The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life
Author: Andy Miller
A working father whose life no longer feels like his own discovers the transforming powers of great (and downright terrible) literature in this laugh-out-loud memoir.
Andy Miller had a job he quite liked, a family he loved and no time at all for reading. Or so he kept telling himself. But, no matter how busy or tired he was, something kept niggling at him. Books. Books he’d always wanted to read. Books he’d said he’d read, when he hadn’t. Books that whispered the promise of escape from the 6.44 to London. And so, with the turn of a page, began a year of reading that was to transform Miller’s life completely.
This book is Miller’s inspirational and very funny account of his expedition through literature: classic, cult and everything in-between. Crack the spine of your unread Middlemarch, discover what The Da Vinci Code and Moby Dick have in common (everything, surprisingly) and knock yourself out with a new-found enthusiasm for Tolstoy, Douglas Adams and The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Year of Reading Dangerously is a reader’s odyssey and it begins with opening this book.
The Book of Forgiving
Authors: Desmond Tutu & Mpho Tutu
The Book of Forgiving, written together by the Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and his daughter Revd Mpho Tutu, offers a deeply personal testament and guide to the process of forgiveness.
All of us have, at times, needed both to forgive and be forgiven – whether small, everyday harms or real traumas. But the path to forgiveness is not easy, and the process unclear. How do we let go of resentment when we have been harmed, at times irreparably? How do we forgive and still pursue justice? How do we heal our hearts, and move on? How do we forgive ourselves for the harm we have caused others?
Drawing on his memories of reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has identified four concrete steps to forgiveness through which we must all pass if we are to reach our destination:
1) Admitting the wrong and acknowledging the harm
2) Telling one’s story and witnessing the anguish
3) Asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness
4) Renewing or releasing the relationship
Each chapter contains reflections and personal stories, as well as exercises for practicing each step of the path. The Book of Forgiving is a touchstone and tool for anyone seeking the freedom of forgiveness: an inspiring guide to healing ourselves and creating a more united world.
Look Who’s Back
Author: Timur Vermes
Berlin, Summer 2011. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. Things have changed – no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognizes his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman.
People certainly recognize him, albeit as a flawless impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable happens, and the ranting Hitler goes viral, becomes a YouTube star, gets his own T.V. show, and people begin to listen. But the Führer has another program with even greater ambition – to set the country he finds a shambles back to rights.
Look Who’s Back stunned and then thrilled 1.5 million German readers with its fearless approach to the most taboo of subjects. Naive yet insightful, repellent yet strangely sympathetic, the revived Hitler unquestionably has a spring in his s
