My Own Words


Ruth Bader Ginsburg - 2016
    Throughout her life Justice Ginsburg has been (and continues to be) a prolific writer and public speaker. This book’s sampling is selected by Justice Ginsburg and her authorized biographers Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams. Justice Ginsburg has written an introduction to the book, and Hartnett and Williams introduce each chapter, giving biographical context and quotes gleaned from hundreds of interviews they have conducted. This is a fascinating glimpse into the life of one of America’s most influential women.

Hearts of Fire: Eight Women in the Underground Church and Their Stories of Costly Faith


The Voice of the Martyrs - 2003
    Yet the struggles they each faced rang with eerie similarity. These courageous women from across the globe-Pakistan, India, Romania, Former Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Nepal, Indonesia-shared similar experiences of hardship, subjugation, and persecution, all because of their faith in Christ. Yet all of these women have emerged from adversity as leaders and heroines.The eight modern-day pilgrims featured in "Hearts of Fire" are the hidden jewels in the church universal. They are worthy role models of faith and passion, and women of every age will gain new strength and hope for their own times of crisis and trial as they read these inspiring stories. Each story concludes with thoughtful self-reflection questions for the reader.

The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister


Nonna Bannister - 2009
    Nonna's writings tell the remarkable tale of how a Russian girl, born into a family that had known wealth and privileges, was exposed to the concentration camps and learned the value of human life and the importance of forgiveness.

Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three


Mara Leveritt - 2002
    Award-winning journalist Mara Leveritt's The Devil's Knot remains the most comprehensive, insightful reporting ever done on the investigation, trials, and convictions of three teenage boys who became known as the West Memphis Three.For weeks in 1993, after the murders of three eight-year-old boys, police in West Memphis, Arkansas seemed stymied. Then suddenly, detectives charged three teenagers, alleged members of a satanic cult, with the killings. Despite the witch-hunt atmosphere of the trials, and a case which included stunning investigative blunders, a confession riddled with errors, and an absence of physical evidence linking any of the accused to the crime, the teenagers were convicted. Jurors sentenced Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley to life in prison and Damien Echols, the accused ringleader, to death. The guilty verdicts were popular in their home state, even upheld on appeal, and all three remained in prison until their unprecedented release in August 2011.With close-up views of its key participants, this award-winning account unravels the many tangled knots of this endlessly shocking case, one which will shape the American legal landscape for years to come.

Cleopatra: A Life


Stacy Schiff - 2010
    Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator.Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and–after his murder–three more with his protégé. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since.Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra’s supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff ‘s is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America's Future


Jonathan Cahn - 2011
    The revelations are so specific that even the most hardened skeptic will find it hard to put down. Though it sounds like the plot of a Hollywood thriller – IT’S REAL.The prophetic mysteries are factual but revealed through a riveting narrative the reader will find hard to put down. The Harbinger opens with the appearance of a man burdened with a message he has received from a mysterious figure called The Prophet. The Prophet has given him nine seals, each containing a message about America s future. As he tells of his encounters with the Prophet, from a skyscraper in New York City, to a rural mountaintop, to Capitol Hill, to Ground Zero, the mystery behind each seal is revealed. As the story unfolds, each revelation becomes another piece in a larger and larger puzzle, the ramifications of which are, even now, altering the course of America and the world.

All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir


Brennan Manning - 2011
    Since that time, Brennan Manning has been dazzingly faithful in preaching and writing variations on that singular theme Yes, Abba is very fond of you! But today the crowds are gone and the lights are dim, the patches on his knees have faded. If he ever was a ragamuffin, truly it is now. In this his final book, Brennan roves back his past, honoring the lives of the people closest to him, family and friends who ve known the saint and the sinner, the boy and the man. Far from some chronological timeline, these memories are witness to the truth of life by one who has lived it "All Is Grace.""

A Circle of Quiet


Madeleine L'Engle - 1971
    This journal shares fruitful reflections on life and career prompted by the author's visit to her personal place of retreat near her country home.

Saint Francis of Assisi


G.K. Chesterton - 1923
    By universal acclaim, this biography by G. K. Chesterton is considered the best appreciation of Francis's life--the one that gets to the heart of the matter.For Chesterton, Francis is a great paradoxical figure, a man who loved women but vowed himself to chastity; an artist who loved the pleasures of the natural world as few have loved them, but vowed himself to the most austere poverty, stripping himself naked in the public square so all could see that he had renounced his worldly goods; a clown who stood on his head in order to see the world aright. Chesterton gives us Francis in his world-the riotously colorful world of the High Middle Ages, a world with more pageantry and romance than we have seen before or since. Here is the Francis who tried to end the Crusades by talking to the Saracens, and who interceded with the emperor on behalf of the birds. Here is the Francis who inspired a revolution in art that began with Giotto and a revolution in poetry that began with Dante. Here is the Francis who prayed and danced with pagan abandon, who talked to animals, who invented the creche.

Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People


Tim Reiterman - 1982
     Tim Reiterman s Raven provides the seminal history of the Rev. Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the murderous ordeal at Jonestown in 1978. This PEN Award winning work explores the ideals-gone-wrong, the intrigue, and the grim realities behind the Peoples Temple and its implosion in the jungle of South America. Reiterman s reportage clarifies enduring misperceptions of the character and motives of Jim Jones, the reasons why people followed him, and the important truth that many of those who perished at Jonestown were victims of mass murder rather than suicide.This widely sought work is restored to print after many years with a new preface by the author, as well as the more than sixty-five rare photographs from the original volume."

I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban


Malala Yousafzai - 2012
    When I almost died it was just after midday.When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.

A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time


Sarah Arthur - 2018
    A Light So Lovely tells the story of the woman at the center of it all - her imagination, her faith, her pattern of defying categories, and what readers today can learn from her legacy.Bestselling and beloved author Madeleine L'Engle, Newbery winner for A Wrinkle in Time, was known the world round for her imaginative spirit and stories. She was also known to spark controversy - too Christian for some, too unorthodox for others. Somewhere in the middle was a complex woman whose embrace of paradox has much to say to a new generation of readers today.A Light So Lovely paints a vivid portrait of this enigmatic icon's spiritual legacy, starting with her inner world and expanding into fresh reflections of her writing for readers today. Listen in on intimate interviews with L'Engle's literary contemporaries such as Philip Yancey and Luci Shaw, L'Engle's granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis, and influential fans such as Makoto Fujimura, Nikki Grimes, and Sarah Bessey, as they reveal new layers to the woman behind the stories we know and love. A vibrant, imaginative read, this book pulls back the curtain to illuminate L'Engle's creative journey, her persevering faith, and the inspiring, often unexpected ways these two forces converged.For anyone earnestly searching the space between sacred and secular, miracle and science, faith and art, come and find a kindred spirit and trusted guide in Madeleine - the Mrs Whatsit to our Meg Murry - as she sparks our imagination anew.

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth


Beth Allison Barr - 2021
    From choices about careers to roles in local churches to relationship dynamics, this belief shapes the everyday lives of evangelical women. Yet biblical womanhood isn't biblical, says Baylor University historian Beth Allison Barr. It arose from a series of clearly definable historical moments.This book moves the conversation about biblical womanhood beyond Greek grammar and into the realm of church history--ancient, medieval, and modern--to show that this belief is not divinely ordained but a product of human civilization that continues to creep into the church. Barr's historical insights provide context for contemporary teachings about women's roles in the church and help move the conversation forward.Interweaving her story as a Baptist pastor's wife, Barr sheds light on the #ChurchToo movement and abuse scandals in Southern Baptist circles and the broader evangelical world, helping readers understand why biblical womanhood is more about human power structures than the message of Christ.

The Case for Christ


Lee Strobel - 1998
    But miracles? Rising from the dead? Some of the stories you hear about him sound like just that - stories. A reasonable person would never believe them, let alone the claim that he's the only way to God! But a reasonable person would also make sure that he or she understood the facts before jumping to conclusions. That's why Lee Strobel - an award-winning legal journalist with a knack for asking tough questions - decided to investigate Jesus for himself. An atheist, Strobel felt certain his findings would bring Christianity's claims about Jesus tumbling down like a house of cards. He was in for the surprise of his life. Join him as he retraces his journey from skepticism to faith. You'll consult expert testimony as you sift through the truths that history, science, psychiatry, literature, and religion reveal. Like Strobel, you'll be amazed at the evidence - how much there is, how strong it is, and what it says. The facts are in. What will your verdict be in The Case for Christ?

Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World


Tsh Oxenreider - 2014
    Butwe can choose to live it differently. It doesn’t alwaysfeel like it, but we do have thefreedom to creatively change the everyday little things in our lives so thatour path better aligns with our values and passions. The popular blogger and founder of the internationallyrecognized Simple Mom onlinecommunity tells the story of her family’s ongoing quest to live more simply,fully, and intentionally.Part memoir, part travelogue, part practical guide, Notes from a Blue Bike takes you from ahillside in Kosovo to a Turkish high-rise to the congested city of Austin to asmall town in Oregon. It chronicles schooling quandaries and dinnertimedilemmas, as well as entrepreneurial adventures and family excursions viaplane, train, automobile, and blue cruiser bike.Entertaining and compelling—but never shrill or dogmatic—Notes from a Blue Bike invites you toclimb on your own bike, pay attention to who you are and what your familyneeds, and make some important choices.It’s a risky ride, but it’s worth it—living your lifeaccording to who you really aresimply takes a little intention. It’s never too late.