Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space

Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space
Author: Rémy Ngamije
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2024-12-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1668012464

A vibrant and brilliant new collection of award-winning short fiction from the acclaimed author of the “charming, witty, and incredibly humane” (The Pittsburgh Gazette) debut The Eternal Audience of One. Presented as a literary mixtape, Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space is a work of literature that provides you with a modern reading experience. The A-Side, read as one narrative, tells the story of a soon-to-be thirty-year-old aspiring writer navigating a complicated world. The B-Side, taken as a separate experience, features (seemingly) independent and unrelated short stories. There’s “Crunchy, Green Apples (or, Omo)”, a story about loss told by the strangest of narrative devices: a shopping list. “Sofa, So Good, Sort Of (or, John Muafangejo)” is a first-person account of a family’s history and a long journey towards hope. A group of friends attempts to navigate a recent breakup in “From the Lost City of Hurtlantis to the Streets of Helldorado (or, Franco).” When read together, however, a third world emerges—a complex, intergenerational, and interconnected world exploring the universal gaping void of grief. Rather than attempting to cross this black hole directly, the collection carefully traces around its edges, revealing the enormity of this cosmic force from the “electrifying voice you have been waiting for” (Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King).

Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine

Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine
Author: Alan P. Lightman
Publisher: Pantheon
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2018
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101871865

In this meditation on religion and science, Lightman explores the tension between our yearning for permanence and certainty, and the modern scientific discoveries that demonstrate the impermanent and uncertain nature of the world. As a physicist, he has always held a scientific view of the world. But one summer evening, while looking at the stars from a small boat at sea he was overcome by the sensation that he was merging with a grand and eternal unity, a hint of something absolute and immaterial. This is his exploration of these seemingly contradictory impulses, and the journey along the different paths of religion and science that become part of his quest. -- adapted from publisher info.

The Believers: Stories

The Believers: Stories
Author: A. K. Herman
Publisher: A. R. Phillips Press LLC
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2024-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1948788004

A. K. Herman’s wondrous and shattering debut collection imbues people on the periphery with power hardly visible to outsiders—where no one conforms to type. In the title story, to leave a seemingly friendly and supportive church, a family must risk everything. In “The Iridescent Blue-Black Boy with Wings (After Márquez),” children find a winged boy in a seaside village in Tobago. In “Ready for the Revolution?” uncertain lovers play rough with identity politics, and are set on an unexpected path. In “Drink the Dew,” love and wrath become one, while the young woman in “Inside” navigates a complicated business arrangement with her lover. In “Love,” a scandalous affair produces a love child, born with a dark omen, while in “Exile,” a pregnant teen from a staunchly religious family is exiled to have her baby in secret. A gardener in “Love Story No. 8” falls for a rich man’s daughter to disastrous ends. The Believers is at once poignant and subversive, haunting and truly unforgettable.

Masters of Belief

Masters of Belief
Author: Felipe Zimmer
Publisher: Balboa Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2019-03-07
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1982221372

Imagine taking all the distractions away: technology, your job, your car, your books, and even the people you meet daily. Picture all of them temporarily out of your life. Don’t worry, they’ll be back. But imagine living without distraction for several months. What would you come across? Perhaps, you would rediscover your beliefs, feelings, and needs––things of which you were not conscious due to life distractions. That is what author and speaker Felipe Zimmer did when he retreated to a house in the thick of nature in an effort to discover himself on a deeper level and rediscover humanity as a whole. By looking at existence from beyond the mental meanderings of daily life, Felipe’s consciousness expanded, and he was struck by inspiration not of this world but from what is beyond. As an analogy, what if we thought Earth was all there is? Then what if we received the opportunity to visit the rest of the universe? Masters of Belief is that universe as we look beyond the every day to make contact with a higher power. Exploring subjects like spirituality, mind, life, death, relationships, and much more, this book won’t tell you what to believe, but it might help you understand your own beliefs and guide you through the process of remembering who you are.

Cold-Case Christianity

Cold-Case Christianity
Author: J. Warner Wallace
Publisher: David C Cook
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1434705463

Written by an L. A. County homicide detective and former atheist, Cold-Case Christianity examines the claims of the New Testament using the skills and strategies of a hard-to-convince criminal investigator. Christianity could be defined as a “cold case”: it makes a claim about an event from the distant past for which there is little forensic evidence. In Cold-Case Christianity, J. Warner Wallace uses his nationally recognized skills as a homicide detective to look at the evidence and eyewitnesses behind Christian beliefs. Including gripping stories from his career and the visual techniques he developed in the courtroom, Wallace uses illustration to examine the powerful evidence that validates the claims of Christianity. A unique apologetic that speaks to readers’ intense interest in detective stories, Cold-Case Christianity inspires readers to have confidence in Christ as it prepares them to articulate the case for Christianity.

The Space Between the Stars

The Space Between the Stars
Author: Anne Corlett
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2017-06-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0399585125

A Recommended Summer Read from The Verge and io9 A Recommended June Read from Hello Giggles and Tor.com When the world ends, where will you go? In a breathtakingly vivid and emotionally gripping debut novel, one woman must confront the emptiness in the universe—and in her own heart—when a devastating virus reduces most of humanity to dust and memories. All Jamie Allenby ever wanted was space. Even though she wasn’t forced to emigrate from Earth, she willingly left the overpopulated, claustrophobic planet. And when a long relationship devolved into silence and suffocating sadness, she found work on a frontier world on the edges of civilization. Then the virus hit... Now Jamie finds herself dreadfully alone, with all that’s left of the dead. Until a garbled message from Earth gives her hope that someone from her past might still be alive. Soon Jamie finds other survivors, and their ragtag group will travel through the vast reaches of space, drawn to the promise of a new beginning on Earth. But their dream will pit them against those desperately clinging to the old ways. And Jamie’s own journey home will help her close the distance between who she has become and who she is meant to be...

The Craft of Ritual Studies

The Craft of Ritual Studies
Author: Ronald L. Grimes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2014
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0195301439

Readership: Students and scholars of ritual studies, religious studies, anthropology

The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 5

The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 5
Author: Ken Wilber
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2000-05-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1590303237

Grace and Grit is the compelling story of the five-year journey of Ken Wilber and his wife, Treya Killam Wilber, through Treya's diagnosis of breast cancer, treatments, and finally, death. During this period, Ken put his own work on hold in order to offer full-time support to Treya. In fact, it would be nearly ten years before he published a new full-length theoretical study (Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Volume Six of this series). Nonetheless, this personal narrative contains a wide-ranging commentary, including critiques of both conventional and New Age approaches to illness. Ken's account of the couple's struggle to integrate this catastrophic event into their spiritual practice, combined with excerpts from Treya's journals, produces an unforgettable portrait of health and healing, wholeness and harmony, suffering and surrender. The book contains a new introduction and index.