Running a program to help the needy, Laura discovered a world of people she never knew: the lonely and unemployed, chronically poor families, and middle-class folks surprised to be struggling in a great recession. And to each, she offered a bag of groceries, a compassionate ear, and a heart of love. Taking a tiny food pantry and watching it grow to feed hundreds, Laura learned about her own hunger for God and began to discern her own spiritual directions, learning how her calling card a bag of groceries could be a gift to others and to herself of abundance and grace."

     The Roman Catholic Inquisition was one of the most controversial organizations in human history. Although it has been painted in a negative light, the Inquisition was too broad in scope to define as simply good or bad. It was a period where conflict and bloodshed were inevitable. It was a time where war, famine, plague, and poverty were common factors of human life. From the 1180s to the 1830s, the Inquisition was the judicial arm of the Catholic Church. Created to root out and punish heretics within the Catholic faith, the Inquisition became an institution that would carve its name into history. Inside you will read about... ✓ The Conception of the Inquisition ✓ The Hammer of Witches ✓ The Spanish Inquisition ✓ The Portuguese Inquisition ✓ The Roman Inquisition ✓ Shades of the Inquisition in Modern Society And much more! Throughout its many variations, the Inquisition took hold in France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy and in the process, both hastened and stunted progress in Western society. The Inquisition was as multi-faceted in its failure as it was in its successes. Though it was responsible for the deaths of thousands, it was also responsible for the sparing of thousands more. The Inquisition put to death some of the brightest minds of the time, and yet their brutality quickened the pace of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In short, the Inquisition was many things—easy to define is not one of them. This concise, compressed guidebook reveals the history, failures, and successes of the Roman Catholic Inquisition from its birth to its final death rattle.

    It is not an easy story to tell….” This powerful memoir from Grammy Award winner Ashley Cleveland reminds us that even in the lowest times of our lives, beauty can shine through.  As a young woman from a deeply flawed family, Ashley had little hope she would amount to anything. If there was trouble, near or far, she found it. Yet, in her destructive days of drugs, alcohol, and sex, she encountered a forgiving God who was relentlessly faithful. Change did not come quickly. The brokenness did not disappear. But little by little, Ashley allowed God to heal her, to transform her desires, to bring courage to others through her journey. Little by little, she saw that it was her brokenness itself that God wanted to use. This beautifully told story will take you from the back rooms of Nashville to the churches of the San Francisco Bay area to a tender new life where one woman discovers that God can work in broken places.

    Lewis, get your daily dose of inspiration from this one-of-a-kind devotional collecting 365 readings from the beloved Chronicles of Narnia. C.S. Lewis channeled his profound spiritual understanding into The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and the other books in his seminal fantasy series. This enthralling anthology (with lavish illustrations by Pauline Baynes) is the perfect gift for fans of the beloved children's books, and a peerless set of meditations for anyone looking to step through that secret door to their own world of devotion.

    Following in the footsteps of Christopher Hitchens, Roger Penrose, and even Stephen Hawking, Jim Holt now enters this fractious debate with his lively and deeply informed narrative that traces the latest efforts to grasp the origins of the universe. The slyly humorous Holt takes on the role of cosmological detective, suggesting that we might have been too narrow in limiting our suspects to Yahweh vs. the Big Bang. Tracking down an eccentric Oxford philosopher, a Physics Nobel Laureate, a French Buddhist monk who lived with the Dalai Lama, and John Updike just before he died, Holt pursues unexplored angles to this cosmic puzzle. As he pieces together a solution--one that sheds new light on the question of God and the meaning of existence--he offers brisk philosophical asides on time and eternity, consciousness, and the arithmetic of nothingness.“The pleasure of this book is watching the match: the staggeringly inventive human mind slamming its fantastic conjectures over the net, the universe coolly returning every serve.... Holt traffics in wonder, a word whose dual meanings—the absence of answers; the experience of awe—strike me as profoundly related. His book is not utilitarian. You can’t profit from it, at least not in the narrow sense.... And yet it does what real science writing should: It helps us feel the fullness of the problem.” (Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine)" Jim Holt leaves us with the question Stephen Hawking once asked but couldn't answer, ‘Why does the universe go through all the bother of existing?’” (Ron Rosenbaum, Slate )

    Today's updated-language version makes the author's lofty concepts accessible and easy to apply to real-life situations.

