Faculty Reads Series

Story by Robert McKee -- Robert McKee's screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress and putting major screenwriting careers back on track. Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience. In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee. – Goodreads.com

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder -- This ultimate insider's guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz veteran who's proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat! – Goodreads.com

Directing Actors: Creating Memorable Performances for Film and Television by Judith Weston -- Internationally-renowned directing coach Weston demonstrates what constitutes a good performance, what actors want from a director, what directors do wrong, script analysis and preparation, how actors work, and shares insights into the director/actor relationship. – Goodreads.com

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Alex Haley -- Through a life of passion and struggle, Malcolm X became one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century. In this riveting account, he tells of his journey from a prison cell to Mecca, describing his transition from hoodlum to Muslim minister. Here, the man who called himself "the angriest Black man in America" relates how his conversion to true Islam helped him confront his rage and recognize the brotherhood of all mankind. 
An established classic of modern America, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" was hailed by the New York Times as "Extraordinary. A brilliant, painful, important book." Still extraordinary, still important, this electrifying story has transformed Malcom X's life into his legacy. The strength of his words, the power of his ideas continue to resonate more than a generation after they first appeared. – Goodreads.com

Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche by Ethan Watters -- "It is well known that American culture is a dominant force at home and abroad; our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented phenomenon. But is it possible America's most troubling impact on the globalizing world has yet to be accounted for?

In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself: We are in the process of homogenizing the way the world goes mad.".

"America has been the world leader in generating new mental health treatments and modern theories of the human psyche. We export our psychopharmaceuticals packaged with the certainty that our biomedical knowledge will relieve the suffering and stigma of mental illness. We categorize disorders, thereby defining mental illness and health, and then parade these seemingly scientific certainties in front of the world.

The blowback from these efforts is just now coming to light: It turns out that we have not only been changing the way the world talks about and treats mental illness - we have been changing the mental illnesses themselves.". – Book Jacket

Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk -- Drawing on seven years of his own research and the work of other esteemed Lincoln scholars, Shenk reveals how the sixteenth president harnessed depression to fuel his astonishing success. Lincoln found the solace and tactics he needed to deal with the nation's worst crisis in the "coping strategies" he had developed over a lifetime of persevering through depressive episodes and personal tragedies. With empathy and authority gained from his own experience with depression, Shenk crafts a revelatory account of Lincoln and his legacy. Based on careful research, this book unveils a wholly new perspective on how our greatest president brought America through its greatest turmoil. By consciously shifting his goal away from personal contentment (which he realized he could not attain) and toward universal justice, Lincoln gained the strength and insight that he, and America, required to transcend profound darkness.--From publisher description.

Selected Poetry of Ogden Nash by Odgen Nash -- Gathers poems on a variety of subjects including love, marriage, parenthood, modern life, animals, aging, travel, work, and food. – Goodreads.com

Walking in on People by Melissa Balmain –- In Melissa Balmain's "Walking in on People, " the serious is lightened with a generous serving of wit and humor, and the lighthearted is enriched with abundant wisdom. She shows us how poetry can be fun yet grounded in everyday challenges and triumphs, with subjects ranging from the current and hip ("Facebook" posts, online dating, layoffs, retail therapy, cell-phone apps, trans fat), to the traditional and time-tested (marriage, child-rearing, love, death). Through it all, her craft is masterful, with a formal dexterity deployed with precision in a showcase of forms such as the villanelle, ballad, triolet, nonce, and the sonnet. It is little wonder then that "Walking in on People" is the winner of the 2013 Able Muse Book Award, as selected by the final judge, X.J. Kennedy. This is a collection that will not only entertain thoroughly, but also enlighten and reward the reader.

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom -- Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it." "For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago." "Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger?" "Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class": lessons in how to live." "Tuesdays with Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world."--BOOK JACKET.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin -- In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference. – Goodreads.com

Letters to a Young Feminist by Phyllis Chesler -- In a series of letters, author and feminist Phylis Chesler takes stock of her generation's legacy to the present and future. In relating her own experiences she challenges the readers to protect what has been won, and to confront the tasks that remain. - Syndetics

Where the Red Fern Grows—Wilson Rawls - A loving threesome, they ranged the dark hills and river bottoms of Cherokee country. Old Dan had the brawn. Little Ann had the brains, and Billy had the will to make them into the finest hunting team in the valley. Glory and victory were coming to them, but sadness waited too. Where the Red Fern Grows is an exciting tale of love and adventure you'll never forget. – Goodreads.com

The Bible—Multiple Authors - The ESV Study Bible was designed to help you understand the Bible in a deeper way. Created by a diverse team of 95 leading Bible scholars and teachers--from 9 countries, nearly 20 denominations, and 50 seminaries, colleges, and universities--the ESV Study Bible features a wide array of study tools, making it a valuable resource for serious readers, students, and teachers of God's Word. --- Goodreads.com

Process and Reality-A.N. Whitehead - One of the major philosophical texts of the 20th century, Process and Reality is based on Alfred North Whitehead’s influential lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the 1920s on process philosophy. --- Goodreads.com

On Dialogue -- David Bohm - Never before has there been a greater need for deeper listening and more open communication to cope with the complex problems facing our organizations, businesses and societies. Renowned scientist David Bohm believed there was a better way for humanity to discover meaning and to achieve harmony. He identified creative dialogue, a sharing of assumptions and understanding, as a means by which the individual, and society as a whole, can learn more about themselves and others, and achieve a renewed sense of purpose.  --- Godoreads.com

Diffusion of Distances: Dialogues Between Chinese and Western Poetics -- Wai-lim Yip - In this collection of passionately argued essays, the internationally acclaimed poet and critic Wai-lim Yip calls Western scholarship to account for its treacherous representation of non-Western literature. Yip moves from Plato to Hans-Georg Gadamer, from Chuang-tzu to Mao Tse-tung, from John Donne to Robert Creeley, as he attempts to create a double consciousness that includes the state of mind of the original author and the expressive potentials of the target language. He aims, first, to expose the types of distortions that have occurred in the process of translation from one language to another and, second, to propose guidelines that will prevent this kind of linguistic violence in the future. 

Experience and Education -- John Dewey - [Dewey’s] philosophy, here expressed in its most essential, most readable form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, one that offers a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic. 

