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The Flame Imperishable

J. R. R. Tolkien was a profoundly metaphysical thinker, and one of the most formative influences on his imagination, according to this new study of his works, was the great thirteenth-century theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas. Structured around Tolkien’s Middle-earth creation myth, the Ainulindale, The Flame Imperishable follows the thought of Aquinas as a guide in laying bare the deeper foundations of many of the more familiar themes from Tolkien’s legendarium, including such notions as sub-creation, free will, evil, and eucatastrophe. More than merely using Aquinas to illuminate Tolkien, however, this study concludes that, through its appropriation of many of the philosophical and theological insights of Aquinas, what Tolkien’s literary opus achieves is an important and unique landmark in the history of Thomism itself, offering an imaginative and powerful contemporary retrieval, interpretation, and application of Thomistic metaphysics for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

How the Heather Looks

Over sixty years ago, Joan Bodger, her husband, and their two children traveled to the UK for the adventure of a lifetime. There, they sought to discover the lands they knew from their beloved children’s books. Come along and see for yourself the people and places behind the stories we love.

In Edinburgh, they stand outside the childhood home of Robert Louis Stevenson. They discover the countryside that inspired Caldecott’s illustrations in Whitworth. In the Lake District, the farm where Jemima Puddle-duck laid her eggs. And in Winnie the Pooh Country Mrs. Milne herself shows the way to “that enchanted place on the top of the Forest [where] a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.” Join their adventures, from sleeping in a wagon to “messing about” in boats on the Thames. While not all their quests end in victory, like any marvelous story, how they get there is what matters.

While we can’t all make the journey ourselves, we can let Joan Bodger take us along. As Emily Dickinson says, “even if we “have never seen a moor,” we can still imagine “how the heather looks.””

How the Heather Looks has been called ‘the book most often stolen by retiring children’s librarians.” This new edition features the stunning art by Mark Lang, and the authors’ afterword, written thirty years after the book was first released.

The Rector of Justin

Regarded as one of Louis Auchincloss’s most accomplished novels, THE RECTOR OF JUSTIN centers on Frank Prescott, the founder of an exclusive school for boys. Eighty years of his life unfold through the observations of six narrators, each with a unique perspective on the man, his motivations, and the roots of his triumphs and failings.

The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

In recent years, cultural commentators have sounded the alarm about the dire state of reading in America. Americans are not reading enough, they say, or reading the right books, in the right way.
In this book, Alan Jacobs argues that, contrary to the doomsayers, reading is alive and well in America. There are millions of devoted readers supporting hundreds of enormous bookstores and online booksellers. Oprah’s Book Club is hugely influential, and a recent NEA survey reveals an actual uptick
in the reading of literary fiction. Jacobs’s interactions with his students and the readers of his own books, however, suggest that many readers lack confidence; they wonder whether they are reading well, with proper focus and attentiveness, with due discretion and discernment. Many have absorbed
the puritanical message that reading is, first and foremost, good for you–the intellectual equivalent of eating your Brussels sprouts. For such people, indeed for all readers, Jacobs offers some simple, powerful, and much needed advice: read at whim, read what gives you delight, and do so without
shame, whether it be Stephen King or the King James Version of the Bible. In contrast to the more methodical approach of Mortimer Adler’s classic How to Read a Book (1940), Jacobs offers an insightful, accessible, and playfully irreverent guide for aspiring readers. Each chapter focuses on one
aspect of approaching literary fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and the book explores everything from the invention of silent reading, reading responsively, rereading, and reading on electronic devices.
Invitingly written, with equal measures of wit and erudition, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction will appeal to all readers, whether they be novices looking for direction or old hands seeking to recapture the pleasures of reading they first experienced as children.