The Book of Longings
Summary
"An epic masterpiece that is a triumph of insight and storytelling." (Associated Press) âA true masterpiece.â (Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed) Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by O, the Oprah Magazine, Good Morning America/ABC-TV, Good Housekeeping, Bustle, Time, Marie Claire, and The Millions. An extraordinary story set in the first century about a woman who finds her voice and her destiny, from the celebrated number one New York Times best-selling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with 18-year-old Jesus changes everything. Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary. Anaâs pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to Romeâs occupation of Israel, partially led by her brother, Judas. She is sustained by her fearless aunt Yaltha, who harbors a compelling secret. When Ana commits a brazen act that puts her in peril, she flees to Alexandria, where startling revelations and greater dangers unfold, and she finds refuge in unexpected surroundings. Ana determines her fate during a stunning convergence of events considered among the most impactful in human history. Grounded in meticulous research and written with a reverential approach to Jesusâs life that focuses on his humanity, The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one womanâs bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place and culture devised to silence her. It is a triumph of storytelling both timely and timeless, from a masterful writer at the height of her powers.
©2020 Sue Monk Kidd (P)2020 Penguin Audio
The Invention of Wings
Summary
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprahâs Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty âHandfulâ Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimkeâs daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Kiddâs sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarahâs eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each otherâs destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and womenâs rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handfulâs cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.
©2014 Sue Monk Kidd (P)2014 Penguin Audio
The Secret Life of Bees
Summary
Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted "stand-in mother", Rosaleen, insults three of the town's fiercest racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina - a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There, they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love - a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.
©2003 Sue Monk Kidd (P)2008 Penguin
Treasure
Summary
A Sunday Times best seller. The ninth gripping thriller in the classic Dirk Pitt series, where the adventurer finds himself in a deadly battle against the darkest forces of international terrorism. On behalf of a grateful nation I wish to thank you for this astonishing gift.... The President of the United States had reason to be grateful. Dirk Pitt had unearthed the greatest storehouse of knowledge in the ancient world: the Alexandria Library. The trail began in a lonely fjord in Greenland. It ended on the banks of the Rio Grande. In between Pitt had frustrated an assassination, rescued a hijacked liner, survived a deadly gun battle and halted an invasion. A gripping, action-packed story by a master of the craft.
©2019 Clive Cussler (P)2019 Hachette Audio UK
God-Level Knowledge Darts
Summary
New York Times best seller âDesus & Mero are smarter and funnier than everyone writing books.â (Shea Serrano) âI will never write anything as hilarious as they have. I give up.â (Malcolm Gladwell) âThese motherf***ers make me laugh until I choke.â (Jia Tolentino) Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR A wild, hilarious guide to life from the hosts of the hit late-night show Desus & Mero and the Bodega Boys podcast Who could have predicted that, after a fateful meeting in a Bronx summer school in the 1990s, Desus and Mero would turn their friendship into an empire of talking to each other? And itâs no surprise â tuning in to them is like listening to the funniest, smartest people you know dissect a topic and then light it on fire. Now theyâve written the most essential guide to life of this century, in which all the important questions are asked: How do I talk to my kids about drugs if I do them, too? What are the ethics of ghosting in a relationship? How do I bet on sports? How should I behave in jail? How much is too much to spend on sneakers? Is porn really that bad for me? As they put it: âWe want to share all weâve learned, after years in the Bronx streets, with you: the people. So with a lifetime spent building up a plethora of information from trials and tribulations and a handful of misdemeanors, we decided to write this book â a sequel to the Bible, or maybe to The Hitchhikerâs Guide to the Galaxy, depending on how big a nerd you are. Let this book be your North Star.â Â
©2020 Desus and Mero (P)2020 Random House Audio
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
Summary
"I was amazed to find that I had no idea how to unfold my spiritual life in a feminine way. I was surprised, and, in fact, a little terrified, when I found myself in the middle of a feminist spiritual reawakening." (Sue Monk Kidd) For years, Sue Monk Kidd was a conventionally religious woman. Then, in the late 1980s, she experienced an unexpected awakening, and began a journey toward a feminine spirituality. With the exceptional storytelling skills that have helped make her name, Kidd tells her very personal story of the fear, anger, healing, and freedom she experienced on the path toward the wholeness that many women have lost in the church. From a jarring encounter with sexism in a suburban drugstore, to monastery retreats and to rituals in the caves of Crete, she reveals a new level of feminine spiritual consciousness for all women - one that retains a meaningful connection with the "deep song of Christianity", embraces the sacredness of ordinary women's experience, and has the power to transform in the most positive ways every fundamental relationship in a woman's life - her marriage, her career, and her religion.Â
©2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions
Summary
From the best-selling author of The Secret Life of Bees, an inspiring autobiographical account of personal pain, spiritual awakening, and divine grace... Blending her own experience with an intimate grasp of spirituality, Sue Monk Kidd relates the passionate and moving tale of her spiritual crisis, when life seemed to have lost meaning and her longing for a hasty escape from the pain yielded to a discipline of "active waiting". Full of wisdom, poise, and grace, Kidd's words will encourage us along our spiritual journey, toward becoming who we truly are.
