Our current definition of “productivity” is broken. It pushes us to treat busyness as a proxy for useful effort, leading to impossibly lengthy task lists and ceaseless meetings. We’re overwhelmed by all we have to do and on the edge of burnout, left to decide between giving into soul-sapping hustle culture or rejecting ambition altogether. But are these really our only choices?

Long before the arrival of pinging inboxes and clogged schedules, history’s most creative and impactful philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers mastered the art of producing valuable work with staying power. In this timely and provocative book, Cal Newport harnesses the wisdom of these traditional knowledge workers to radically transform our modern jobs. Drawing from deep research on the habits and mindsets of a varied cast of storied thinkers – from Galileo and Isaac Newton, to Jane Austen and Georgia O’Keefe – Newport lays out the key principles of “slow productivity,” a more sustainable alternative to the aimless overwhelm that defines our current moment. Combining cultural criticism with systematic pragmatism, Newport deconstructs the absurdities inherent in standard notions of productivity, and then provides step-by-step advice for cultivating a slower, more humane alternative.

From the aggressive rethinking of workload management, to introducing seasonal variation, to shifting your performance toward long-term quality, Slow Productivity provides a roadmap for escaping overload and arriving instead at a more timeless approach to pursuing meaningful accomplishment. The world of work is due for a new revolution. Slow productivity is exactly what we need.

You have been lied to! Have you been deceived? Through a nationwide survey and in-depth discussion groups, Nancy and Dannah have listened carefully to the heart of your generation. And here are some things they’ve heard:

“I know God should be the only thing that satisfies, but if it could be Him and my friends, then I could be happy.”

"It seems like I have been struggling with depression forever. I always feel like I am not good enough.”

“I tell myself that I don’t really listen to the song lyrics, but once I hear a song a few times and start thinking about what they’re saying I realize that it's too late.  It's already stuck in my head."

"For me, the whole wife and mom thing is overrated. It isn’t cool to want a husband and a family.”

Maybe you can identify. Trying to listen to the right voices can be difficult. This book has been written by friends who will help you find the Truth. Maybe your heart is telling you that some things in your life are way off course. Certain habits and relationships have left you confused and lonely. This is not the way it’s supposed to be.

In this book, Nancy and Dannah expose 25 of the lies most commonly believed by your generation. They share real-life accounts from some of the young women they interviewed, along with honest stories about how they’ve overcome lies they themselves believed . They get down in the trenches of the battle with you. Best of all, they’ll show you how to be set free by the Truth.

In this stirring and true story, Gunther, a handicapped and neglected child born in Germany during World War I, finds a new home at Bethel, a Christian community for the physically and mentally impaired. At Bethel, Gunther learns to speak and sing, walk and work, and pray and praise. He experiences both the joy of making friends for the first time and the sorrow of having to say goodbye. Through the care of pastors, deaconesses, and teachers, Gunther finds meaning and purpose in music, thanksgiving, and the everyday exercise of a life lived well, no matter the limitations.

The love and security of Bethel is threatened, however, by the Nazi regime as it targets the vulnerable. Can its 2,000 residents be saved?

Published to coincide with the centenary of Tolstoy's death, here is an exciting new edition of one of the great literary works of world literature. Tolstoy's epic masterpiece captures with unprecedented immediacy the broad sweep of life during the Napoleonic wars and the brutal invasion of Russia. Balls and soirées, the burning of Moscow, the intrigues of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles, the quiet moments of everyday life--all in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed. The Maudes' translation of Tolstoy's epic masterpiece has long been considered the best English version, and now for the first time it has been revised to bring it fully into line with modern approaches to the text. French passages are restored, Anglicization of Russian names removed, and outmoded expressions updated. A new introduction by Amy Mandelker considers the novel's literary and historical context, the nature of the work, and Tolstoy's artistic and philosophical aims. New, expanded notes provide historical background and identifications, as well as insight into Russian life and society.

‘This, gentlemen, is my rule: if I fail I don’t lose heart, if I succeed I persevere, and in any case I am never underhand. I’m not one to intrigue - and I’m proud of it.!’

First published in 1846, The Double is one of the finest of Dostoevsky’s shorter works. It is a doppelgänger literature classic.

The morbidly sensitive and pretentious clerk Golyadkin, who is already mentally disturbed due to the social demands of his employment and unrequited love, develops a persecution mania, which leads him to meet another man who looks precisely like him and is the leader of a conspiracy against him. A series of encounters with this being eventually drives him insane and lands him in an asylum.

Learn how to reboot your metabolism, build strength, and extend your life with this accessible new guidebook that demonstrates the importance of muscle for health and longevity from the founder of the Institute for Muscle-Centric Medicine®.

After years of watching patients cycle through her practice, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon noticed a pattern. While her patients struggled with a wide range of conditions, they all suffered from the same core problem: they had too little muscle rather than too much fat.

When we think about muscle, we tend to think about strength or aesthetics, but in reality, muscle accounts for so much more than that. As the body’s largest endocrine organ, muscle actually determines everything about the trajectory of health and aging. Many of the conditions Dr. Lyon’s patients were experiencing were actually symptoms of underdeveloped or unhealthy muscle.

