She slept on a bed of thorns. She had a friend whip her. She put hot coals between her toes. She suffered from smallpox, and the disease left her almost blind. Yet she still fasted, in penitence, and ministered to the sick and elderly. When she died, it was said, the smallpox scars instantly vanished from her face. It wasn’t long before people began to credit her with miracles.Indeed, the Vatican has just announced, 300 years after her death, that Tekakwitha is a miracle worker. She will be named a saint—America’s first indigenous saint, no less—as early as next fall. But what, exactly, does that mean? How does someone become a saint? What’s the vetting process? In this thoroughly entertaining investigation into the mysterious world of saints, Bill Donahue tells the strange and fascinating story of how the holy get their halos. The journey to canonization is long (sometimes, as in the case of Tekakwitha, it can take centuries), lurid (decayed body parts play a role), and, nowadays, surprisingly cutting-edge. Tekakwitha earned her saint status thanks to a medical miracle she allegedly caused in 2006: A boy suffering from a fatal flesh-eating bacteria suddenly and inexplicably recovered after his family prayed to the Blessed Kateri. Church experts grilled the boy’s doctors, studied his MRIs and hospital chart, and came to the conclusion that a force stronger than modern medicine saved him. In addition to Tekakwitha, Donahue introduces us to a cast of celestial characters, from Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II—both on the fast track to sainthood—to Saint Francis, Joan of Arc, and the shady Padre Pio, who claimed to suffer stigmata and raise bodies from the dead. But it’s what happens after these holy folk die that’s arguably even more intriguing. Mixing legend and science, history and on-the-ground reporting, The Secret World of Saints sheds light on one of the Catholic Church’s most arcane and captivating traditions.* * *Early praise for "The Secret World of Saints":"My sinful covetousness for Bill Donahue's talents and the fun he's having here has put me out of the running for sainthood. I love his story anyway."— Mary Roach, author of the bestselling "Stiff," "Spook," "Bonk," and "Packing for Mars"* * * About the Author: Bill Donahue is a journalist living in Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in "The Atlantic," "The New York Times Magazine," "Wired," "Runner’s World," "The Washington Post Magazine," and "Inc." He has been nominated for two National Magazine Awards, and his stories have been reprinted in Best American Travel Writing, Best American Sports Writing, and numerous other anthologies.

    We are creatures of intense desire.  We emerge from the womb longing for touch and affection.  Desire pulsates within us every waking moment of our lives.  Our hearts are fueled by hungry yearnings for connection, for relationship, for a sense of belonging.  We plunge into life, giving ourselves away to him or her, to this or that, drinking in every promise of fulfillment.  And yet, we always emerge from the quest for love still feeling a persistent and insatiable desire for something more.  A God Named Desire is about that something more.  There are some books that speak with an unusual level of clarity to the deepest issues that press the human heart.  This is one of those rare books.  You will never see god, or yourself, the same after the insights of A God Named Desire are introduced into your mind.

    Unfortunately, a stint at the airport lounge's tea vending machine does not seem to be getting her any closer to her dreams. To pass the time she daydreams, chats with air-hostesses and takes part in mock anti-terrorist drills. At home, she studies her English, fights with her twin and engages in a secret love affair with her cousin and neighbour, Eza. But when a scandal threatens her tenuous happiness, she must pull out all stops on her overactive imagination, and seek a terrible revenge.

    As a fourteen year-old, his world turns upside down, exactly at the age his father had escaped from Pakistan during the Partition of India. Recovering from the trauma, Bobby re-builds his business and journeys across the US and China, experiencing a life unhindered by religious animosity. Having experienced both sides of religion—of immersion and detachment—he starts questioning the role of religion in our lives. Based on his vision of an emergent India, Bobby finally submits a PIL in the Supreme Court for religious shrines to distribute their excess income for the downtrodden. What happens next as religious hardliners turn against him?

    Yohannan shares how God brought him from his remote Indian village to become the founder of Gospel for Asia. Drawing from fascinating true stories and eye-opening statistics, K.P. challenges Christians to examine and change their lifestyles in view of millions who have never heard the Gospel.

    

    Today, there's hardly a sitcom without a prominent gay character, movies like Milk and Brokeback Mountain have won Oscars, and even People magazine celebrated the marriage of Ellen Degeneres and Portia DeRossi. A Queer Thing Happened to America chronicles the amazing transformation of America over the last forty years, and addresses the question head-on: Is there really a gay agenda, or is it a fiction of the religious right? Written in a lively and compelling style, but backed with massive research and extensive interaction with the GLBT community, this forthright and yet compassionate book looks at the extraordinary impact gay activism has had on American society. This could easily be the most controversial book of the decade. Read it and find out why the publishing world was afraid to touch it.

