The Dark Ages, England: a warrior gives his son to a monastery that rides the border between two rival Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Growing up in a land wracked by war and plague, the child learns of the oath that binds him to the church and forces a cruel choice upon him. To love one father, he must betray another. The decision he makes shatters his world and haunts him forever. This quietly exotic novel places us compellingly in another time, another place, where chieftains fear holy men, holy men fear the world, and prayer has the primal force of fire. While entirely a work of fiction, the novel's background is historically accurate. In the midst of a tale that touches the human in all of us, readers will find themselves treated to a history of the Dark Ages unlike anything available today outside of textbooks and original source material.

The Oblate’s Confession

Literature & Fiction

Peak, William

Literary

Secant Pub Llc

The Oblate's Confession

Most Americans have historically viewed the nation s great public hospitals as refuges of last resort for poor and uninsured people. But these iconic institutions some recently closed, some renamed, others rebuilt -- have also served as a safety valve for the nation s highly profitable medical industrial complex. They are a key to understanding the evolution of America s $3 trillion health care system, not just for the poor, but the affluent as well, argues veteran journalist Mike King. Through an examination of their unique history and an incisive analysis of policy successes and failures, A Spirit of Charity reveals the remarkable story of why public hospitals matter and why they should play a more prominent role in our public policy discussions.

A Spirit of Charity: Restoring the Bond Between America and Its Public Hospitals

Politics & Social Sciences

King, Mike

Social Sciences

At fifteen Blanche Nero watches the electrocution of her Italian immigrant father, punishment for the inexplicable brutal murder of his recently acquired friend Old Man Flaherty. She resolves to do something with her life that values humanity over justice, mercy over sacrifice. But she is forever haunted by the mystery of her father. She is also drawn irresistibly to the bigger human mysteries of violence and death. After a grueling but successful academic career at some of the nations finest university hospitals, Blanche is almost sixty. Her long career as a trauma surgeon at Charity Hospital in New Orleans has been abruptly ended by Hurricane Katrina. She takes a year sabbatical from the medical school and leases a small flat in Venice, seeking an understanding of her father in the place where he lived his formative years--and of herself by reliving and recording her own remarkable life. On a cold morning in Piazza San Marco, Blanche meets Count Lorenzo Ludovici (Ludo), an aging, elegant, and charming Venetian who is dying of AIDS. Blanche is drawn to him and is uncharacteristically self-revealing. As he introduces her to his beautiful city as their relationship develops and is health deteriorates Blanche becomes ever more fond of the count. As she relives her past by writing down what she remembers, she sees the girl she was and the woman she became with new eyes; the mystery of her fathers death; her distant mother; her sometimes misguided adolescent efforts to grow up. And then discovering the thrill of medicine, especially the sensual trill of trauma surgery and losing herself in in that career, immersed in violence. She recalls her attempts at relationships, especially with Jesse Pinto, the one man whom she has ever loved, and how she ended that. She remembers her love affair with the Big Easy and Charity Hospital (the Big Free) that came suddenly to a violent end. Trough a series of painful and revealing conversations, Blanche and Ludo discover that each of them has private knowledge of interlocking pieces of their history. Blanche feels sadness of a depth that she has not felt before, but also a strange sense of freedom. Perhaps, at last, she is ready to begin her life.

The Life and Deaths of Blanche Nero

Brigham, Ken

Genre Fiction

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