Somewhere Apart

This Unusual Volume of short essays comes from thirty-three Arkansans, who recall their favorite places in the Natural State. Including sketches by lifelong natives and emigres, the collection presents sensitive descriptions of childhood play spots, special home sites, physical landmarks, towns, rivers, mountaintops, highways, and interior places. Maps and photographs locate the hallowed spots, ranging broadly over the state. Designed in journal format, blank pages at the end of the book invite private entries for My Favorite Place by the owner of the book, allowing it to be given as a gift to visitors or as a memento for the next generation. Originally compiled by the staff of the Arkansas Times, Somewhere Apart has been extended, honed, and polished by The University of Arkansas Press into a gem of a book. My first remembrances are of mud and dust, white and black people, horses and mules. -- Robert Pugh I'm a child of the hills. My roots are in Cass, in the Boston Mountains, where my great-grandmother ... grew up on the Mulberry River. -- Barbara Pryor Arkansas has a rough sort of beauty that often bears a sting or an itch. -- John Churchill A stair of fieldstones led down to the pool. On the hottest days of summer we'd have to splash water on them so they wouldn't burn our bare feet. -- Lucinda Williams I always suggest visitors get a massage, eat a really good meal of slow food at any of a dozen or so chef-owned restaurants, buy something made and sold only right here, nap, relax. -- Crescent Dragonwagon The sun rising on a cold, clear morning, a mutual goal and plenty of time dedicated to conversation with my son make that remote duck blind a specialplace. -- Jim Kelley This thoroughly charming village still has a 'square' of sorts with buildings on four sides, including a still-serving cafe (where once I ordered peach 'clobber' from the menu), a still-paying bank, and even a still-fixing mechanic running 'Malfunction Junction.' -- Donald Harington The barns and sheds have sheltered hay, tools, field vermin, lovers, the broken hearted, playing grandchildren, and, now, family reunions. -- Carl Stover Everybody needs a laughing place -- and this is the one for me! -- Elizabeth Jacoway

Long-listed for the 2006 Re-Lit Award for Best Novel For 15-year-old Cathy Mugan, "a place apart" is where she longs to be: apart from her mother, an unhinged, uncontrollable terror who explodes at the slightest provocation. So Cathy has a chance to work at a rectory for the summer, she seizes it. But "a place apart" is also where Cathy is: surrounded by violence, a cowering father, and a contemptuous brother, she is almost completely alone. Her closest friend exists only in her imagination, a frightening sign that perhaps Cathy has more in common with her mad mother than she - or the reader - wants to believe. Stirring and dramatic, this is an unforgettable debut from Canada's next major author. Engaging characters, enthralling scenes, and lyrical beauty will make A Place Apart stay with readers for years.

National Book Award Winner: A grieving teenager wonders if she’ll ever understand anything—especially the big things—in life. Time passed, and all the minutes hurt . . . After her father’s death, Victoria Finch’s life changes completely. To save money, she and her mother move from Boston to a small house in the town of New Oxford. There, Victoria attends school in a building that resembles a train station, where no one pays her much attention. Then she meets Hugh Todd, the rich kid who runs the school’s theater club. He’s charming, adventurous, and encouraging, and he takes particular interest in Victoria’s writing. Hugh’s presence reinvigorates Victoria’s life. But he needs something as well, and as the months pass, Victoria realizes that his friendship comes at a high price. A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, A Place Apart is a lyrical novel of loss, friendship, and moving on.

Hot Springs National Park was recognized nationally in 2010 when the U.S. Mint unveiled the design of the first quarter of 56 in a series called the America the Beautiful Quarters Program. In 1903 a Chicago magazine, The 400, told its upscale readers about Hot Springs, Arkansas. The article's author wrote, "I also perceive a Chicago-Hot Springs air line of macadamized highway, lined with meteoric automobiles ribboning off the 750 miles between the cities in a thousand or less minutes. The perspective is almost delirious." Such exuberant words are testimony to what Hot Springs, "a place apart," has been to the nation since the early European explorers found vapors rising from the thermal springs-47 of them from which a million gallons of 143-degree water flow each day. A Place Apart offers readers a balanced history in words and historic photographs of a unique locale in the state of Arkansas. The hot springs of what the Native Americans called Washita were on the national map of Pres. Thomas Jefferson when the United States acquired what would become Arkansas in the Louisiana Purchase of 1804. Congress created the Hot Springs Reservation in 1832-the first land that the federal government set aside for preservation-granting federal protection of the thermal waters, and renamed it Hot Springs National Park in 1921. This book provides a fascinating visual history of pioneers, wealthy barons, scoundrels, gamblers (including such frequent visitors as Al Capone and Lucky Luciano), colorful politicians, and the hundreds of thousands of people who came to the spa city in hopes of regaining their fleeting health. Also covered are such famous attractions as Oaklawn Park, a thoroughbred horse-racing track, and Bathhouse Row, with its eight turn-of-the-century historic buildings.