Now, Dr. Lyon offers an easy-to-follow food, fitness, and self-care program anchored in evidence and pioneering research that teaches you how to optimize muscle—no matter your age or health background. Discover how to overcome everything from obesity to autoimmune disorders and avoid diseases like Alzheimer’s, hypertension, and diabetes by following Dr. Lyon’s powerful new approach to becoming forever strong.

The visionary behind the bestselling phenomenon The Fourth Turning looks once again to America’s past to predict our future in this startling and hopeful prophecy for how our present era of civil unrest will resolve over the next ten years—and what our lives will look like once it has.

Twenty-five years ago, Neil Howe and the late William Strauss dazzled the world with a provocative new theory of American history. Looking back at the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly eighty to one hundred years, the length of a long human life, with each cycle composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always arrive in the same order and each last about twenty years. The last of these eras—the fourth turning—was always the most perilous, a period of civic upheaval and national mobilization as traumatic and transformative as the New Deal and World War II, the Civil War, or the American Revolution.

Now, right on schedule, our own fourth turning has arrived. And so Neil Howe has returned with an extraordinary new prediction. What we see all around us—the polarization, the growing threat of civil conflict and global war—will culminate by the early 2030s in a climax that poses great danger and yet also holds great promise, perhaps even bringing on America’s next golden age. Every generation alive today will play a vital role in determining how this crisis is resolved, for good or ill.

Illuminating, sobering, yet ultimately empowering, The Fourth Turning Is Here takes you back into history and deep into the collective personality of each living generation to make sense of our current crisis, explore how all of us will be differently affected by the political, social, and economic challenges we’ll face in the decade to come, and reveal how our country, our communities, and our families can best prepare to meet these challenges head-on.

The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education introduces readers to a paradigm for understanding a classical education that transcends the familiar 3-stage pattern of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Instead, this book describes the liberal arts as a central part of a larger and more robust paradigm of classical education that should consist of piety, gymnastic, music, liberal arts, philosophy, and theology. The Liberal Arts Tradition also recovers the means by which classical educators developed more than just intellectual virtue (by means of the 7 liberal arts) but holistically cultivated the mind, body, will, and affections. This is a must-read for educators who want to take a second big step toward recovering the tradition of classical education.

“This is a book about Heaven,” says Jayber Crow, “but I must say too that . . . I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell.” It is 1932 and he has returned to his native Port William to become the town's barber.

Orphaned at age ten, Jayber Crow’s acquaintance with loneliness and want have made him a patient observer of the human animal, in both its goodness and frailty.

He began his search as a “pre–ministerial student” at Pigeonville College. There, freedom met with new burdens and a young man needed more than a mirror to find himself. But the beginning of that finding was a short conversation with “Old Grit,” his profound professor of New Testament Greek.

“You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out—perhaps a little at a time.”

“And how long is that going to take?”

“I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps.”

“That could be a long time.”

“I will tell you a further mystery,” he said. “It may take longer.”

Wendell Berry’s clear–sighted depiction of humanity’s gifts—love and loss, joy and despair—is seen though his intimate knowledge of the Port William Membership.

It is 1757. Across north-eastern America the armies of Britain and France struggle for ascendancy. Their conflict, however, overlays older struggles between nations of native Americans for possession of the same lands and between the native peoples and white colonisers. Through these layers of conflict Cooper threads a thrilling narrative, in which Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of a British commander on the front line of the colonial war, attempt to join their father. Thwarted by Magua, the sinister 'Indian runner', they find help in the person of Hawk-eye, the white woodsman, and his companions, the Mohican Chingachgook and Uncas, his son, the last of his tribe.
Cooper's novel is full of vivid incident- pursuits through wild terrain, skirmishes, treachery and brutality- but reflects also on the interaction between the colonists and the native peoples. Through the character of Hawkeye, Cooper raises lasting questions about the practises of the American frontier and the eclipse of the indigenous cultures.

From Amazon: "In the classic The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis, the most important Christian writer of the 20th century, sets out to persuade his audience of the importance and relevance of universal values such as courage and honor in contemporary society. Both astonishing and prophetic, The Abolition of Man is one of the most debated of Lewis's extraordinary works. National Review chose it as number seven on their 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Twentieth Century."

From Amazon:

"In her earlier work, The History of the Ancient World, Susan Wise Bauer wrote of the rise of kingship based on might. But in the years between the fourth and twelfth centuries, rulers had to find new justification for their power, and they turned to divine truth or grace to justify political and military action. Right began to replace might as the engine of empire.

Not just Christianity and Islam but also the religions of the Persians, the Germans, and the Mayas were pressed into the service of the state. Even Buddhism and Confucianism became tools for nation building. This phenomenon―stretching from the Americas all the way to Japan―changed religion, but it also changed the state.

The History of the Medieval World is a true world history, linking the great conflicts of Europe to the titanic struggles for power in India and Asia. In its pages, El Cid and Guanggaeto, Julian the Apostate and the Brilliant Emperor, Charles the Hammer and Krum the Bulgarian stand side by side. From the schism between Rome and Constantinople to the rise of the Song Dynasty, from the mission of Muhammad to the crowning of Charlemagne, from the sacred wars of India to the establishment of the Knights Templar, this erudite book tells the fascinating, often violent story of kings, generals, and the peoples they ruled."