Books published by publisher The American Publishing Company

St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, is one of the most influential spiritual leaders of all time, yet many people find his Rules for Discernment hard to understand. What can Ignatius teach us about the discernment of spirits that lies at the very heart of Christian life? In The Discernment of Spirits, Fr. Timothy Gallagher, a talented teacher, retreat leader, and scholar, helps us understand the rules and how their insights are essential for our spiritual growth today. By integrating the rules and the experience of contemporary people, Gallagher shows the precision, clarity, and insight of Ignatius' rules, as well as the relevance of his thought for spiritual life today. When we learn to understand Ignatius correctly, we discover in his remarkable words our own struggles, joys, and triumphs. This book is for all who desire greater awareness of God's action in their daily spiritual lives, and is essential listening for retreat directors, spiritual directors, priests, and counselors.

In a fantasy version of Meiji-era Japan, the country is in a constant state of change and chaos with the coming of the Black Ships and the opening of Japan to the rest of the world. It was a time when anything could happen, and probably did.On the southern island of Kyushu, two children who can turn into birds live with their adopted human parents. An evil feudal overlord kidnaps Azuki for the valuable white and orange feathers she sheds when she is a Toki-bird. Her courageous father dies trying to prevent her capture. With the help of the local birds and animals, her mother sets her free, but is also killed by the overlord’s men. With her parents dead at the evil overlord’s hands, a heartbroken Azuki flees. It’s all her fault! It’s her ridiculous ability to turn into a Toki-bird that caused everything horrible to happen! She destroyed her human family. Maybe she’ll do better as a bird. She’ll join her Toki-kin and give up being human at all. That will make things better. Won’t it? Shota, her brother, can turn into a sparrow, but nobody’s interested in his plain brown feathers. The best he can do is follow his mother’s directions and rouse his own bird-kin to help his sister fly free. But his mother is hurt! She is dying, and Shota can’t think about anything else. But before she dies, their mother tells him all is not lost at home or in the human world for either of her children. She will do whatever she can to help them, living or dead, and she makes of Shota a final request. Shota speeds after Azuki to tell her that they will lose their human inheritance and won’t be able to live in human society at all, ever, unless they return in time to claim it, and return they must, honoring their mother’s wishes. Shota plans to bring Azuki home whether she likes it or not. She is his sister! They must stay together! There must be a way for them to embrace their heritage, all of it — didn’t their mother tell him so?In her desperate search for her Toki-kin, Azuki visits egrets who send her off to the major Toki nesting grounds on Sado-ga-shima, far from their Kyushu home. On the way to a place she doesn’t know, unsure of her welcome, and with no clear directions other than “north and east”, Azuki weathers storms, encounters a fierce mountain ogre, and befriends a dragon who also has a secret. Will she ever reach her goal? What will she find when she gets there?Shota, smaller and slower, doggedly follows the directions from the egrets. In a dream, his late father comes to give him help in his quest to track his sister and bring her home. Shota thinks he knows where Azuki is going, but it’s far from a sure thing. She could join other Toki, she could make a wrong turn, she could give up the idea and do something else! Can he find her? Will he reach her in time? Even if he does, can they possibly get back before the deadline? He is helped on the way by sailors, finding in himself a love of the sea, makes a friend of a war-horse, earns some gold, and just maybe discovers a way to get them back in time to claim their human heritage, so they can live as themselves, even if that isn’t like anybody else.

Teach your children about sharing. Tim and Finn the Dragon Twins love playing together with their ball, but when things start to go wrong, they get upset with each other. Can they work out their problem and learn to share? This children’s storybook teaches your children: Sharing is being fair It’s more fun to share than it is to play by yourself The importance of friendship Tim and Finn the Dragon Twins - Sharing Is Fair is a wonderful bedtime story for all ages that’s told through rhyming verses. This audio storybook is a fun and exciting adventure.

