'I've been to the zoo.' These opening words usher the audience into one of the most iconic plays in American theatre history: The Zoo Story. More than... fifty years later, master playwright Edward Albee (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?) wrote a prequel to his classic. Home Life contains the events in Peter's life immediately preceding his encounter with Jerry on the park bench and is every bit as powerful as the original. We meet Ann, Peter's wife, and see the conversation that compelled Peter to go for that fateful walk in the park. For the first time collected in one volume, Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo is a must for any theatre lover.

The Old Testament is a problem for many Christians. Some find it puzzling, or even offensive; others seem to glibly misuse it for their own ends. There... are few resources aimed at enabling ordinary Christians to understand the OT and use it in their lives as followers of Jesus. In this book At Home in a Strange Land: Using the Old Testament in Christian Ethics, Andrew Sloane seeks to address this need. He outlines some of the problems that ordinary Christians face in reading the Old Testament as part of Christian Scripture and provides a framework for interpreting the Old Testament and using it in Christian ethics. He identifies some of the key biblical texts of both the Old Testament and the New Testament that both inform Christian ethics and challenge us to live as God's people. Using the paradigm of learning to travel in unfamiliar places, Sloane seeks to equip the reader with tools for understanding many of the puzzling and difficult passages found in the Old Testament. In sum, the book aims to "rehabilitate" the Old Testament for ordinary, even skeptical, twenty-first century Christians. While many of the issues have been covered elsewhere, there is very little that seeks to bring together questions of interpretation and "ethical application" in one book aimed at lay people. The book would also be valuable in a college course on Christian ethics.

Motivated variously by the desire to reject consumerism, to live closer to the earth, to embrace voluntary simplicity, or to discover a more spiritual... path, homesteaders have made the radical decision to go "back to the land," rejecting modern culture and amenities to live self-sufficiently and in harmony with nature. Drawing from vivid firsthand accounts as well as from rich historical material, this gracefully written study of homesteading in America from the late nineteenth century to the present examines the lives and beliefs of those who have ascribed to the homesteading philosophy, placing their experiences within the broader context of the changing meanings of nature and religion in modern American culture.Rebecca Kneale Gould investigates the lives of famous figures such as Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs, Ralph Borsodi, Wendell Berry, and Helen and Scott Nearing, and she presents penetrating interviews with many contemporary homesteaders. She also considers homesteading as a form of dissent from consumer culture, as a departure from traditional religious life, and as a practice of environmental ethics.

Through innovative fieldwork and ethnographic writing, Hecht lays bare the received truths about the lives of Brazilian street children. This book... changes the terms of the debate, asking not why there are so many homeless children in Brazil but why - given the oppressive alternative of home life in the shantytowns - there are in fact so few. Speaking in recorded sessions that participants called "radio workshops," street children asked one another questions that even the most experienced researchers would be unlikely to pose. At the center of this study are children who play, steal, sleep, dance, and die in the streets of a Brazilian city. But all around them figure activists, politicians, researchers, "home" children, and a global crisis of childhood.

Ours is a century of uprootedness, with fewer and fewer people living out their lives where they are born. At such a time, in such a world, what does it... mean to be "at home?" Perhaps among a nomadic people, for whom dwelling is not synonymous with being housed and settled, the search for an answer to this question might lead to a new way of thinking about home and homelessness, exile and belonging. At Home in the World is the story of just such a search. Intermittently over a period of three years Michael Jackson lived, worked, and traveled extensively in Central Australia. This book chronicles his experience among the Warlpiri of the Tanami Desert. Something of a nomad himself, having lived in New Zealand, Sierra Leone, England, France, Australia, and the United States, Jackson is deft at capturing the ambiguities of home as a lived experience among the Warlpiri. Blending narrative ethnography, empirical research, philosophy, and poetry, he focuses on the existential meaning of being at home in the world. Here home becomes a metaphor for the intimate relationship between the part of the world a person calls "self" and the part of the world called "other." To speak of "at-homeness," Jackson suggests, implies that people everywhere try to strike a balance between closure and openness, between acting and being acted upon, between acquiescing in the given and choosing their own fate. His book is an exhilarating journey into this existential struggle, responsive at every turn to the political questions of equity and justice that such a struggle entails.A moving depiction of an aboriginal culture at once at home and in exile, and a personal meditation on the practice of ethnography and the meaning of home in our increasingly rootless age, At Home in the World is a timely reflection on how, in defining home, we continue to define ourselves.

