A comparative analysis of diverse postwar families and examines the lives and case records of those who applied to adopt or provide foster care in the 1940s and 1950s. It considers an array of individuals--both black and white, middle and working class--who found themselves on the margins of a social world that privileged family membership.

From one of our foremost experts on Asia and its history comes this brilliant dissection of the relationship between East and West. In three succinct essays, Patrick Smith investigates the East’s endeavor to adopt Western technology and all that we consider modern. He underscores a crucial distinction between modernization (the simple emulation of the West) and the true task of “becoming modern.” He examines the strategies that three prominent cultures—those of Japan, China, and India—evolved as they encountered materialistic foreign cultures and imported ideas while defending their own traditions. The result, Smith explains, has often been called “doubling”—a division of the self wherein Asians are receptive to Western products and ideas but simultaneously reject these same imports to emphasize the validity of the “unmodern.” Employing an exceptional combination of reflection and reportage, Smith also examines the often troubled relationship Asians have with history as a result of their encounters with the West. Finally, he considers Asia’s twenty-first-century attempt to define itself without reference to the West for the first time in modern history. The author foresees a new balance in the East-West dialogue—one in which the East transcends old ideals of nationhood (another Western import). Smith asserts that there are fundamental lessons in Asia’s long struggle with the modern: In the twenty-first century, the East will challenge the West just as the West once challenged the East. This is a book of exceptional significance and extraordinary depth.

Do Something Else is meant to encourage faith communities and their leaders to reconsider "church as usual," reengage Spirit-led entrepreneurialism, and reimagine new models of ministry bubbling up in their midst. Many churches and leaders are already setting the pace. They are establishing new gatherings in old buildings and using new building to do old things. They are emphasizing diversity, welcome, and friendship. If these stories are hidden from view, they shouldn't be. These pages will uncover how new expressions get started, how they are led, how they struggle, and how they are sustained. Do Something Else will encourage candidates for ministry who see limited options, ministers who wonder about staying in ministry, clergy call-seekers trying to find hope in a desolate career landscape, and churches attempting to manage staffs with limited resources. It will also offer permission to small churches resigned to be "without a pastor," larger churches looking to do a new thing in an unorthodox way, and middle governing bodies who need promising examples of working models in order to take the risk on new opportunities.

When life strips you bare you realize that the true richness of life lies in the simplicity of being; being free, being in the moment, being in love, and being yourself all while basking in the intricacy of emotions. Exotic Simplicity journeys through all of these purifying acts.

A most remarkable series of linked stories, encompassing a young working-class Englishman's coming of age, written with great humour and pathos. This is Royston Tester's first book, but he has already been nominated for a slew of awards, been published widely (and internationally, in both journals and the Lambda-prize finalist anthology The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name: Essays on Queer Sexuality and Desire), and charmed the CanLit establishment. His writing is very English, and in a spectacular way; his language is both elegant and colloquial, and always riveting.

From debut novelist Nancy Woodruff comes this chilling and beautifully wrought story of forgiveness, renewal, and the ever-elusive second chance. When fifteen-year-old Matt and his family move from Oregon to an affluent Connecticut suburb, the fact that he is home-schooled brands him as more than an outsider -- he is a town oddity. Just when he seems to have made inroads into the closed social circuit, just when he is embraced by a trio of teenage girls and feels his life might be changing for the better, he is responsible for a devastating car crash that leaves two of the girls dead. Tara isn't in the car with her best friends. Instead, she's by her mother Jennie's bedside as she gives birth to a baby girl. While Jennie and her husband Chris mourn Tara's friends, and try to make sense of their eldest daughter's loss and their own new baby, a pervasive sense of blame begins to rain down on Matt. Jennie knows the community's reaction will surely ruin Matt's life. But when she reaches out to him, hiring him to work for her high school reunion company for the summer, Jennie suddenly finds herself vilified as well. In the face of community and family derision, both imagined and real, physical and emotional, Jennie and Matt soon find themselves in solidarity. As their attachment grows, Jennie realizes that she is bound to Matt by more than just compassion -- that the broken child she sought to save is, somehow, reviving her. Someone Else's Child is a deeply moving story of guilt and forgiveness, despair and hope, and the intricacies of love and responsibility. In rich and unforgettable prose, Nancy Woodruff masterfully explores the fraying loyalties that can turn our world upside down in the face of tragedy.

From the bestselling author of The Ex-Husband, a tense, twisty and emotional thriller which asks: Do we ever really know our children? What would you do if your teenage son was stabbed to death in the school playground? It's a question chat-show host Carrie Kent can imagine asking any of her studio guests. Her daily morning show deals with real life in all its grubby glory - from underage sex to benefit swindlers, cheating partners to DNA testing. It's a million miles away from her perfect, polished existence. But when she gets a call to say that her beloved son Max has been murdered, Carrie and her ex-husband Brody will have to enter a world of poverty, fear and violence if they want to find out what really happened. And when the shocking truth is finally revealed, will they be able to live with it? EVERYONE is talking about Samantha Hayes: 'Heartbreaking ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐' 'Grabs your heart, squeezes and never lets go ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐' 'I was fully immersed from the beginning ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐' 'Absolutely brilliant ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐' 'Compelling from start to finish ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'

One man's descent into madness as he struggles with his war and his addictions. One woman's search for love and peace in a world she never feels a part of.Jack Sharkey's follow-up to his 2002 release 'War Comes Home' is a love story about life.

A disillusioned Laurie Price has washed up in Papaya in the American desert. It's 1938 and another war is imminent. A mysterious car dumps the delicious Angie Reeves in the road. She is all alone. Laurie needs to help her but Angie is tougher than he realised; stronger than the vicious thugs who seize her back and the fascist gang whose sole wish is to deal in death. Together they take them on but how could they know what secrets the desert held? The road towards the story's conclusion is a winding one. Nobody is who he or she appears to be and the tale is peppered with deceits and false trails. Laurie tells his story in a tough no-nonsense way that keeps the reader guessing until all is revealed in an explosive conclusion.