In The Midst Of Life

Download or read book In the Midst of Life written by Ambrose Bierce and published by Standard Ebooks. This book was released on 2022-10-14T01:00:11Z with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first major collection of Ambrose Bierce’s short stories, In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians went through multiple editions and titles, with Bierce adding, removing, and revising the stories each time. The version of the stories as collected here follows the final selection and revisions made by Bierce for his Collected Works, Volume 2, published in 1909, and is broken up into two sections, “Soldiers” and “Civilians.” Bierce fought for the Union in the American Civil War from the very first organized action at Philippi. He went on to fight in some of the deadliest battles of the war, at Shiloh and Chickamauga. He joined Sherman’s army on its march to Atlanta, and was grievously wounded in the head at Kennesaw Mountain. These locations serve as backdrops in his gritty and realist short stories in the “Soldiers” collection, most especially in the surreal story “Chickamauga.” While these stories are set in the war, Bierce covers a wide range of themes, from the fear of death in “Parker Adderson, Philosopher,” the requirements of duty for a soldier in “A Horseman in the Sky,” and what one might do for love in “Killed at Resaca.” Perhaps the most well-known story in “Soldiers” is “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Kurt Vonnegut called it “the greatest American short story,” saying “It is a flawless example of American genius, like ‘Sophisticated Lady’ by Duke Ellington or the Franklin stove.” Bierce, much like Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, was an American pioneer in what he called his “tall tales”—psychological, supernatural, grotesque, and horror fiction. Many stories in “Civilians,” such as “The Man and the Snake,” “A Holy Terror,” and “The Suitable Surroundings,” foreshadow his later and darker works as studies in psychological horror. “The Eyes of the Panther” is a tragic, near-supernatural (though the reader is left guessing) tale of a woman of “feline beauty” and the man seeking her hand. Other stories found in the collection are satirical and ironic, like “The Famous Gilson Bequest” and “The Applicant.” Bierce’s writing earned him the title “Bitter Bierce” from his contemporaries, as one finds precious little hope and compassion in his stories, with death—often cruel—a recurring theme. A very rare exception can be found in “A Lady from Redhorse,” an epistolary romance. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

Download or read book In the Midst of Chaos written by Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the daily practices of life with children can shape our faith In the Midst of Chaos explores parenting as spiritual practice, building on Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore's fresh conceptions of children from her book Let the Children Come. She questions conventional perceptions that spiritual practices require silence, solitude, and uninterrupted prayer and that assume a life unburdened by care of others. She is both honest about the difficulties and attentive to the blessings present in everyday life and demonstrates that the life of faith encompasses children and the adults who care for them. Miller-McLemore explores how parents might use seven daily practices, such as play, reading, chores, and saying goodbye or goodnight as rich opportunities to shape both parent and child morally and spiritually. Through these experiences, she shows how the very care of children forms and reforms the faith of adults themselves, contrary to the belief that adults must form children. In the Midst of Chaos also goes beyond the typical focus on individual self-fulfillment by tackling difficult questions of social justice and mutuality in the ways families live together. Readers will find in this book an invitation to love those around them in the midst of life's craziness and to live more deeply in grace.

Download or read book Finding a Loving God in the Midst of Grief written by Susan M. Erschen and published by The Word Among Us Press. This book was released on 2019-04-12 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The loss of a love one is often devastating. And while each of us experience grief in a unique way, finding your way back to a place of wholeness may seem impossible. The emptiness, loneliness and darkness seem to never fade. This book will help you find comfort and grow closer to God, who often seems far off or even absent in your journey through grief. Drawing from both personal testimonies and religious texts, this book also contains practical advice on how to overcome some of the emotional followed by practical aspect of grief, and a prayer on each topic. This book will also help you make decisions about what to pass on and what to keep in order to treasure your memories of your loved one. Grief is a very unique and personal experience. Through this book, you will be given the confidence to grieve in your own way. Ultimately, they will see grief as a journey that can lead you into a richer spiritual life.

Download or read book In the Midst of Things written by Mike Owen Benediktsson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-20 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How ordinary urban objects influence our behavior, exacerbate inequality, and encourage social change Assumptions about human behavior lie hidden in plain sight all around us, programmed into the design and regulation of the material objects we encounter on a daily basis. In the Midst of Things takes an in-depth look at the social lives of five objects commonly found in the public spaces of New York City and its suburbs, revealing how our interactions with such material things are our primary point of contact with the social, political, and economic forces that shape city life. Drawing on groundbreaking fieldwork and a wealth of original interviews, Mike Owen Benediktsson shows how we are in the midst of things whose profound social role often goes overlooked. A newly built lawn on the Brooklyn waterfront reflects an increasingly common trade-off between the marketplace and the public good. A cement wall on a New Jersey highway speaks to the demise of the postwar American dream. A metal folding chair on a patch of asphalt in Queens exposes the political obstacles to making the city livable. A subway door expresses the simmering conflict between the city and the desires of riders, while a newsstand bears witness to our increasingly impoverished streetscapes. In the Midst of Things demonstrates how the material realm is one of immediacy, control, inequality, and unpredictability, and how these factors frustrate the ability of designers, planners, and regulators to shape human behavior.

Download or read book The Hardest Peace written by Kara Tippetts and published by David C Cook. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Don’t miss The Long Goodbye: The Kara Tippetts Story on Netflix now, featuring Ann Voskamp, Ellie Holcomb, and Joanna Gaines! Kara Tippetts knows the ordinary days of mothering four kids, the joy of watching her children grow ... and the devestating reality of stage-four cancer. In The Hardest Peace, Kara doesn't offer answers for when living is hard, but she asks us to join her in moving away from fear and control and toward peace and grace. Most of all, she draws us back to the God who is with us, in the mundane and the suffering, and who shapes even our pain into beauty. Winner of the 2015 Christian Book Award® in the Inspiration category.

Download or read book In the Midst of Winter written by Isabel Allende and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times and worldwide bestselling author Isabel Allende returns with a sweeping novel that journeys from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil that offers “a timely message about immigration and the meaning of home” (People). During the biggest Brooklyn snowstorm in living memory, Richard Bowmaster, a lonely university professor in his sixties, hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, and what at first seems an inconvenience takes a more serious turn when Evelyn comes to his house, seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant, Lucia Maraz, a fellow academic from Chile, for her advice. As these three lives intertwine, each will discover truths about how they have been shaped by the tragedies they witnessed, and Richard and Lucia will find unexpected, long overdue love. Allende returns here to themes that have propelled some of her finest work: political injustice, the art of survival, and the essential nature of—and our need for—love.

Download or read book In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians written by Ambrose Bierce and published by Wentworth Press. This book was released on 2019-03-15 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.