Margaret Guenther From informal versions of the Rule of St. Benedict to Twelve-Step groups and Weight Watchers, the basic human need for guidance and... structure in the quest for wholeness is palpable and real. Out of her long experience as a spiritual director, mentor, and teacher, Margaret Guenther offers a warm and sensible guide for "the rest of us" -- singles, couples, parents, extended families, members of churches -- to create a helpful and balanced rule of life to help us in our search for faith. She explores ancient and contemporary meanings for the classic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, along with the distinctively Benedictine ethos of stability and conversion, pointing out the pitfalls of each. A series of short essays follows on the different elements of a rule of life -- such as authority, money, pleasure, stinginess, friends, enemies, and living through hard times. The final chapter gives practical ideas for crafting a rule of life that encourages each of us to grow, stretch, and flourish. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 Paperback 176 pp

Nature writing, as Thoreau knew, can be deeply subversive because it points to ways of living that diverge fundamentally from dominant attitudes.... Thoreau would have welcomed these essays by America's most important nature writers, for in exploring our intrinsic relationship with the earth, they also consider our alienation from nature and how that alienation is manifested.The book's principal focus is on the possibilities of being at home on the earth: Finding place, reinhabitation, and becoming native.The collection begins with essays by N. Scott Momaday and Leslie Marmon Silko, who accentuate the links between culture and nature. Other essays speak to the loss of place and to being stewards of nature and of bioregionalism, nativeness, and of interdependent communities, be they in rural areas or urban neighborhoods. Several essays address how our current ideologies of growth and individualism run counter to a sustainable relationship to the land and to each other. In the final three essays, Gary Snyder critiques various views of nature, Alice Walker articulates a vision of a responsive universe, and Linda Hogan celebrates the interaction of nature and human habitation. The contributors' views, writings, and contexts are variegated, but all share a sense that human identity is intimately tied to the land one lives on. And as in an ecosystem, the collection's great diversity yields abundant riches.At Home on the Earth represents the cutting edge of environmental thinking in the United States today. Throughout, the interactions between humans and nature convey a politics of hope, one sustained by faith in place itself. As Gary Snyder writes, "We are all indigenous to this planet, this mosaic of wild gardens we are being called by nature and history to reinhabit in good spirit."

While unpacking boxes of old family books recently, Elizabeth Gilbert rediscovered a dusty, yellowed hardcover called At Home on the Range, originally... written by her great-grandmother, Margaret Yardley Potter. Having only been peripherally aware of the volume, Gilbert dug in with some curiosity, and soon found that she had stumbled upon a book far ahead of its time. Part scholar and part crusader for a more open food conversation, Potter espoused the importance of farmer’s markets and ethnic food (Italian, Jewish, and German), derided preservatives and culinary shortcuts, and generally celebrated a devotion to epicurean adventures. Reading this practical and humorous cookbook, it’s not hard to see that Gilbert inherited her great-grandmother’s love of food and her warm, infectious prose.Proceeds from this book benefit ScholarMatch (scholarmatch.org).

In their compelling examination of what it means to be truly at home on the street, Jason Wasserman and Jeffrey Clair argue that programs and policies... addressing homeless people too often serve only to alienate them. Wasserman and Clair delve into the complex realities of homelessness to paint a gripping picture of individuals - not cases or pathologies - living on the street and of their strategies for daily survival. By exploring the private spaces that those who are homeless create for themselves, as well as their prevailing social mores, the authors explain how well-intentioned policies and programs often only widen the gap between the indigent and mainstream society. The result is an unvarnished look at the culture of long-term homelessness and a fresh approach to reaching this resurgent population. In their compelling examination of what it means to be truly at home on the street, the authors argue that programs and policies designed to assist homeless people too often serve only to alienate them.

