New Culture

Who was Jesus? Historical sources portray a person who was complex, multi-layered, and often contradictory to the tidy portrait that much of modern Christianity paints him as. Even the gospel accounts render him as both judge and healer, teacher and temple, servant and savior. A Doubter's Guide to Jesus is a persuasive and often challenging investigation into the historical figure found in the earliest sources. These sources, which include references both direct and indirect - from Roman, Jewish, and Christian accounts - offer us more than simple evidence that Jesus existed.

The National Book Award finalist for Refund returns with a new collection of stories that boldly examines the changes in American culture over the last two years through the increasing presence of violence, bigotry, sexual harassment, and the emotional costs of living under constant threat. In the title story, the competition between two middle school cellists is affected by a shooting at their school, and it is only years later that they realize how the intrusion of violence affected the course of their lives.

It is February 1983, and Berlin is a divided city with a miles-long barricade separating east from west. But the city isn't the only thing that is divided. Ada lives among the rebels, punkers, and immigrants of Kreuzberg in West Berlin. Stefan lives in East Berlin, in a faceless apartment bunker of Friedrichshain. Bound by love and separated by circumstance, their only chance for a life together lies in a high-risk escape. But will Stefan find the courage to leap? Or will forces beyond his control stand in his way?

Culture Gap: Towards a New World in the Yalakom Valley tells the story of a two year sojourn at the Camelsfoot Commume in a remote valley in BC, Canada. The challenges and privations, the joys and adventures of rural communal living, form the backdrop to the human drama the author recounts. Judith and Kip Plant's family includes her children; Willie takes to the new life, but his sisters feel the strong pull of the life they left behind. Meanwhile Fred, the inspiration for the commune, stricken with cancer, is dying.

Letters from Jesus: Studies from the Seven Churches of Revelation explores Christ’s warnings to the seven most prominent churches in Asia Minor in the book of Revelation. These letters date back to 95 AD, but they help us make a fascinating discovery about civilization: Life hasn’t changed that much over the last two millennia. Author Chris Palmer illustrates the truths contained in the Letters from Jesus using modern, everyday examples.

Nori Tanaka is thrilled to be studying abroad in Tokyo, Japan, but it isn't exactly what she had imagined. She expected tranquil gardens and swoopy-roofed houses, not concrete and neon. And everyone assumes that, with her traditional Japanese features, she's a native instead of the naïve Japanese-American that she really is. Even Erik, a gorgeous German student, mistakes Nori for Japanese, and treats her like a personal tour guide. Nori is sure that he'll like her for who she is once he gets to know her, so what harm can come of temporarily pretending to be Japanese?

This Very Short Introduction audiobook offers a clear, accessible, and concise account of the apocryphal gospels - exploring their origins, their discovery, and discussing how the various texts have been interpreted both by the Church and beyond.

The '80s were about big ideas writ large - new money, new style, gender fluidity, gay pride, attritional politics, the 'special relationship', nuclear fear, AIDS, cocaine, ecstasy, tabloid royalty, the rise of urban pop and ultimately geopolitical chaos. Using a big narrative approach, Dylan Jones' history of the decade in pop frames the decade through some of its most important and popular hits, choosing records that either epitomised their time or ushered in a new cultural shift.

Leading change is not about breaking things - it’s about using empathy to enrich the world. In Empathy for Change: How to Create an Understanding World, former White House entrepreneur-in-residence Amy J. Wilson dives into the intricate science of empathy, debunking common myths and sharing practical uses for a better society.

You Can’t Fix What You Can’t See provides a framework to understand some of the key differences between the way men and women think to bring new meaning to your experiences (both past and present). It will give you the power to “see” differently and to interpret actions, behavior, and conversations through a new and more powerful lens. Find the tools and motivation you need to pursue change, so that our next generation inherits a better, more inclusive workplace.

Dive into a whirlwind of mind-bending trivia and say hello to unforgettable conversations without ever leaving the comfort of your armchair! Are you constantly searching for facts that will astound your friends and family? Are you eager to explore the world's oddities yet overwhelmed by dull, dry, and jargon-filled resources? If any of these questions ring true, rest assured that your quest for a perfect treasure trove of mind candy and factoids is inside this crazy-fun book!

Can a story written almost 200 years ago help us understand the modern world? In Searching for Goldilocks, Dr. Matt Kresl explores the search for “just right” within and all around us. Basing his discussion on the Goldilocks Principle, a reference to the children’s fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Dr. Kresl focuses on how science, spirituality, and storytelling form a launching point to explore the concept of “just right” in everyday life.

Having made his name in the late 1980s as a member of the indie band Galaxie 500, Damon Krukowski has watched cultural life lurch from analog to digital. And as an artist who has weathered the transition, he has challenging, urgent questions for both creators and consumers about what we have thrown away in the process.

Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom explores the reach, penetration, power, and impact of Big Digital or the mega-information managers, social media platforms, Artificial Intelligence developers, providers of other web applications and functionalities, and the architects and proponents of the promised Internet of Things.

To call these unsettling times is an understatement: our political leaders are less and less respectable; in the realm of business, cheating, lying, and stealing are hazily defined; and in daily life, rapidly changing technology offers permission to act in ways inconceivable without it. Yet somehow this hasn't quite led to a complete free-for-all - people still draw lines around what is acceptable and what is not. Collinsworth sets out to understand how and why.

Techniques to have more fun in the workplace for workers everywhere.

Spirituality is the basis for all successful organizations and the most important asset you have in elevating you and your business to a new level of performance. The most successful individuals and firms in the world are changing the way they do business, in order to access a vast resevoir of untapped energy. You too can join the revolution, because the tools these people are utilizing are found inside each and every one of us.

Food snobbery is killing entrepreneurship and innovation, says economist, preeminent social commentator, and maverick dining guide blogger Tyler Cowen. Americans are becoming angry that our agricultural practices have led to global warming-but while food snobs are right that local food tastes better, they're wrong that it is better for the environment, and they are wrong that cheap food is bad food. The food world needs to know that you don't have to spend more to eat healthy, green, exciting meals. At last, some good news from an economist!

In Collaborative Intelligence: Design Better Collaboration, Improve Team Productivity, and Build a Culture of Connection, the workplace collaboration experts at MURAL offer a holistic and comprehensive system for fixing today’s broken teamwork culture. This book introduces the emerging practice of collaboration design, a cutting-edge approach to crafting collaborative experiences with a high degree of intentionality so that they deliver extraordinary, repeatable outcomes.

Whether you work at a start-up, tech giant, or Fortune 500 company, we all encounter the same problems that arise every day in our quest for results: stubborn obstacles that are difficult to break through, lofty goals and objectives we are accountable to achieve, new and challenging tasks that we’ve never done before. How, exactly, do we tap into this reserve of expertise that already exists in the teams and organizations we work in every day? The team at the coaching and leadership training company Zero to Ten proposes the way: Self-Directed Performance Coaching.