Ishmael

This is the story of a man who embarks on a highly provocative intellectual adventure with a gorilla - a journey of the mind and spirit that changes forever the way he sees the world and humankind’s place in it. In Ishmael, which received the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for the best work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems, Daniel Quinn parses humanity’s origins and its relationship with nature, in search of an answer to this challenging question: How can we save the world from ourselves?

Father Jared Osborne has received an extraordinary assignment from his superiors: Investigate an itinerant preacher stirring up deep trouble in Central Europe. His followers call him B, but his enemies say he’s something else: the Antichrist. However, the man Osborne tracks across a landscape of bars, cabarets, and seedy meeting halls is no blasphemous monster - though an earlier era would undoubtedly have rushed him to the burning stake. For B claims to be enunciating a gospel written not on any stone or parchment but in our very genes....

Nanette's life is finally getting back to normal when her mother calls her with some upsetting news: Nan's beloved bohemian Aunt Vivian has gone missing. Normally this is par for the course with Viv, but this time, the circumstances surrounding Vivian's disappearance are rather troubling. Would Nan be up to brushing up on her French language skills and flying to Paris to track her down? Would she ever. Now swanning about her favorite city, Nan has a hard time keeping her attention on the task at hand...especially after she meets handsome violinist Andre.

When Ishmael places an advertisement for pupils with “an earnest desire to save the world”, he does not expect a child to answer him. But 12-year-old Julie Gerchak is undaunted by Ishmael’s reluctance to teach someone so young and convinces him to take her on as his next student. Ishmael knows he can't apply the same strategies with Julie that he used with his first pupil, Alan Lomax - nor can he hope for the same outcome. But young Julie proves that she is ready to forge her own spiritual path and arrive at her own destination.