This pioneering 2006 volume addresses the question of how Britain's empire was lived through everyday practices - in church and chapel, by readers at... home, as embodied in sexualities or forms of citizenship, as narrated in histories - from the eighteenth century to the present. Leading historians explore the imperial experience and legacy for those located, physically or imaginatively, 'at home,' from the impact of empire on constructions of womanhood, masculinity and class to its influence in shaping literature, sexuality, visual culture, consumption and history-writing. They assess how people thought imperially, not in the sense of political affiliations for or against empire, but simply assuming it was there, part of the given world that had made them who they were. They also show how empire became a contentious focus of attention at certain moments and in particular ways. This will be essential reading for scholars and students of modern Britain and its empire.

From the back cover: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize! When the aging patriarch of a rich, thriving farm in Iowa decides to retire, he offers his land to... his three daughters. For Ginny and Rose, who live on the farm with their husbands, the gift makes sense - a reward for years of hard work, a challenge to make the farm even more successful. But the youngest, Caroline, a Des Moines lawyer, flatly rejects the idea, and in anger her father cuts her out - setting off an explosive series of events that will leave none of them unchanged ....

A successful Iowa farmer decides to divide his farm between his three daughters. When the youngest objects, she is cut out of his will. This sets off a... chain of events that brings dark truths to light and explodes long-suppressed emotions. An ambitious reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear cast upon a typical American community in the late twentieth century, A Thousand Acres takes on themes of truth, justice, love, and pride, and reveals the beautiful yet treacherous topography of humanity.

A thousand acres, a piece of land of almost mythic proportions. Upon this fertile, nourishing earth, Jane Smiley has set her rich, breathtakingly... dramatic novel of an American family whose wealth cannot stay the hand of tragedy. It is the intense, compelling story of a father and his daughters, of sisters, of wives and husbands, and of the human cost of a lifetime spent trying to subdue the land and the passions it stirs. The most critically acclaimed novel of the literary season, a classic story of contemporary American life, A THOUSAND ACRES is destined to be read for years to come."It has been a long time since a novel so surprised me with its power to haunt . . . . Its genius grows from its ruthless acceptance of the divided nature of every character . . . . This gives A THOUSAND ACRES the prismatic quality of the greatest art." -- Chicago TribuneWinner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award

A Powerful Analysis of Our Oil Addiction and a New Direction for Global Energy In 2006, world oil consumption exceeded one thousand barrels per... second-a level with enormous impact on the environment, world economies, investments, and business profitability. A Thousand Barrels a Second examines the future of oil and the nature of our energy supply, revealing how governments, businesses, and individuals can meet the coming challenges with better solutions and innovations. “A Thousand Barrels a Second is a book that arrives just in time.”-U.S. Representative Charles F. Bass, (R-NH), member House Energy and Commerce Committee “Peter Tertzakian's analysis of world oil is a fascinating reminder that history often foretells the major turning points of the future.”-Gwyn Morgan, President & Chief Executive Officer, EnCana Corporation “An excellent book! In my more than 40 years in the industry I can't think of a publication which has so clearly discussed the global challenges of today's demands and tomorrow's requirements.”-Peter Gaffney, Senior Partner, Gaffney, Cline & Associates

In 2006, world oil consumption will exceed one thousand barrels per second. The news marks an important change that will have a far-reaching ... impact on world economies, investments, and business profitability. In A Thousand Barrels a Second, Chief Energy Economist of ARC Financial Peter Tertzakian examines the future of oil and offers insights into what it will take to rebalance our energy needs and seize new opportunities. He answers the top questions asked by business leaders, policy makers, investors, and concerned citizens as we approach the coming break point: Are today's high oil and gas prices part of a routine business cycle, or are there more profound forces at play? Are hybrid vehicles our only solution against high gasoline prices? Is China's growing thirst for energy sustainable? Which government policies work and which do not? Will nuclear power and coal save the day-again? Tertzakian also offers a realistic, informed look into the future of our energy supply chains and how our consumption patterns may evolve, revealing how governments, businesses, and even individuals can meet the coming challenges with better solutions and innovations.