    When he adopts her, naming her Aria, he has no idea how profoundly this fiery, blue-eyed orphan will shape his future.As she grows, Aria is torn between the three women fated to mother her: the wife of Behrouz, who beats her; the wealthy widow Fereshteh, who offers her refuge but cannot offer her love, and the impoverished Mehri, whose secrets will shatter everything Aria thought she knew about her life.Meanwhile, the winds of change are stirring in Tehran. Rumours are spreading of a passionate religious exile in Paris called Khomeini, who seems to offer a new future for the country. In the midst of this tumult, Aria falls in love with an Armenian boy caught on the wrong side of the revolution. And before long she will be swept up in an uprising which will change the destiny of the land - and its people - forever.

    Originally published in 1897, it continues to speak to modern readers.

    The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with twentieth-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbors.Combining shrewd observations with painstaking historical research, Ghosh serves up skeptics and holy men, merchants and sorcerers. Some of these figures are real, some only imagined, but all emerge as vividly as the characters in a great novel. In an Antique Land is an inspired work that transcends genres as deftly as it does eras, weaving an entrancing and intoxicating spell.

    At a time when Americans remain skeptical about religion but still thirst for spiritual fulfillment, Niall Williams's extraordinary and masterful new novel reveals a universally appealing message of hope and love.In the years following the death of Jesus Christ, John the Apostle, now a frail, blind old man, lives in forced exile on the desolate island of Patmos with a small group of his disciples. Together, the group has endured their banishment, but after years awaiting Christ's return, fissures form within their faith, and, inevitably, one of John's followers disavows Christ's divinity and breaks away from the community, threatening to change the course of Christianity. When the Roman emperor lifts the banishment of Christians, John and his followers are permitted to return to Ephesus, a chaotic world of competing religious sects where Christianity is in danger of vanishing. It is against this turbulent background--and inspired by Jesus's radical message of love and forgiveness--that John comes to dictate his Gospel.Immensely impressive--and based on actual historical events--John is at once an ambitious and provocative reimagining of the last surviving apostle and a powerful look at faith and how it lives and dies in the hearts of men.

    It happened at midnight on September 21st, 1940, the landing being made at the small fishing town of Granville, in Normandy. The landing party consisted of a detective-sergeant of the Metropolitan Police (V Division), a young French woman schoolteacher and an ugly mongrel dog named Formidable. They were considerately brought ashore by the Germans themselves. George Ormerod was the detective sergeant in question, not the most imaginative of policemen, but, true to his name, most resolute in his investigations. (An ormer is a notably tenacious shell-fish of the English Channel.) While the war is being lost all around him, Ormerod remains obsessed with the mundane murder of a young woman in Wandsworth, even pursuing his investigations amongst the returning and bewildered troops. How the investigation blazed a savage trail through rural Normandy and led to Nazi-occupied Paris, and how Marie- Thérèse Velin and her often ruthless Resistance allies become involved with George Ormerod are questions Leslie Thomas answers as his tale unfolds. In Ormerod's Landing, an exciting and ironic tale of Britain and France in the early years of the war, he once again creates a tender, farcical world in which his unique humour and irony flourish.

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    I knew from conversations with Morris that Giordano Bruno was a soul mate, someone with whose life history Morris identified, even though Morris possessed a somewhat less strident temperament than Broads. Failed priest, as Morris has Bruno declare in this tale, fugitive monk, magus with a box of conjuring tricks, boaster, prevaricator, would be torchbearer trudging through his own darkness, garrulous in dialogue, viperous in debate.

    Seekers and sages travelled north and south, east and west, across mountains and along rivers, ignoring artificial boundaries, seeking and finding gods. Renowned mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik takes us on an insightful journey to thirty-two holy sites where ancient and modern deities unravel the complex and layered history, geography, and imagination of the land once known as ‘land of the Indian blackberry’ (Jambudvipa), ‘land of rivers’ (Sindhusthala in Sanskrit, or Hindustan in Persian), ‘expanse of King Bharata’ (Bharatvarsha, or Bharatkhanda), and even ‘abode of joy’ (Sukhavati to the Chinese).