A coming-of-age tale told in eight parts. Toiling under a hot summer sun in the early Sixties, a group of laborers built an entire community on nothing but mud and swamp. A mottled cast of characters, the crewmen found a connection in their work and a comfort in sharing a drink when the day was done. Among them was the kid, a young man working his way through college by laying bricks over school breaks. What he discovered on Mystic Isle was as valuable as anything he'd learn in the classroom. These are his stories.
In thirteen short stories, each emulating the style of a different canonical author, John J. Mahoney has elevated wine to the level of character. Just as wine is the touchstone of a meal, his plots lean upon wine as their unifying element. The Pichon Lalande in the Fitzgeraldian “A Chef Second to None,” a Beychevelle in “The Hunting Camp,” the Château d'Yquem in the Maugham-inspired “Worth the Wait” – each great wine helps propel the tale to its natural conclusion. Full of subtle nods to the masterworks that inspired the collection, lovers of literature and wine will find the blend exquisite. “John J. Mahoney has made a wonderful contribution to wine literature. Every Bottle Has a Story brings together two of my favorites things in the world: words and wine. His writing the short pieces in the style of history's great writers was a stroke of genius. My favorite was the one for F. Scott Fitzgerald, but there were so many good ones that it was hard to select a best. In fact, now that I think of it, maybe the one in the style of James Joyce was my favorite. Then again, maybe it was the one…” – George M. Taber, author of Judgment of Paris and A Toast to Bargain Wines “John Mahoney is a charming storyteller. Each story in this unique book sees wine playing a major role. As a bonus, the stories are written in the styles of different noted authors. Since John Mahoney has taught literature as well as wine, we are not surprised that he delivers.” – Harriet Lembeck, author, Grossman's Guide to Wines, Beers and Spirits 6th, 7th and 8th Editions
The Dream Cafe, a popular neighborhood restaurant, is a welcoming haven for all kinds of people. The owner feels that the cae's exceptional nighttime goings-on should be preserved, so he asks Tom Gibbs, a young writer, to be its official scribe. Spanning the calendar year before the United States' involvement in World War II, the novel is comprised of a series of chronological stories--narrated by Tom Gibbs--each describing events at the cafe on a single night. John Mahoney, himself a young man during the time period evoked, brings vitality and veracity to the novel's mood and content. Anyone wishing to relive--or discover--the pre-WWII era will enjoy reading "Nights at the Dream Cafe.
Step inside the unprecedented 2020 college football season with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Notre Dame football is a program defined by its many traditions: its status as an independent, the rivalries with USC and Navy, the rumble of the crowd as the Victory March plays. In 2020, that all changed. Amid a global pandemic, the season hung in the balance all spring. Then the schedule was scrapped as the Irish were folded into the ACC. The stands at Notre Dame Stadium stayed empty. In an unprecedented look inside this historic program, players Reed Gregory and John Mahoney chronicle a season that won't be forgotten. Fans will get an up-close view as Brian Kelly's squad navigates a new course and makes their run to the Rose Bowl. Filled with insight and personal reflections recorded throughout the year, this fascinating keepsake captures the realities of college football at the crossroads of something much greater.
Evolution has provided a new understanding of reality, with revolutionary consequences for Christianity. In an evolutionary perspective the incarnation involved God entering the evolving human species to help it imitate the trinitarian altruism in whose image it was created and counter its tendency to self-absorption. Primarily, however, the evolutionary achievement of Jesus was to confront and overcome death in an act of cosmic significance, ushering humanity into the culminating stage of its evolutionary destiny, the full sharing of God’s inner life. Previously such doctrines as original sin, the fall, sacrifice, and atonement stemmed from viewing death as the penalty for sin and are shown not only to have serious difficulties in themselves, but also to emerge from a Jewish culture preoccupied with sin and sacrifice that could not otherwise account for death. The death of Jesus on the cross is now seen as saving humanity, not from sin, but from individual extinction and meaninglessness. Death is now seen as a normal process that affect all living things and the religious doctrines connected with explaining it in humans are no longer required or justified. Similar evolutionary implications are explored affecting other subjects of Christian belief, including the Church, the Eucharist, priesthood, and moral behavior.
Wordsworth: A Poetic Life is a new biography of the great father of British Romanticism. It is new in several ways, most notably in the way it approaches the life of the poet. Paying its proper respect to the classic lives of Wordsworth by Mary Moorman and Stephen Gill, it attempts to tell the story of the life through a more rigorous reading of key and representative works of the poet, through careful blending of life and poetry. Wordsworth offers the story of the literariness of the poet's life - childhood and adolescence in the Lake District, education at Cambridge, love and political radicalism in France, the long period of residence in Grasmere and Rydal, celebrity, and national and international recognition. Its reading of the poems, in tune with current theoretical practice, offers a sense of the continuities in Wordsworth's career as it moves away from familiar theories of a Golden Decade of creativity and a period of long decline. The book also works closely and rigorously with Wordsworth's poetry as a method of dramatizing the essentially poetic character of the poet's life.
In 1974, a group of determined, young high school actors started doing plays under the name of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, eventually taking residence in the basement of a church in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago. Thus began their unlikely journey to become one of the most prominent theatre companies in the world. Steppenwolf Theatre Company has changed the face of American Theatre with its innovative approach that blends dynamic ensemble performance, honest, straightforward acting, and bold, thought-provoking stories to create compelling theatre. This is the first book to chronicle this iconic theatre company, offering an account of its early years and development, its work, and the methodologies that have made it one of the most influential ensemble theatres today. Through extensive, in-depth interviews conducted by the author with ensemble members, this book reveals the story of Steppenwolf's miraculous rise from basement to Broadway and beyond. Interviewees include co-founders Jeff Perry, Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney, along a myriad of ensemble, staff, board members and others.
Confession is a crucial ritual of the Catholic Church, offering absolution of sin and spiritual guidance to the faithful. Yet this ancient sacrament has also been a source of controversy and oppression, culminating, as prize-winning historian John Cornwell reveals in The Dark Box, with the scandal of clerical child abuse. Drawing on extensive historical sources, contemporary reports, and first-hand accounts, Cornwell takes a hard look at the long evolution of confession. The papacy made annual, one-on-one confession obligatory for the first time in the 13th century. In the era that followed, confession was a source of spiritual consolation as well as sexual and mercenary scandal. During the 16th century, the Church introduced the confession box to prevent sexual solicitation of women, but this private space gave rise to new forms of temptation, both for penitents and confessors. Yet no phase in the story of the sacrament has had such drastic consequences as a historic decree by Pope Pius X in 1910. In reaction to the spiritual perils of the new century, Pius sought to safeguard the Catholic faithful by lowering the age at which children made their first confession from their early teens to seven, while exhorting all Catholics to confess frequently instead of annually. This sweeping, inappropriately early imposition of the sacrament gave priests an unprecedented and privileged role in the lives of young boys and girls—a role that a significant number would exploit in the decades that followed. A much-needed account of confession’s fraught history, The Dark Box explores the sources of the sacrament’s harm and shame, while recognizing its continuing power to offer consolation and reconciliation.
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