On Kindness -- Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor - Kindness is the foundation of the world’s great religions and most-enduring philosophies. Why, then, does being kind feel so dangerous? If we crave kindness with such intensity, why is it a pleasure we often deny ourselves? And why—despite our longing—are we often suspicious when we are on the receiving end of it? In this brilliant book, the eminent psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and the historian Barbara Taylor examine the pleasures and perils of kindness. Modern people have been taught to perceive ourselves as fundamentally antagonistic to one another, our motives self-seeking. Drawing on intellectual history, literature, psychoanalysis, and contemporary social theory, this book explains how and why we have chosen loneliness over connection. On Kindness argues that a life lived in instinctive, sympathetic identification with others is the one we should allow ourselves to live. …this brief and essential book will return to its readers what Marcus Aurelius declared was mankind’s “greatest delight”: the intense satisfactions of generosity and compassion. 

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times -- Pema Chodron - How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart—when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain? The answer, Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what you expect. Here, in her most beloved and acclaimed work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined.

Beloved -- Toni Morrison - Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby….Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison. 

Wide Sargasso Sea -- Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea, a masterpiece of modern fiction, was Jean Rhys’s return to the literary center stage….With Wide Sargasso Sea, her last and best-selling novel, she ingeniously brings into light one of fiction’s most fascinating characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre….A new introduction by the award-winning Edwidge Danticat, author most recently of Claire of the Sea Light, expresses the enduring importance of this work. Drawing on her own Caribbean background, she illuminates the setting’s impact on Rhys and her astonishing work.

Engine Summer -- John Crowley - There are some books that are bigger on the inside than on the outside. They may be small, but are so densely layered that they feel like they're opening onto infinite space, and when you finish reading you're dazed, like you've woken up from a vivid dream to find your waking life transformed. Engine Summer is such a book, a deceptively slim novella set in a far-future world, which is at once a picaresque tale of love and adventure, and a dreamily gorgeous story about the nature of time, identity, consciousness, and the stories that make us really live. 

• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi - Seventeen-year-old Zélie, her older brother Tzain, and rogue princess Amari fight to restore magic to the land and activate a new generation of magi, but they are ruthlessly pursued by the crown prince, who believes the return of magic will mean the end of the monarchy. – Library Catalog Summary

• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The brilliant, bestselling, landmark novel that tells the story of the Buendia family, and chronicles the irreconcilable conflict between the desire for solitude and the need for love—in rich, imaginative prose that has come to define an entire genre known as "magical realism." – Goodreads.com

• Dear Life by Alice Munro - Suffused with Munro's clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, these tales about departures and beginnings, accidents and dangers, and outgoings and homecomings both imagined and real, paint a radiant, indelible portrait of how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be. – Goodreads.com

• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris - In this collection of essays, Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives--a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.- Goodreads.com

• Night Shift by Stephen King -More than twenty-five stories of horror and nightmarish fantasy transform everyday situations into experiences of compelling terror in the worlds of the living, the dying, and the nonliving. – Overdrive

• The Idiot Girl’s Action Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro - The misadventures of Laurie and her fellow Idiot Girls (“too cool to be in the Smart Group”) unfold in a world that everyone will recognize but no one has ever described so hilariously. She delivers the goods: life as we all know it. – Goodreads.com

• Twice-Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne - This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. – Goodreads.com

Inspired by the true story of a woman who changed the way we understand our world.

In 1933 three young, gifted anthropologists are thrown together in the jungle of New Guinea. They are Nell Stone, fascinating, magnetic and famous for her controversial work studying South Pacific tribes, her intelligent and aggressive husband Fen, and Andrew Bankson, who stumbles into the lives of this strange couple and becomes totally enthralled. Within months the trio are producing their best ever work, but soon a firestorm of fierce love and jealousy begins to burn out of control, threatening their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives. – Goodreads.com

TEACHER SEEKS PUPIL.
Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.

It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime...

So begins Ishmael, an utterly unique and captivating novel that has earned a large and passionate following among readers and critics alike—one of the most beloved and bestselling novels of spiritual adventure ever published. – Goodreads.com

With Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next.

Originally published in 2004, now with a new foreword and afterword, Solnit’s influential book shines a light into the darkness of our time in an unforgettable new edition. --- Goodreads.com

In this follow-up to Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more. – Goodreads.com

Republic by Plato

Publication date: (written around 380 BCE), this edition was published in 2003, library owns 1974 edition

Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, this classic text is an enquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation, other questions are raised: what is goodness?; what is reality?; and what is knowledge? The Republic also addresses the purpose of education and the role of both women and men as guardians of the people. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by philosopher kings. -- Goodreads.com

Meno by Plato

Publication Date: Written in 390 BCE, Library owns copy from 1965, picture features copy from 1980

About G.M.A Grube's translations of Plato: "Unmistakably superior: more lucid, more accurate, more readable. Above all, they’re lucidly adorned, unpretentious, and in translating Plato that counts a good deal. The prose is, as English prose, persuasive, cogent, and as eloquent as it can be without departing from the text. --William Arrowsmith

Whiplash: How To Survive Our Faster Future by Joi Ito & Jeff Howe

ISBN:9781455544592

Publication Date: 2016

Today, not only is everything digital getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, we also have the Internet. When these two revolutions--one in technology and the other in communications--joined, an explosive force was unleashed that changed the very nature of innovation. And with any change, we have seen many strategic blunders and extraordinary learning curves along the way.

At last, in Whiplash, Joi Ito and Jeff Howe have distilled nine organizing principles for navigating and surviving this tumultuous period. These principles give us a roadmap on how to thrive no matter what industry we're in.

With Whiplash, two great thinkers tell us how to adapt and succeed in today's unpredictable marketplace.

What To Do When It's Your Turn (And It's Always Your Turn) by Seth Godin

ISBN: 9781936719310

Publication Date= 2014

Seth Godin has pushed the boundaries again by creating a new book format that reads more like a magazine. The book is in full color and is a collection of short stories and essays that help the reader know "what to do when it's your turn" in life. -- Goodreads.com

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

ISBN: 9780807014295

Publication Date: 1946

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.

At the time of Frankl's death in 1997, Man's Search for Meaning had sold more than 10 million copies in twenty-four languages. A 1991 reader survey for the Library of Congress that asked readers to name a "book that made a difference in your life" found Man's Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America.

The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself (Knowledge Trilogy #1) by Daniel J. Boorstin

ISBN:9780394726250

Publication Date: 1983

An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him.

