Art Study

One of Joseph Campbell’s most popular, most quoted works, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration, thought-provoking in its depth, poetic in its scope. Drawn from a month-long workshop at the world-famous Esalen Institute, the Joseph Campbell Companion captures Campbell at his best: wise, funny, intelligent, and inspiring.

Back in January 1995 in Los Angeles, California, a Singaporean pornstar named Annabel Chong took cultural rebellion to an extreme, on terms that had never been negotiated before. She was filmed having sex with a long receiving line of men, servicing them 251 times over a ten-hour period to set a new world record: The World’s Biggest Gangbang.

What makes a man manly? Master the art of manliness by learning about the seven manly virtues in this essential guide from authors Brett and Kate McKay. Each chapter covers one of the seven virtues and is packed with the best classic advice ever written down for men.

More than 50 years ago, John Coltrane drew the 12 musical notes in a circle and connected them with straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane had put physics and geometry at the core of his music. Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander returns the favor, using jazz to answer physics' most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe.

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

Woven from Joseph Campbell’s previously unpublished work, this volume explores Judeo-Christian symbols and metaphors - and their misinterpretations - with the famed mythologist’s characteristic conversational warmth and accessible scholarship. Campbell’s insights highlight centuries of confusion between literal and metaphorical interpretations of Western religious symbols that are, he argues, perennially relevant keys to spiritual understanding and mystical revelation.

'The Waste Land' is a landmark in 20th-century poetry. Here it is read by the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Published in 1922, it is a brilliant exploration of a faithless, immoral society trying to rebuild itself after the devastation of the Great War. Rich in literary references and steeped in allusive and evocative imagery, 'The Waste Land' is widely considered to be the pinnacle of modernist poetry.

For over half a century, scholars have labored to show that C. S. Lewis' famed but apparently disorganized Chronicles of Narnia have an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible unifying themes as the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and the seven books of Spenser's Faerie Queene. None of these explanations has won general acceptance, and the structure of Narnia's symbolism has remained a mystery.

The Wisdom of the Desert was one of Thomas Merton's favorites among his own books, surely because he had hoped to spend his last years as a hermit. The personal tones of the translations and the blend of reverence and humor so characteristic of him show how deeply Merton identified with the legendary authors of these sayings and parables, the fourth-century Christian fathers who sought solitude and contemplation in the deserts of the Near East.

In this accessible and engaging book, Ralph Wood shows us that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece is a deeply Christian work because it does not blink back the horrors of our terrible times but confronts them with startling honesty.

At the end of summer 2017, Anna Funder found herself at a moment of peak overload. Family obligations and household responsibilities were crushing her soul and taking her away from her writing deadlines. She needed help, and George Orwell came to her rescue. "I’ve always loved Orwell," Funder writes, "his self-deprecating humor, his laser vision about how power works, and who it works on." So after rereading and savoring books Orwell had written, she devoured six major biographies tracing his life and work. But then she read about his forgotten wife, and it was a revelation.

For seven decades Katharine Hepburn played a leading role in the popular culture of the 20th century, reigning as an admired actress, a beloved movie star, and a treasured icon of the modern American woman. She also remained one of the most private of all the public figures of her time.

Written between A.D. 413 and 426, The City of God is one of the great cornerstones in the history of Christian thought, a book which is vital to the understanding of modern Western society. Augustine originally intended it to be an apology for Christianity against the accusation that the Church was responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire, which had occurred just three years earlier. Indeed, Augustine produced a great amount of evidence to prove that paganism was responsible for this event. However, by the time the work was finished, the book had taken on a larger theme.

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

Music opinions bring out passionate debate in people, and Steven Hyden knows that firsthand. Each chapter in Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me focuses on a pop music rivalry, from the classic to the very recent, and draws connections to the larger forces surrounding the pairing.

Handel’s oratorio Messiah is a phenomenon with no parallel in music history. No other work of music has been so popular for so long. Yet familiarity can sometimes breed contempt — and also misunderstanding.

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

The Art and Practice of Geomancy teaches readers how to divine the answers to life's everyday questions about health, luck, new jobs, and love, as well as finding buried treasure, predicting the weather, and identifying secret enemies. Greer delivers to readers an ancient system of divination in an easy-to-use form requiring little more than a pen and a piece of paper.

Marshall McLuhan was the greatest prophet of the digital age. In the 1960s, McLuhan, a Canadian literary theorist, turned his attention toward the budding and befuddling electronic age. Like most prophets, McLuhan became one through a fascination with God. Prophets divine their wisdom from a source, and Digital Communion shows that McLuhan's was his own Catholic faith. In other words, the greatest prophet of the digital age was an ardent Christian. A reconsideration of his vision can change the way we view the online world.

Who is Jesus? What is he like? And who am I, encountering Jesus? These questions were just as important to Christians in the Middle Ages as they are today. And yet—as C.S. Lewis noted—the modern church tends to forget that people of different cultures and times also thought carefully about who Jesus was; and sometimes their ideas and emphases were different. Medievalist scholar Grace Hamman believes that we can deepen our understanding and adoration of Christ by looking to the Christians of the Middle Ages.