In You Are Loved, artist Alex Cook intimately relates his creative and spiritual adventures in his quest to create beauty and know God. Anyone longing to bring their own precious vision into reality will find solace and inspiration in these very human stories of a life dedicated to following inspiration. This inspiring collection of stories paints the heartfelt, personal journey of an artist who experiences and observes his inner life with unflinching honesty and strives to live his outer life just as honestly. We share Alex's struggles and revelations as he explores the questions that start to drive him from a young age: What is God and what happens when I express His Love in in my own way? Does God really tell me to go walking late at night just to dance on a hill, travel to Africa to paint a mural or don a bear costume to ride through the streets of Boston? How can I be an artist who is true to Beauty and the Voice within and still pay the rent?\nIn a series of thoughtful and often humorous adventures, Alex reveals how he grew in his artistic and authentic expression over the years - one inspired step at a time - until he eventually found himself making his living as a traveling musician and muralist. Alex also recounts his four-year battle with depression and the path that finally led to freedom. He talks about the magic and adventure of hitchhiking and how it opened his world and later prepared him to reach men in jail as a chaplain. He writes about navigating romantic relationships and opportunity they provide for spiritual growth. Always he is his own man, defying standard assumptions and praying beyond his fears. This book is a fascinating look at the creative process and how to live a life of courage and love. It gives us an inkling of the ever-expanding journey Love takes us on if we let it, and the profound impact following that path can have on our lives and those around us.

You Are Loved, Spiritual and Creative Adventures, A Memoir

Religion & Spirituality

Cook, Alex

Christian Books & Bibles

Alex Cook

JASON AND THE GRIZZLY Silvertip, the old grizzly bear, discouraged with human encroachment of his habitat in the Canadian Rockies, responds to a genetic map in travel to his ancestral home in Colorado. Jason Atwater, retired business executive recovering from a disappointing life in eastern society, becomes inspired to repay a debt to the land in Colorado, the state of his childhood. Jason will reinvest his wealth using the mechanism of conservation easements in returning unprofitable ranchland and forest to its natural state. The grizzly discovers the nearby Flat Tops Wilderness to be a welcome habitat for coexistence with human neighbors respectful of the spiritual value of the wild land. And there is Chipeta, the beautiful descendant of Mountain Utes who begins to recover from personal grief in the natural setting of the managed Habitat where Jason and Silvertip are destined to meet. In this project to live in harmony with the mountain land, Jason experiences an extraordinary bond with the grizzly, and discovers a responsive and abiding personal love with Chipeta.

Jason and the Grizzly

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Outskirts Press

The authors of Nature's Greenhouse have perceived a need for our country's citizenry to more fully appreciate the basic science of this most dangerous environmental threat of global warming and climate change. It is written from an educator's viewpoint, as a story from the experiences of an atmospheric scientist and a microbiologist. While the vast majority of scientists agree with the reality of climate change and its human causes, the voting public appears reluctant to use that authoritative expertise to insist on a government policy of corrective action. The book builds on the everyday observations of physical surroundings to establish the reality of the atmospheric greenhouse effect and its role in establishment of the unique Earth climate suitable for our existence. The global warming produced by the enhanced greenhouse effect drives the sea level rise, the spread of disease vectors, and disrupts the biology of our support system of plants and animals. In particular, the continued increase of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas from burning of fossil fuels will disrupt the stability of our planet's climate for centuries to come.

Nature's Greenhouse: Ominous Developments

Science & Math

George, J.

Earth Sciences

The Barton clan has a way of sticking with you long after you turn the last page. There really isn't a dull moment in either DONUTS ARE MEANT TO BE EATEN or ONLY THE TRYING. Beginning in 1979, and very much describing the characters' experience of time and place, personality driven drama marches on through time to inevitable conclusions. Told with mature insight and compassion for the characters' feckless behavior, but also very much giving the reader a sensory experience of the moment- either what it feels like to be an adolescent male in the late seventies South or a disillusioned wife and mother in a post tech revolution world. Favorite characters include Aloysius for his ungodly antics and Lily for her compulsions. Sex, violence, and eventually love punctuate the plot and keep things moving along.Using a "Gonzo" narrative style to examine complicated modern issues, author Alex Cook explores topics like race, sexuality, addiction, politics, mental health, parenting and the effect that rapidly changing technology has on society and the human species. Full of references to literature, music, and pop culture, it's a raucous, poignant family dramedy with the power to entertain and inspire. This is the first book in a two-part series. The second is ONLY THE TRYING.

Donuts Are Meant to Be Eaten: Book 1 (1)

Literary

BookBaby

The Barton clan has a way of sticking with you long after you turn the last page. There really isn't a dull moment in either DONUTS ARE MEANT TO BE EATEN or ONLY THE TRYING. Beginning in 1979, and very much describing the characters' experience of time and place, personality driven drama marches on through time to inevitable conclusions. Told with mature insight and compassion for the characters' feckless behavior, but also very much giving the reader a sensory experience of the moment- either what it feels like to be an adolescent male in the late seventies South or a disillusioned wife and mother in a post tech revolution world. Favorite characters include Aloysius for his ungodly antics and Lily for her compulsions. Sex, violence, and eventually love punctuate the plot and keep things moving along. ONLY THE TRYING is the second book in a two-part series. The first is DONUTS ARE MEANT TO BE EATEN.In this follow-up to DONUTS ARE MEANT TO BE EATEN, the author (Alex Cook) explores further the themes of ambition, romantic relationships, intimacy, and loss as his characters confront the issues that threaten to tear them apart. Readers will recognize the author's flamboyant and irreverent style which includes regular references to modern culture, history, and literature, often with a tongue-in-cheek bent.

Only the Trying: Book 2 (2) (Even Mick Jagger Gets Tired of Singing “Satisfaction”)