•  Grit: Passion, Perseverance, and the Science of Success by Angela Duckworth

ISBN: 9781501111105

Publication Date: 2016

In this must-read book for anyone striving to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows parents, educators, students, and business people ;both seasoned and new that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a focused persistence called grit.

Why do some people succeed and others fail? Sharing new insights from her landmark research on grit, Angela Duckworth explains why talent is hardly a guarantor of success. Rather, other factors can be even more crucial such as identifying our passions and following through on our commitments.

Drawing on her own powerful story as the daughter of a scientist who frequently bemoaned her lack of smarts, Duckworth describes her winding path through teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience, which led to the hypothesis that what really drives success is not genius, but a special blend of passion and long-term perseverance. As a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Duckworth created her own character lab and set out to test her theory.

Here, she takes readers into the field to visit teachers working in some of the toughest schools, cadets struggling through their first days at West Point, and young finalists in the National Spelling Bee. She also mines fascinating insights from history and shows what can be gleaned from modern experiments in peak performance. Finally, she shares what she's learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers; from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to the cartoon editor of The New Yorker to Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll.

Winningly personal, insightful, and even life-changing, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that not talent or luck makes all the difference.

Hive Mind: How Your Nation's IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own by Garett Jones

ISBN: 9780804785969

Publication Date: 2015

Over the last few decades, economists and psychologists have quietly documented the many ways in which a person's IQ matters. But, research suggests that a nation's IQ matters so much more.

As Garett Jones argues in Hive Mind, modest differences in national IQ can explain most cross-country inequalities. Whereas IQ scores do a moderately good job of predicting individual wages, information processing power, and brain size, a country's average score is a much stronger bellwether of its overall prosperity.

Intelligence: A Unifying Construct for Social Sciences by Richard Lynn, Tatu Vanhanen

ISBN:9780956881182

Publication Date:2012

This book challenges social scientists to reconsider the theoretical foundations of the study of social phenomena. Until now social scientists have assumed that varying environmental factors explain social phenomena and that there cannot be any common explanatory factor behind various social phenomena. However, the empirical evidence presented in this book and covering nearly 200 countries indicates that many kinds of human conditions depend significantly on differences in average intelligence of nations (national IQs).

Differences in intelligence help to explain all kinds of phenotypic social phenomena as well as the persistence of social inequalities in the world. Environmental factors affecting such phenomena vary from case to case, but intelligence reflecting the evolved human diversity remains the same explanatory factor across all phenotypic social phenomena. This means that it provides a unifying theoretical construct for the social sciences. Unfortunately social scientists have not yet realized that most problems explored in social sciences are phenotypic phenomena depending on both genotypic and environmental factors and that intelligence is a powerful genotypic common explanatory factor.

The arguments and hypotheses presented in this book are tested and supported by extensive empirical evidence. Ultimately empirical evidence will decide the destiny of conflicting theoretical arguments.

• Main Street to Miracle Mile by Chester H. Liebs

   

  ISBN: 0801850959

  Publication Date: 1995-08-01

  First published in 1985, Chester Liebs' Main Street to Miracle Mile established the twentieth-century roadside landscape as a subject for serious study. Liebs traces the transformation of commercial development as it has moved from centralized main streets, out along the street car lines, to form the "miracle miles" and shopping malls of today. He also explores the evolution of roadside buildings, from supermarkets and motels to automobile showrooms and drive-in theaters. Both an historical survey and invaluable guide for reading highway landscapes, this classic work-which has inspired numerous studies, museum exhibits, and preservation efforts-is now back in print with new commentary by the author.
• The Last Great Necessity by David C. Sloane

   

  ISBN: 0801851289

  Publication Date: 1995-05-09

  "Four generations of David Charles Sloane's family have designed, landscaped, and managed cemeteries, so when he tells that story in The Last Great Necessity he does so with a professional's equanimity and expertise. In his exploration of the evolving design, economics, and social role of the American cemetery, Sloane handily demonstrates the cemetery's vital connection to popular culture, one he believes to be at least as strong as its more obvious tie to religious custom."-- Voice Literary Supplement
• My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

   

  Call Number: D804.3 .S65 1991

  ISBN: 0394747232

  Publication Date: 1986-08-12

  A story of a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father's story and history itself.
• The Cosmic Race by José Vasconcelos; Didier T. Jaén (Translator)

   

  ISBN: 0801856558

  Publication Date: 1997-06-25

  In this influential 1925 essay, presented here in Spanish and English, Jos#65533; Vasconcelos predicted the coming of a new age, the Aesthetic Era, in which joy, love, fantasy, and creativity would prevail over the rationalism he saw as dominating the present age. In this new age, marriages would no longer be dictated by necessity or convenience, but by love and beauty; ethnic obstacles, already in the process of being broken down, especially in Latin America, would disappear altogether, giving birth to a fully mixed race, a "cosmic race," in which all the better qualities of each race would persist by the natural selection of love.
• The Negro in Our History by Carter Godwin Woodson

   

  ISBN: 1522901833

  Publication Date: 2015-12-24

  An essential book for African American libraries and collections.

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  Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

  Call Number: BF448 .G53 2007

  ISBN: 0316010669

  Publication Date: 2007-04-03

  In his landmark bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant-in the blink of an eye-that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work-in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing"-filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.
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  Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  Call Number: E185.615 .C6335 2015

  ISBN: 1925240703

  Publication Date: 2015-07-14

  #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * Hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading," a bold and personal literary exploration of America's racial history by "the single best writer on the subject of race in the United States" (The New York Observer) "This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it." In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates's attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son--and readers--the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children's lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward. Praise for Between the World and Me "Powerful and passionate . . . profoundly moving . . . a searing meditation on what it means to be black in America today."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times 
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  The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

  Call Number: PS3537.I85 J853 2011

  ISBN: 1613821999

  Publication Date: 2012-01-01

  The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968). Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. Many readers were most concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, based on an investigation he did for a socialist newspaper. The book depicts working class poverty, the lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it, "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery." Sinclair was considered a muckraker, or journalist who exposed corruption in government and business. He first published the novel in serial form in 1905 in the Socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, between February 25, 1905, and November 4, 1905. In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the newspaper.
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  Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins

  ISBN: 0415964725

  Publication Date: 2008-09-11

  In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought,originally published in 1990, Patricia Hill Collins set out to explore the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals and writers, both within the academy and without. Here Collins provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. Drawing from fiction, poetry, music and oral history, the result is a superbly crafted and revolutionary book that provided the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought and its canon.
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  Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins

  ISBN: 0553348973

  Publication Date: 1990-04-01

  Still Life with Woodpecker is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads.

