The Heart of Philosophy


Book Description

Philosophy as it is frequently taught in classrooms bears little relation to the impassioned and immensely practical search for self-knowledge conducted by not only its ancient avatars but also by men and woman who seek after truth today. In The Heart of the Philosophy, Jacob Needleman provides a "user's guide" for those who would take philosophy seriously enough to understand its life-transforming qualities.




Jacob's Gift


Book Description

Jonathan Freedland looks on as his eight-day-old son is about to be circumcised and admitted into the Covenant of Abraham'. So begins a search for the meaning of his son's inheritance and an epic journey into the nature of this, the world's oldest civilisation. What has Freedland done by enlisting his son into the Jewish people? What gift or burden has he given him? Freedland digs deep into his own family's past, telling the story of three remarkable people, each of whom came up with radically different answers to a quintessentially modern dilemma: how to live as a minority in the modern world. Rich in both human drama and reflection, Jacob's Gift is the story of this quest, and a delightful meditation on belonging.




Throwing the Crown


Book Description

Saenz's debut collection honestly examines the vulnerability of growing up in a neighborhood punctured by gang culture and hyper-masculinity.




The Books of Jacob


Book Description

A NEW YORKER “ESSENTIAL READ” “Just as awe-inspiring as the Nobel judges claimed.” – The Washington Post “Olga Tokarczuk is one of our greatest living fiction writers. . . This could well be a decade-defining book akin to Bolaño’s 2666.” –AV Club “Sophisticated and ribald and brimming with folk wit. . . The comedy in this novel blends, as it does in life, with genuine tragedy.” –Dwight Garner, The New York Times LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, TIME, THE NEW YORKER, AND NPR The Nobel Prize–winner’s richest, most sweeping and ambitious novel yet follows the comet-like rise and fall of a mysterious, messianic religious leader as he blazes his way across eighteenth-century Europe. In the mid-eighteenth century, as new ideas—and a new unrest—begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following. In the decade to come, Frank will traverse the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires with throngs of disciples in his thrall as he reinvents himself again and again, converts to Islam and then Catholicism, is pilloried as a heretic and revered as the Messiah, and wreaks havoc on the conventional order, Jewish and Christian alike, with scandalous rumors of his sect’s secret rituals and the spread of his increasingly iconoclastic beliefs. The story of Frank—a real historical figure around whom mystery and controversy swirl to this day—is the perfect canvas for the genius and unparalleled reach of Olga Tokarczuk. Narrated through the perspectives of his contemporaries—those who revere him, those who revile him, the friend who betrays him, the lone woman who sees him for what he is—The Books of Jacob captures a world on the cusp of precipitous change, searching for certainty and longing for transcendence. In a nod to books written in Hebrew, The Books of Jacob is paginated in reverse, beginning on p. 955 and ending on p. 1 – but read traditionally, front cover to back.




Sorcerers


Book Description

In this novel steeped in esoteric wisdom, a young man joins a club of teenage magicians called The Sorcerer's Apprentices and is swept up into a world of magic.




To Stir a Restless Heart


Book Description

To Stir a Restless Heart tells for the first time the story of how Thomas Aquinas conversed with his contemporaries about the dynamics of human nature’s longing for God, and documents how he deliberately utilized Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin sources to develop a version of Aristotelian natural desire that was uniquely Augustinian: natural desire seeks the complete fulfillment of human nature “insofar as is possible,” and so comes to rest in the highest end that God offers to it. Depending on whether God offers the free gift of grace to humanity, one and the same natural desire can come to rest in knowing God through creatures or seeing God directly.




I, Tokyo


Book Description

Magnum photographer Jacob Aue Sobol moved to Tokyo in Spring 2006. He began photographing in the streets and public areas, drawn to the tightly confined reality of the city. His search was for the individual human being in an environment simultaneously attractive and repellant. He hung out with the rent boys in Kabukicho, the red light district. He visited the homeless sleeping in the streets and the parks. Most of all, he sought to understand Japanese youth, the generation which lacks any connection to traditional Japanese culture and values.




It’s Always the Heart


Book Description

It happens hundreds of thousands of times every day in clinics and hospitals the world over. In author Dr. Arthur Constantine's office alone, it occurs thousands of times a year. Men and women between thirty and ninety, representing all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, religions, and occupations, await the doctor's entrance to investigate the cause of their symptoms. Some have risk factors for heart disease; some have experienced prior heart problems; and others have few or no reasons to worry about heart problems. In a surprising majority, the physical heart isn't the cause of trouble. As a cardiologist, Dr. Constantine was trained to help patients navigate the treatment of the physical heart. Even so, early in his career, God revealed an insight not taught in any medical school or cardiology textbook that changed his approach to treating patients. He revealed there is an inseparable intertwining of the physical and spiritual bindings of our hearts. Whether or not it is the physical heart causing the symptoms, the spiritual heart must be addressed before complete healing can occur. With equal measures of diet and exercise information and Bible-based inspiration, It's Always the Heart offers valuable, life-changing insights into the prevention of and recovery from heart disease from the clinical and spiritual points of view. Through a compilation of patient stories, Dr. Constantine provides meaningful ideas on how we can change our hearts to receive the physical and spiritual hearts and the life God wants us to have.




Book of Mormon Student Manual


Book Description




The Heart of Jacob


Book Description

Jacob prospers as a moneylender and pig merchant by taking advantage of other people’s misfortunes. But when he seeks to exploit the famine afflicting his village Tounga by lending money at high interest rates to poor villagers, he does not reckon what a sacrilege his pigs would commit which give the people an opportunity to feast on his own misfortune. When this happens community gives way to individual desires, and the stomach dictates to the head what it should think and believe in. Reason bends to absurdity and custom bows to bizarre novelty. Life explodes into a sinister mess that points to only one outcome: Jacob and society’s ultimate ruin.