"Why," an exasperated Jonathan Edwards asked, "can't we be contented with. . . the canon of Scripture?" Edwards posed this query to the religious enthusiasts of his own generation, but he could have just as appropriately put it to people across the full expanse of early American history. In the minds of her critics, Anne Hutchinson's heresies threatened to produce "a new Bible." Ethan Allen insisted that a revelation which spoke to every circumstance of life would require "a Bible of monstrous size." When the African-American prophetess Rebecca Jackson embarked on a spiritual journey toward Shakerism, she dreamt of a home in which she could find multiple books of scripture. Orestes Brownson explained to his skeptical contemporaries that the idea drawing him to Catholicism was the prospect of an "ever enlarging volume" of inspiration. Early Americans of every color and creed repeatedly confronted the boundaries of scripture. Some fought to open the canon. Some worked to keep it closed. Sacred Borders vividly depicts the boundaries of the biblical canon as a battleground on which a diverse group of early Americans contended over their differing versions of divine truth. Puritans, deists, evangelicals, liberals, Shakers, Mormons, Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists, and Transcendentalists defended widely varying positions on how to define the borders of scripture. Carefully exploring the history of these scriptural boundary wars, Holland offers an important new take on the religious cultures of early America. He presents a colorful cast of characters-including the likes of Franklin and Emerson along with more obscure figures--who confronted the intellectual tensions surrounding the canon question, such as that between cultural authority and democratic freedom, and between timeless truth and historical change. To reconstruct these sacred borders is to gain a new understanding of the mental world in which early Americans went about their lives and created their nation.

Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America (Religion in America)

History

Holland, David

World

Oxford University Press

It is 1833, and you are invited to enter the quaint, quiet world of Bellminster, a pretty cathedral town in the English countryside with secrets and shadows around every corner. Venture into a world of petty politics and malicious gossip, a world of surprises and betrayals, a world held together by the suffering soul of a simple man - the good Reverend Tuckworth. Someone is preying on the good people of Bellminster, and only their vicar can save them. But Tuckworth has a dark secret of his own, a deadly secret, a secret he must keep hidden from everyone: from his loving daughter, Lucy; from the rash young painter Raphael Amaldi; from the supercilious rector, Mr. Mortimer; from Detective Inspector Myles of London; and most of all, from the murderer himself. Join the vicar as he sifts through the stones of Bellminster Cathedral, drawing from its cold heart the secrets behind the string of grisly murders that is plaguing this picturesque little town. The Devil runs free in Bellminster, and only Tuckworth can stop him.

The Devil in Bellminster: An Unlikely Mystery

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Minotaur Books

The Devil's Acre: An Unlikely Mystery (Reverand Tuckworth, 2)

It is 1834, and the town of Bellminster is thrown into the turmoil of a by-election for Parliament. Reverend Tuckworth tries to stay away from it all, but when a political rally turns deadly, the town turns to Tuckworth in hopes of staunching the blood on the streets. Soon the situation grows more dire when someone in Bellminster sees the chaos as an opportunity for murder. Yet as Tuckworth investigates, what can he accomplish when even his oldest friend questions his motives and wonders which candidate the dean is working for? With a vibrant Victorian setting and fine attention to detail, The Devil's Game sets David Holland among the front ranks of historical mystery writers.

The Devil's Game: An Unlikely Mystery (Unlikely Mysteries featuring Rev. Tuckworth)

Murcheston: The Wolf's Tale

Shrouded within the dark corners of imagination, the werewolf holds a supreme place in fable and folklore-the nightbeast, stalking its prey under the light of a full moon. Such is the popular conception. But what of the beast himself? In the novel The Wolf's Tale, a werewolf documents his own case of lycanthropy. Amid the gothic backdrop of Victorian London, the author presents three gentlemen and one woman as they share the telling of this tale-the tale of Edgar Lenoir, Duke of Darnley: aristocrat and werewolf. When Lord Darnley learns that Elizabeth is pregnant with Merry's baby, he plans a hunt in the Carpathian Mountains to escape the pain of his unrequited love. Darnely goes alone and returns a changed man . . . a man who will then change Merry's and Elizabeth's lives forever. The centerpiece of the novel is Lord Darnley's journal chronicling his months as a werewolf. He views his condition not with horror, but with a fascination he believes to be thoroughly modern. Unfortunately, he is also narcissistic, ruthless, and ultimately, seduced by his own misguided self-interest to justify as natural and healthy the bestial desires that eventually consume him.

