The Twice-Born

The Twice-Born
Author: Aatish Taseer
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2019-03-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0374715750
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In The Twice-Born, Aatish Taseer embarks on a journey of self-discovery in an intoxicating, unsettling personal reckoning with modern India, where ancient customs collide with the contemporary politics of revivalism and revenge When Aatish Taseer first came to Benares, the spiritual capital of Hinduism, he was eighteen, the Westernized child of an Indian journalist and a Pakistani politician, raised among the intellectual and cultural elite of New Delhi. Nearly two decades later, Taseer leaves his life in Manhattan to go in search of the Brahmins, wanting to understand his own estrangement from India through their ties to tradition. Known as the twice-born—first into the flesh, and again when initiated into their vocation—the Brahmins are a caste devoted to sacred learning. But what Taseer finds in Benares, the holy city of death also known as Varanasi, is a window on an India as internally fractured as his own continent-bridging identity. At every turn, the seductive, homogenizing force of modernity collides with the insistent presence of the past. In a globalized world, to be modern is to renounce India—and yet the tide of nationalism is rising, heralded by cries of “Victory to Mother India!” and an outbreak of anti-Muslim violence. From the narrow streets of the temple town to a Modi rally in Delhi, among the blossoming cotton trees and the bathers and burning corpses of the Ganges, Taseer struggles to reconcile magic with reason, faith in tradition with hope for the future and the brutalities of the caste system, all the while challenging his own myths about himself, his past, and his countries old and new.

Turning Point

Turning Point
Author: Dick B.
Publisher: Good Book Publishing Company
Total Pages: 784
Release: 1997
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 9781885803078
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Dick B. is today regarded as the leading A.A. historian. He is a writer, Bible student, retired attorney, and active recovered member of the A.A. fellowship. He has brought to the history table: (1) His strong belief in the Creator, Christianity, and the Bible as the main source book for truth. (2) His long and fervent work with newcomers in helping them to overcome their alcoholism with the power of God. (3) His talents in writing and research that emerged from his work at the University of California where he received a Phi Beta Kappa key, his editorship of the Stanford Law Review, and his vigorous practice in writing and presenting legal briefs before many many courts. This mid-point treatise had been followed by and added up to 33 A.A. history titles so far. This book is foundational.

The Conversion Of Bill W.

The Conversion Of Bill W.
Author: Dick B.
Publisher: Good Book Publishing Company
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2006
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781885803900
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This is a book unlike any of the many recent biographies of A.A. co-founder William Griffith Wilson (known as Bill W.). It is filled with information about Bill's religious education, experiences, and beliefs from childhood forward. Thus Bill's knowledge of his grandfather Willie's conversion on Mount Aeolus and deliverance from alcoholism, the involvement of Bill's grandparents--the Wilsons and the Griffiths--in the life of the little East Congregational Church on the lawn between the two families' houses, the reading of the Bible by Bill's grandfather Fayette Griffith and by Bill and his boyhood friend Mark, Bill's attendance at the Congregational Sunday School and his attendance at Temperance of revival meetings, his five (yes, five) self-described spiritual experiences including his decision for Christ at Calvary Rescue Mission and his "hot flash" conversion experience at Towns Hospital, his conversations with his famous doctor William D. Silkworth about the Great Physician Jesus Christ and cure of alcoholism through Christ, Bill's extensive involvement with the Oxford Group and particularly Rev. Sam Shoemaker, and Bill's intensive involvement in prayer, Bible study, the use of devotionals, and seeking of guidance with Dr. Bob and Anne Smith at the Smith Home in Akron, particularly in the summer of 1935. All these, and more, are told in this exciting and little-known story about Wilson and God. Was Bill converted to Christ? Did Bill believe in the Creator? Did the Creator have an impact on Alcoholics Anonymous through Bill Wilson? Did the Hand of the Creator touch the lives of Wilson and of the A.A. Fellowship? Your most detailed questions and the answers about these subject have never been addressed by A.A. historians in any depth. But A.A. historian and writer, Bible student, retired attorney, and recovered AA Dick B. presents this--his thirtieth published title--as a crowning historical piece on A.A., church, religion, God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible as they really existed at and before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous on June 10, 1935