Strange Places

A modern teen, raised in an orphanage learns that her family may still be alive – trapped in a world of magic. “Holy crap! This book freaking powns!” That’s what fans are saying about Jefferson Smith's debut fantasy novel. Spunky and irreverent, 13-year-old Tayna is every villain’s worst nightmare: an uncooperative victim who refuses to play by his rules. After living her entire life in a cruel orphanage, Tayna discovers that she may never have actually been an orphan in the first place and flees from nunnish captivity to search for her real family. But time is running out and she has two entire worlds to search: one filled with shopping malls and televisions, and another filled with Brownies, Djin and magic!

Just in time for that most mysterious and macabre of all nights--Halloween, of course--Nick Redfern unleashes The World's Weirdest Places, his latest darkly entertaining supernatural title. In its mysterious pages, you will find Redfern's personal top 25 paranormal-themed locales, and the strange, amazing, and diabolical things that lurk within them. From the legendary Loch Ness, Scotland, to the slopes of Mount Shasta, California; from the dark depths of the Solomon Islands to the heart of the Kremlin; and from the magical landscape of Sedona, Arizona, to the turbulent waters of the Devil's Sea of Japan, The World's Weirdest Places reveals the sheer astonishing scale of strangeness that dominates our planet. Bigfoot, aliens, ghosts, vampires, UFOs, lake monsters, strange energies, enigmatic vortexes, werewolves, and terrifying demons are just some of the bizarre things that populate these parts of our planet, which provoke as much fascination and intrigue as they do fear and horror.

It's unbelievable Explore some of the weirdest, wildest places on Earth through the pages of this fascinating book. Get ready to visit the world's strangest and most surprising places From animal islands filled with deadly snakes to terrifying towns and decaying buildings, these natural features and man-made structures will blow your mind. Journey to a giant blue hole in Belize that's filled with toxic gases and sea-creature skeletons, a lake in Tanzania that runs red, a town so overrun with spiders its residents are forced to eat them, and a vast 226-foot-wide crater that is always on fire. You won't believe your eyes The strange places include Terrifying terrains: Deadmen Valley, Canada Spine-tingling towns: Chernobyl, Ukraine and Miyake Village, Japan (the "toxic terror") Weird Water: Devil's Kettle, US and and Blood Falls, Antarctica Beastly abodes: Snake Island, Brazil Fright sites: the Church of Bones, Czech Republic

We are all the same, yet so different – perhaps even strange to each other. “Strange Places, Strange Faces” deals with this phenomenon. The dictionary gives the definition of ‘strange’ as unusual or surprising, that which is unsettling, unfamiliar or alien, not previously encountered. I suppose we appear strange to people who are unfamiliar to us, just as they appear different to us. There are individuals living in this world who are not the same as we are, dwell in locations unlike those in which we reside, and have goals in life which might appear odd to us. I have tried to paint these pictures on a literary canvas.

Friends in Strange Places is about Saleech, who explores the mountains and meets a dragon. Although she’s afraid, he’s unlike other dragons—he is friendly and is an amazing host. While there, they are attacked by bats, and the dragon is badly hurt. The dragon returns Saleech home and goes to find his best friend, Zack. Saleech decides to go on an adventure to ensure Snugsnort is okay. She meets a lot of unexpected obstacles while meeting some interesting characters, who assist her with her trials and offer invaluable help, as well. Saleech realizes that stepping outside her comfort zone means learning a lot about herself and allowing herself to grow as an individual.

Lessons Learned in Strange Places is an intriguing, yet true, account of author Jane Coopers travels to various places around the world. Chronicling her numerous adventures, Jane provides a fascinating picture of many different countries, some of which are now closed to tourism, and especially to American tourists. The most important aspects of her stories are the lessons that were learned along with the answers to many prayers, which she and her mother experienced as they entered and exited these countries. For example, their trip to Iraq in 1974 not only required patience but also a great deal of prayer. It was at this time that Jane learned the importance of yielding to Gods will. Arriving in Iraq with her mother for a Christmas holiday with no lodging secured, by chance they met an American woman and her German husband at the airport. The couple offered them a place to stay that turned out to be a blessing. In addition to the wonder of various lessons learned along the way, the amazing answers to prayer were just as impressive. Lessons Learned in Strange Places offers the anticipation of what the next problem might be, how the author handled each one, and the astonishing end resultsand the part that prayer and faith played in each adventure.

When Beth Kephart met and fell in love with the artist who would become her husband, she had little knowledge of the coffee farm he came from. Kephart's "lush. . . poetic evocation of Salvadorian life, its magic and tragedies" ("Los Angeles Times") offers her testament to the ties that bind.

Is your prayer life as exciting as a funeral service? If given the choice between praying and a root canal, would you choose the latter? If asked what part of prayer you enjoy the most, would you reply, "When it's finished?" Seeing God in Strange Places offers a mixture of humorous and sobering stories that help lead the reader toward intimacy with the Creator. The book answers the age-old question, how does one become conscious of God's presence in the daily grind of life? A stagnant prayer life can evolve into a stirring and enriching experience, where the awareness of God's presence brings about hope to whatever you face. Max W. Jackson attended Ohio State University, and completed the course of study at Garret Theological Seminary in Chicago. His ministry began in 1984 as a part-time local pastor before he was ordained as Deacon in the United Methodist church. He presently is serving three churches in Ohio. The Jacksons have two children, a son and daughter, and four grandchildren.

Theology doesn't come to us neatly packaged from above. There is a sense in which all theology is autobiography. We learn it as we live it, and the place where we live it out is within our own story. It's not that there is no such thing as objective truth. It's just that we come to know what we know not only as we think our way into it with our minds but as we live into it with the whole of our lives. As theologians, our own stories inevitably matter. In this book, John Swinton uses fragments of his own story to show how that story has impacted the way he sees and practices theology. His place of formation walking alongside people living with intellectual disabilities, mental health challenges, and dementia has gifted Swinton with the opportunity to ask different questions of the tradition--questions that emerge from the lives of people who see the world differently. That learning has shaped him as a theologian. It has also raised some crucial questions around the nature of faithfulness, discipleship, and exactly what kind of community the church is and should be in both theory and in practice. As we reflect on these matters, the hope is that all of us together can begin to appreciate more deeply the goodness, kindness, and love of God for all human beings. In the My Theology series, the world's leading Christian thinkers explain some of the principal tenets of their theological beliefs in concise, pocket-sized books.

Hellboy's complete story is presented for the first time in chronological order for the ultimate reading experience. This 416-page volume covers Hellboy's adventures from 1998 to 2005, reprinting Conqueror Worm, Strange Places, Into the Silent Sea, and "The Right Hand of Doom, "Box Full of Evil," and "Being Human" from The Right Hand of Doom and B.P.R.D. Being Human. Hellboy loses faith in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense when they strap a bomb to one of his fellow not-quite-human agents. He gets answers about his destiny, like it or not, in over 300 pages of comics mostly drawn by Mignola, featuring award-winning guests Gary Gianni and Richard Corben. The four volume Hellboy Omnibus series along with the two volumes of The Complete Short Stories collect all of Mignola's award-winning Hellboy stories in chronological order for a definitive reading experience.