In a world overflowing with to-do lists and self-help manuals, where pragmatism has a strong gravitational pull, it may feel like spending time in contemplation of the beauty and glory of the Lord is at best impractical and at worst irresponsible. After all, there is so much to do. Yet before we can adequately serve God, we must actually know God.With an eye toward the purpose for which we were made—to know God and enjoy Him forever—Theology for Life unpacks ten crucial do...

A theoretical physicist takes listeners on an awe-inspiring journey—found in "no other book" (Science)—to discover how the universe generates everything from nothing at all: "If you want to know what's really going on in the realms of relativity and particle physics, read this book" (Sean Carroll, author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe).In Waves in an Impossible Sea, physicist Matt Strassler tells a startling tale of elementary parti...

Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett - the names speak for themselves. Though these three men have found immense success at different times and in different fields, their stories share much in common. It all starts with the prodigious child - the young boy with uncanny abilities.For Musk, it was it his deep focus and his obsession with books. For Gates, it was his teenage enterprising and his early mastery of computing. For Buffett, it was his natural business sense and his af...

What does it take to prevail in Antarctica?Four geologists and two mountain guides face the brutal beauty of West Antarctica eight hundred miles from the United States main base. Their search reaches far into the treacherous mountains of Marie Byrd Land. Over six weeks of living in tents and traveling by snowmobile, the team endures endless cold and furious blizzards. They cross ice fields and hidden crevasses, which one of the team learns about the hard way.

A rich portrait of American Catholicism at a crossroads between crisis and opportunityThe most vocal leaders in the United States Catholic hierarchy today embrace a culture-war Catholicism that pits them against the pastoral priorities of Pope Francis and many Catholics in the pews.Reclaiming American Catholicism makes the argument that recalibrating the Church's engagement with politics and public life is vital for both the Church and the country....

In a world filled with breathtaking beauty, we have often overlooked the elusive charm and magic of certain landscapes. A cloudy river flows into a verdant Arctic wetland where sandhill cranes and muskoxen dwell. Further south, cypress branches hang low over dismal swamps. Places like these—collectively known as swamplands or peatlands—often go unnoticed for their ecological splendor. They are as globally significant as rainforests, and function as critical carbon sinks for addressing our ...

The price of emotional renunciation is a constant, wasteful expenditure of energy that leaves us depressed and taciturn, imprisoned in the apathy and ennui of the "Seen-that-Been-there-Done-that" syndrome. When we surrender and soften to our feelings, we reconnect with our inborn vitality, and with the invaluable instinct and intuition that our feelings naturally carry.The Tao of Fully Feeling describes the middle ground of emotional aliveness that lies between emotional d...

To his admirers, Luis W. Alvarez was the most accomplished, inventive, and versatile experimental physicist of his generation. During World War II, he achieved major breakthroughs in radar, played a key role in the Manhattan Project, and served as the lead scientific observer at the bombing of Hiroshima. In the decades that followed, he revolutionized particle physics with the hydrogen bubble chamber, developed an innovative X-ray method to search for hidden chambers in the Pyramid of Chep...

The rediscovery of a curator's lost journal illuminates the astonishing African journey that formed the basis of the Chicago Field Museum's famed collectionsAfter the extinction of the dodo and Carolina parakeet and the collapse of the American bison population, naturalists expected many more vulnerable species to die out with spread of industrialization. This triggered a race to collect rare species of animals expected soon to be lost forever. Established in 1893,...

One of the world's leading scholars of Buddhism presents the story of its dramatic journey across the globeOver the course of twenty-five centuries, Buddhism spread from its place of origin in northern India to become a global tradition of remarkable breadth, depth, and richness. Donald S. Lopez Jr. draws on the latest scholarship to construct a detailed and innovative history of Buddhism—not just as a chronology through the centuries or as geographic movement, but...

Why slowing down is the secret to spiritual strengthIn our fast-paced world of outrageous headlines and knee-jerk reactions, we struggle to hear God's voice amid the noise. Despite constant connectivity, our lives lack true spiritual connection and depth.A. J. Swoboda and Nijay Gupta offer a practical theology guide for building resilient faith through Christian discipleship. Addressing spiritual deconstruction and doubt with honesty, they show how to forti...

Finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in HistoryIn Continental Reckoning renowned historian Elliott West presents a sweeping narrative of the American West and its vital role in the transformation of the nation. In the 1840s, by which time the United States had expanded to the Pacific, what would become the West was home to numerous vibrant Native cultures and vague claims by other nations. Thirty years later it was organized into states and territories and...