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  How to Prove It by Daniel J. Velleman

  Call Number: QA9 .V38 2006

  ISBN: 0521861241

  Publication Date: 2006-01-16

  Geared to preparing students to make the transition from solving problems to proving theorems, this text teaches them the techniques needed to read and write proofs. The book begins with the basic concepts of logic and set theory, to familiarize students with the language of mathematics and how it is interpreted. These concepts are used as the basis for a step-by-step breakdown of the most important techniques used in constructing proofs. To help students construct their own proofs, this new edition contains over 200 new exercises, selected solutions, and an introduction to Proof Designer software. No background beyond standard high school mathematics is assumed. Previous Edition Hb (1994) 0-521-44116-1 Previous Edition Pb (1994) 0-521-44663-5
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  Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky; Richard Pevear (Translator); Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator)

  ISBN: 067973452X

  Publication Date: 1994-08-30

  Dostoevsky's most revolutionary novel, Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In full retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man's essentially irrational nature. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original. (Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) From the Hardcover edition.
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  The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño; Natasha Wimmer (Translator)

  Call Number: PQ8098.12.O38 D4813 2008

  ISBN: 0312427484

  Publication Date: 2008-03-04

  National Bestseller In this dazzling novel, the book that established his international reputation, Roberto Bolaño tells the story of two modern-day Quixotes--the last survivors of an underground literary movement, perhaps of literature itself--on a tragicomic quest through a darkening, entropic universe: our own. The Savage Detective is an exuberant, raunchy, wildly inventive, and ambitious novel from one of the greatest Latin American authors of our age.
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  Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

  Call Number: BF385 .F64 2011

  ISBN: 159420229X

  Publication Date: 2011-03-03

  The blockbuster phenomenon that charts an amazing journey of the mind while revolutionizing our concept of memory. An instant bestseller that is poised to become a classic, Moonwalking with Einstein recounts Joshua Foer's yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top "mental athletes". He draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remembering, and venerable tricks of the mentalist's trade to transform our understanding of human memory. From the United States Memory Championship to deep within the author's own mind, this is an electrifying work of journalism that reminds us that, in every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.
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  The Pillar and Ground of the Truth by Pavel Florensky; Boris Jakim (Translator); Richard F. Gustafson (Introduction by)

  Call Number: BT160 .F5513 2004

  ISBN: 0691117675

  Publication Date: 2004-03-21

  Pavel Florensky--certainly the greatest Russian theologian of the last century--is now recognized as one of Russia's greatest polymaths. Known as the Russian Leonardo da Vinci, he became a Russian Orthodox priest in 1911, while remaining deeply involved with the cultural, artistic, and scientific developments of his time. Arrested briefly by the Soviets in 1928, he returned to his scholarly activities until 1933, when he was sentenced to ten years of corrective labor in Siberia. There he continued his scientific work and ministered to his fellow prisoners until his death four years later. This volume is the first English translation of his rich and fascinating defense of Russian Orthodox theology. Originally published in 1914, the book is a series of twelve letters to a "brother" or "friend," who may be understood symbolically as Christ. Central to Florensky's work is an exploration of the various meanings of Christian love, which is viewed as a combination of philia (friendship) and agape (universal love). Florensky is perhaps the first modern writer to explore the so-called "same-sex unions," which, for him, are not sexual in nature. He describes the ancient Christian rites of the adelphopoiesis (brother-making), joining male friends in chaste bonds of love. In addition, Florensky is one of the first thinkers in the twentieth century to develop the idea of the Divine Sophia, who has become one of the central concerns of feminist theologians.
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  Faust by Silas White

  Call Number: PT1916.A2 T4 1892

  ISBN: 1503262146

  Publication Date: 2014-11-29

  Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend. He is a scholar who is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, so he makes a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. Faust and the adjective Faustian imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success for a delimited term. The Faust of early books-as well as the ballads, dramas, movies, and puppet-plays which grew out of them-is irrevocably damned because he prefers human to divine knowledge; "he laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of Theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of Medicine". Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular throughout Germany in the 16th century, often reducing Faust and Mephistopheles to figures of vulgar fun. The story was popularized in England by Christopher Marlowe, who gave it a classic treatment in his play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. In Goethe's reworking of the story two hundred years later, Faust becomes a dissatisfied intellectual who yearns for "more than earthly meat and drink" in his life.
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  Outlines of Pyrrhonism by Sextus Empiricus; R. G. Bury (Translator)

  Call Number: PA3612 .S5 1961 v.1

  ISBN: 0674993012

  Publication Date: 1933-01-01

  The three surviving works by Sextus Empiricus (c. 160 210 CE) are Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Against the Dogmatists, and Against the Professors. Their value as a source for the history of thought is especially that they represent development and formulation of former sceptic doctrines.
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  Scholastic Metaphysics by Edward Feser

  Call Number: BD125 .F47 2014

  ISBN: 3868385444

  Publication Date: 2014-04-01

  Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction provides an overview of Scholastic approaches to causation, substance, essence, modality, identity, persistence, teleology, and other issues in fundamental metaphysics. The book interacts heavily with the literature on these issues in contemporary analytic metaphysics, so as to facilitate the analytic reader's understanding of Scholastic ideas and the Scholastic reader's understanding of contemporary analytic philosophy. The Aristotelian theory of actuality and potentiality provides the organizing theme, and the crucial dependence of Scholastic metaphysics on this theory is demonstrated. The book is written from a Thomistic point of view, but Scotist and Suarezian positions are treated as well where they diverge from the Thomistic position.

