“If leaving me in the mental institution will further the gospel, then leave me there!” The first time Doris, an orthodox Buddhist, heard about Jesus, she whispered to Grace, “Don’t tell anyone that Jesus died for us. This will be our secret!” The police were interrogating 19-year-old Hope every few days—pressuring her to disclose Grace and Justin’s ministry to university students. With tears in her eyes, she told Grace and Justin, “I’ll never betray you two, no matter what they do to me!” Leah, an idol-worshipper, longed to become a Christian, but she was afraid. “If I believe in Jesus, the gods I worship are going to retaliate. They’ll hurt me really bad. Is Jesus powerful enough to protect me from them?” In the kick-off meeting of a discussion group Grace was leading for atheist university students, Carol burst out laughing. “Grace, you can’t be serious! You actually believe God exists?” In Dragon Ride, the beauty of the Lord is seen through the eyes of Buddhists, atheists, idol-worshippers, Muslims, and an animist as they encounter Jesus. Dragon Ride records the actual conversations Grace had with her friends, and many of them embraced Christ as the answer to their deepest longings. Grace writes about persecution, evading the police, saving lives, helping the homeless and disabled, and she even writes about the murder of a friend. But more importantly, she writes of a God who acts on behalf of His children, of a faith that grew in the crucible of China, and of learning how to effectively share the gospel. Grace’s stories are raw, personal, and humorous, and she openly shares about her own spiritual struggles and growth.

    These finds have shed powerful light on figures and stories from the Bible -- and completely changed what we know about some of its most famous characters. The reputations of the first great kings, David and Solomon, evolved over hundreds of years. In David and Solomon, leading archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman focus on the two great leaders as a window into the entire biblical era. David and Solomon covers one thousand years of ancient civilization, separating fact from legend and proving that the roots of the western tradition lie very deep.

    China's dragons, guardians of the throne, are unlike those of the West. They are benign and protective but can turn like terrible emperors on the people. If they do so, it is the fault of the people, not the dragons. They breathe fire and thrash their tail only if betrayed, a convenient concept for an emperor.

    The Classic of Mountains and Seas explores 204 mythical figures such as the gods Foremost, Fond Care, and Yellow, and goddesses Queen Mother of the West and Girl Lovely, as well as many other figures unknown outside this text. This eclectic Classic also contains crucial information on early medicine (with cures for impotence and infertility), omens to avert catastrophe, and rites of sacrifice, and familiar and unidentified plants and animals. It offers a guided tour of the known world in antiquity, moving outwards from the famous mountains of central China to the lands beyond the seas. Translated with an introduction and notes by Anne Birrell."

    It reads like the written version of a modern film documentary, with newly translated 500-year-old "sound bites" stitched together by the author-narrator in such a way as to create a seamless and compelling story. In these two volumes you will find neither a defense of the conquistadors nor a politically correct polemic against them. The author has made every effort to avoid moralizing on these events, but simply to recount them, with minimal commentary, using the best sources available. Moral judgments are left to the reader. Volume I opens with the four voyages of Christopher Columbus, offering new insights into this man's complex character. It then explores in lavish detail (some of which is supplied by the Aztecs) the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés. In Volume II the reader is taken into the high Andes with the brazen Pizarro brothers, into the wilds of the Texas and Mexican desert with Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, and along a trail of successive misfortunes with the expedition of Hernando de Soto--through today's Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. Conquistador Voices is a one-stop layman's summary of this epic period, delving into persons and events we still talk about today. Order a copy for yourself or other history reader now. Maps, index, informational footnotes, and a brief bibliography are found in each volume.

