Christians are sometimes faced with uncertainty. But is all uncertainty bad? Theologian Joshua McNall encourages readers to reclaim the little word "perhaps" as a sacred space between the warring extremes of unchecked doubt and zealous dogmatism. Learn how to exercise a hopeful imagination, ask hard questions, return once again to Scripture, and reclaim the place of holy speculation.

It's Christmastime. Snow covers the ground. Cardinals fly about Warwickshire. And Hazel is not giving up. Her mother has passed, her elder brother is missing, and she wants no part of her father's plans. He is much too angry for her to agree. Impulsive by nature with an aptitude for mischief, Hazel Ansbro finds herself in a predicament when her father, the local vicar, decides to try his hand at finding her another suitor. This would be his seventh attempt to do so. After finding a letter on his desk addressed to a family on the other side of town, she knows his plan: to send her off to learn proper manners. If it was up to her, she would never leave, especially with her younger brothers still around. Instead, she makes her own plan and begins her tirade of mischievous acts. It all begins with a dumped inkwell, hiding in a cabinet, and spying on a certain bookshop keeper. Will the dropping temperatures, her horse, a bookshop keeper, and holiday spirit calm her? Or will her father succeed? The question is answered. But how? A lavender rose, sermons, billiards, lemon tea, a community carol, and a certain gazebo may be the key to unlocking the betrayal, the sadness, and the fear lingering in her heart. Perhaps.

An extraordinary account of the women artists and activists whose determination to live—and to create—with courage and conviction took them as far as the Spanish Civil War “Now, as certainly as never before, we are determined or compelled, to take sides.” —Nancy Cunard An attempted insurrection, a country divided, a democracy threatened. It was the Spanish Civil War of 1936, surprisingly, that Sarah Watling found herself drawn to when confounded by the tumultuous politics of our present day. This was a conflict that galvanized tens of thousands of volunteers from around the world to join the fight. For them, the choice seemed clear: either you were for fascism or you were against it. Seeking to understand how they knew that the moment to act had arrived, Watling sifts through archives for lost journals, letters, and manifestos, discovering a trove of work by writers and outsiders who had often been relegated to the shadows of famous men like Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell. She encounters the rookie journalist Martha Gellhorn coming into her own in Spain and the radical writer Josephine Herbst questioning her political allegiances. She finds the novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner embracing a freedom in Barcelona that was impossible for queer women back at home in England and, by contrast, Virginia Woolf struggling to keep the war out of her life, honing her intellectual position as she did so. She tracks down the stories of Gerda Taro, a Jewish photographer whose work had long been misattributed, and Salaria Kea, a nurse from Harlem who saw the war as a chance to combat the prejudice she experienced as a woman of color. Here were individuals seizing an opportunity to oppose the forces that frightened them. From a variety of backgrounds and beliefs, these women saw history coming, and they went out to meet it. Yet the reality was far from simple. When does tolerance become apathy? Where is the line between solidarity and appropriation? Is writing about the revolution the same as actively participating in it? With profound, personal insight, Watling reveals that their answers are as relevant today as they were then.

The young child, Maggie, was struck by a car at the age of three. She is portrayed here with her parents, James and Helen. Spared by a miracle, she battles disappointments and even tragedy in her long walk toward fulfillment of her lifelong mission. Fueled by fiery ambition, she and Eric discover combined strength in their heart communing talks. Filled with Gods inspiration, this unique tale possesses a magic mixture of controversy, humorous episodes, and faith. The quick-witted dad, cherished mom, and troublesome, but lovable Ethan, at the mansion, guarantee this unusual tale to be a delectable reading adventure. The story boldly empties into the bountiful gift of betterment presented to the world by two heroes. Maggies life is full of surprises as she captures your heart as soon as you step into the first page of this fascinating autobiographical novel.

Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was an American author and Unitarian clergyman. This is a collection of his short stories, many of which gave him a prominent position among short-story writers of 19th century America.