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  On Obligations by Marcus Tullius Cicero; P. G. Walsh (Translator); Marcus Tullius Cicero

  ISBN: 0199540713

  Publication Date: 2008-07-15

  Cicero wrote On Obligations (De Officiis) in late 44 BC after the assassination of Julius Caesar to provide principles of behavior for aspiring politicians. It has subsequently played a seminal role in the formation of ethical values in western Christendom. Adopted by the fourth-century Christian humanists, it became transmuted into the moral code of the high Middle Ages. Thereafter, in the Renaissance from the time of Petrarch, and in the Age of Enlightenment that followed, it was given central prominence in discussion of the government of states. Today, when corruption and conflict in political life are the focus of so much public attention, On Obligations is still the foremost guide to good conduct. This new edition is based on a more systematic examination of the vast manuscript tradition than has previously been attempted, and shows with new clarity the major contribution to the improvement of the text made by scribes and readers of the later manuscripts, both in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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  After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre

  Call Number: BJ1012 .M325 1984

  ISBN: 0268006113

  Publication Date: 1984-08-30

  Discusses the nature of moral disagreement, Nietzsche, Aristotle, heroic societies, and the virtue of justice.
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  The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky; Richard Pevear (Translator); Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator)

  Call Number: PG3326.B7 G3

  ISBN: 0374528373

  Publication Date: 2002-06-14

  The award-winning translation of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel.
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  The Republic by Plato

  Call Number: JC71 .P343 1974

  ISBN: 1503379981

  Publication Date: 2014-11-29

  The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BC, concerning the definition of justice, the order and character of the just city-state and the just man-for this reason, ancient readers used the name On Justice as an alternative title (not to be confused with the spurious dialogue also titled On Justice). The dramatic date of the dialogue has been much debated and though it might have taken place some time during the Peloponnesian War, "there would be jarring anachronisms if any of the candidate specific dates between 432 and 404 were assigned". It is Plato's best-known work and has proven to be one of the most intellectually and historically influential works of philosophy and political theory. In it, Socrates along with various Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether or not the just man is happier than the unjust man by considering a series of different cities coming into existence "in speech", culminating in a city called Kallipolis, which is ruled by philosopher-kings; and by examining the nature of existing regimes. The participants also discuss the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the roles of the philosopher and of poetry in society.
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  Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard (Editor); Alastair Hannay (Translator)

  Call Number: BR100 .K52 1954

  ISBN: 0143037579

  Publication Date: 2006-05-30

  Regarded as the father of Existentialism, Kierkegaard transformed philosophy with his conviction that we must all create our own nature; in this great work of religious anxiety, he argues that a true understanding of God can only be attained by making a personal "leap of faith."
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  Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil; Gustave Thibon (Introduction by); Emma Crawford (Translator); Mario von der Ruhr Rah (Translator)

  ISBN: 0415290015

  Publication Date: 2002-11-12

  Gravity and Grace was the first ever publication by the remarkable thinker and activist, Simone Weil. In it Gustave Thibon, the farmer to whom she had entrusted her notebooks before her untimely death, compiled in one remarkable volume a compendium of her writings that have become a source of spiritual guidance and wisdom for countless individuals. On the fiftieth anniversary of the first English edition - by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1952 - this Routledge Classics edition offers English readers the complete text of this landmark work for the first time ever, by incorporating a specially commissioned translation of the controversial chapter on Israel. Also previously untranslated is Gustave Thibon's postscript of 1990, which reminds us how privileged we are to be able to read a work which offers each reader such 'light for the spirit and nourishment for the soul'. This is a book that no one with a serious interest in the spiritual life can afford to be without.
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  Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle; J. A. K. Thomson (Translator); Hugh Tredennick (Revised by, Notes by); Jonathan Barnes (Introduction by)

  Call Number: PA3612.A8 E6

  ISBN: 0140449493

  Publication Date: 2004-03-30

  "One swallow does not make a summer; neither does one day. Similarly neither can one day, or a brief space of time, make a man blessed and happy"  Previously published as Ethics, Aristotle's The Nicomachean Ethics addresses the question of how to live well and originates the concept of cultivating a virtuous character as the basis of his ethical system. Here Aristotle sets out to examine the nature of happiness, and argues that happiness consists in 'activity of the soul in accordance with virtue', including moral virtues, such as courage, generosity and justice, and intellectual virtues, such as knowledge, wisdom and insight. The Ethics also discusses the nature of practical reasoning, the value and the objects of pleasure, the different forms of friendship, and the relationship between individual virtue, society and the State. Aristotle's work has had a profound and lasting influence on all subsequent Western thought about ethical matters.  This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Greek by J.A.K. Thomson with revisions and notes by Hugh Tredennick, and an introduction and bibliography by Jonathan Barnes.  For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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  The Plague by Albert Camus; Stuart Gilbert (Translator)

  Call Number: PQ2605.A3734 P43 1957

  ISBN: 0679720219

  Publication Date: 1991-05-07

  A haunting tale of human resilience in the face of unrelieved horror, Camus' novel about a bubonic plague ravaging the people of a North African coastal town is a classic of twentieth-century literature.

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  Life after Life by Kate Atkinson

  ISBN: 9780316176484

  Publication Date: 2013-04-02

  What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can -- will she? Darkly comic, startlingly poignant, and utterly original -- this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best.
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  A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

  ISBN: 9780670026630

  Publication Date: 2013-03-12

  A brilliant, unforgettable novel from bestselling author Ruth Ozeki—shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award “A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.” In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future. Full of Ozeki’s signature humor and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.  
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  The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

  ISBN: 9780670024858

  Publication Date: 2013-10-01

  A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry’s brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father’s money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma’s research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction—into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist—but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life. Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, who—born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution—bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert’s wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers.  

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  Wavelets and Subband Coding by Martin Vetterli; Jelena Kovacevic

  ISBN: 0130970808

  Publication Date: 1995-04-21

  A central goal of signal processing is to describe real life signals, be it for computation, compression, or understanding. This book presents a unified view of wavelets and subband coding with a signal processing perspective. Covers the discrete-time case, or filter banks; development of wavelets; continuous wavelet and local Fourier transforms; efficient algorithms for filter banks and wavelet computations; and signal compression. For electrical engineers and computer scientists.
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  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

  ISBN: 9781420945300

  Publication Date: 2012-01-01

  Norman Kemp Smith's The Philosophy of David Hume continues to be unsurpassed in its comprehensive coverage of the ideas and issues of Hume's Treatise. Now, after years of waiting, this currently out-of-print and highly sought-after classic is being re-issued. This ground-breaking book has long been regarded as a classic study by scholars in the field, yet a new introduction by Don Garrett places the book in its contemporary context, showing Humes's continuing importance in the field.

