Culture, Not PoliticsWe live in a politicized time. Culture wars and increasingly partisan conflicts have reduced public discourse to shouting matches between ideologues. But rather than merely bemoaning the vulgarity and sloganeering of this era, says acclaimed author and editor Gregory Wolfe, we should seek to enrich the language of civil discourse. And the best way to do that, Wolfe believes, is to draw nourishment from the deepest sources of culture: art and rel...

The Operation of Grace collects a decade's worth of essays by Gregory Wolfe taken from the pages of Image, the literary journal he founded more than a quarter century ago. As he notes in the preface, his Image editorials, while they cover a wide range of topics, focus on the intersection of "art, faith, and mystery." Wolfe believes that art and religion, while hardly identical, offer illuminating analogies to one another--art deepening faith through the empathetic reach of the imagination ...

Dunstan Thompson was an American poet of great promise who burst onto the Anglo-American literary scene during World War II. In the words of one contemporary, Thompson was one of the rising "stars of modern poetry," a writer who might one day join the pantheon of poets like Hart Crane, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Dylan Thomas. And yet Thompson more or less disappeared from public view by the early 1950s. After publishing two volumes of poetry, a travel book, and a novel, Thompson had ...

In this bold and provocative new book, the author of In the Beginning and The Reenchantment of Nature challenges the widely held assumption that the world is becoming more secular and demonstrates why atheism cannot provide the moral and intellectual guidance essential for coping with the complexities of modern life.Atheism is one of the most important movements in modern Western culture. For the last two hundred years, it seemed to be on the verge of eliminating ...

From the National Book Critics Circle Award–winning poet and critic: "A lovely book, full of joy and wisdom." — The Baltimore SunHow to Read a Poem is an unprecedented exploration of poetry, feeling, and human nature. In language at once acute and emotional, Edward Hirsch describes why poetry matters and how we can open up our imaginations so that its message can make a difference. In a marvelous reading of verse from around the world, including w...

As one of the foremost evangelical thinkers of the twentieth century, Francis Schaeffer long pondered the fate of declining Western culture. In this brilliant book he analyzed the reasons for modern society's state of affairs and presented the only viable alternative: living by the Christian ethic, acceptance of God's revelation, and total affirmation of the Bible's morals, values, and meaning.

Here in this portable treasury are the 100 most moving and memorable love poems of all time, each accompanied by an illuminating introduction.Words of Love...and seduction, heartbreak, adoration, and passion. Revisit the Classics:"He Is More Than a Hero" by Sappho Sonnet 18 ("Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds") by William Shakespeare "She Walks in Beauty" by Lord Byron Enjoy Old Favorites: "To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet "The Owl a...

A gorgeous collection of classic poems that the whole family will enjoy, thoughtfully chosen by actor John Lithgow.From listening to his grandmother recite epic poems from memory to curling up in bed while his father read funny verses, award-winning actor John Lithgow grew up with poetry. Ever since, John has been an enthusiastic seeker of poetic experience, whether reading, reciting, or listening to great poems.The wide variety of carefully selected poems ...

The past remains essential - and inescapable. A quarter-century after the publication of his classic account of man's attitudes to his past, David Lowenthal revisits how we celebrate, expunge, contest and domesticate the past to serve present needs. He shows how nostalgia and heritage now pervade every facet of public and popular culture. History embraces nature and the cosmos as well as humanity. The past is seen and touched and tasted and smelt as well as heard and read about. Empathy, r...

Genius. With hints of madness and mystery, moral license and visionary force, the word suggests an almost otherworldly power: the power to create, to divine the secrets of the universe, even to destroy. Yet the notion of genius has been diluted in recent times. Today, rock stars, football coaches, and entrepreneurs are labeled 'geniuses,' and the word is applied so widely that it has obscured the sense of special election and superhuman authority that long accompanied it.A...

From the former U.S. Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winner, an illuminating dissection of poetic form and an essential book on writing craft for students, enthusiasts, and newcomers alikeA Little Book on Form brilliantly synthesizes Hass’s formidable gifts as both a poet and essayist. In it he takes up the central tension between poetry as genre and the poetics of the imagination. A wealth of vocabulary exists with which to talk about formal poetry. ...

The historical achievements of religious belief have been large and well chronicled. But what about the accomplishments of those who have challenged religion? Traveling from classical Greece to twenty-first century America, Imagine There's No Heaven explores the role of disbelief in shaping Western civilization. At each juncture common themes emerge: by questioning the role of gods in the heavens or the role of a God in creating man on earth, nonbelievers help move science forwar...