A Place Apart features essays and firsthand accounts of notable experiences throughout Cape Cod, including native Wampanoag creation myths; eyewitness accounts of the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620; candid stories of early life in the Old Colony; fascinating and often-harrowing accounts of the whaling and fishing industries; and so much more. The collection includes famous passages by and about such writers as Melville, Thoreau, Helen Keller, Edmund Wilson, and Kurt Vonnegut, among others.

If you think that Jesus might have had something significant to say related to the well-being of the human race, this book is for you. If you think that Jesus' purpose was to get people into heaven after they died, this book is not for you. Actually, maybe it is, but you may not like it. Through individual and group encounters and thought-provoking questions, through poetry, prayers, icons, and meditation exercises, this companion for the warrior mystic monk seeks to guide the reader into an encounter with the life force that holds together and flows through all creation. This guide is intended for those who believe that Jesus began something central to the well-being of humanity and all creation, which has become almost lost within the institution of religion. Many who are embracing this emerging spiritual awakening remain within the church. The church continues to be family. At the same time, one's primary spiritual community is made up of those who are seeking awakening whether they are inside or outside of a religious institution.

Love lives in the most dangerous places of the heart The real world. That's what Leda desperately seeks when she flees her life of privilege to travel to Kenya. She finds it at a boys'orphanage in the slums of Nairobi. What she doesn't expect is to fall for Ita, the charismatic and thoughtful man who gave up his dreams to offer children a haven in the midst of turmoil. Their love should be enough for one another-it embodies the soul-deep connection both have always craved. But it is threatened by Ita's troubled childhood friend, Chege, a gang leader with whom he shares a complex history. As political unrest reaches a boiling point and the slum erupts in violence, Leda is attacked…and forced to put her trust in Chege, the one person who otherwise inspires anything but. In the aftermath of Leda's rescue, disturbing secrets are exposed, and Leda, Ita and Chege are each left grappling with their own regret and confusion. Their worlds upturned, they must now face the reality that sometimes the most treacherous threat is not the world outside, but the demons within.

"The reader of Ray Hanley's new book on Hot Springs will find it both entertaining and informative. Mr. Hanley is to be commended on the accuracy of his research and his writing."---Orval Allbritton, Garland County Historical Society A Place Apart tells the history of Hot Springs, Arkansas, through words and pictures. Throughout that history, the thermal waters bubbling from the Ouachita Mountains ringing the city are a backdrop to the stories of pioneers, wealthy barons, scoundrels, gamblers, colorful politicians, and, of course, the hundreds of thousands of people who come to the spa city for the pleasures and health benefits of the baths. For all those interested in the history of Hot Springs, A Place Apart is a delightful, and essential, resource.

Drawing on his own monastic experiences, the author reflects on such themes as stillness, solitude, fasting and temptation to help individuals find peace through contemplation, even if they lack the preferred setting of the monastery.

Love is at stake in this bitingly funny and sexy vampire romance from an award-winning author. Jessica Grant is a tracker—and a liaison between the Otherworlders and the more human population of York. Her job is to keep the lively undead in their place. She knows all too well that falling in love with a vampire takes a leap of faith. But honestly, who can resist Sil? The leader of the Others has spent lifetimes perfecting the art of charm and seduction. Surely, she can trust him, can’t she? He’d never let his demon get the best of him. Would he? And if he promised never to leave her, then where in the Otherworld is he? Sil is at the top of the food chain—envied by men, desire by women, and as honorable as a vampire can be. So how is it that he’s on the run, hunted like invaluable prey, and leaving a trail of bleeding humans in his wake? Sil can’t remember for the life of him. Now Jess must choose which side she’s on, either find her lover and help him, or turn him in. Whatever she decides, there’s a high price to pay. And something to lose.