Art Study

Fourth-generation fundamentalist Carlton Pearson, a Christian megastar and host, takes a courageous and controversial stand on religion: he proposes a hell-less Christianity and a gospel of inclusion that calls for an end to local and worldwide conflicts and divisions along religious lines.

Learning from Black voices means listening to more than snippets. It means attending to Black stories. Reading Black Books helps Christians hear and learn from enduring Black voices and stories as captured in classic African American literature.

This is audio summary of The War of Art, a book that helps identify the enemy that every one of us must face, outlines a battle plan to conquer this internal foe, then pinpoints just how to achieve the greatest success.

With his characteristic clarity and elegance A. C. Grayling takes the listener from the worldviews and moralities before the age of the Buddha, Confucius and Socrates, through Christianity's dominance of the European mind, to the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and on to Mill, Nietzsche, Sartre and philosophy today. And, since the story of philosophy is incomplete without mention of the great philosophical traditions of India, China and the Persian-Arabic world, he gives a comparative survey of them, too.

In Reposition Yourself, best-selling author T.D. Jakes shares insights that will help you adjust to the many changes that life brings. This is a shrill wake-up call to take charge of your life now, confronting areas where subtle passivity, or even poor choices, may have stifled your creativity. It's also a how-to for managing change and maximizing life now. Covering financial, relational, and spiritual creativity, Jakes shows how adapting to transitional moments is the path to an enriched existence.

Story captures our hearts and feeds our imaginations. It reminds us who we are and where we came from. Story gives meaning and direction to our lives as we learn to see it as an affirmation of God’s love. Drawing upon her own experiences, well-known tales in literature, and selected narratives from Scripture, Madeleine L’Engle gently leads the way into the glorious world of story in The Rock That Is Higher. Here she acknowledges universal human longings and considers how literature, Scripture, personal stories, and life experiences all point us toward our true home.

The Lives of Adam and Eve belongs to a class of Apocrypha that could be described as books written, or claimed to have been written, before the time of Christ, as part of the Old Testament, and which frequently contain prophecies. Jewish legends about Adam were numerous and very old, and the Jewish literary custom of writing ethical works in the form of a survey of history was well established.

A field guide to the visionaries and the fans who are reinventing the art of storytelling. Not long ago we were spectators, passive consumers of mass media. Now, on YouTube and blogs and Facebook and Twitter, we are media. And while we watch more television than ever before, how we watch it is changing in ways we have barely slowed down to register. No longer content in our traditional role as couch potatoes, we approach media as experiences to immerse ourselves in at will.

Can a well-programmed machine do anything a human can - only better? Complex algorithms are buying our groceries, picking our partners, and driving our investments. They can navigate more data than a doctor or lawyer and act with greater precision. For many years we've taken solace in the notion that they can't create. But now that algorithms can learn and adapt, does the future of creativity belong to machines too?

A delightful new recording of T. S. Eliot's beloved cat poems. Cats! Some are sane, some are mad and some are good and some are bad. Meet magical Mr. Mistoffelees, sleepy Old Deuteronomy and curious Rum Tum Tugger. But you'll be lucky to meet Macavity because Macavity's not there! In 1925, T. S. Eliot became codirector of Faber & Faber, who remain his publishers to this day.

Millions of people around the world know Chuck Norris as the star of more than 20 motion pictures, including Delta Force, Missing in Action, and Return of the Dragon. Millions more know him as a martial arts expert, the only man in the Western Hemisphere to hold an 8th degree Black Belt Grand Master in Tae Kwon Do. And then there are others who know him from his eight seasons on CBS's longest running series, Walker, Texas Ranger.

In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer people, intravenous drug users, and communities of color in America, and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out of the activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an art collective that called itself Gran Fury formed to campaign against corporate greed, government inaction, stigma, and public indifference to the epidemic. Jack Lowery offers a complex portrait of a collective and its members, who built solidarities with each other and whose lives evidenced the profound trauma of enduring the AIDS crisis.

George Marsden describes how Lewis gradually went from being an atheist to a committed Anglican - famously converting to Christianity in 1931 after conversing into the night with his friends, J. R. R. Tolkien and Hugh Dyson - and how Lewis delivered his wartime talks to a traumatized British nation in the midst of an all-out war for survival.

His books have sold millions and include classics like Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Yet C. S. Lewis was not always a literary giant of Christian faith. How did he evolve from staunch atheism to become one of the most beloved and renowned Christian authors of our time?

Just as The Late Shift did for late night television, Top of the Morning reveals the dish and dirt behind the polite smiles and perky demeanors of morning television. Listeners will be fascinated by the never-before-told, behind-the-scenes stories about the cutthroat battle for first place before dawn. The book is based on all-new reporting at the highest levels.

Nelson George's chronicle of Motown Records' rise and fall remains a classic account of an essential American music company and its dynamic founder, Berry Gordy Jr. Gordy's uncanny instinct for finding extraordinary talent - from performers and musicians to songwriters and producers - packed the label's roster with a who's who of historic artists and hitmakers.

The Vagina Monologues is a moving, poignant and often hilarious play, which celebrates female sexuality in all its complexity and mystery. Originally drawn from a collection of interviews conducted by Eve Ensler, the Obie Award-winning play gives voice to some of the most intimate, rarely shared fantasies and fears of women from all walks of life.

In contrast to the overabundance of writings about martial arts that are often promotional and misinformative, there are rare works by scholars that are praiseworthy for their sincere, unbiased approach to writing. This is the very definition of “scholarly.” This two-volume anthology brings together the best scholarly works published in the Journal of Asian Martial Arts on the topic of teaching and learning Japanese martial arts. These ten chapters dive deep into Japanese martial traditions, combining aspects of history and culture that explain how teaching methods developed and evolved...

This is a guidebook for those who want to learn how to recognize books that are spiritually and aesthetically good - to cultivate good literary taste. Gene Edward Veith presents basic information to help book lovers understand what they read, from the classics to best sellers.

Dan Brown's immensely popular New York Times best-selling The Da Vinci Code is one of the most successful books of recent history. It has captivated millions the world over with its enthralling suspense and its provocative questions about the true nature of Jesus' life.