This book challenges the domination of the institutional church as the overriding concern of nineteenth-century religious history by taking as its starting point the nature and expression of religious ideas outside the immediate sphere of the church within the wider arena of popular culture. It considers in detail how these beliefs formed part of a richly textured language of personal, familial, and popular identity in the day-to-day lives of the inhabitants of the London Borough of Southwark between c.1880 and the outbreak of the Second World War. The study highlights the persistence of patterns dismissed as alien to the industrial and urban environment. The interaction of folk idioms with institutional religious language and practice is also considered and urban popular religion is identified as a distinctive system of belief in its own right. This study also pioneers a methodology for exploring belief and interpreting it as a popular cultural phenomenon. A wide range of source materials are drawn on including oral history. Centrality is given to understanding the ways in which individuals expressed and communicated their religious ideas.

This is the third in a four part fantasy series called The Sanctuary Series. Book three is entitled Starman Heart Stargirl and is taken from a portion of sidewalk at Cal State East Bay in Hayward California. The title underscores the theme that fantasy exists amidst us. This story is how, in the context of the series, that sidewalk etching came to be. S.C. Williams is the author and illustrator of the series.

Mad Lavender is Book Two in the Sanctuary series which follows the now grieving family as they begin to search the fantasy realm for their lost mother. They use the best of what makes them human- persistence, guile and love along with a heavy dose of sarcasm to find their way into the elf world. They learn more than they had ever wanted about elves and the life cycles of dragons. This includes how very much dragons would love to return to the good old days when eating people was perfectly acceptable. Chaos, mayhem and war are the inevitable result. We are talking about teenagers aren't we? Yes, then, that's what you might expect when they involve themselves in such shenanigans. Once again, the family teaches the fantasy realm a thing or two about love, loyalty and the judicious use of swear words.

Annihilation By Appointment Only... A Love Story can be read as a stand alone book. For the fans of the Sanctuary Series, this is Book Four, the final book in the four part saga of The family- a Northern California family of four as their every day world and the world of fantasy creatures collide. The father has defected from the group, having had his fill of magic and its unintended consequences. He stumbles, er, urinates upon, a group of unsuspecting trolls, and a fast friendship forms. The daughter is temporarily put in charge of the magical realm while the true rulers take a quick and disastrous trip to Las Vegas for some R&R. Hijinks ensue involving a dominatrix hooker named Honeysuckle. Naked Hare Krishnas, troll constipation, pheromones and fireworks abound in this lively and satisfying conclusion to the Sanctuary series. Happy endings all around, more or less....

Sanctuary is the first of three novels about what happens to a contemporary San Francisco Bay Area family, when a baby gargoyle is blown onto their deck one dark and rainy night. Just as no good deed goes unpunished, the family is thrown into chaos when the human mother rescues the fallen baby and unwittingly returns it to its rightful mother. Universal laws are broken and the human family suffers for the act. One by one the teenage children follow their mother into the strange parallel universe existing around them, finding themselves changed one into a fairy, and the other a gargoyle. They become hapless pawns of the mysterious creatures known only as The Others. In the process they learn the reason why this parallel universe exists and the interdependence between the human and Fairy world. They get to try a little magic on for size and learn the consequences of eating when one shouldn't

Go West Young Man. Amble along with Marion Ledbottom on his misadventures looking for the right man by going west. Dandy by birth, Man bi-necessity, Marion does not view the world as most frontiersmen do. Sit a' spell, fire one up and see how it ain't suppose to be done.