I used to think I didn't fit in, but now I realise I do. We all have our place; some just never find it. When awkward teenager Charlie Hudson is beaten up during a family holiday at the beach, beautiful Tess Bailey rescues him – and sets the unusual course for his life. In this startling debut novel, Matt Nable follows the fortunes of Charlie, Tess and their families and neighbours. Their lives intertwine, unravel, straighten, and become tangles again. A father tries to relive his football career through his son; a mother deserts her children in an attempt to find herself; a daughter purges to take control of her life. This is a portrait of plans gone wrong, a lament for what could have been, a salute to the power of redemptive love, and a brave examination of contemporary society.

"Very positive and in tune with our needs today." LEO BUSCAGLIA Alan Cohen's story is an inspiration. From his roots as an Orthodox Jew, he took a mind-expanding tour of the teachings of Jesus, Ram Dass, Zen, Jung, the Esalen Institute, and Einstein, to name a few. In this extraordinary collection of lyrical, challenging essays, Cohen synthesizes what he has learned from these masters, and shares his journey with all of us. He discusses overcoming limitations, creating fulfilling relationships, tuning into the flow of life, transformation, finding a personal path, and the greatest gift of all, love. Read it straight through, or essay by essay, for daily meditations on the mysteries of God, love, and the spiritual path.

Establishing the household as the central institution of southern society, Edwards delineates the inseparable links between domestic relations and civil and political rights in ways that highlight women's active political role throughout the nineteenth century. She draws on diaries, letters, newspaper accounts, government records, legal documents, court proceedings, and other primary sources to explore the experiences and actions of individual women in the changing South, demonstrating how family, kin, personal reputation, and social context all merged with gender, race, and class to shape what particular women could do in particular circumstances.

When her parents decide to get a divorce, Casey is very unhappy, wonders if it is her fault, and tries a plan to get them back together.

A nationally prominent first-amendment advocate and authority on the religious right tells of his break with fundamentalism and the growth of intellectual and moral freedom. Skipp Porteous was "saved" at the age of eleven by people who thought they were doing him - and God - a favor. Their actions sent him on a long, arduous inner journey. Porteous embraced fundamentalism because it provides simplistic solutions - the Bible purportedly contains answers for everything - and, like millions of others, he needed to believe that he had found the one true religion. A leave of absence became his first step in walking away. Removed from the extreme fundamentalist viewpoint, with its narrow world view, his mind cleared. Reason and logic emerged, and for the first time in his life he was free and happy. In Jesus Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Porteous explains how he was deceived into becoming a born-again Christian; what he endured for so many years; how he got out; and finally, why he fights so hard against the movement today. Using the knowledge he has obtained in monitoring the religious right, he also outlines in detail what we can expect from the movement in the next decade.

"A painfully funny series of autobiographical essays, centered around the relationship between comedian Dave Hill and his dad, in the wake of his mother's death, as father and son redefine their relationship--and Dave, finally, becomes a man"--