Author: Joel Kilpatrick File Type: epub Theyre Going to Heaven . . . and They Know It At last, a complete, unsparing guide to evangelical Christians. This hilarious and highly useful manual, written by an insider, illuminates this rapidly growing and unique segment of America and offers a thoroughly entertaining, no-holds-barred, laugh-out-loud survey of evangelical culture. See inside for the scoop on ullWhat Evangelicals Believe -- Plus a Master List of Who Is Going to HellllHow to Party Like an Evangelical -- Ambrosia, Lil Smokies, and Potluck FeverllThe Diversity of Evangelical Politics -- From Right-Wing to WackollEvangelical Mating Habits -- The Shocking TruthlulFrom Publishers WeeklyKilpatrick, founder of the religion satire site Larknews.com, has written a mildly entertaining, if also slightly snarky, introduction to American evangelicalism. First, he claims evangelicals think most peoplethe New York Times staff, divorce lawyers and all Muslims and Buddhistswill go to hell. Evangelicals themselves, of course, will go to heaven, the ultimate gated community. It can be hard to spot evangelicals out and about, though they are likely to patronize businesses with biblical names, like Last Days Auto Repair, and they often carry cell phones that ring hymn tunes. Evangelicals also favor certain decor Thomas Kinkade paintings, Precious Moments figurines and art with biblical quotations. If you wish to actually visit an evangelical church, look for an organization that sounds more like a rehab center than a house of worship if the building down the block is called Grace Community or Hope Fellowship, odds are its an evangelical church. There are, to be sure, some chuckles to be had here. The Legend of the Sand Dollar, a takeoff on cheesy evangelical poems, is very clever, and the chapter on evangelical education offers an amusing look at both home-schooling and Christian colleges. But on the whole, the jokes are a tad too predictable. (Mar.) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. ReviewJoel Kilpatrick has been making Christians laugh and cry for years. His latest book will continue to do just that. (Relevant Magazine )Entertaining reading for those not afraid to laugh about religion or themselves. (Grand Rapids Press )Kilpatrick is probably the funniest voice in the evangelical world today. (Dean Batali, executive producer, That 70s Show and writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer )

Author: Christopher Kemp File Type: epub Preternaturally hardened whale dung is not the first image that comes to mind when we think of perfume, otherwise a symbol of glamour and allure. But the key ingredient that makes the sophisticated scent linger on the skin is precisely this bizarre digestive by-productambergris. Despite being one of the worlds most expensive substances (its value is nearly that of gold and has at times in history been triple it), ambergris is also one of the worlds least known. But with this unusual and highly alluring book, Christopher Kemp promises to change that by uncovering the unique history of ambergris. A rare secretion produced only by sperm whales, which have a fondness for squid but an inability to digest their beaks, ambergris is expelled at sea and floats on ocean currents for years, slowly transforming, before it sometimes washes ashore looking like a nondescript waxy pebble. It can appear almost anywhere but is found so rarely, it might as well appear nowhere. Kemps journey begins with an encounter on a New Zealand beach with a giant lump of faux ambergrisdetermined after much excitement to nothing more exotic than lardthat inspires a comprehensive quest to seek out ambergris and its story. He takes us from the wild, rocky New Zealand coastline to Stewart Island, a remote, windswept island in the southern seas, to Boston and Cape Cod, and back again. Along the way, he tracks down the secretive collectors and traders who populate the clandestine modern-day ambergris trade. Floating Gold is an entertaining and lively history that covers not only these precious gray lumps and those who covet them, but presents a highly informative account of the natural history of whales, squid, ocean ecology, and even a history of the perfume industry.Kemps obsessive curiosity is infectious, and eager readers will feel as though they have stumbled upon a precious bounty of this intriguing substance.

Author: Andrew Scull File Type: pdf The Victorian Age saw the transformation of the madhouse into the asylum into the mental hospital of the mad-doctor into the alienist into the psychiatrist and of the madman (and madwoman) into the mental patient. In Andrew Sculls edited collection Madhouses, Mad-Doctors, and Madmen, contributors essays offer a historical analysis of the issues that continue to plague the psychiatric profession today. Topics covered include the debate over the effectiveness of institutional or community treatment, the boundary between insanity and criminal responsibility, the implementation of commitment laws, and the differences in defining and treating mental illness based on the gender of the patient.**ReviewThese essays are valuable for the complexities they uncover as they ground our previously simplistic interpretation of Victorian psychiatric practice in reality and for the retrospective insight they bring to consideration of the professions problems today.A. B. Bookmans WeeklyAbout the Author Andrew Scull is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego.

Author: Alexander von Humboldt File Type: pdf While the influence of Alexander von Humboldt (17691859) looms large over the natural sciences, his legacy reaches far beyond the field notebooks of naturalists. Humboldts 17991804 research expedition to Central and South America with botanist Aime Bonpland not only set the course for the great scientific surveys of the nineteenth century, but also served as the raw material for his many volumesworks of both scientific rigor and aesthetic beauty that inspired such essayists and artists as Emerson, Goethe, Thoreau, Poe, and Frederic Edwin Church. Views of Nature, or Ansichten der Natur, was Humboldts best-known and most influential workand his personal favorite. While the essays that comprise it are themselves remarkable as innovative, early pieces of nature writingthey were cited by Thoreau as a model for his own workthe books extensive endnotes incorporate some of Humboldts most beautiful prose and mature thinking on vegetation structure, its origins in climate patterns, and its implications for the arts. Written for both a literary and a scientific audience, Views of Nature was translated into English (twice), Spanish, and French in the nineteenth century, and it was read widely in Europe and the Americas. But in contrast to many of Humboldts more technical works, Views of Nature has been unavailable in English for more than one hundred years. Largely neglected in the United States during the twentieth century, Humboldts contributions to the humanities and the sciences are now undergoing a revival to which this new translation will be a critical contribution. **