    It also presented one of the best World Series of all time (1975), including still the greatest World Series game ever played (Game Six). Along with visiting other games and campaigns, Roger Angell meets a trio of Tigers-obsessed fans, goes to a game with a departing old-style owner, watches high-school ball in Kentucky with a famous scout, and explores the sad and astounding mystery of Steve Blass’s vanished control. Angell’s Five Seasons is a gem and a gift for baseball lovers of all ages.

    Much as Brainiac offered a behind-the-scenes look at the little-known demimonde of competitive trivia buffs, Maphead finally gives equal time to that other downtrodden underclass: America's map nerds.In a world where geography only makes the headlines when college students are (endlessly) discovered to be bad at it, these hardy souls somehow thrive. Some crisscross the map working an endless geographic checklist: visiting all 3,143 U.S. counties, for example, or all 936 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Some pore over million-dollar collections of the rarest maps of the past; others embrace the future by hunting real-world cartographic treasures like "geocaches" or "degree confluences" with GPS device in hand. Some even draw thousands of their own imaginary maps, lovingly detailing worlds that never were.Ken Jennings was a map nerd from a young age himself, you will not be surprised to learn, even sleeping with a bulky Hammond atlas at the side of his pillow, in lieu of the traditional Teddy bear. As he travels the nation meeting others of his tribe--map librarians, publishers, "roadgeeks," pint-sized National Geographic Bee prodigies, the computer geniuses behind Google Maps and other geo-technologies--he comes to admire these geographic obsessives. Now that technology and geographic illiteracy are increasingly insulating us from the lay of the land around us, we are going to be needing these people more than ever. Mapheads are the ones who always know exactly where they are--and where everything else is as well.

    Written as reflections on the author's travels meeting the seekers of God, these essays are meant to be make readers pause and think about their own journeys, their relationship with the One who has created them, and the path that lies ahead.

    Society was so dependent on it, abolition was unthinkable.In 'Amazing Grace', Eric Mextas's gripping narrative paints a detailed portrait, not just of William Wilberforce himself and the Abolition Movement but also other contemporary concerns of the social reformers. Together with entries from Wilberforce's own diaries documenting his travels and the people he meets - from the paupers of Cheddar to Marie Antoinette - this age is brought vividly to life. From the author of the New York Times #1 Bestseller 'Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy'.

    In this concise yet thorough book, Eric J. Bargerhuff helps you fully understand the meaning of David and Goliath, Jonah and the Big Fish, the Woman Caught in Adultery, and other well-known Bible stories.Providing fascinating historical and scriptural insights, Bargerhuff helps you sort through modern-day distortions of fifteen well-known Bible stories and grasp their original meaning and purpose for us today.

    But few people ever really glimpsed the man behind the glittering faÇade.      Mercury was the first major rock star to die from AIDS. Now, twenty years after his death, those closest to him are finally opening up about this pivotal figure in rock n’ roll. With unprecedented access to Mercury’s tribe, rock journalist Lesley-Ann Jones has crafted the definitive account of Mercury’s legendary life. Jones details Queen’s slow but steady rise to fame, and Mercury’s descent into dangerous, pleasure-seeking excesses. Jones doesn’t shy away from Mercury’s often colorful lifestyle—this was, after all, a man who once declared, “Darling, I’m doing everything with everyone.”     In her journey to understand Mercury, Jones traveled to London, Zanzibar, and India—talking with everyone from Freddie’s closest friends, to the sound engineer at Band Aid (who was responsible for making Queen louder than the other bands), to second cousins halfway around the world, an intimate and complicated portrait emerges. Meticulously researched, sympathetic yet not sensational, Mercury offers an unvarnished, revealing look at the extreme highs and lows of life in the fast lane.      Freddie Mercury will be the subject of a major motion picture titled Mercury, slated for 2012 production, produced by Graham King, starring Sacha Baron Cohen. This book is a key source for the film. Mercury is the most compelling, up-to-date portrait of an enigmatic entertainer who thrilled audiences around the world with a magnetism matched by few performers.

    In this book readers are lead on a powerful and inspiring journey through the inner dimensions of a range of Islamic acts, including prayer, almsgiving, fasting and pilgrimage.Consisting of a selection of writings by a towering figure in Islamic history, Imam al-Ghazali, this book helps readers realise the benefits of the upliftment of their spiritual, social and moral qualities.

    The data world was revolutionized a few years ago when Hadoop and other tools made it possible to getthe results from queries in minutes. But the revolution continues. Analysts now demand sub-second, near real-time query results. Fortunately, we have the tools to deliver them. This report examines tools and technologies that are driving real-time big data analytics.