Book Table

Do you want to cook for a large group of people but are overwhelmed by the prospect? Look no further! Make meals that are quick, classy, and easy to assemble.

The need to feed a crowd is a fact of life for many Christian communities, but it doesn’t exist anywhere else in the American social scene. Google “feed a big group” and you’ll get cute entertainment magazines with suggestions for caviar and soufflés for six, or, on the other hand, a mass of gray casseroles requiring only hamburger, cream of mushroom, and crushed Fritos.

Where are the actually delicious recipes for an actually large group—whether for a regular Bible study or a home group or a school event—where you don’t have to multiply the recipe by 16?

That’s why Rebekah Merkle has put together these soup night recipes with the scaling, menu, tips, and taste-testing fine-tuned from years in her own home.

If you want to take hospitality seriously but aren’t sure how, this is the book for you. It’s packed with no-nonsense practical advice about grocery runs, best kitchen utensils, soup-night logistics, budget- and time-saving tips, and husband-approved soup recipes (with bread and cinnamon rolls to go with).

Soup Night Slapdashery provides the 16 recipes you need to start practicing hospitality for big crowds. (Yes, regular-batch-sized recipes are included as well.) The great news is this won’t take you a week of prep. With this handy cookbook, you can easily feed a crowd with just a few hours of work.

Cal Newport's clearly-written manifesto flies in the face of conventional wisdom by suggesting that it should be a person's talent and skill - and not necessarily their passion - that determines their career path.

Newport, who graduated from Dartmouth College (Phi Beta Kappa) and earned a PhD. from MIT, contends that trying to find what drives us, instead of focusing on areas in which we naturally excel, is ultimately harmful and frustrating to job seekers.

The title is a direct quote from comedian Steve Martin who, when once asked why he was successful in his career, immediately replied: "Be so good they can't ignore you" and that's the main basis for Newport's book. Skill and ability trump passion.

Inspired by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs' famous Stanford University commencement speech in which Jobs urges idealistic grads to chase their dreams, Newport takes issue with that advice, claiming that not only is thsi advice Pollyannish, but that Jobs himself never followed his own advice.

From there, Newport presents compelling scientific and contemporary case study evidence that the key to one's career success is to find out what you do well, where you have built up your 'career capital,' and then to put all of your efforts into that direction.

For over forty years, Leland Ryken has championed and modeled a Christian liberal arts education. His scholarship and commitment to integrating faith with learning in the classroom have influenced thousands of students who have sat under his winsome teaching. Published in honor of Professor Ryken and presented on the occasion of his retirement from Wheaton College, this compilation carries on his legacy of applying a Christian liberal arts education to all areas of life.

Five sections explore the background of a Christian liberal arts education, its theological basis, habits and virtues, differing approaches, and ultimate aims. Contributors including Philip Ryken, Jeffry Davis, Duane Litfin, John Walford, Alan Jacobs, and Jim Wilhoit analyze liberal arts as they relate to the disciplines, the Christian faith, and the world. Also included are a transcript of a well-known 1984 chapel talk delivered by Leland Ryken on the student’s calling and practical chapters on how to read, write, and speak well.

Comprehensive in scope, this substantial volume will be a helpful guide to anyone involved in higher education, as well as to students, pastors, and leaders looking for resources on the importance of faith in learning.

Behind their brave and independent exteriors young men are searching for answers. Without counsel how can they find the path that leads to inner joy and lasting contentment? Practical Happiness: A Young Man's Guide to a Contented Life offers such counsel. Through short, captivating stories, Bob Schultz has crafted a book to lead young men toward a life of contentment that can only be found by seeking the heart of God. Bob writes with a homespun wisdom born out of experience as well as a quest for a closer walk with God. His goal is to help young men chart a smooth course through life by addressing areas of faith, character, and subtleties of attitude that must be adjusted in order to direct them on the path to inner joy and lasting contentment.

Mary Carruthers’s classic study of the training and uses of memory for a variety of purposes in European cultures during the Middle Ages has fundamentally changed the way scholars understand medieval culture. This fully revised and updated second edition considers afresh all the material and conclusions of the first. While responding to new directions in research inspired by the original, this new edition devotes much more attention to the role of trained memory in composition, whether of literature, music, architecture, or manuscript books. The new edition will reignite the debate on memory in medieval studies and, like the first, will be essential reading for scholars of history, music, the arts and literature, as well as those interested in issues of orality and literacy (anthropology), in the working and design of memory (both neuropsychology and artificial memory), and in the disciplines of meditation (religion).

For the First Time in English, a Foundational Work of One of the Church's Most Important Theologians

As some point in life, we all wonder: Who am I? What is the world, and what is my place within it? Only Christianity offers answers to these questions in a way that meets our truest needs and satisfies our deepest longings.

In this important book, translated into English for the first time, Herman Bavinck provides a framework for understanding why the Christian worldview is the only solution to the discord we feel between ourselves, the world, and God.

This edition of Charlotte Mason’s Home Education Series is presented complete and unabridged, retaining the pagination of the original to make research and referencing easy. All the books have been fully transcribed and formatted using a clean and easy-to-read font so that there’s no excuse not to read these revolutionary works.In the second volume of her Home Education Series, Charlotte Mason collects some articles written for the Parent’s Review magazine written to encourage and instruct parents. Subjects discussed include:– The role of parents in guiding and inspiring their children– How to help children grow a good character– Parents responsibility in teaching Children about God– How to be gentle rather than harsh in discipline– How to deal with character flaws– Why we should teach children ‘why’

Gripping listeners and readers for more than 2,700 years, The Iliad is the story of the Trojan War and the rage of Achilles. Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic. If The Iliad is the world's greatest war story, then The Odyssey is literature's greatest evocation of every man's journey through life. Here again, Fagles has performed the translator's task magnificently, giving us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. Each volume contains a superb introduction with textual and critical commentary by renowned classicist Bernard Knox.

In his most famous and controversial book, Utopia, Thomas More imagines a perfect island nation where thousands live in peace and harmony, men and women are both educated, and all property is communal. Through dialogue and correspondence between the protagonist Raphael Hythloday and his friends and contemporaries, More explores the theories behind war, political disagreements, social quarrels, and wealth distribution and imagines the day-to-day lives of those citizens enjoying freedom from fear, oppression, violence, and suffering. Originally written in Latin, this vision of an ideal world is also a scathing satire of Europe in the sixteenth century and has been hugely influential since publication, shaping utopian fiction even today.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.