“Mine is a personal story of an unexpected and terribly inconvenient Christian conversion, told by a very unlikely convert.” –Sara Miles Raised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and a writer. Then early one winter morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. “I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian,” she writes, “or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut.” But she ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed. The mysterious sacrament of communion has sustained Miles ever since, in a faith she’d scorned, in work she’d never imagined. In this astonishing story, she tells how the seeds of her conversion were sown, and what her life has been like since she took that bread. A lesbian left-wing journalist who covered revolutions around the world, Miles was not the woman her friends expected to see suddenly praising Jesus. She was certainly not the kind of person the government had in mind to run a “faith-based charity.” Religion for her was not about angels or good behavior or piety; it was about real hunger, real food, and real bodies. Before long, she turned the bread she ate at communion into tons of groceries, piled on the church’s altar to be given away. The first food pantry she established provided hundreds of poor, elderly, sick, deranged, and marginalized people with lifesaving food and a sense of belonging. Within a few years, the loaves had multiplied, and she and the people she served had started nearly a dozen more pantries. Take This Bread is rich with real-life Dickensian characters–church ladies, child abusers, millionaires, schizophrenics, bishops, and thieves–all blown into Miles’s life by the relentless force of her newfound calling. She recounts stories about trudging through the rain in housing projects, wiping the runny nose of a psychotic man, storing a battered woman’s .375 Magnum in a cookie tin. She writes about the economy of hunger and the ugly politics of food; the meaning of prayer and the physicality of faith. Here, in this achingly beautiful, passionate book, is the living communion of Christ. “The most amazing book.” – Anne Lamott

Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion

Biographies & Memoirs

Miles, Sara

Professionals & Academics

Ballantine Books

Early one morning, for no earthly reason, Sara Miles, raised an atheist, wandered into a church, received communion, and found herself transformed–embracing a faith she’d once scorned. A lesbian left-wing journalist who’d covered revolutions around the world, Miles didn’t discover a religion that was about angels or good behavior or piety; her faith centered on real hunger, real food, and real bodies. Before long, she turned the bread she ate at communion into tons of groceries, piled on the church’s altar to be given away. Within a few years, she and the people she served had started nearly a dozen food pantries in the poorest parts of their city. Take This Bread is rich with real-life Dickensian characters–church ladies, millionaires, schizophrenics, bishops, and thieves–all blown into Miles’s life by the relentless force of her newfound calling. Here, in this achingly beautiful, passionate book, is the living communion of Christ. “The most amazing book.” –Anne Lamott “Engaging, funny, and highly entertaining . . . Miles comments, often with great insight, on the ugliness that many people associate with a particular brand of Christianity. Why would any thinking person become a Christian? is one of the questions she addresses, and her answer is also compelling reading.” –Booklist “Powerful . . . This book is a gem [and] will remain with you forever.” –The Decatur Daily “What Miles learns about faith, about herself and about the gift of giving and receiving graciously are wonderful gifts for the reader.” –National Public Radio “[A] joyful memoir . . . advocates big-tent Christianity in the truest sense . . . a story of finding sustenance and passing it on.” –National Catholic Reporter “Rigorously honest, Take This Bread demonstrates how hard–and how necessary–it is to welcome everyone to the table, without exception.” –San Francisco Chronicle “Moving, delightful and significant.” –The Christian Century Don’t miss the reading group guide in the back of the book.

Community & Culture

The first major study of the link between high-technology and politics illuminates the growing influence of Silicon valley on public policy. 15,000 first printing.

How to Hack a Party Line: The Democrats and Silicon Valley

Computers & Technology

Business Technology

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

"I came late to Christianity," writes Sara Miles, "knocked upsidedown by a mid-life conversion centered around eating a literalchunk of bread. I hadn't decided to profess an article of doctrine,but discovered a force blowing uncontrollably through the world." 
In this new book, Sara Miles tells what happened when shedecided to follow the flesh and blood Jesus by doing somethingreal. For everyone afraid to feed hungry strangers, love theunlovable, or go to dark places to bless and heal, she offers hope.She holds out the promise of a God who gave a bunch of housewivesand fishermen authority to forgive sins and raise the dead, and whocontinues to call us to action. And she tells, in vivid,heartbreakingly honest stories, how the ordinary people around herare transformed by taking up God's work in the world.
Sara Miles offers a fresh, fully embodied faith that sweeps awaythe anxious formulas of religion to reveal the scandalous power ofeating with sinners, embracing the unclean, and loving the wrongpeople. Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead is herinspiring book for undomesticated Christians who still believe, asshe writes, "that Jesus has given us the power to be Jesus."

Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead

Leaders & Notable People

Jossey-Bass

A look at the political awakening that occurred in America's Silicon Valley in the late 1990s, this text offers analyses of, among other things, the digital divide and the nuances of party subdivisions.

Business & Money

Economics

University of California Press

Native Dancer

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Curbstone Pr

Paradise is a garden...but heaven is a city. From the acclaimed author of Take This Bread and Jesus Freak comes a powerful new account of venturing beyond the borders of religion into the unpredictable territory of faith. On Ash Wednesday, 2012, Sara Miles and her friends left their church buildings and carried ashes to the buzzing city streets: the crowded dollar stores, beauty shops, hospital waiting rooms, street corners and fast-food joints of her neighborhood. They marked the foreheads of neighbors and strangers, sharing blessings with waitresses and drunks, believers and doubters alike. CITY OF GOD narrates the events of the day in vivid detail, exploring the profound implications of touching strangers with a reminder of common mortality. As the story unfolds, Sara Miles also reflects on life in her city over the last two decades, where the people of God suffer and rejoice, building community amid the grit and beauty of this urban landscape. CITY OF GOD is a beautifully written personal narrative, rich in complex, real-life characters, and full of the "wild, funny, joyful, raucous, reverent" moments of struggle and faith that have made Miles one of the most enthralling Christian writers of our time.

City of God: Faith in the Streets

Jericho Books

Raised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and a writer. Then early one winter morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. "I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian," she writes, "or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut." But she ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed.    A lesbian left-wing journalist who covered revolutions around the world, Miles was not the woman her friends expected to see suddenly praising Jesus. She was certainly not the kind of person the government had in mind to run a "faith-based charity." Religion for her was not about angels or good behavior or piety; it was about real hunger, real food, and real bodies. Before long, she turned the bread she ate at communion into tons of groceries, piled on the church's altar to be given away. The first food pantry she established provided hundreds of poor, elderly, sick, deranged, and marginalized people with lifesaving food and a sense of belonging. Within a few years, the loaves had multiplied, and she and the people she served had started nearly a dozen more pantries.

Tantor Media, Inc.

Basic Electrical Engineering

West, Mathew

Computer Science

Knowledge Bakers

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