But for most moderns, taking it at face value is incongruous. And even for many thinking Christians today who want to take seriously the authority of Scripture, insisting on a "literal" understanding of Genesis 2–3 looks painfully like a "tear here" strip between faith and science. How can Christians of good faith move forward? Who were the historical Adam and Eve? What if we’ve been reading Genesis and its claims regarding material origins wrong? In what cultural context was this couple, this garden, this tree, this serpent portrayed? Following his groundbreaking The Lost World of Genesis One, John Walton explores the ancient Near Eastern context of Genesis 2–3, creating space for a faithful reading of Scripture along with full engagement with science for a new way forward in the human origins debate. As a bonus, an illuminating excursus by NT Wright places Adam in the implied narrative of Paul’s theology. The Lost World of Adam and Eve will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand this foundational text historically and theologically, and wondering how to view it alongside contemporary understandings of human origins.

    Before she can unravel the secrets of her family's past, however, her best friend, Owen, is thrust into a family trauma of his own. Salamandra must choose between helping Owen and finding the home and family she has always longed for.

    Wilcox casts away theory and looks at how pigments really work -- so artists can mix their own colors and get the most out of those greenish blues and purplish reds.

    Our politicians talk about God. Our mega-churches are filled. Christian schools dot our landscape. Brace yourself. It's an illusion. Believe it or not, only 8 percent of Americans profess and practice true evangelical Christian faith. There are more left-handed people than evangelical Christians in America.In this book, Mark Driscoll delivers a wake-up call for every believer: We are living in a post-Christian culture--a culture fundamentally at odds with faith in Jesus. This is good and bad news. The good news is that God is still working, redeeming people from this spiritual wasteland and inspiring a resurgence of faithful believers. The bad news is that many believers just don't get it. They continue to gather exclusively into insular tribes, lobbing e-bombs at each other in cyberspace.Mark's book is a clarion call for Christians. It's time to get to work. We can only do this if we unite around Jesus and the essentials found in his Word, while at the same time, appreciating the distinctives within each Christian tribe. Mark shows us how to do just that. This isn't the time to wait or debate. Join the resurgence.

    Urban and suburban residents share our environments with many types of wildlife: squirrels, birds, spiders, and increasingly lizards, deer, and coyote. Many of us crave more contact with wild creatures, and recognize the small and large ways animals enrich our lives, yet don’t notice the animals already around us.Zooburbia reveals the reverence that can be felt in the presence of animals and shows how that reverence connects us to a deeper, better part of ourselves. A lively blend of memoir, natural history, and mindfulness practices, Zooburbia makes the case for being mindful and compassionate stewards — and students — of the wildlife with whom we coexist. With lessons on industriousness, perseverance, presence, exuberance, gratitude, aging, how to let go, and much more, Tai's vignettes share the happy fact that none of us is alone — our teachers are right in front of us. We need only go outdoors to find a rapport with the animal kingdom. Zooburbia is a magnifying lens turned to our everyday environment.

    There are rumors of a growing plot against her majesty Queen Elizabeth I, and the Queen's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, has charged young Marlowe with tracking down the truth. The path to that truth seems to run through an enigmatic prisoner held in complete seclusion in a heavily guarded dungeon in Malta. Marlowe must use every bit of his wits, his skills, and his daring to unravel one of the greatest mysteries in history and help uncover and unravel scheme of assassination and invasion, one involving the government of Spain, high ranking English nobles, and even Pope himself.Christopher Marlowe---Elizabethan playwright, poet, and spy---is one of the most enigmatic figures in Renaissance England. The son of a shoemaker from Canterbury, he attended Cambridge University on scholarship and, while frequently in trouble, was bailed out through the intercession of Queen Elizabeth I's Privy Council. Long rumored to have been an agent on behalf of the Queen's spymaster, Edgar Award winner Phillip DePoy's new series brings Marlowe and his times to life.

