Mental:

Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in July 2002 at the age of 15. Accused by the Pentagon of throwing a grenade that killed U.S. soldier Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer, Khadr faces charges of conspiracy and murder. His case is set to be the first war crimes trial since World War II.

In Guantanamo's Child, veteran reporter Michelle Shephard traces Khadr's roots in Canada, Pakistan and Afghanistan, growing up surrounded by al Qaeda's elite. She examines how his despised family, dubbed "Canada's First Family of Terrorism," has overshadowed his trial and left him alone behind bars for more than five years. Khadr's story goes to the heart of what's wrong with the U.S. administration's post-9/11 policies and why Canada is guilty by association. His story explains how the lack of due process can create victims and lead to retribution, and instead of justice, fuel terrorism.

Michelle Shephard is a national security reporter for the Toronto Star and the recipient of Canada's top two journalism awards.

"You will be shocked, saddened and in the end angry at the story this page turner of a book exposes. I read it straight through and Omar Khadr's plight is one you cannot forget."
—Michael Ratner, New York, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights

"Michelle Shephard's richly reported, well written account of Omar Khadr's trajectory from the battlefields of Afghanistan to the cells of Guantanamo is a microcosm of the larger "war on terror" in which the teenaged Khadr either played the role of a jihadist murderer or tragic pawn or, perhaps, both roles."
—Peter Bergen, author of Holy war, Inc. and The Osama bin Laden I know

As spring break arrives, Mark Poole is focused on his goal of becoming a veterinarian, set on pleasing his proud parents even though he really wants to be an artist. He also carefully keeps his desires frozenfor their sake. But he cant help the attraction he feels for the burly, unapproachable lineman who shares two of his classes.

Cliff Stevens is equally set on achieving his adopted dream of becoming a professional football player to the exclusion of almost everything else. Cliff drifts through the days alone, but he can guess what Mark has in mind when he catches him watching one day.

After an accidental encounter, Cliff proposes a bargain: for one week during the break, they will set aside their reservations and play at being together, exploring each other, and perhaps even learning a little about themselves as well.

Some fourteen hundred years after the Prophet Muhammad first articulated God’s law—the shari‘a—its earthly interpreters are still arguing about what it means. Hard-liners reduce it to am­putations, veiling, holy war, and stonings. Others say that it is humanity’s only guarantee of a just society. And as colossal acts of terrorism made the word “shari‘a” more controversial than ever during the past decade, the legal historian and human rights lawyer Sadakat Kadri realized that many people in the West harbored ideas about Islamic law that were hazy or simply wrong. Heaven on Earth describes his journey, through ancient texts and across modern borders, in search of the facts behind the myths.

Kadri brings lucid analysis and enlivening wit to the turbulent story of Islam’s foundation and expansion, showing how the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings evolved gradually into con­cepts of justice. Traveling the Muslim world to see the shari‘a’s principles in action, he encounters a cacophony of legal claims. At the ancient Indian grave of his Sufi ancestor, unruly jinns are exor­cised in the name of the shari‘a. In Pakistan’s ma­drasas, stern scholars ridicule his talk of human rights and demand explanations for NATO drone attacks in Afghanistan. In Iran, he hears that God is forgiving enough to subsidize sex-change operations—but requires the execution of Mus­lims who change religion. Yet the stories of com­pulsion and violence are only part of a picture that also emphasizes compassion and equity. Many of Islam’s first judges refused even to rule on cases for fear that a mistake would damn them, and scholars from Delhi to Cairo maintain that gov­ernments have no business enforcing faith.

The shari‘a continues to shape explosive po­litical events and the daily lives of more than a billion Muslims. Heaven on Earth is a brilliantly iconoclastic tour through one of humanity’s great collective intellectual achievements—and an es­sential guide to one of the most disputed but least understood controversies of modern times.