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  The Empiricists by Margaret Atherton (Editor); Barry Stroud (Contribution by); Ian C. Tipton (Contribution by); Margaret D. Wilson (Contribution by); Kenneth Winkler (Contribution by); Charles J. McCracken (Contribution by); Edwin McCann (Contribution by); M. R. Ayers (Cont

  ISBN: 9780847689132

  Publication Date: 1998-12-23

  A collection of essays on the work of John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume, designed to provide a deeper understanding of major issues raised in the empiricist tradition. It includes The Rationalist Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz, edited by Derk Pereboom.
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  Philosophy of David Hume by Norman Kemp Smith; Don Garrett

  ISBN: 9781403915078

  Publication Date: 2005-04-02

  Norman Kemp Smith's The Philosophy of David Hume continues to be unsurpassed in its comprehensive coverage of the ideas and issues of Hume's Treatise. Now, after years of waiting, this currently out-of-print and highly sought-after classic is being re-issued. This ground-breaking book has long been regarded as a classic study by scholars in the field, yet a new introduction by Don Garrett places the book in its contemporary context, showing Humes's continuing importance in the field.

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  The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

  ISBN: 9780312195519

  Publication Date: 1998-09-15

  Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood--the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers--Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah--the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past. Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society.
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  Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson

  ISBN: 9780802135780

  Publication Date: 1998-08-10

  In a fantastic world that is and is not seventeenth-century England, a baby is found floating in the Thames. The child, Jordan, is rescued by Dog Woman and grows up to travel the world like Gulliver, though he finds that the world’s most curious oddities come from his own mind. Winterson leads the reader from discussions on the nature of time to Jordan’s fascination with journeys concealed within other journeys, all with a dizzying speed that shoots the reader from epiphany to shimmering epiphany.
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  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

  ISBN: 9781400052172

  Publication Date: 2010-02-02

  Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons--as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the "colored" ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta's small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia--a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo--to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family--past and present--is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of. Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family--especially Henrietta's daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother's cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn't her children afford health insurance? Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.
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  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

  ISBN: 9780060839789

  Publication Date: 2005-07-05

  The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED began in 1857, it was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
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  Absalom! Absalom! by William Faulkner

  ISBN: 9780375508721

  Publication Date: 2002-09-10

  Absalom! Absalom! is William Faulkner’s major work--his most important and ambitious contribution to American literature. In the dramatic texture of this story of the founding, flourishing and decay of the plantation of Sutpen's Hundred, and of the family that demonic Stephen Sutpen brought into the world a generation before the Civil War, there rises the lament of the South for its own vanished splendor. From its magnificent and bold inception, when with his wild Negroes the founder of the great plantation appeared out of nowhere to seize his hundred square miles of land and build his mansion, through the destruction of the Civil War and its aftermath, and the drab beginnings of the new South, the narrative is colored by the author’s glowing imagery, his command of a powerful and magical prose style. Beneath its brilliant surface and dark undercurrents, the novel sweeps backward and forward through time. The story in all its ramifications becomes crystallized in the mind of a relative of this strange family, young Quentin Compson, a Harvard student. At the terrifying and abrupt end of the tale there remain in the crumbling shell of the old house only the dying son of its builder, an ancient Negro woman who had been his slave, and the idiot mulatto youth who was to be the only direct descendant of the Sutpen blood. This edition is set from the first American edition of 1936 and commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of Random House.
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  Wash by Margaret Wrinkle

  ISBN: 9780802122032

  Publication Date: 2013-11-12

  WINNER OF THE FLAHERTY-DUNNAN FIRST NOVEL PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE 2014 CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE One of Time Magazine’s "21 Female Authors You Should Be Reading" Named a Best Book of 2013 by the Wall Street Journal A New York Times Editors’ Choice An O Magazine Top Ten Pick In early 1800s Tennessee, two men find themselves locked in an intimate power struggle. Richardson, a troubled Revolutionary War veteran, has spent his life fighting not only for his country but also for wealth and status. When the pressures of westward expansion and debt threaten to destroy everything he’s built, he sets Washington, a young man he owns, to work as his breeding sire. Wash, the first member of his family to be born into slavery, struggles to hold onto his only solace: the spirituality inherited from his shamanic mother. As he navigates the treacherous currents of his position, despair and disease lead him to a potent healer named Pallas. Their tender love unfolds against this turbulent backdrop while she inspires him to forge a new understanding of his heritage and his place in it. Once Richardson and Wash find themselves at a crossroads, all three lives are pushed to the brink.

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  In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

  ISBN: 9780812994384

  Publication Date: 2013-02-19

  Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time From the Modern Library's new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by Truman Capote--also available are Breakfast at Tiffany's and Other Voices, Other Rooms (in one volume), Portraits and Observations, and The Complete Stories Truman Capote's masterpiece, In Cold Blood, created a sensation when it was first published, serially, in The New Yorker in 1965. The intensively researched, atmospheric narrative of the lives of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, and of the two men, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, who brutally killed them on the night of November 15, 1959, is the seminal work of the "new journalism." Perry Smith is one of the great dark characters of American literature, full of contradictory emotions. "I thought he was a very nice gentleman," he says of Herb Clutter. "Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat." Told in chapters that alternate between the Clutter household and the approach of Smith and Hickock in their black Chevrolet, then between the investigation of the case and the killers' flight, Capote's account is so detailed that the reader comes to feel almost like a participant in the events.
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  All God's Children by Fox Butterfield

  ISBN: 9780307280336

  Publication Date: 2008-01-08

  A timely reissue of Fox Butterfield’s masterpiece, All God’s Children, a searing examination of the caustic cumulative effect of racism and violence over 5 generations of black Americans. Willie Bosket is a brilliant, violent man who began his criminal career at age five; his slaying of two subway riders at fifteen led to the passage of the first law in the nation allowing teenagers to be tried as adults. Butterfield traces the Bosket family back to their days as South Carolina slaves and documents how Willie is the culmination of generations of neglect, cruelty, discrimination and brutality directed at black Americans. From the terrifying scourge of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction to the brutal streets of 1970s New York, this is an unforgettable examination of the painful roots of violence and racism in America.
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  Miracle at Sing Sing by Ralph Blumenthal

  ISBN: 9780312308919

  Publication Date: 2004-06-15

  In 1919, Lewis E. Lawes moved his wife and young daughters into the warden's mansion at Sing Sing prison. They shared a yard with 1, 096 of the toughest inmates in the world-murderers, rapists, and thieves who Lawes alone believed capable of redemption. Adamantly opposed to the death penalty, Lawes presided over 300 executions. His progressive ideas shocked many, but he taught the nation that a prison was a community. He allowed a kidnapper to care for his children and a cutthroat to shave him every morning. He organized legendary football games for his "boys," and befriended Hollywood greats such as Charlie Chaplin and Humphrey Bogart. This is "A story almost too good to be true, but too true to miss." -Mario Cuomo