    L. Mencken talked, everyone listened -- like it or not. In the Roaring Twenties, he was the one critic who mattered, the champion of a generation of plain-speaking writers who redefined the American novel, and the ax-swinging scourge of the know-nothing, go-getting middle-class philistines whom he dubbed the "booboisie." Some loved him, others loathed him, but everybody read him. Now Terry Teachout takes on the man Edmund Wilson called "our greatest practicing literary journalist," brilliantly capturing all of Mencken's energy and erudition, passion and paradoxes, in a masterful biography of this iconoclastic figure and the world he shaped.

    In Christmas Pudding, an array of colorful characters converge on the hunt-obsessed Lady Bobbin’s country house, including her rebellious daughter Philadelphia, the girl’s pompous suitor, a couple of children obsessed with newspaper death notices, and an aspiring writer whose serious first novel has been acclaimed -to his utter dismay- as the funniest book of the year. In Pigeon Pie, set at the outbreak of World War II, Lady Sophia Garfield dreams of becoming a beautiful spy yet manages not to notice a nest of German agents right under her nose. That is, until the murder of her maid and kidnapping of her beloved bulldog force them on her attention, and her actions prove heroic.With a lighter tone than Mitford’s later work, these novels offer a subtle/cynical criticism of the shallow and conventional way of life of British upper class in the 20s.

    Both are the American-born children of Iraqi immigrants, who grew up on opposite ends of California. Hadi considers Huda his childhood sweetheart, the first and only girl he's ever loved, but Huda needs proof that she is more than just the girl Hadi's mother has chosen for her son. She wants what many other American girls have--the entertainment culture's almost singular tale of chance meetings, defying the odds, and falling in love. She wants stolen kisses, romantic dates, and a surprise proposal. As long as she has a grand love story, Huda believes no one will question if her marriage has been arranged. But when Huda and Hadi's conservative Muslim families forbid them to go out alone before their wedding, Huda must navigate her way through the despair of unmet expectations and dashed happily-ever-after ideals. Eventually she comes to understand the toll of straddling two cultures in a marriage and the importance of reconciling what you dreamed of with the life you eventually live. Tender, honest and irresistibly compelling, First Comes Marriage is the first Muslim-American memoir dedicated to the themes of love and sexuality. Huda and Hadi's story brilliantly circles around a series of firsts, chronicling two virgins moving through their first everything: first hand holding, first kiss, and first sexual encounter. First Comes Marriage is an almost unbearably humanizing tale that tucks into our hearts and lingers in our imagination, while also challenging long-standing taboos within the Muslim community and the romantic stereotypes we unknowingly carry within us that sabotage some of our best chances for finding true love.

    Rich, ripe, male omega - not far away and well into his heat. Unsatisfied heat. I laughed, realizing that in this moment, at least, the omega was the boss of the alpha. I needed to help him." Angel, an alpha who's left the violent, strictly hierarchical rules of his pack to find success in the big city, and Leo, an omega on the run from his abusive alpha, are thrust together to satisfy Leo’s urgent heat-lust. But can a once-hurt omega ever trust an alpha to care for and protect him again? And can an alpha sensitive to social injustice learn to enjoy his naturally dominant nature? Angel and Leo must both face the pasts they ran away from before the two can build a new future together. They may not be able to change the laws of nature, but they can change the language of love. Omega Reclaimed is a MM alpha/omega shapeshifter novella. Content warning: this book includes references to past physical abuse and a description of suicide

    Now in their thirties, their lives are changing, and so is the way Miah looks at Raina—a sizzling tension has begun to smolder, impossible to ignore.Miah is a man of simple pleasures—after a long day overseeing his family’s cattle ranch, a cool drink in his hand and a barstool under his backside are all he needs. Except lately, Miah’s begun looking at his bartender differently. Raina is Miah’s polar opposite—she’s as hot-headed as he is self-possessed, as wild as he is steady. And though they’re a recipe for disaster, the mutual attraction brewing between them is too tempting to deny.But when bottled-up desires hit this hard, this fast, after so long, the results are positively explosive. And while the affair is hot enough set the badlands on fire, when the flames burn out, will their lifelong friendship survive, or go up in smoke?

