Uncommon Decency


Book Description

Few if any people in the evangelical world have conversed as widely and sensitively as Richard Mouw. That's why Mouw can write here so wisely and helpfully about what Christians can appreciate about pluralism, the theological basis for civility, and how we can communicate with people who disagree with us on the issues that matter most.




Uncommon Knowledge


Book Description

The daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young exposes at last the secret that everyone in Hollywood knew but her--that her adoptive mother and Clark Gable were her biological parents.




Uncommon Genius


Book Description

Drawing on interviews with 40 winners of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship—the so-called "genius awards"—the insightful study throws fresh light on the creative process.




Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City


Book Description

Unsparing and important. . . . An informative, clearheaded and sobering book.—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post (1999 Critic's Choice) Inner-city black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence, but in fact, violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. This unwritten set of rules—based largely on an individual's ability to command respect—is a powerful and pervasive form of etiquette, governing the way in which people learn to negotiate public spaces. Elijah Anderson's incisive book delineates the code and examines it as a response to the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, to the stigma of race, to rampant drug use, to alienation and lack of hope.




The Last Hero


Book Description

This definitive biography of Henry (Hank) Aaron—one of baseball's immortal figures—is a revelatory portrait of a complicated, private man who through sports became an enduring American icon. “Beautifully written and culturally important.” —The Washington Post “The epic baseball tale of the second half of the 20th century.” —Atlanta Journal Constitution After his retirement in 1976, Aaron’s reputation only grew in magnitude. But his influence extended beyond statistics. Based on meticulous research and extensive interviews The Last Hero reveals how Aaron navigated the upheavals of his time—fighting against racism while at the same time benefiting from racial progress—and how he achieved his goal of continuing Jackie Robinson’s mission to obtain full equality for African Americans, both in baseball and society, while he lived uncomfortably in the public eye.




The Decency Code: The Leader's Path to Building Integrity and Trust


Book Description

The essential guide to creating an honest, ethical workplace culture in any industry In The Manager’s Book of Decencies, Stephen Harrison showed how even the smallest gestures can produce big results and change the culture of an entire workforce. Now the author of that prescient bestseller has teamed up with Jim Lukaszewski, America’s Crisis Guru® to write the definitive guide to transforming or restoring your workplace into a showplace of honest, ethical behavior. Accountability, civility, compassion, empathy, honesty, humility, and principle: these are the seven characteristics embodied by every truly decent leader. The best organizations develop and maintain a civil culture, valuing ethical behavior, honesty, and integrity as much, or even more, than profitability. The Decency Code provides you with practical pathways to creating or restoring that type of culture. These strategies address the evolving workplace: flexible, fast-moving, delayered, virtual, unstable, out-of-balance, ambiguous, global, diverse, and ruthlessly competitive. Here are actionable tools and strategies to help you build your workplace on a new standard of honest, ethical behavior, along with informative case studies that examine the behavior of both ethical and unethical companies. Today’s climate of corporate cultural disorder needs a new type of leader, men and women who replace confusion with order, opaqueness with clarity, complexity with simplicity, hopelessness with confidence, greed with selflessness, and suspicion with trust. The common-sense prescriptions offered in The Decency Code can help you become the type of leader you wish to be—and effect the change you wish to see. This book is required reading for ethically conscious managers everywhere.




The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap


Book Description

An inspiring true story about losing your place, finding your purpose, and building a community one book at a time. Wendy Welch and her husband had always dreamed of owning a bookstore, so when they left their high-octane jobs for a simpler life in an Appalachian coal town, they seized an unexpected opportunity to pursue thier dream. The only problems? A declining U.S. economy, a small town with no industry, and the advent of the e-book. They also had no idea how to run a bookstore. Against all odds, but with optimism, the help of their Virginian mountain community, and an abiding love for books, they succeeded in establishing more than a thriving business - they built a community. The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap is the little bookstore that could: how two people, two cats, two dogs, and thirty-eight thousand books helped a small town find its heart. It is a story about people and books, and how together they create community.




The Plot to Change America


Book Description

The Plot to Change America exposes the myths that help identity politics perpetuate itself. This book reveals what has really happened, explains why it is urgent to change course, and offers a strategy to do so. Though we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it will be easy to eliminate identity politics, we should not overthink it, either. Identity politics relies on the creation of groups and then on giving people incentives to adhere to them. If we eliminate group making and the enticements, we can get rid of identity politics. The first myth that this book exposes is that identity politics is a grassroots movement, when from the beginning it has been, and continues to be, an elite project. For too long, we have lived with the fairy tale that America has organically grown into a nation gripped by victimhood and identitarian division; that it is all the result of legitimate demands by minorities for recognition or restitutions for past wrongs. The second myth is that identity politics is a response to the demographic change this country has undergone since immigration laws were radically changed in 1965. Another myth we are told is that to fight these changes is as depraved as it is futile, since by 2040, America will be a minority-majority country, anyway. This book helps to explain that none of these things are necessarily true.




An Uncommon Man


Book Description

The only biography of Claiborne Pell, the six-term senator from Rhode Island best known as the sponsor of the educational Pell Grants




Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport


Book Description

What do the Canons of Dordt mean to people in the Las Vegas airport—and does anyone there even care? In the movie Hardcore, a pious Calvinist elder tries unsuccessfully to explain the TULIP theology of his Dutch Reformed faith to a prostitute in the Las Vegas airport. This incongruous conversation demonstrates how Calvinism is often perceived today: irrelevant, harsh, even disrespectful.Beginning with this movie scene, Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport addresses the weaknesses of Calvinism and points to its strengths. How does Calvinism shed light on today? Instead of reciting the Canons of Dordt, what’s a more compassionate way to relate to nonbelievers? What might it look like to live out the doctrines of TULIP with gentleness and respect? This conversational book provides answers and shatters some stereotypes. Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport encourages you to live every aspect of life—business, family, education, politics, activities, and more—before the face of a generous, sovereign God. Calvinists and non-Calvinists alike will find this an enjoyable read. You will discover that Reformed theology can speak relevantly and compellingly today, both to you and to people in the Las Vegas airport. Does Calvinism Have Anything to Do with the 21st Century?What do you think about Calvinism? Do you view it positively or negatively? Or has its day passed?Let’s face it, many non-Calvinists hold a less-than-positive view, sometimes due to caricatures. This friendly, conversational book helps clear up some misconceptions and distorted views. If you’re not a Calvinist, here is an engaging inside look. And if you are a Calvinist, Richard Mouw shows how to live gently and respectfully with others—Christians and non-Christians—who hold different perspectives.Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport focuses not on what Calvinists believe but on how they live. From a movie scene to the author’s personal experiences in Las Vegas, you are invited to travel with Mouw and see the Reformed faith in a new light. Yes, it still does travel well!