    First deployed in Vietnam in 1967 and loaded with a formidable arsenal of weaponry, the Cobra was the first helicopter designed from inception as an attack aircraft. It dramatically changed the nature of the war in Vietnam by offering the Army, for the first time, its own powerful and highly accurate weapons platform for close-air-support missions. Randy Zahn arrived in Vietnam shortly before the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia, one of the most impressive demonstrations by the Cobra in the war. He describes his stunning transformation from a naive, middle-class teenager from southern California to a hardened killer during his tour in Vietnam. Unlike the pilots who flew the fast-moving strike jets, Zahn experienced the war “up close and personal,” witnessing the grisly effects of the Cobra’s firepower on enemy soldiers. The author does not glorify killing but rather explains in sharp relief the kaleidoscope of emotions associated with combat: fear, revenge, hate, remorse, pity, and even ecstasy. He captures many of the ironies and nuances inherent in Vietnam, especially during the final years of the conflict. Zahn displays a sensitivity rarely found in memoirs written by battle-hardened warriors. This human element, combined with the vast amount of archival research and interviews with members of his former unit, ensures that Snake Pilot will become the definitive account of the role helicopters played in Vietnam.

    Thanks to the efforts of a multitude of Internet users, however, this tiny curse evolved and is modified into several versions—each more advanced that the last. To what bizarre sort of end of days will Curse 5.0 lead us? The fabled apocalypse could come in many guises. Could one of them be an online butterfly effect, chocked full of the darkest humor imaginable?

    Illustrator and writer's Carolyn Marie Castagna's first shared short story.A small icicle hanging from a roof peers inside a window at a small reading room, and learns about magical human qualities, and the importance of the one most special human feeling.

    There, the girl-ogling old master promises to teach Goku everything he knows...and prepare him for the Tenka'ichi Budôkai, the great tournament to determine the Strongest Fighter in the World! But Goku's fellow student, the Shaolin monk Kuririn, isn't above cheating to be the best. Can the two of them get along as they undergo the strangest martial arts training ever?

     For a champion of the poor, Mao Zedong was born to a wealthy aristocratic family in Shaoshan, Hunan China. As an adolescent, he once had to defend his father’s farm from starving peasants during a famine, who wished to seize his father's land and steal his grain. This same Mao would later promote a policy of land reform that would give those peasants the green light to violently overthrow the rich land owners all over the Chinese countryside. Inside you will read about... ✓ Where Revolution Was Made ✓ Mao Comes Into His Own ✓ Mao, the Pragmatist ✓ From Nanking to Pearl Harbor ✓ Consolidating Power ✓ Mao’s Stranglehold ✓ Mao Loses Face And much more! Mao Zedong was a Marxist revolutionary wishing to overthrow regimes he viewed as “imperialist,” and yet Mao, often referred to as the “Red Emperor,” behaved much like totalitarian Emperors of China’s medieval past. Mao was a man of intriguing contradiction. This book takes the time to explore them all.

     What happened on scene to cause a medic to leave wearing someone else's clothes? The patient had his ding-dong stuck in WHAT?! A baffled LEO shares the strangest way he's ever seen a patient injure him/herself. This volume is sure to make you laugh until you cry!

    This title examines climatic devastation and the uncertainty that the weather brings.

    With a chapter organization mirroring that of The Search for Modern China, this collection is the perfect supplement, providing a first-hand look at the modern Chinese society.

    For nearly two decades Becker has lived in China, and reported from areas where most visitors do not reach. Here he is at his most candid, reporting from all over the country: from tiny, crowded homes in the swollen cities of the southeast rim to a vast, secret network of thousands of defense bunkers in the northwest. He exposes Chinese society in all of its layers: from remote, illiterate peasants; to the rising classes of businessmen; to local despots; the twenty grades of Party apparatchicks; to the dominant, comparatively small caste of Party leaders who are often ignorant of the people they rule.Becker lets the Chinese speak for themselves, in voices that are rich and moving. He teaches a great deal about the magnitude--and the false face--of China's vaunted economic boom, and further shows the pervasive institutionalized crime that has risen out of economic poverty. In all, Becker reveals a China very different than our long-held assumptions depict. The Chinese is the hidden story of people of the world's largest nation--a nation so poorly understood and so vital to the future.