive master he reluctantly follows, is manipulating him and his Order. With Agnes diseased son crowned king, it isnt long before Lusignan draws her into the intrigues of the conspiracy as well with the belief she can protect her son. Seeking divine guidance in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the aftermath of battle, Baldwin meets, by chance, an elderly woman who thanks him for a simple act of his kindness. He is astonished, though, when she casts aside her cloak and disguise, revealing to him that she is MARY MAGDALEN, a beautiful and immortal woman of Faerie who vows to guide and befriend him. Only later does she tell him that his leprosy is not the result of disease, but of a magic spell cast by an unseen enemy; a spell that not only devours the kings life, but also becomes the enemys own undoing. So begins a tale of history and fantasy, in which a young king must determine whether his faith or fate will guide him in the defense of his fragile kingdom. Visit the Authors Website at www.scottrezer.com to learn more about the novel and to read the prologue.

Why is cloning wrong? Does the Bible say a divorced person can remarry? Can angels sin? Is body piercing wrong? Can demons read our thoughts? Dr. Elmer Towns, author of over 80 books and Dean of Liberty University's School of Religion, answers these and many other questions you have wondered about.Written for the new Christian too embarrassed to ask, and for the long-time Christian who still has unanswered questions, this one-volume, indexed resource provides the kind of responses your own pastor would give as you're shaking hands after the Sunday morning sermon-short, knowledgeable, and to the point. Topics covered include: Politics The Bible,The Holy Spirit,and Angels Creation Demons and the Devil· God's Names Prayer, Salvation, and Sin If you have questions-and who doesn't-Bible Answers for Almost All Your Questions is an essential resource.