Just before I married for the third time, I noticed a dark cloud hanging over the heads of at least 30 percent of the women walking into the church on Sunday mornings and wondered why, because the men looked fine. At a marriage counseling session with my third husband, the Lord told me why:They Didn't Do What I Told Them to Do.Soon after He told me, He took it from my remembrance and my life became a living testimony to that very fact. After my divorce in 2005, I began to learn what it took to be obedient, be free from oppression, and live a life pleasing to the Lord, and it started with the making of this book.

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

Finalist for the NBCC Award for Criticism 'Nothing about Jenny Diski is conventional. Diski does not do linear, or normal, or boring ... highly intelligent, furiously funny' Sunday Times 'Funny, heartbreaking, insightful and wise' Emilia Clarke 'She expanded notions about what nonfiction, as an art form, could do and could be' New Yorker Jenny Diski was a fearless writer, for whom no subject was too difficult, even her own cancer diagnosis. Her columns in the London Review of Books – selected here by her editor and friend Mary-Kay Wilmers, on subjects as various as death, motherhood, sexual politics and the joys of solitude – have been described as 'virtuoso performances', and 'small masterpieces'. From Highgate Cemetery to the interior of a psychiatric hospital, from Tottenham Court Road to the icebergs of Antarctica, Why Didn't You Just Do What You Were Told? is a collective interrogation of the universal experience from a very particular psyche: original, opinionated – and mordantly funny.

A young journalist from the Midwest describes her sojourn in Iraq as the Baghdad Bureau Chief for the "Washington Post," detailing what it is like to cover a war under the constant threat of kidnapping, injury, and death.

Of all the things people do with the Bible such as spreading good will, evangelizing, or tripping little boys, what's the one thing they never do? Read the whole thing. That's what Martin Kennedy did. He discovered that all of the lessons and parables within this respected piece of literature was surrounded by at best confusing stories and at worst horrible tales of human flaws. That compelled him to write He said it, I didn't. When read with no preconceived notions of infallibility, the Bible is a stirring example of the depths that the human race will go to when it believes their actions are backed up by an almighty force. And when their God can beat your God, someone's not going to have a good day. As a "non-believer," Martin was able to detach himself emotionally from what would have been a sad and sobering examination of Christianity. Instead, he pulled from his comedic roots and delivered a "book report" filled with humor, irreverence, and insight. You may not ever want to see his face, but you’ll never look at the Bible the same either.