©2016 Sue Monk Kidd (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Traveling with Pomegranates
Summary
In this intimate dual memoir, Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter, Ann, offer distinct perspectives as a 50-something and a 20-something, each on a quest to redefine herself and to rediscover each other. Between 1998 and 2000, Sue and Ann travel throughout Greece and France. Sue, coming to grips with aging, caught in a creative vacuum, longing to reconnect with her grown daughter, struggles to enlarge a vision of swarming bees into a novel. Ann, just graduated from college, heartbroken and benumbed by the classic question about what to do with her life, grapples with a painful depression. As this modern-day Demeter and Persephone chronicle the richly symbolic and personal meaning of an array of inspiring figures and sites, they also each give voice to that most protean of connections: the bond of mother and daughter. A wise and involving book about feminine thresholds, spiritual growth, and renewal, Traveling with Pomegranates is both a revealing self-portrait by a beloved author and her daughter, a writer in the making, and a momentous story that will resonate with women everywhere.
©2009 Sue Monk Kidd (P)2009 Penguin
Rewind
Summary
When Pyresouls released, it was a brutal new virtual reality game with a twist: The first to beat the game would win billions of dollars. But after the Burgon Beast couldnât be defeated, Pyresouls turned very real and unleashed an apocalypse of undead, monsters, and a system of levels and stats onto the world. For many years since, Jacob Windsor has fought with sword and shield to survive Post-Collapse Earth where only ancient, guilt-soaked weaponry can harm the monsters from Pyresouls. While defending his bunker with some of the last refugees of humanity, yet another friend loses his life to secure one final hope: an enigmatic artifact capable of sending one person through time. In a cruel twist of fate, Jacob becomes humanityâs best chance for survival. He takes the plunge into the past of the terrifying, fractured realm of Pyresouls, where every player is out for blood and the monsters are more vicious than anything on Post-Collapse Earth. Armed with knowledge of game mechanics, secret loot, and enemy weaknesses, along with well-honed swordsmanship from years of battle, Jacob has every possible advantage against the competition. But the choices he makes have long-reaching ripple effects on the timeline. Can Jacob beat the clock while grinding out Levels and manage to avert the apocalypse, or will his every action darken the timeline even further? This post-apocalyptic gamelit series includes battle, levelling, and gear-enhancing mechanics inspired by the Dark Souls games.
©2020 James T. Callum (P)2021 Podium Audio
The Mermaid Chair
Summary
Sue Monk Kidd's stunning debut, The Secret Life of Bees, became a best-selling phenomenon and a modern classic. Now, in her luminous new novel, Kidd has woven a tale that will cement her reputation as one of the most remarkable writers at work today. Inside the church of a Benedictine monastery on tiny Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a mysterious chair carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion. When Jessie is summoned home to the island to cope with her mother's inexplicable act of violence, she is living with her husband, Hugh. Jessie loves Hugh, but she finds herself drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk who is soon to take his final vows. Is the power of the mermaid chair only a myth? Or will it alter the course of Jessie's life? What transpires will unlock the roots of her mother's tormented past and it will allow Jessie to make a marriage unto herself. The Mermaid Chair is a vividly imagined novel about the passions of the spirit and the ecstasies of the body. It illuminates the awakening of a woman to her own deepest self with a brilliance and power that only a writer of Kidd's ability could conjure.