Bier proposes here a strong new understanding of the Book of Lamentations, drawing on Bakhtinian ideas of multiple voices to analyse the poetic speaking voices within the text; examining their theological perspectives, and nuancing the interaction between them. Bier scrutinises interpretations of Lamentations, distinguishing between exegesis that reads Lamentations as a theodicy, in defense of God, and those that read it as an anti-theodicy, in defense of Zion. Rather than reductively adopting either of these approaches, this book advocates a dialogic approach to Lamentations, reading to hear the full polyphony of pain, penitence, and protest.

God created man in his own image; but did man perhaps return the compliment? The question of God's existence has been a pivotal issue for every civilization. Those with faith in God want assurance that their belief is justified, and atheists want confirmation that God is nowhere to be found. When we reflect on religion, we want to know the reasons for belief in God, or whether belief is only a comforting delusion. In an age of science, will religion persist or will it be edged out of our consciousness and become a historical curiosity? Burton Porter approaches the notion of God in an open, yet critical way, examining the argumentation used by centuries of human society to support or reject the existence of God. With minimum assumptions and maximum objectivity, Porter debates whether the religious view does, in fact, diagram reality. He examines the roles that God and religion have played in the ethics, art, and actions of many diverse cultures to conclude that, at the very least, the consideration of the existence of a higher power is fundamental to us all.

Meet the Caspers . . . Jonathan is a palaeontologist, searching in vain for a prehistoric squid. His wife, Madeline, an animal behaviourist, cannot explain why the pigeons she is studying are becoming increasingly aggressive. Their older daughter Amelia is a fervent anti-capitalist and disappointed teenage revolutionary, while their younger, Thisbe, has become a devout Christian. Meanwhile, the girls’ grandfather, Henry, is slowly absenting himself from life. Before he can absent himself altogether, however, Jonathan and Madeline decide to separate – and, suddenly, each family member has to confront their fears about the world in which they live. 'The wisest, most humane and transcendental novel on the contemporary family since The Corrections' Irvine Welsh 'The flat, uninfected language, interspersed with sudden absurdist flights of fancy, is reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut; the comic-book influence contains traces of Jonathan Lethem; while the forensic examination of familial dysfunction should satisfy Franzen fans' Guardian 'A big, generous-hearted American family novel . . . Meno's characters bristle with humanity, and I think this book will find a huge audience for its wisdom and life-affirming, but unsentimental, qualities' Daily Telegraph

From the 2017 John W. Campbell Award Winner for Best Writer, Ada Palmer's Perhaps the Stars is the final book of the Hugo Award-shortlisted Terra Ignota series. World Peace turns into global civil war. In the future, the leaders of Hive nations—nations without fixed location—clandestinely committed nefarious deeds in order to maintain an outward semblance of utopian stability. But the facade could only last so long. The comforts of effortless global travel and worldwide abundance may have tempered humanity's darkest inclinations, but conflict remains deeply rooted in the human psyche. All it needed was a catalyst, in form of special little boy to ignite half a millennium of repressed chaos. Now, war spreads throughout the globe, splintering old alliances and awakening sleeping enmities. All transportation systems are in ruins, causing the tyranny of distance to fracture a long-united Earth and threaten to obliterate everything the Hive system built. With the arch-criminal Mycroft nowhere to be found, his successor, Ninth Anonymous, must not only chronicle the discord of war, but attempt to restore order in a world spiraling closer to irreparable ruin. The fate of a broken society hangs in the balance. Is the key to salvation to remain Earth-bound or, perhaps, to start anew throughout the far reaches of the stars? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Arthur Seymour John Tessimond - Jack to his family, John in later life - was born in Birkenhead in 1902 and made his living as an advertising copywriter, but his true writing life was in poetry, three volumes of which he published in his lifetime: The Walls of Glass (1934), Voices in a Giant City (1947), and Selection (1958). Tessimond died in May 1962, two months shy of his sixtieth birthday, and it would fall to Hubert Nicholson, his friend and executor, to make a posthumous selection of his work including a number of uncollected and unpublished poems. Not Love Perhaps (1978) has at its heart the memorable title piece which contrasts the idea of romantic love 'that many waters cannot quench' with the notion of a mutual companionship that enables two people to 'walk more firmly through dark narrow places'.