St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, is one of the most influential spiritual leaders of all time, yet many readers find his Rules for Discernment hard to understand. What can Ignatius teach us about the discernment of spirits that lies at the very heart of Christian life? In The Discernment of Spirits, Fr. Timothy Gallagher, a talented teacher, retreat leader, and scholar, helps us understand the Rules and how their insights are essential for our spiritual growth today. By integrating the Rules and the experience of contemporary people, Gallagher shows the precision, clarity, and insight of Ignatius's Rules, as well as the relevance of his thought for spiritual life today. When we learn to read Ignatius correctly, we discover in his remarkable words our own struggles, joys, and triumphs. This book is for all who desire greater awareness of God's action in their daily spiritual lives, and is essential reading for retreat directors, spiritual directors, priests, and counselors.

Before she was a trauma cleaner, Sandra Pankhurst was many things: husband and father, drag queen, gender reassignment patient, sex worker, small businesswoman, trophy wife... But as a little boy, raised in violence and excluded from the family home, she just wanted to belong. Now she believes her clients deserve no less. A woman who sleeps among rubbish she has not put out for forty years. A man who bled quietly to death in his loungeroom. A woman who lives with rats, random debris and terrified delusion. The still life of a home vacated by accidental overdose. Sarah Krasnostein has watched the extraordinary Sandra Pankhurst bring order and care to these, the living and the dead - and the book she has written is equally extraordinary. Not just the compelling story of a fascinating life among lives of desperation, but an affirmation that, as isolated as we may feel, we are all in this together.

"A celebration of family life in the context of the thousand natural shocks that it is heir to in modern times." ―Book WorldAthena and Dexter Fox lead a contended family life. Dexter is gregarious and opinionated. Athena runs an ordered household. They live in Bunker Street with their sons, Arthur and Billy. Billy's autism is a focus for their attention and efforts, yet life is fairly peaceful.But the arrival of Dexter's old friend Elizabeth, with her three charismatic companions, reveals the existence of a different world. One in which contingency and choice play a far greater role. The collision between these worlds will test everything that has held the Fox family together.In this powerful story, painted on a small canvas and with a subtle musical backdrop, Helen Garner acknowledges the magnitude of everyday decisions and their consequences.The Children's Bach is Garner's second novel. It won the SA Premier's Literary Award. First published in 1984, to critical acclaim, it has never before been available in the United States.Helen Garner writes novels, stories, screenplays, and non-fiction. In 2006 she received the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature. In 2016 she won a prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize for her non-fiction. Her book of essays, Everywhere I Look, won the 2017 Indie Book Award.Ben Lerner is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award, and is currently a MacArthur Fellow.

This is a children's book for kids who are learning to read and love books! Have fun with Faith. Splash in the mud with Faith and her friends as they travel around the farm. Who will join them next? Will Peter the pony remain afraid of splashing in the mud? Winter Muddle Puddles is also a book for children learning to read. It has the following features: Repetitive patterns that help the child recognize words by sight Opportunities to develop the child’s predictive skills Listen to this book with your child. Pretty soon, your child will be repeating it back to you.

It’s Singapore in 1940, war is just around the corner―but 12-year-old Lizard doesn’t know that. He lives in Chinatown above a tailor’s shop, surviving on his wits and hustling for odd jobs. When he steals a small teak box containing a Japanese code book from a Raffles Hotel suite, he finds himself in a dangerous world of wartime espionage. Lizard doesn’t know who to trust. How is the mysterious book inside the box connected to his friend Lili, a girl full of secrets and fighting skills? Can he trust her, or will she betray him in the end?

Artie Boyle was a run-of-the-mill American hockey dad. Then terminal cancer happened. The best doctors despaired. And Artie dared to look for a miracle. Artie had never put much stock in mysticism or miracles. But when his best friends bought tickets to fly with him to Croatia to the controversial shrine at Medjugorje where healings were known to happen, he dared it all. They found themselves in powerful ways sharing spiritually, even praying together, something they would have found very odd before. And when they came home Artie was healed—completely. The cancer was gone. The doctors at Mass General Hospital were astounded yet could offer no explanation. Six Months to Live relates not only Artie’s miraculous healing but his spiritual transformation and the hope and inspiration he offers to thousands who hear his story.