    Expert watercolorist, illustrator, instructor, and co-founder of Urban Sketchers Montreal Shari Blaukopf shares her essential color tips about color-water ratio, achieving bold color, avoiding muddy washes, painting in layers, and using wet-in-wet techniques. This essential handbook covers:supplies and materialssample color palettescolor mixingusing limited palettesmonochrome sketchesthe power of complementary colorsusing evocative, expressive color  With a focus on using watercolor with greater confidence and knowledge, the book also delves into pencil and ink and water-soluble pencils.   The instructional text is enhanced with stunning watercolor illustrations by the author and other expert urban sketchers from beautiful locations around the globe. The illustrations include examples of color swatches showing value; mixing; illustrations of complementary, analogous, and neutral color schemes; and sample galleries.Working with Color is an indispensable guide for on-location artists looking to expand and strengthen their expressive use of color.

    Highlighting the female explorers, educators, and writers as well as political and social activists that shaped our nation’s early history, this is the stunning follow-up to her children’s book Founding Mothers.Beautifully illustrated by Caldecott Honor–winning artist Diane Goode, Ladies of Liberty pays homage to a diverse selection of ten remarkable women who have shaped the United States, covering the period of 1776 to 1824.  Drawing on personal correspondence and private journals, Cokie Roberts brings to life the extraordinary accomplishments of these women who created the framework for our current society, a generation of reformers and visionaries.Roberts features a cast of courageous heroines that includes African American poet Lucy Terry Prince, Native American explorer Sacagawea, first lady Louisa Catherine Adams, Judith Sargent Murray, Isabella Graham, Martha Jefferson Randolph, Elizabeth Bayley Seton, Louise D’Avezac Livingston, Rebecca Gratz, and Elizabeth Kortright Monroe. This compelling book offers a rich timeline, biographies, and an author note, bringing these dynamic ladies to life!

    Just one week before, a traveling carnival had rolled into the quiet hillside community of Obidiah's Glenn and right away things began to get weird. The carnival itself was strange enough, with its seedy sideshows and sinister exhibitions, its Room of False Mirrors, its dangerous Gallows Hand game and the monstrous caged creature called the Tom-Geek.Then parents in the town began to get sick, followed by the teachers, doctors and the sheriff's department. The children of Obidiah's Glenn become suddenly wild, roaming about at night with crazed looks in their eyes. Paisley realizes she had to do something to stop what she saw happening--but there wasn't anyone left in town who seemed to be able to help. So she sends a letter to someone she hoped might listen, someone who would know what to do--a friend of her late sister's from college, a self-styled "girl detective" with a questionable reputation named Judy Drood.Her only hope is that Judy will arrive in time to save her town--and to prevent her from ending up as yet another exhibit in the dark carnival's Hall of Embalmed Abominations!The Grave Robber's Daughter is another fast-paced, delirious ride from the author of the critically acclaimed The Chuckling Whatsit ("A masterpiece!" --Rue Morgue Magazine) and marks the return of Judy Drood, Girl Detective, last seen thwarting the murderous plans of a group of demented college professors in Sala's 2005 epic mystery-thriller Mad Night. The Grave Robber's Daughter is filled with Sala's unique blend of horror and whimsy that will please his many fans and new readers alike.

    The facts don't add up - the police shout murder- and Bradshaw is the lone suspect. To protect his young son and clear his name, he must find the killer.Seattle in 1901 is a bustling blend of frontier attitude and cosmopolitan swagger. The Snoqualmie Falls Power Plant lights the city, but to most Seattleites, electricity is new-fangled and dangerous. The public wants a culprit - they want Bradshaw behind bars.The killer wants Bradshaw dead.His life and liberty threatened, Bradshaw discovers the thrill of investigation as he's thrust deeper into the hunt.Questions abound. How had the Electric Machine's Tesla Coil delivered a fatal shock? Was the murder personal - or connected to President McKinley's planned visit? Were students involved, or in danger? And why had Bradshaw's best friend, Henry, fled to Alaska the day of the murder?When Henry's niece Missouri appears on Bradshaw's porch in need of a home, her unorthodox views and femininity confuse and intrigue him as he struggles to protect his own haunting secret. Danger and death lurk everywhere - disguised as accidents. Has Bradshaw come alive again only to lose all he holds dear? Before it's too late, will he discover the circuit path that led to a spark of death?