Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Debates about science and religion are rarely out of the news. Whether it concerns what's being taught in schools, clashes between religious values and medical recommendations, or questions about how to address our changing global environment, emotions often run high and answers seem intractable. Yet there is much more to science and religion than the clash of extremes. As Thomas Dixon and Adam Shapiro show in this balanced and...

In this addictive and highly original debut novel a fifteen-year-old boy dies mysteriously, leaving behind a secret ledger filled with his darkly comic confessions. Whether fantasizing about being a minority, breaking into his neighbors' homes, or gunning down an exotic bird, Henry Every's wayward quest for betterment sometimes bordered on the criminal. Alone now in their suburban house, his father pores over the ledger in a final attempt to connect with the boy he never really knew—and, m...

Fast approaching the age when bachelors go from seeming curious to seeming weird, Oscar-nominated documentarian Dana Adam Shapiro set out across the country with a tape recorder in search of modern answers to an age-old question:Why does love die—and what can we do to prevent it from happening?It all began as a self-help journey in the purest sense. A serial monogamist for more than two decades, Shapiro wanted to know why the honeymoon phase of his relationships never lasted until the actu...

Lo stato messicano di Chihuahua e la città di Juárez sono famosi in tutto il mondo per essere dei focolai di violenza. I cartelli della droga e la corruzione nelle istituzioni producono ogni anno più omicidi a chihuahua che nel dilaniato Afghanistan. Grazie a una cultura dell'impunità, il 97 per cento degli omicidi resta senza colpevole. Ma nonostante questo clima di paura, un ristretto gruppo di attiviste per i diritti umani, rappresentato dall'avvocata Lucha Castro, lavora ogni giorno pe...

Los debates sobre ciencia y religión rara vez dejan de ser noticia. Ya sea que se traten de lo que se enseña en las escuelas, de la encrucijada entre los valores religiosos y las recomendaciones médicas o de los cuestionamientos sobre cómo abordar nuestro cambiante medioambiente global, las emociones suelen estar a flor de piel y las respuestas no parecen satisfactorias. Sin embargo, la ciencia y la religión son mucho más que un choque de extremos. Como exponen Thomas Dixon y Adam Shapiro ...

A status-obsessed senior unexpectedly falls for a freshman because of his Danny Zuko audition in their high school's production of Grease in this outrageously funny epistolary novel set in 1991."Matt Boren brilliantly captures the voices of students way back in 1992 with humor and wit and a unique ability to shift from freshman to senior, boy to girl, cheerleader to theater geek. In this hilarious novel, Boren adeptly proves that the more things change, th...

A celebration of National Public Radio "full of short histories from familiar names . . . [a] retrospective illustrating just how much they have given us" ( Publishers Weekly)."Always put the listener first" has been NPR's mantra since its inception in 1970, and the result is that its programming attracts tens of millions of listeners every week. This beautifully designed volume chronicles the first forty years of NPR's storied history, featuring dozens of ...

A playfully critical journey through the Coen brothers' filmographyFrom such cult hits as Raising Arizona (1987) and The Big Lebowski (1998) to major critical darlings Fargo (1996), No Country for Old Men (2007), and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Ethan and Joel Coen have cultivated a bleakly comical, instantly recognizable voice in modern American cinema. In The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together

In Trying Biology, Adam R. Shapiro convincingly dispels many conventional assumptions about the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial. Most view it as an event driven primarily by a conflict between science and religion. Countering this, Shapiro shows the importance of timing: the Scopes trial occurred at a crucial moment in the history of biology textbook publishing, education reform in Tennessee, and progressive school reform across the country. He places the trial in this broad context—al...

A memoir of family, the Holocaust, trauma, and identity, in which Adam Frankel, a former Obama speechwriter, must come to terms with the legacy of his family’s painful past and discover who he is in the wake of a life-changing revelation about his own origins.“The Survivors is an astonishingly beautiful and profoundly moving book. Frankel’s haunting search to unravel the mysteries of his family is so compelling that it reads like a fine novel.” –Do...

Global Milton and Visual Art showcases the aesthetic appropriation and reinterpretation of the works and legend of the early modern English poet and politician John Milton in diverse eras, regions, and media: book illustrations, cinema, digital reworkings, monuments, painting, sculpture, shieldry, and stained glass. It innovates an inclusive approach to Milton’s literary art, especially his masterpiece Paradise Lost, in global contemporary aesthetics via intertextual and interdisciplinary ...

Today more than ever, series finales have become cultural touchstones that feed watercooler fodder and Twitter storms among a committed community of viewers. While the final episodes of The Fugitive and M*A*S*H continue to rank among the highest rated broadcasts, more recent shows draw legions of binge-watching fans. Given the importance of finales to viewers and critics alike, Howard and Bianculli along with the other contributors explore these endings and what they mean to the audience, ...