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  Public Art by Cher Krause Knight

  ISBN: 9781405155588

  Publication Date: 2008-04-28

  This book takes a bold look at public art and its populist appeal, offering a more inclusive guide to America's creative tastes and shared culture. It examines the history of American public art - from FDR's New Deal to Christo's The Gates - and challenges preconceived notions of public art, expanding its definition to include a broader scope of works and concepts. Expands the definition of public art to include sites such as Boston's Big Dig, Las Vegas' Treasure Island, and Disney World Offers a refreshing alternative to the traditional rhetoric and criticism surrounding public art Includes insightful analysis of the museum and its role in relation to public art
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  The Fashion Reader by Abby Lillethun (Editor); Linda Welters (Editor)

  ISBN: 9781845204853

  Publication Date: 2007-03-15

  The Fashion Reader is designed for students, scholars, and anyone interested in contemporary fashion. The book brings together the key writings on the subject, covering the history, culture, and business of fashion. The extracts are drawn from a wide range of sources--books, professional and academic journals, magazines, interviews and exhibition catalogues. Each section is specially introduced and concludes with guides to further reading.
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  Alexander McQueen by Judith Watt

  ISBN: 9780062131997

  Publication Date: 2012-10-30

  An intimate and revealing look at the personal and professional life of the fashion world's most visionary designer. This incredible volume strips away the layers of legend surrounding Alexander McQueen, revealing the sartorial genius and the true history of the man who reinvented modern fashion. Uncovering new details about Lee Alexander McQueen's humble childhood in East London, author Judith Watt traces the young designer's ascent--from his graduate collection at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design to his over-the-top runway shows to the designs he created just days before his death at age forty. Providing new insights into the dark passion and inspiration that guided each fever-pitched runway show, this fully illustrated portrait delivers a truly comprehensive, in-depth look at the most provocative designer of a generation. Illustrated throughout with McQueen's personal drawings and ephemera as well as a mixture of exquisite catwalk and editorial fashion images, Alexander McQueen: The Life and the Legacy is every bit as stunning as the designer himself.
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  The Portrayal of Love - Botticelli's Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent by Charles Dempsey

  ISBN: 9780691015736

  Publication Date: 1997-02-03

  Widely acknowledged as a prime manifestation of Florentine humanist culture under Lorenzo de'Medici, Botticelli's Primavera cannot be fully interpreted without considering the poetics that expressed the Laurentian cultural program and, in turn, the Renaissance itself. In this analysis Charles Dempsey examines the poetry written by Lorenzo and his literary clients in order to give definition to the cultural context in which the Primavera was created. A celebration of Love, the painting is shown to incorporate both public and private imaginative realms while embracing the ideal and the actual experiences of the present. The Primavera, depicting Venus as the spirit of Love and springtime, is simultaneously old-fashioned and modern, rooted in International-Style vernacular conventions and evincing a nascent classical vocabulary. After describing the profoundly humanist classical foundation of the invention of the Primavera, Dempsey identifies its genre with rustic song, then relates the painting to the conventions of vernacular love poetry. A close reading of the painting in relation to works by Lorenzo, Politian, Pulci, and other poets working to elevate vernacular expression by infusing native Tuscan with Latin forms suggests how the idea of Love portrayed by Botticelli in the form of Venus incorporates not only the ancient springtime renovatio mundi but also the actual cultural renovation--the Renaissance--imagined and sponsored by Lorenzo the Magnificent.
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  Art History's History by Vernon Hyde Minor

  ISBN: 9780130851338

  Publication Date: 2000-07-17

  Written in jargon-free, reader-friendly language, this is one of the first volumes to make art historical theory accessible to those at the introductory level. A review of contemporary theory of art history provides readers with lucid prose and concrete examples. Discussion of eighteenth- and nineteenth- century theories that are important to art history offers readers a review of historically important issues in philosophy. Illustrations of well-known works of art show readers how theory has application to images. Art historians and educators.
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  Studies in Iconology by Erwin Panofsky; Gerda S. Panofsky

  ISBN: 0064300250

  Publication Date: 1972-03-15

  In Studies in Iconology, the themes and concepts of Renaissance art are analysed and related to both classical and medieval tendencies.
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  Middlemarch by George Eliot; Margaret Harris (Editor)

  ISBN: 0460875612

  Publication Date: 1997-02-15

  Dorethea aspires to a high spiritual life, but is stifled by her environment.
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  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë; Michael Mason (Editor, Introduction by, Notes by)

  ISBN: 0142437204

  Publication Date: 2003-02-04

  Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead and subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a richer life than that traditionally allowed women in Victorian society. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Michael Mason
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  Child of God by Cormac McCarthy

  ISBN: 9780679728740

  Publication Date: 1993-06-29

  In this taut, chilling novel, Lester Ballard--a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape--haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail.  While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humor, and characteristic lyrical brilliance.
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  My Emily Dickinson by Susan Howe; Eliot Weinberger (Introduction by)

  ISBN: 9780811216838

  Publication Date: 2007-11-15

  With exacting rigor and wit, Howe pulls Dickinson free of all the sterile and stuffy belle-of-Amherst cotton wool and shows the poet in touch with elemental forces of nature, and as a prophet in all her radical zealotry and poetic glory. Her Emily Dickinson is a unique American genius, a demon lover of poetry--no neurasthenic spider artist. Howe draws into her discussion Browning, Wuthering Heights, the Civil War, "Master," the great Puritan preachers, captivity narratives, Shakespeare, and phantom lovers. As she chases away narrow and reductive feminist readings of the poet, Howe finds instead a radically powerful and true feminism at work in Dickinson, focusing the whole on that heart-stopping poem "My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun." A remarkable and passionate poet-on-poet engagement, My Emily Dickinson frees a great poet from the fetters of being read as a special female neurotic, and sets her against a fiery open sky where "Perception of an object means loosing and losing it...only Mutability certain." My Emily Dickinson won The Before Columbus Foundation Book Award.
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  Paradise Lost by John Milton

