Central Skagit Library District

"Renowned religion expert and Harvard Divinity School professor Harvey Cox deepens our experience of the Bible, revealing the three primary ways we read it, why each is important, and how we can integrate these approaches for a richer understanding and appreciation of key texts throughout the Old and New Testaments.The Bible is the heart of devotional practice, a source of guidance and inspiration rich with insightful life lessons. On the other side...

Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A. J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone...

Zadie Smith offers a collection of essays penned between 1999 and 2009.

Examining the popularity of low-budget cinema, particularly slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films, the author argues that, while such films have been traditionally understood as offering only sadistic pleasure to their mostly male audiences, in actuality they align spectators not with the male tormentor but with the females being tormented--particularly the slasher movie's "final girls"--Who endure fear and degradation before rising to save themselves.--Adapted...

This title examines the genre of nonfiction in Enchanted Air, Brown Girl Dreaming, Chasing Lincoln's Killer, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, andPlastic: A Toxic Love Story. It features four analysis papers that consider nonfiction, each using different critical lenses, writing techniques, or aspects of the genre. Critical thinking questions, sidebars highlighting and explaining each thesis and argument, and other possible approaches for analysis...

This title examines the genre of poetry in the work of William Shakespeare, Rafael Campo, Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, Yuko Taniguchi, Langston Hughes, and Gwendolyn Bennett. It features four analysis papers that consider poetry, each using different critical lenses, writing techniques, or aspects of the genre. Critical thinking questions, sidebars highlighting and explaining each thesis and argument, and other possible approaches for analysis...

"Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Her life is fascinating for its mysteries and its passions and, as Lucy Worsley says, "She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern." She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness. So why--despite all the evidence to the...

Learn about the exciting life and times of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the era of the Jazz Age, and its influence on Fitzgerald's greatest works.

This title examines the genre of young adult literature in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,Speak,We Were Liars,Between Shades of Gray, andThe Maze Runner. It features four analysis papers that consider young adult literature, each using different critical lenses, writing techniques, or aspects of the genre. Critical thinking questions, sidebars highlighting and explaining each thesis and argument, and other possible approaches for...

This title examines the genre of mystery in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Westing Game, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Eye of the Crow, andA Spy in the House. It features four analysis papers that consider mystery, each using different critical lenses, writing techniques, or aspects of the genre. Critical thinking questions, sidebars highlighting and explaining each thesis and argument, and other possible approaches for analysis help students understand...