©2005 Sue Monk Kidd (P)2005 Penguin Audio
Hungry Hearts
Summary
Sixteen innovators, creatives, and thought leaders - Austin Channing Brown, Sue Monk Kidd, and Luvvie Ajayi Jones, among others - share intimate stories of uncovering beauty and potential through moments of fear, loss, heartbreak, and uncertainty. Over the course of four years, the traveling love rally called Together Live brought together diverse storytellers for epic evenings of laughter, music, and hard-won wisdom to huge audiences across the country. Well-known womxn (and the occasional man) from all walks of life shared their most vulnerable truths in a radical act of love, paving the way for healing in the face of adversity. Now, off the stage and on the pages of Hungry Hearts, 16 of these beloved speakers offer moving, inspiring, deeply personal essays as a reminder that we can heal from grief and that divisions can be repaired. Bozoma Saint John opens herself up to love after loss; Cameron Esposito confronts the limits of self-reliance in the wake of divorce; Ashley C. Ford learns to trust herself for the first time. A heartfelt anthology of transformation, self-discovery, and courage that also includes essays by Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Amena Brown, Austin Channing Brown, Natalie Guerrero, Sue Monk Kidd, Connie Lim (MILCK), Nkosingiphile Mabaso, Jillian Mercado, Priya Parker, Geena Rocero, Michael Trotter and Tanya-Blount Trotter of The War and Treaty, and Maysoon Zayid, Hungry Hearts shows how reconnecting with our own burning, undeniable intuition points us toward our unique purpose and the communities where we most belong. Audiobook Table of Contents: Introduction by Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, read by the author "Women on the Loose" by Sue Monk Kidd, read by Cassandra Campbell "Reaching for Ambition" by Austin Channing Brown, read by Nicole Lewis "Making Room" by Ashley C. Ford, read by Shayna Small "The Freedom of Me" by Tanya Blount-Trotter, read by the author "Period Playlist" by Amena Brown, read by the author "On the Horrors of Fitting In" by Cameron Esposito, read by the author "The View" by Michael Trotter, Jr., read by the author "That Traveling Heat" by Connie Lim (MILCK), read by the author "Flying Free" by Jillian Mercado, read by Frankie Corzo "My Funny Valentine" by Maysoon Zayid, read by the author "Wake Up, Love" by Bozoma Saint John, read by the author "Lucy, Full of Life" by Geena Rocero, read by the author "Choosing Love" by Nkosingiphile Mabaso, read by the author "When Sisterhood Ends" by Luvvie Ajayi Jones, read by the author "The Wisdom of a Group and the Wisdom of the Self" by Priya Parker, read by Soneela Nankani "On Silence" by Natalie Guerrero, read by the author Epilogue by Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, read by the author About the Contributors read by Frankie Corzo
©2021 Jennifer Rudolph Walsh (P)2021 Random House Audio
Powers of Darkness
Summary
Powers of Darkness is an incredible literary discovery. In 1900, Icelandic publisher and writer Valdimar Asmundsson set out to translate Bram Stoker's world-famous 1897 novel Dracula. Called Makt Myrkranna (literally, 'Powers of Darkness'), this Icelandic edition included an original preface written by Stoker himself. Makt Myrkranna was published in Iceland in 1901 but remained undiscovered outside of the country until 1986, when Dracula scholarship was astonished by the discovery of Stoker's preface to the book. However, no one looked beyond the preface and deeper into Asmundsson's story. In 2014, literary researcher Hans de Roos dove into the full text of Makt Myrkranna, only to discover that Asmundsson hadn't merely translated Dracula but had penned an entirely new version of the story, with all new characters and a totally reworked plot. The resulting narrative is one that is shorter, punchier, more erotic, and perhaps even more suspenseful than Stoker's Dracula. Incredibly, Makt Myrkranna has never been translated or even read outside of Iceland until now. Powers of Darkness presents the first ever translation into English of Stoker and Asmundsson's Makt Myrkranna. With a foreword by Dacre Stoker, Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew and best-selling author, and an afterword by Dracula scholar John Edgar Browning, Powers of Darkness will amaze and entertain legions of fans of Gothic literature, horror, and vampire fiction. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2018 Hans Corneel de Roos