  ISBN: 9781438592503

  Publication Date: 2011-04-01

  John Milton was a 17th century poet famed for his two epic poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Milton came under scrutiny for his radical political views and his heretical religious beliefs. T S Eliot in particular wrote against Milton
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  The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

  ISBN: 9780440238133

  Publication Date: 2003-09-09

  Lyra Belaqua is content to run wild among the scholars of Jordan College, with her daemon familiar Pantalaimon always by her side. But the arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the heart of a terrible struggle#151;a struggle born of Gobblers and stolen children, witch clans and armored bears. And as she hurtles toward danger in the cold, far North, young Lyra never suspects the shocking truth: She alone is destined to win, or to lose, this more-than-mortal battle.
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  The Oresteia by W. Stanford (Editor); Robert Fagles (Translator); Aeschylus; W. B. Stanford (Introduction by, Notes by, Contribution by)

  ISBN: 9780140443332

  Publication Date: 1984-02-07

  The only trilogy in Greek drama that survives from antiquity, Aeschylus' The Oresteia is translated by Robert Fagles with an introduction, notes and glossary written in collaboration with W.B. Stanford in Penguin Classics. In the Oresteia Aeschylus addressed the bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos. As they move from darkness to light, from rage to self-governance, from primitive ritual to civilized institution, their spirit of struggle and regeneration becomes an everlasting song of celebration. In Agamemnon, a king's decision to sacrifice his daughter and turn the tide of war inflicts lasting damage on his family, culminating in a terrible act of retribution; The Libation Bearers deals with the aftermath of Clytemnestra's regicide, as her son Orestes sets out to avenge his father's death; and in The Eumenides, Orestes is tormented by supernatural powers that can never be appeased. Forming an elegant and subtle discourse on the emergence of Athenian democracy out of a period of chaos and destruction, The Oresteia is a compelling tragedy of the tensions between our obligations to our families and the laws that bind us together as a society. Aeschylus (525-456 BC) was born near Athens. He wrote more than seventy plays, of which seven have survived, all translated for Penguin Classics: The Supplicants, The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Prometheus Bound, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides. If you enjoyed The Oresteia, you might like Euripides' Medea and Other Plays, also available in Penguin Classics. 'Conveys more vividly and powerfully than any of the ten competitors I have consulted the eternal power of this masterpiece ... a triumph -- Bernard Levin 'How satisfying to read at last a modern translation which is rooted in Greek feeling and Greek thought ... both the stature and the profound instinctive genius of Aeschylus are recognized -- Mary Renault, author of The King Must Die
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  The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

  ISBN: 9780393072228

  Publication Date: 2010-06-07

  "Is Google making us stupid?" When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net's bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet's intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by "tools of the mind"--from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer--Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways. Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic--a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption--and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection. Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes--Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive--even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
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  How the Page Matters by Bonnie Mak

  ISBN: 9780802097606

  Publication Date: 2011-09-17

  From handwritten texts to online books, the page has been a standard interface for transmitting knowledge for over two millennia. It is also a dynamic device, readily transformed to suit the needs of contemporary readers. In How the Page Matters, Bonnie Mak explores how changing technology has affected the reception of visual and written information. Mak examines the fifteenth-century Latin text Controversia de nobilitate in three forms: as a manuscript, a printed work, and a digital edition. Transcending boundaries of time and language, How the Page Matters connects technology with tradition using innovative new media theories. While historicizing contemporary digital culture and asking how on-screen combinations of image and text affect the way conveyed information is understood, Mak's elegant analysis proves both the timeliness of studying interface design and the persistence of the page as a communication mechanism.
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  The Sign of the Gospel by W. Travis McMaken

  ISBN: 9780800699994

  Publication Date: 2013-08-01

  The theology of the sacraments is one of the most contested parts in Barth’s theology, none more so than the doctrine of baptism. Barth’s proposals on baptism have generated intense conversation and disagreement, not only on its application to Protestant and ecumenical theology but even on its own consistency with Barth’s larger dogmatic project. McMaken takes up this controversial question, sets it in its proper context within the history of doctrine and Barth’s systematic work, and argues for a constructive reclamation of infant baptism that accords with Barth’s overarching theological concerns and insights, notably from Barth’s mature theological commitments. Pivotally, this volume claims that a reorientation of the doctrine of baptism opens up a new perspective on the practice of infant baptism on the basis of Barth’s theology; this new perspective, as well, holds the potential for wide, ecumenical application as a form of the proclamation of the gospel and a vital dimension of the church’s missional vocation. A commanding volume for scholars and students in systematic theology, ecumenical studies, and sacramental theology.
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  Jonathan Edwards, the Fiery Puritan by Henry B. Parkes

  ISBN: 9780404591441

  Publication Date: 1979-01-01
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  How God Became King by N. T. Wright

  ISBN: 9780061730573

  Publication Date: 2012-03-13

  Foundational: The four gospels come directly from the ancient church and are among the primary sources for the church's teachings. Familiar: Since Christian worship services began, a reading from the gospels has played a central role. Studied: For over two hundred years scholars have challenged and defended the central claims of the gospels: miracles, historical accuracy, the divinity of Jesus, and more. But Forgotten: Still, leading Bible scholar N. T. Wright reveals shocking news: We have all forgotten what the four gospels are about. "Despite centuries of intense and heavy industry expended on the study of all sorts of features of the gospels," Wright writes, "we have often managed to miss the main thing that they, all four of them, are most eager to tell us. What we need is not just a bit of fine-tuning, an adjustment here and there. We need a fundamental rethink about what the gospels are trying to tell us." What Wright offers is an opportunity to confront these powerful texts afresh, as if we are encountering them for the first time. How God Became King reveals the surprising, unexpected, and shocking news of the gospels: this is the story of a new king, a new kind of king, a king who has changed everything, and a king who invites us to be part of his new world.
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  Wavelets and Subband Coding by Martin Vetterli; Jelena Kovacevic

  ISBN: 0130970808

  Publication Date: 1995-04-21

  A central goal of signal processing is to describe real life signals, be it for computation, compression, or understanding. This book presents a unified view of wavelets and subband coding with a signal processing perspective. Covers the discrete-time case, or filter banks; development of wavelets; continuous wavelet and local Fourier transforms; efficient algorithms for filter banks and wavelet computations; and signal compression. For electrical engineers and computer scientists.
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  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Volume II of VI) by Edward Gibbon

  ISBN: 9781420945300

  Publication