From the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning bestseller Ishmael and its sequel, My Ishmael, comes a powerful novel with one of the most profound spiritual testaments of our time “A compelling ‘humantale’ that will unglue, stun, shock, and rearrange everything you’ve learned and assume about Western civilization and our future.”—Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce Father Jared Osborne has received an extraordinary assignment from his superiors: Investigate an itinerant preacher stirring up deep trouble in central Europe. His followers call him B, but his enemies say he’s something else: the Antichrist. However, the man Osborne tracks across a landscape of bars, cabarets, and seedy meeting halls is no blasphemous monster—though an earlier era would undoubtedly have rushed him to the burning stake. For B claims to be enunciating a gospel written not on any stone or parchment but in our very genes, opening up a spiritual direction for humanity that would have been unimaginable to any of the prophets or saviors of traditional religion. Pressed by his superiors for a judgement, Osborne is driven to penetrate B’s inner circle, where he soon finds himself an anguished collaborator in the dismantling of his own religious foundations. More than a masterful novel of adventure and suspense, The Story of B is a rich source of compelling ideas from an author who challenges us to rethink our most cherished beliefs. Explore Daniel Quinn’s spiritual Ishmael trilogy: ISHMAEL • MY ISHMAEL • THE STORY OF B

How does pollution impact our daily quality of life? What are the effects of pollution on children's development? Why do industry and environmental experts disagree about what levels of pollutants are safe? In this clearly written book, Moore traces the debates around five key pollutants--lead, mercury, noise, pesticides, and dioxins and PCBs--and provides an overview of the history of each pollutant, basic research findings, and the scientific and regulatory controversies surrounding it. Moore focuses, in particular, on the impact of these pollutants on children's psychological development--- their intellectual functioning, behavior, and emotional states. Only by understanding the impact of pollution can we prevent future negative effects on quality of life and even pollution disasters from occurring.

The Scourge of God is an absorbing historical romance set during the reign of Louis XIV in France. The story's events revolve around the war of the Camisards, which was a revolt of Protestant peasants in the Cévennes and Languedoc during the reign of Louis XIV. The insurrection was a reaction to the Edict of Fountainebleu in 1685. The story gives us a glance at this tumultuous period in France with an exciting romantic angle.

Gilda will die today. She has lived her whole life for one purpose—to be sacrificed to the great dragon lord, Ewig. And now, when the sun falls over the horizon, the time will come to fulfill her duty and walk to her death. It was a fine life, but a lonely one. As payment for her service, the City Council lauded her with riches, allowed her to live in the lap of luxury, and fed her the finest food. She never knew hunger, or strife, even when others worked themselves to the bone and suffered starvation. The others always resented her for that, but they never knew her pain. Theirs was a hard life, but at least they got to live it. Gilda never had that choice. She would not live to see adulthood. She would never be married or have children. All that remained of her brief existence was to walk up the lonely volcano to the dragon's keep with honor, even though nobody treated her with any during her life. Join her as the lives she last hours of her life, and find out what happens once she enters the dragon's cavern inside the pages of The Dragon Scrouge.

In a book that fundamentally challenges our understanding of race in the United States, Neil Foley unravels the complex history of ethnicity in the cotton culture of central Texas. This engrossing narrative, spanning the period from the Civil War through the collapse of tenant farming in the early 1940s, bridges the intellectual chasm between African American and Southern history on one hand and Chicano and Southwestern history on the other. The White Scourge describes a unique borderlands region, where the cultures of the South, West, and Mexico overlap, to provide a deeper understanding of the process of identity formation and to challenge the binary opposition between "black" and "white" that often dominates discussions of American race relations. In Texas, which by 1890 had become the nation's leading cotton-producing state, the presence of Mexican sharecroppers and farm workers complicated the black-white dyad that shaped rural labor relations in the South. With the transformation of agrarian society into corporate agribusiness, white racial identity began to fracture along class lines, further complicating categories of identity. Foley explores the "fringe of whiteness," an ethno-racial borderlands comprising Mexicans, African Americans, and poor whites, to trace shifting ideologies and power relations. By showing how many different ethnic groups are defined in relation to "whiteness," Foley redefines white racial identity as not simply a pinnacle of status but the complex racial, social, and economic matrix in which power and privilege are shared. Foley skillfully weaves archival material with oral history interviews, providing a richly detailed view of everyday life in the Texas cotton culture. Addressing the ways in which historical categories affect the lives of ordinary people, The White Scourge tells the broader story of racial identity in America; at the same time it paints an evocative picture of a unique American region. This truly multiracial narrative touches on many issues central to our understanding of American history: labor and the role of unions, gender roles and their relation to ethnicity, the demise of agrarian whiteness, and the Mexican-American experience.

Scourge is an action-packed, paranormal fantasy novel that will take you on an intense, emotional, and nail-biting rollercoaster ride from start to finish. Fear crawls the streets in New York as homeless are killed one by one. As police detectives Angela Benson and Joe Anderson begin to investigate the chain of murders, they soon realize these are not ordinary homicides, and it’s not only the less fortunate being impacted. As they dig deeper, they unravel a deeper, darker, more ancient mystery that may impact all of mankind. Readers of urban fantasy; readers who love worlds of magic, danger, and adventure; readers that want multiple interesting, likable, and unique characters with complex storylines; readers that enjoy a plot that unfolds slowly and steadily with anticipation and twists the reader won't see coming; and readers who love page-turning suspense that may keep them up at night will love this novel. Scourge is part of a saga that will not disappoint, and it won first place in the CLC Book Excellence Award for Paranormal and Urban Fantasy in 2023!

The little-known story of the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots and her feud with the Tudors: “Will fascinate anyone who loves a simmering, twisting tale” (All About History). Mary, Queen of Scots continues to intrigue both historians and the general public—but the story of her mother, Marie de Guise, is much less well known. A political power in her own right, she was born into the powerful and ambitious Lorraine family, spending her formative years at the dazzling, licentious court of François I. Although briefly courted by Henry VIII, she instead married his nephew, James V of Scotland, in 1538. James’s premature death four years later left their six-day-old daughter, Mary, as queen, and presented Marie with the formidable challenge of winning the support of the Scottish people and protecting her daughter’s threatened birthright. Content until now to remain in the background and play the part of the obedient wife, Marie spent the next eighteen years effectively governing Scotland—devoting her considerable intellect, courage, and energy to safeguarding her daughter’s inheritance by using a deft mixture of cunning, charm, determination, and tolerance. This biography, from the author of Marie Antoinette: An Intimate History, tells the story and offers a fresh assessment of this most fascinating and underappreciated of sixteenth-century female rulers.