This updated edition features new material.

    Written before the emergence of the Internet but newly updated for the twenty-first century reader, A Gentle Madness captures that last moment in time when collectors frequented dusty bookshops, street stalls, and high-stakes auctions, conducting themselves with the subterfuge befitting a true bibliomaniac. A Gentle Madness is vividly anecdotal and thoroughly researched. Nicholas A. Basbanes brings an investigative reporter’s heart and instincts to the task of chronicling collectors past and present in pursuit of bibliomania. Now a classic of collecting, A Gentle Madness is a book lover’s delight.

    After showing that today's evangelicals have not fared well in the crucible of modern pluralism, Lints argues that in order to regain spiritual wholeness, evangelicals must relearn how to think and live theologically. This book highlights several cultural and theological impediments to doing theology from an evangelical perspective, interacts with postmodernism as a theological method, and provides a provocative new outline for the construction of a truly "transformative" evangelical theology in the modern age.

    This timely new edition of his Buddhist classic reminds us that true happiness is not to be found in material comfort and earthly satisfaction but in the pursuit of a higher ideal. Demonstrating throughout his heartfelt response to the fundamental wisdom of the Buddha, Conze presents a readable introduction to the array of doctrines, methods, and literature that have developed in the many schools of Buddhism as a result of their different approaches to the goal.

    Includes review questions for further study at the end of each chapter.

    YouTube and Facebook dominate the web. In Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, his landmark new book, David Shields (author of the New York Times best seller The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead) argues that our culture is obsessed with “reality” precisely because we experience hardly any.Most artistic movements are attempts to figure out a way to smuggle more of what the artist thinks is reality into the work of art. So, too, every artistic movement or moment needs a credo, from Horace’s Ars Poetica to Lars von Trier’s “Vow of Chastity.” Shields has written the ars poetica for a burgeoning group of interrelated but unconnected artists in a variety of forms and media who, living in an unbearably manufactured and artificial world, are striving to stay open to the possibility of randomness, accident, serendipity, spontaneity; actively courting reader/listener/viewer participation, artistic risk, emotional urgency; breaking larger and larger chunks of “reality” into their work; and, above all, seeking to erase any distinction between fiction and nonfiction.The questions Reality Hunger explores—the bending of form and genre, the lure and blur of the real—play out constantly all around us. Think of the now endless controversy surrounding the provenance and authenticity of the “real”: A Million Little Pieces, the Obama “Hope” poster, the sequel to The Catcher in the Rye, Robert Capa’s “The Falling Soldier” photograph, the boy who wasn’t in the balloon. Reality Hunger is a rigorous and radical attempt to reframe how we think about “truthiness,” literary license, quotation, appropriation.Drawing on myriad sources, Shields takes an audacious stance on issues that are being fought over now and will be fought over far into the future. People will either love or hate this book. Its converts will see it as a rallying cry; its detractors will view it as an occasion for defending the status quo. It is certain to be one of the most controversial and talked-about books of the year.

    The architect Rem Koolhaas itemized in delirious detail how our cities are being overwhelmed. His celebrated jeremiad is updated here and twinned with Running Room, a fresh response from the cultural critic Hal Foster. Junkspace describes the bleak and featureless world of capitalism, while Running Room seeks to find a space within the junk in which the individual might still exist.

    story of the predecessors of Christians

    Abravanel's one-of-a-kind plan is a complete health, fitness, and nutrition program that first teaches you how to determine your body type and then custom-tailors a three-step weight-loss plan and exercise regimen just for you. Using the latest scientific research, Dr. Abravanel has revised and expanded this successful strategy to make it even more effective and easy to follow.This revolutionary program includes: A newly revised Body Type questionnaire you can do at home A detailed list of foods you should avoid--and those you must eat A four-week eating plan, complete with daily menus and recipes A guide to supplements, herbal remedies, and exercise routines for each Body Type A Long Weekend of Rejuvenation to purify your system and clear your mindNow, to find out which Body Type you fall into, turn to the first page....

    Few write for the non-specialist as well as Will Durant, and this book is a splendid example of his eminently readable scholarship. Durant’s insight and wit never cease to dazzle; The Story of Philosophy is a key book for anyone who wishes to survey the history and development of philosophical ideas in the Western world.

    

    Puchner introduces us to numerous visionaries as he explores sixteen foundational texts selected from more than four thousand years of world literature and reveals how writing has inspired the rise and fall of empires and nations, the spark of philosophical and political ideas, and the birth of religious beliefs. Indeed, literature has touched the lives of generations and changed the course of history.At the heart of this book are works, some long-lost and rediscovered, that have shaped civilization: the first written masterpiece, the Epic of Gilgamesh; Ezra’s Hebrew Bible, created as scripture; the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus; and the first great novel in world literature, The Tale of Genji, written by a Japanese woman known as Murasaki. Visiting Baghdad, Puchner tells of Scheherazade and the stories of One Thousand and One Nights, and in the Americas we watch the astonishing survival of the Maya epic Popol Vuh. Cervantes, who invented the modern novel, battles pirates both real (when he is taken prisoner) and literary (when a fake sequel to Don Quixote is published). We learn of Benjamin Franklin’s pioneering work as a media entrepreneur, watch Goethe discover world literature in Sicily, and follow the rise in influence of The Communist Manifesto. We visit Troy, Pergamum, and China, and we speak with Nobel laureates Derek Walcott in the Caribbean and Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul, as well as the wordsmiths of the oral epic Sunjata in West Africa.Throughout The Written World, Puchner’s delightful narrative also chronicles the inventions—writing technologies, the printing press, the book itself—that have shaped religion, politics, commerce, people, and history. In a book that Elaine Scarry has praised as “unique and spellbinding,” Puchner shows how literature turned our planet into a written world.

    It's the goal of good theology to humble us before the triune God of majesty as we come to understand him better. This is a book of and about good theology.Award-winning author, theologian, and professor Michael Horton wrote The Christian Faith as a book of systematic theology and doctrine "that can be preached, experienced, and lived, as well as understood, clarified, and articulated." It's written for a growing cast of pilgrims—in ministry and laity—who are interested in learning about Christ as a way of living as a Christian. Who understand that knowing doctrine and walking in practical Christianity are not competing interests.The Christian Faith is divided into six parts, five of which each focus on an aspect of God, while the first part sets up an understanding and appreciation for the task of theology itself, addressing topics like:The source of theology (where the idea of theology comes from and what its limits are).The origin of the canon (how the modern Bible came about and why we can trust it).The character of theology (is the nature of theology practical, theoretical, or can it be both?).In a manner equally as welcoming to professors, pastors, students, and armchair theologians; Horton has organized this volume in a readable fashion that includes a variety of learning features:A brief synopsis of biblical passages that inform certain doctrines.Surveys of past and current theologies with contemporary emphasis on exegetical, philosophical, practical, and theological questions.Substantial interaction with various Christian movements within the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodoxy traditions, as well as the hermeneutical issues raised by postmodernity.Charts, sidebars, questions for discussion, and an extensive bibliography, divided into different entry levels and topics.At the heart of this book is a deep love for and curiosity about God. Its basic argument is that a personal relationship with God goes hand in hand with the pursuit of theology. It isn't possible to know God without studying him.

    The book can be read straight through from beginning to end; yet the inclusion of a multi-layered index, coupled with a descriptive outline of contents and bibliographies of relevant literature, means that the volume also serves as a work of reference, both for those coming afresh to the study of ethics and for readers already familiar with the subject.

    Fifteen chapters discuss subjects including the death system, causes of death, transition fro