The Cuban-born author begins by recalling when he was kidnapped, along with three of his siblings, by his own father, who abandoned Victor's pregnant mother and took the children on a cross-country hell-ride that nearly ended in a fatal collision. This journey of survival portrays with riveting detail how, instead of becoming a madman like his father, Victor was saved by a band of mortal angels. Miraculously, seven families stepped forward, along with teachers and coaches, to empower him on his road from gang member to class president, through harrowing and hilarious football adventures at Florida State and with the Miami Dolphins, to overcoming the Hollywood odds and becoming a champion for all those impacted by domestic violence.

Though at times Victor's odyssey is heartbreaking and disturbing, A Private Family Matter is ultimately a triumphant testament to humanity, courage, and love. Profound and poignant, it is a compelling memoir with a cause. Victor Rivers's way of thanking all the angels and advocates who made a difference in his life is by trying to make a difference in all of ours.

Why Faith Matters is an articulate defense of religion in America. It makes the case for faith and shows its relationship to history and science. Refuting the cold reason of atheists and the hatred of fanatics with a vision of religion informed by faith, love, and understanding, Rabbi David J. Wolpe follows in a literary tradition that stretches from Cardinal Newman to C. S. Lewis to Thomas Merton—individuals of faith who brought religion and culture together in their own works. Wolpe takes readers through the origins and nature of faith, the role of the Bible in modern life, and the compatibility of God and science, concluding with a powerful argument for the place of God, faith, and religion in today's world.

Between your full-length mirror and high-school biology class, you probably think you know a lot about the human body. While it's true that we live in an age when we're as obsessed with our bodies as we are with celebrity hairstyles, the reality is that most of us know very little about what chugs, churns, and thumps throughout this miraculous, scientific, and artistic system of anatomy. Yes, you've owned your skin-covered shell for decades, but you probably know more about your cell-phone plan than you do about your own body. When it comes to your longevity and quality of life, understanding your internal systems gives you the power, authority, and ability to live a healthier, younger, and better life.

The flagship book of the YOU series, which spawned three subsequent New York Times bestsellers, has now been expanded and updated to make you understand your body even better-perhaps too well.

YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition challenges your preconceived notions about how the human body works and ages, then takes you on a tour through all of the highways, back roads, and landmarks inside of you. In this update, the doctors have included a new chapter on the liver and pancreas, which will finally demystify the most exotic parts of our bodies; a new workout chapter that will finally get you moving; and nearly one hundred Q&As asked by you, the reader. It has also been updated throughout to give you up-to-the-minute know-how to not just understand what to do to keep fit, but also why and how.

The book opens with a quiz, "How Well Do You Know Your Body?," which sets the stage for the following chapters. After taking the quiz, you'll learn about all of your blood-pumping, food-digesting, and keys-remembering systems and organs, including the heart, brain, lungs, immune system, bones, and sensory organs. Each chapter also contains common myths of the particular body part that the authors will debunk.

Just as important, you'll get the facts and advice you need to keep your body running long and strong. You'll find out how diseases start and how they affect your body-as well as advice on how to prevent and beat conditions that threaten your quality of life. Complete with exercise tips, nutritional guidelines, simple lifestyle changes, and alternative approaches, YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition gives you an easy, comprehensive, and life-changing how-to plan for fending off the gremlins of aging. To top it off, this new edition includes even more great-tasting and calorie-saving recipes as part of the Owner's Manual Diet-an eating plan that is designed with only one goal in mind: to help you live a younger life.

Welcome to your body. Why don't you come on in and take a look around?

Shalom Auslander's stories in Beware of God have the mysterious punch of a dream. They are wide ranging and inventive: A young Jewish man's inexplicable transformation into a very large, blond, tattooed goy ends with a Talmudic argument over whether or not his father can beat his unclean son with a copy of the Talmud. A pious man having a near-death experience discovers that God is actually a chicken, and he's forced to reconsider his life -- and his diet. At God's insistence, Leo Schwartzman searches Home Depot for supplies for an ark. And a young boy mistakes Holocaust Remembrance Day as emergency preparedness training for the future.

Auslander draws upon his upbringing in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York State to craft stories that are filled with shame, sex, God, and death, but also manage to be wickedly funny and poignant.