Who was Jesus?Historical sources portray a person who was complex, multi-layered, and often contradictory to the tidy portrait that much of modern Christianity paints him as. Even the gospel accounts render him as both judge and healer, teacher and temple, servant and savior.A Doubter's Guide to Jesus is a persuasive and often challenging investigation into the historical figure found in the earliest sources. These sources, which include references...

Is the world better off without Christianity?Combining narrative with keen critique of contemporary debates, author and historian John Dickson gives an honest account of 2,000 years of Christian history that helps us understand what Christianity is and what it's meant to be.To say that the Christian Church has an "image problem" doesn't quite capture it. From the Crusades and the Inquisition to the racism and abuse present in today's Church--both in Catholi...

On the verge of a second marriage, a divorcee discovers her first husband has returned, and murder ensues in this chilling tale, which the New York Times Book Review hailed as "one of the most ingeniously constructed mystery stories John Dickson Carr has ever told"After divorcing her husband, Ned, Eve Neill falls in love with banker Toby Lawes and quickly agrees to marry him. But news of the engagement brings Ned back, intent on reclaiming his bride, whatev...

The Ten Commandments have influenced non-religious Western culture more than it might imagine. This guide to the famous rules does more than explain what they are or what they say, but why we need them.This moral code in the Old Testament of the Bible—from which sprang ideas of justice, compassion, human rights, and freedom—has had such a strong impact on our society that it seems to represent what most of us think of as basic ethical reasoning. Even atheists like ...

Hailed by Agatha Christie as "the king of the art of misdirection," John Dickson Carr draws readers into a thrilling tale of a family's hunt for an inheritance hidden in a haunted New Orleans mansionBefore he became a commodore in the Confederate Navy, Serena Hobart's grandfather was a treasure hunter who combed the bottom of the sea in search of Spanish gold. In 1927, after her father dies, Serena wants nothing more than to be rid of Delys Hall, the commodore's ram...

Three Golden Age British-style whodunits from the Edgar Award–winning writer Agatha Christie called "a master magician . . . the king of the art of misdirection."One of the most popular Golden Age mystery authors, John Dickson Carr was also lauded by his peers. Agatha Christie offered him the highest praise from one mystery writer to another: "Very few detective stories baffle me, but Mr. Carr's always do." And Dorothy Sayers enthused: "Mr. Carr can lead us away fr...

Christianity, depending on who you ask, is either a scourge on our society, narrow, delusive, and inevitably producing hatred and violence; or the foundation of some of the best elements of our culture and a continued source of hope, comfort to those in need, and moral inspiration. Are we talking about the same people here? Are we looking at the same history?Crusades, witch hunts, slavery, colonialism, child abuse … the history of the church offers plenty of ammunition to its critic...

Soils and national characters differ; but fairy tales are the same in plot and incidents, if not in treatment. The majority of the tales in this volume have been known in the West in some form or other, and the problem arises how to account for their simultaneous existence in farthest West and East. Some - as Benfey in Germany, M. Cosquin in France, and Mr. Clouston in England - have declared that India is the Home of the Fairy Tale, and that all European fairy tales have been brought from...

John Dickson Carr, one of the masters of the British-style detective novel, evokes the danger and delights of 1912 New Orleans in this puzzling murder mysteryJournalist and spy novelist Jim Blake takes an assignment for Harper's Weekly that puts him on a train to New Orleans, where congressional candidate James Claiborne Blake is being targeted by enemies who threaten to reveal that there is a glamorous Creole courtesan in his past. But in New Orleans, a s...

Mister Hamilton, John Dickson's first collection in eighteen years, is an appealing, questioning mix of elements. Over a base of South Island bedrock (granite, schist, greywacke), Dickson has peopled this quietly fiery collection with day-to-day working voices and narratives, sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes charged with a political consciousness and lyrical intensity. Shot-through with veins of jazz, rock and blues, quizzical religiosity and a streak of the absurd, th...

«Europa's Fairy Book» is a collection of European fairy tales restored and retold by Joseph Jacobs. This ebook edition from Animedia Company is magnificently illustrated by John Dickson Batten and consists of 29 marvellous tales, such as:Snowwhite, Beauty and the Beast, The Cinder-Maid, All Change, The King of the Fishes, Scissors, Reynard and Bruin, The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird, The Language of Animals, The Three Soldiers, A Dozen at a Blow, The Earl...

To solve a centuries-old crime, a man makes a deal with the devil: "The fantasy, the murder and the historical action are . . . all wonderful" ( San Francisco Chronicle).An aging scholar of Restoration history, Nicholas Fenton has long dreamed of traveling into the past. He has a date in mind—May 10, 1675—as well as a purpose: to solve the murder case of the woman he loves, his rakehell ancestor's lovely wife. Obsessed with delivering her from danger, he tu...