I'm a failure. I always have the feeling that I want to get back somewhere, but I don't know just where it is. 我感到失意。我心裡一直渴望能有個回歸的地方，卻遍尋不著。 ─O Henry. Love and business and family and religion and art
G.K. Chesterton was an English writer often referred to as "the prince of paradox." Chesterton wrote on a variety of different subjects including mystery fiction, religion, and liter
Longlisted for the National Book Award, this gorgeous and heartrending contemporary novel by the bestselling author of the Shatter Me series was inspired by her own experiences with first love, breakdancing, and the devastating impact of prejudice. It’s 2002, a year after 9/11, and Shirin has just started at yet another school. It’s an extremely turbulent time for the world, but especially for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped.Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. But she’s tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments―even the physical violence―she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. She decided long ago not to trust anyone anymore, and she doesn’t expect, or even try, to fit in anywhere or let anyone close enough to hurt her. She drowns out her frustrations with music and spends her afternoons breakdancing with her brother.But then she meets Ocean James. He’s the fir
One of the most respected religious thinkers of our time makes an impassioned plea for the return of religion to its true purpose—as a partnership with God in the work of ethical and moral living.What
Many appreciate Richard P. Feynman’s contributions to twentieth-century physics, but few realize how engaged he was with the world around him—how deeply and thoughtfully he considered the religious, political, and social issues of his day. Now, a wonderful book—based on a previously unpublished, three-part public lecture he gave at the University of Washington in 1963—shows us this other side of Feynman, as he expounds on the inherent conflict between science and religion, people’s distrust of politicians, and our universal fascination with flying saucers, faith healing, and mental telepathy. Here we see Feynman in top form: nearly bursting into a Navajo war chant, then pressing for an overhaul of the English language (if you want to know why Johnny can’t read, just look at the spelling of “friend”); and, finally, ruminating on the death of his first wife from tuberculosis. This is quintessential Feynman—reflective, amusing, and ever enlightening.
Based on a close reading of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s extant films, this book provides insights into the ways the director created narrative structures and used symbolism to construct meaning in his films. Against critics’ insistence that Ozu was indifferent to plot and unlikely to use symbols, Geist demonstrates otherwise, revealing the director’s subtle iconographic paradigms. Her incisive understanding of the historical and cultural context in which the films were conceived amplifies her analysis of the films’ structure and meaning. Ozu: A Closer Look guides the reader through Ozu’s early, silent films and his sound films made during Japan’s wars in Asia and the subsequent American Occupation, then takes up specific themes relevant to his later, better-known films. These themes include religion, gender, and the influence of traditional Japanese painting. Geist also examines the impact that Ozu’s films had on specific directors in Europe, America, and Japan. Intended for film
'If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural’Blaise Pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of Descartes, was a gifted mathematician and
Reinterprets the history of the United States from the first settlements to the Clinton administration, covering politics, economics, the arts, and society, emphasizing the role of religion and the li
‘Marvellous.’ A.S. Byatt‘Astonishing.’ John Gray‘Luminous.’ Rose TremainI could take whichever I would of these paths.Sammy Mountjoy is an artist who has risen from poverty to see his pictures hung in the Tate Gallery. Swept into World War II, he is captured as a German prisoner of war, threatened with torture and locked in a cell of total darkness. He emerges transfigured by his ordeal, realising how his choices have made him the author of his life, interrogating religion and rationality, early loves and formative beliefs – and questioning freedom itself.
