Great Authors

There are some names that just fall off the tongue with the lilting promise of great things, and John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (usually abbreviated to JRR Tolkien) is a perfect example. In his own lifetime this softly spoken, pipe smoking, tweed clad Oxford College Professor, the quintessential Englishman, caused a tremendous stir when he wrote first “The Hobbit” and then “The Lord of the Rings”. But Tolkien could never have guessed the impact his beloved books would continue to have on future generations of readers, and since Peter Jackson’s wonderful 21st Century movie adaptations ...

In this fascinating tale set in 1919, the Thomas family leaves New Orleans for Chicago as part of the Great Migration, seeking equality denied in the South. They are confident and optimistic. But hope is extinguished when they are met by 6,000 National Guard troops deployed to quell an earlier race riot. Linda and Ben prepare their nephew Trey to lead the family through the treacherous landscape of a big city plagued by segregation, police violence, and corruption. Is he ready? They devise a risky plan to challenge real estate covenants banning Blacks from buying homes in white ...

Once upon a time, as all good stories with happy endings begin, a penniless young mother walked the streets of Edinburgh with her beloved baby daughter, hoping to make her fortune. In truth, “fortune” is probably over-exaggerating; enough money to feed and clothe the two of them and put a decent roof over their heads was all this young mother asked, but it was proving to be incredibly difficult. Yet this is no fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson, it’s the true story of one of the most successful women the world has ever known, who in 1990 came up with the ...

Trent Shelton seemed to have it all together - until everything fell apart. A college football standout, his NFL dreams died when he was cut from multiple teams. With no job and no prospects, learning he had a child out of wedlock on the way and numbing himself with whatever he could find, Trent then found out one of his closest friends had killed himself. Life seemed without hope - until Trent discovered the secret to finding promise in the darkest of times. And now he shares that secret with you.

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door - Only this, and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had tried to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore - For the rare and ...

Inspire yourself and others with the second edition of this best-seller. With heartfelt advice, practical wisdom, and examples from the field, Todd Whitaker explains the qualities and practices that distinguish great principals.

Are there hidden Scriptures locked away in secret underground vaults, kept from the public? What would Christian sacred texts look like if they were written and revealed today? And if such writings existed, how would you receive them? Scholars and religious authorities assure us that the Scriptural canon is closed. Yet, the more we scrutinize, the more we are left to question the veracity of this stance. What if other Scriptures remain hidden or unfound, perhaps written for a time such as this? What would they read like? What would they reveal? How would they be received? Chronicles of the ...

The First World War laid waste to a continent and brought about the end of innocence — and the end of faith. Unlike a generation of young writers who lost faith in the God of the Bible, however, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis found that the Great War deepened their spiritual quest. Both men served as soldiers on the Western Front, survived the trenches, and used the experience of that conflict to ignite their Christian imagination.

In this seventh book in the series, boys learn about The Korean War (1950-53), also known as the “The Forgotten War.” Despite more than 2 million casualties, most people—young and old—can not fully explain this international conflict or why the United States sacrificed so much treasure to fight it. But your son will learn about stunning modern warfare—ensuring history is anything but “forgotten.”

C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?

The ultimate collection of great short stories by the best Russian classic authors. 1. "Her Lover" by Maxim Gorky 2. "The Empty Drum" by Count Leo Tolstoy 3. "The Hoop" by Fedor Sologub 4. "The District Doctor" by Ivan Turgenev 5. "The White Dog" by Fedor Sologub 6. "The Cloak" by Nikolai Gogol 7. "A Soothing Dream" by Fedor Sologub 8. "The Christmas Tree and the Wedding" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 9. "A Work of Art" by Anton Chekhov 10. "Children Wiser Than Their Fathers" by Count Leo Tolstoy

Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he embarked on the creation of Middle-earth in his youth as the world around him was plunged into catastrophe. This biography reveals the horror and heroism that he experienced as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme and introduces the circle of friends who spurred his mythology to life.

The author of the "dazzling epic" (Lev Grossman, Time) Brilliant delivers an indelible view of the ways silence affects those who seek it and those who have it imposed upon them. Through her original, intertwined histories of the penitentiary and the monastery, Jane Brox illuminates the many ways silence is far more complex than any absolute; how it has influenced ideas of the self, soul, and society.

In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.

Part history, part true-crime, and entirely entertaining, listen to the story of how the behemoth Oxford English Dictionary was made. You'll hang on every word as you discover that the dictionary's greatest contributor was also an insane murderer working from the confines of an asylum.

In the second memoir of her Crosswicks Journals, Madeleine L'Engle chronicles a season of extremes. Four generations of family have gathered at Crosswicks, her Connecticut farmhouse, to care for L'Engle's ninety-year-old mother. As summer days fade to sleepless nights, her mother's health rapidly declines and her once astute mind slips into senility. With poignant honesty, L'Engle describes the gifts and graces, as well as the painful emotional cost, of caring for the one who once cared for you.

There are few amongst us who have not heard of the great romantic poet William Wordsworth, an artist who has for centuries, enchanted his readers with his eloquent verse and magnificent imagery. As a man who revelled in the beauty of nature, his love of the natural world shines through his stirring words, while all the while he attempted to unveil the hidden magic of the countryside. From the beautiful sites of the Lake District where he spent most of his life to the Scottish Lowlands and beyond, Wordsworth created unforgettable images, which would change people’s vision of rural Britain ...

In Bubble in the Sun Christopher Knowlton shows us the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Mar-a-Lago, Miami Beach, and other storied sites. It was a time when the nightlife raged more raucously than anywhere else in America; workers, mostly black, who built and maintained the boom endured grievous abuses; and the pure beauty of the Everglades suffered wanton ruination. Knowlton also breathes dynamic life into the four forces that made and/or broke Florida in the time.

In 1926, Henry Beston spent two weeks in a two-room cottage on the sand dunes of Cape Cod. He had not intended to stay longer, but, as he later wrote, "I lingered on, and as the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go."

Her royal birth gave her claim to the thrones of two nations; her marriage to the young French dauphin promised to place a third glorious crown on her noble head. Instead, Mary Stuart became the victim of her own impulsive heart, scandalizing her world with a foolish passion that would lead to abduction, rape, and even murder. Here is her story, a queen who lost a throne for love, a monarch pampered and adored even as she was led to her beheading, the unforgettable woman who became a legend for all time.