Art Study

G. K. Chesterton was a journalist, playwright, poet, biographer, novelist, essayist, literary commentator, editor, orator, artist, and theologian. Orthodoxy is his great apologia for the Christian faith, which was prompted by a serious attack in 1903 against Christianity by well-known newspaper editor Robert Blatchford.

Horatio W. Dresser was a New Thought religious leader and author in the United States, speaking to audiences in major cities throughout the country. His books were best sellers and considered the mainstream of the New Thought movement. Dresser saw Christian Science and New Thought as linked in what he called the "mind cure" movement, but disliked the public emphasis on Christian Science as opposed to what he saw as the "more rational" New Thought. In this book, Dresser presents ideas and information that can drive positive change today.

By the 1970s, the country’s oldest continuously published newspaper had fallen on hard times, just like its nearly bankrupt hometown. When the New York Post was sold to a largely unknown Australian named Rupert Murdoch in 1976, staffers hoped it would be the start of a new golden age for the paper. Now, after the nearly fifty years Murdoch has owned the tabloid, American culture reflects what Murdoch first started in the 1970s: a celebrity-focused, noisy, one-sided media empire that reached its zenith with Fox News.

On December 26, 1973, The Exorcist was released. Within days it had become legend. Moviegoers braved hours-long lines in winter weather to see it. Some audience members famously fainted or vomited. Half a century later, the movie that both inspired and transcends the modern horror genre has lost none of its power to terrify and unsettle. The Exorcist Legacy reveals the complete story of this cultural phenomenon, from the real-life exorcism in 1949 Maryland that inspired William Peter Blatty's bestselling novel on which the movie is based, to its many sequels, prequels, TV series, and homages.

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.

Carrie Bradshaw’s pairing of a tutu with a tank top is one of the most iconic outfits ever seen on television—and a look that turned avant-garde New York designer and stylist Patricia Field into a household name. But before she was crowned the fairy godmother of haute couture, Field was the owner of the longtime East Village emporium Pat Field, a haven for drag queens, club kids, starving artists, NYU freshmen, and creative visionaries alike.

You either were there or you wanted to be. A defining New York City institution co-founded by Norman Mailer, The Village Voice was the first newspaper to cover hip-hop, the avant-garde art scene, and Off-Broadway with gravitas. It reported on the AIDS crisis with urgency and seriousness when other papers dismissed it as a gay disease. In 1979, the Voice’s Wayne Barrett uncovered Donald Trump as a corrupt con artist before anyone else was paying attention.

The Shaolin Monastery charts for the first time in any language the history of the Shaolin Temple and the evolution of its world-renowned martial arts. In this meticulously researched and eminently readable study Meir Shahar considers the economic political and religious factors that led Shaolin monks to disregard the Buddhist prohibition against violence and instead create fighting techniques that by the 21st century have spread throughout the world.

Rafe is a normal teenager from Colorado. He's been out since 8th grade, accepted by his peers & championed by his progressive parents. And while that's important, all Rafe really wants is to be a regular guy. To have his sexuality be a part of who he is, but not the headline, every single time. So when Rafe transfers to an all-boys' boarding school in New England, he decides to keep his sexuality a secret - not so much going back in the closet as starting over with a clean slate.

Learn to navigate the harshness of life with soft power. In her debut book, Lotte Jeffs, weaves powerful life experience with practical advice and a psychological deep-dive into what truly constitutes an emotionally rich and meaningful existence. She speaks to everyone, from agony aunts and archaeologists to pop stars and novelists, to explore a diverse picture of what it is to truly live life well.

Few television shows revolutionized comedy as profoundly or have had such an enormous and continued impact on our culture as In Living Color. Inspired by Richard Pryor, Carol Burnett, and Eddie Murphy, Keenen Ivory Wayans created a television series unlike any that had come before it. In Living Color shaped American culture in ways both seen and unseen. Now, Homey Don't Play That! reveals the complete, captivating story of how In Living Color overcame enormous odds to become a major, zeitgeist-seizing hit.

Jonathan Goldsmith has many answers to that question. For years he was a struggling actor in New York and Los Angeles, with experiences that included competing for roles with Dustin Hoffman, getting shot by John Wayne, drinking with Tennessee Williams, and sailing the high seas with Fernando Lamas, never mind romancing many lovely ladies along the way. However, it wasn't all fun and games for Jonathan. Frustrated with his career, he left Hollywood for other adventures in business and life.

This explosively entertaining memoir abounds in gossip, satire, historical apercus, and trenchant observations. Vidal’s compelling narrative weaves back and forth in time, providing a whole view of the author’s celebrated life, from his birth in 1925 to today, and features a cast of memorable characters - including the Kennedy family, Marlon Brando, Anais Nin, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Cinema is full of neurotic personalities, but few things are more transfixing than a woman losing her mind onscreen. Horror as a genre provides the most welcoming platform for these histrionics: crippling paranoia, desperate loneliness, masochistic death-wishes, dangerous obsessiveness, apocalyptic hysteria. Unlike her male counterpart—the eccentric'—the female neurotic lives a shamed existence, making these films those rare places where her destructive emotions get to play.

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.

Part history, part cultural biography, and part literary mystery, The Orientalist traces the life of Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince and became a best-selling author in Nazi Germany. Born in 1905 to a wealthy family in the oil-boom city of Baku, Lev escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan. He found refuge in Germany, where, writing under the names Essad Bey and Kurban Said, his remarkable books about Islam, desert adventures, and global revolution became celebrated across fascist Europe.

Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she has also has a secret history. Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has uncovered an astonishing trove of documents, including the never-before-seen private papers of William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman's creator.

Based on Philippians 4:11, I have learned, in whatever state I am therewith to be content, Watson considers the great dishonor done to almighty God by the sin of discontent. The doctrine of Christian contentment is clearly illustrated and profitably applied. The special cases where, through changes in providences, discontentment most commonly arises are examined and preservatives are applied to the soul.

A book unlike any other, Women in Clothes is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities - famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old - on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives. It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than 50 questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style.

The Art of Relevance is your guide to mattering more to more people. You'll find inspiring examples, rags-to-relevance case studies, research-based frameworks, and practical advice on how your work can be more vital to your community. Whether you work in museums or libraries, parks or theaters, churches or afterschool programs, relevance can work for you. Break through shallow connection. Unlock meaning for yourself and others. Find true relevance and shine.