English Culture

The Crusades is an authoritative, accessible single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Thomas Asbridge—a renowned historian who writes with “maximum vividness” (Joan Acocella, The New Yorker)—covers the years 1095 to 1291 in this big, ambitious...

As one of the foremost evangelical thinkers of the twentieth century, Francis A. Schaeffer long pondered the fate of declining Western culture. Profoundly aware of the similarities modern culture shares with societies that came before, Schaeffer embarked on a journey to uncover the movements that gave rise to modern culture and resulted in the decline of the Christian worldview.

2024 Grammy Award Winner #1 NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER In an inspiring follow-up to her acclaimed memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today’s highly uncertain world. ...

Anne Gallagher grew up enchanted by her grandfather’s stories of Ireland. Heartbroken at his death, she travels to his childhood home to spread his ashes. There, overcome with memories of the man she adored and consumed by a history she never knew, she is pulled into another time. The Ireland of 1921, teetering on the edge of war, is a dangerous place in which to awaken. But there Anne finds herself, hurt, disoriented, and under the care of Dr. Thomas Smith, guardian to a young boy who is oddly familiar.

“Hi. I know everything about this school. And for your information, Harry and Noah happen to be my best mates. That’s why I took it upon myself to sit next to you and introduce myself. I saw the way Harry was wrapped around you and the way Noah looked like he wanted to murder you. You’ve already gotten my boys twisted up, plus half the girls in History, so I had to see what the fuss was all about. You’re the new girl and bound to cause drama, so I figured it’s my civic duty to help guide you through the hostile and hormonal battlefield that is Kensington School.”

Divided Nation: Cultures in Chaos & A Conflicted Church provides families and their churches biblical mandates to awaken and arise as influencers in today’s turbulent times. As Christian persecution increases, the Body of Christ needs to prepare to take a bold stand. Ken Ham, CEO and founder of Answers in Genesis-US, the highly acclaimed Creation Museum, and the world-renowned Ark Encounter, sounds the call for Reformation bringing God’s people back to the authority of the Word of God beginning in Genesis.

Through vivid stories studded with insights, award-winning author Tamim Ansary tells the story of how humans invented history, from the Stone Age to the Virtual Age. Fifty thousand years ago, we roamed the world as countless autonomous bands of hunter-gatherers, each one telling itself a story...

When two Stanford graduate students set out to create a new kind of cigarette that wouldn’t kill them, they didn’t foresee all the obstacles that lay ahead — or the powerful forces their invention would unleash. Nearly 10 years after the launch of the JUUL, Backfired: The Vaping Wars asks: Could e-cigarettes have been the solution to one of the world’s most pressing public health problems—or was this technology doomed to introduce a whole new generation to nicotine, and end up perpetuating an intractable addiction?

National Book Award winner Gloria Whelan brilliantly recreates the final days of tsarist Russia. For young Katya Ivanova, playmate to the Grand Duchesses of Russia, St. Petersburg in 1914 is a magical place. But outside the palace, changes are sweeping through the country, threatening everything and everyone Katya loves.

“Juicy. . . . Dowd has a knack for asking questions that go right up to the edge of intrusion but instead yield thoughtful, intimate insights.”—Los Angeles Times “A pleasure. . . . Throughout, her experienced journalist’s knack for colorful quotes moves her subjects beyond their...

The Ape That Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behavior, our child-rearing patterns, our moral codes, our religions, our languages, and science? The book tackles these issues by drawing on ideas from two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory.

Athena Aktipis of Arizona State University is a self-professed apocalypse enthusiast, and as the host of the podcast Zombified, she knows the undead inside and out. With Zombified: Real-World Lessons from Fictional Apocalypses, she’s compiled her research and insights into a fascinating Audible Original that will have you thinking deeper about all those shambling, brain-hungry corpses in pop culture—not to mention our everyday lives. Drawing on years of research on zombies and zombification, these six lessons offer a fun way to explore and understand the many forces that influence us.

All Ida Mae Jones wants to do is fly. Her daddy was a pilot, and years after his death she feels closest to him when she's in the air. But as a young black woman in 1940s Louisiana, she knows the sky is off limits to her, until America enters World War II, and the Army forms the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Ida has a chance to fulfill her dream if she's willing to use her light skin to pass as a white girl. She wants to fly more than anything, but Ida soon learns that denying one's self and family is a heavy burden, and it's not what you do but who you are that's most important.

"A thoughtful, funny, and at times lyrical" (Wall Street Journal) exploration of why people all over the world love to engage in pain on purpose--from dominatrices, religious ascetics, and ultramarathoners to ballerinas, icy ocean bathers, and sideshow performers Masochism is sexy, human...

In Indistractable, Eyal reveals the hidden psychology driving us to distraction. He describes why solving the problem is not as simple as swearing off our devices: Abstinence is impractical and often makes us want more. Eyal lays bare the secret of finally doing what you say you will do with a four-step, research-backed model. Indistractable reveals the key to getting the best out of technology, without letting it get the best of us.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A fascinating and enlightening deep dive into the infamous Disney Adult community from the woman behind the popular website The Disney Food Blog. Disney Adults are grown-ups who derive singular, almost obsessive, joy from all things Disney. They devote countless...

Evolutionary theory has long established that humans are animals: Modern Homo sapiens are primates who share an ancestor with monkeys and other great apes. Our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee's. And yet we think of ourselves as exceptional. Are we? In this original and entertaining tour of life on Earth, Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the "human animal".

*With a foreword from Tim Keller* A bold vision for Christians who want to engage the world in a way that is biblically faithful and culturally sensitive. In Biblical Critical Theory, Christopher Watkin shows how the Bible and its unfolding story help us make sense of modern life and culture...

In The Eagle of the Ninth, Marcus Flavius Aquila ventured into the wilds of Caledonia to retrieve the lost Eagle of his father's dishonored Ninth Legion. In this new story of Roman Britain, the mutilated standard is found again by Flavius, a descendant of Marcus, and his cousin Justin, a young surgeon in the Roman army. It is found at a time when conflicting loyalties, violence, and intrigue are undermining Roman rule in Britain.

Hanna Slivka is on the cusp of 14 when Hitler's army crosses the border into Soviet-occupied Ukraine. Soon, the Gestapo closes in, determined to make the shtetele she lives in "free of Jews". Until the German occupation, Hanna spent her time exploring Kwasova with her younger siblings, admiring the drawings of the handsome Leon Stadnick, and helping her neighbor dye decorative eggs. But now she, Leon, and their families are forced to flee and hide in the forest outside their shtetele—and then in the dark caves beneath the rolling meadows, rumored to harbor evil spirits.