Travels with a hungry bear

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Mike Bryan

The ultimate road book, and arguably the finest, Uneasy Rider forgoes the traditional blue highways and scenic nooks and crannies left behind in America's tidal wake, and travels instead on six-lane blacktop into the heart of our society today. With Mike Bryan you're in the company of an adept listener and a funny, learned, and profoundly sympathetic man. His chosen beat stretches west from Texas to New Mexico and Arizona toward the City of Angels in the Golden State - the chimerical destination of any decent American pilgrim. Along the way he uncovers much that is new and revelatory about our nation and fellow citizens, a hard-working, various lot including snake ranchers and state troopers, truckers and hitchhikers, motel-keepers and visionaries large and small. Fair hearing is given to one and all, whether wheeler-dealers, immigrants, border smugglers, or people who became near-aboriginals when the interstate turned Route 66 into outback. And between these encounters Bryan contemplates history, both public - pioneering, roadmaking, assassination theories at Dealey Plaza, the oil business, agriculture, waste-dumping, gambling, you name it - and personal. The Bryan family comes from rural Texas, after all, though an ambivalent rootlessness has marked Bryan's own life - and is also, some claim, a defining characteristic for much of the population.

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James Martin, SJ

"James Martin, SJ, gifted storyteller, editor at large of America magazine, popular media commentator, and New York Times bestselling author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, brings the Gospels to life in Jesus: A Pilgrimage, and invites believers and seekers alike to experience Jesus through Scripture, prayer and travel. Combining the fascinating insights of historical Jesus studies with profound spiritual insights about the Christ of faith, Father Martin recreates the world of first-century Galilee and Judea to usher you into Jesus's life and times and show readers how Jesus speaks to us today. Martin also brings together the most up-to-date Scripture scholarship, wise spiritual reflections, and lighthearted stories about traveling through the Holy Land with a fellow (and funny) Jesuit, visiting important sites in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The person at the heart of the Gospels can seem impossibly distant. Stories about his astonishing life and ministry--clever parables that upended everyone's expectations, incredible healings that convinced even skeptics, nature miracles that dazzled the dumbstruck disciples--can seem far removed from our own daily lives, hard to understand, and at times irrelevant. But in Jesus you will come to know him as Father Martin knows him: Messiah and Savior, as well as friend and brother"--

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Alexandra Fuller

With the same disarmingly unguarded prose that won her critical acclaim for Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller tells of her unusual friendship with "K"—a white African and veteran of the brutal, racially divided Rhodesian War. An engrossing and haunting tale of love, godliness, hate, war, and survival, Scribbling the Cat recounts the journey she makes with K into the lands that hold the scars of their war, from Zambia through Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and into Mozambique. Driven by memories, they venture deeper into the countries' remote bush, where they encounter other veterans and survivors and confront the demons of K's past: a violent war marked by racial strife, jungle battles, torture, and the murdering of innocent civilians.

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G. P. Taylor

The sequel to the #1 New York Times bestseller Shadowmancer.In this thrilling, much-anticipated sequel to the runaway hit Shadowmancer, G. P. Taylor once again takes readers on a gripping journey. Kate and Thomas have barely escaped the evil sorcerer Demurral, and are sailing to London to make a fresh start. But someone knows they are coming, and is lying in wait to lure them into the darkest heart of the city. Meanwhile, Raphah, who has had a narrow escape of his own, sets out on a terrifying journey to find his friends, all the time haunted by a shadowy beast. Eventually, the friends' paths meet on a cursed street, hidden from the world-a place where fates are decided and old enemies seek revenge. They thought it was over . . . but can evil ever be destroyed?