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Forge Books

Want an uplifting account of one young Army officer's service in the Vietnam War? Vietnam, A Memoir: Saigon Cop, is not it. The focus of this book and of two later volumes in the series is war stripped of glory, high purpose, inspiration, and easy but false patriotism. Instead, the focus is on five Bs: booze, babes, boredom, bureaucracy, and occasionally battle. Heroes are few. Hyperbole is minimal. Yet the tale is an unusual one. The author was an ROTC graduate with no long term Army commitment. After serving a year as a Military Police platoon leader in Saigon, a period that is the subject of this first volume, he stayed in Vietnam for another year and a half. His months as an infantry officer are covered in later volumes. Military Police duty in Saigon in 1966?67 was a surreal combination of Army nitpicking on a stateside scale, protecting U.S. facilities against Viet Cong terrorism, and policing the large U.S. presence in the city. MPs lived, worked, and occasionally played in the middle of an Oriental metropolis of strange sights, sounds, and smells. Lengthy stretches of tedious, humdrum activity were interrupted by sudden bursts of danger and fear.

VIETNAM, A MEMOIR: SAIGON COP

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

iUniverse

Vietnam, A Memoir: Airborne Trooper is the second work of a trilogy on one young Army officer's service in the Vietnam War. The first volume, Saigon Cop, covers his year as a Military Police platoon leader in Saigon. The third volume, Mekong Mud Soldier, describes the war seen by an American advisor to a Vietnamese unit in the wet Mekong Delta. Together, the three books tell a tale of war stripped of glory, high purpose, inspiration, and superficial patriotism. The focus is instead on five Bs: booze, babes, boredom, bureaucracy, and occasionally battle.In Airborne Trooper, the author is a semi-trained infantry platoon leader trying to quickly climb a steep learning curve in one of the Vietnam War's legendary units, the 173rd Airborne Brigade. The central ingredient of the book is not so much actual fighting as the hard, almost animal-like existence of the U.S. infantryman-the grunt, the line doggie, and the boonie rat-during Vietnam. The fighting itself ranges from brief, sometimes one-sided, engagements to one of the most costly efforts of the war, the Battle of Dak To in November 1967.

Vietnam, A Memoir: Airborne Trooper

Vietnam, A Memoir: Mekong Mud Soldier is the third work of a trilogy on one young Army officer's service in the Vietnam War. The first volume, Saigon Cop, covers his year as a Military Police platoon leader in Saigon. In the second volume, Airborne Trooper, he is a semi-trained infantry platoon leader trying to quickly climb a steep learning curve in one of the Vietnam War's legendary units, the 173rd Airborne Brigade. Together, the three books tell a tale of war stripped of glory, high purpose, inspiration, and superficial patriotism. The focus is on five Bs: booze, babes, boredom, bureaucracy, and occasionally battle. This third volume, Mekong Mud Soldier, begins with bureaucracy: the author's experience as a staff officer, or more irreverently, as a rear echelon flunky. The action heats up after he is sent as an advisor to a Vietnamese unit in the wet Mekong Delta. The advisory business is frustrating and sometimes dangerous. Ideally, it should be limited to volunteers, but in the rush to Vietnamize the war in the late 1960s, many U.S. officers and NCOs unhappily found themselves in duties they were only minimally prepared for.

VIETNAM, A MEMOIR: MEKONG MUD SOLDIER

One soldier's photographs of the people of Baghdad during reconstruction efforts.

Baghdad Beyond the Wire: Faces from the Fair Garden

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Skarlet Press

In Confessions of a Financial Planner: Secrets to a Secure Retirement, author and adviser, David D. Holland, reveals what every serious investor should know to achieve a comfortable retirement. Filled with David's practical insights from 20 years experience, ""Secrets"" provides plain English answers to critical questions, such as: How do I achieve a lifetime of retirement income? What do I do about inflation? How do I address the costs of long-term care? How do I make the right investment choices? David has a reputation for innovative thinking and he is one of the most credentialed financial advisers in the country.

Confessions of a Financial Planner: Secrets to a Secure Retirement

Business & Money

Holland Productions, Inc.

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Books by Holland, David