Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Rule of Saint Benedict (Vintage Spiritual Classics)

The Rule of Saint Benedict (Vintage Spiritual Classics)

by Benedict

Composed nearly fifteen years ago by the father of Western monasticism, The Rule of St. Benedict has for centuries been the guide of religious communities. St. Benedict's rules of obedience, humility, and contemplation are not only prerequisites for formal religious societies, they also provide an invaluable model for anyone desiring to live more simply. While they presuppose a certain detachment from the world,... (more)

Things Fall Apart: A Novel

by Chinua Achebe

This is Chinua Achebe's classic novel, with more than two million copies sold since its first U.S. publication in 1969. Combining a richly African story with the author's keen awareness of the qualities common to all humanity, Achebe here shows that he is "gloriously gifted, with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent." -- Nadine Gordimer

The Aeneid

by Virgil

Virgil's great epic transforms the Homeric tradition into a triumphal statement of the Roman civilizing mission. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald.

Unexpected News: Reading the Bible With Third World Eyes

Unexpected News: Reading the Bible With Third World Eyes

by Robert McAfee Brown

This is a mind-changing book that seeks to transform attitudes in North American churches. A book on how and why to read the scriptures.

A Sky So Close: A Novel

by Batu?l Khud?ayri?

In this elegant, incisive debut, a young girl comes of age while aching for a sense of belonging. Daughter of an Iraqi father and an English mother, the unnamed narrator struggles with isolation both in the traditional Iraqi countryside where she’s raised and at the Western school of music and ballet that her mother insists she attend. Though she finds some semblance of solace in dance, her trials increase when... (more)

The Confessions of St. Augustine

by Augustine

In his own day the dominant personality of the Western Church, Augustine of Hippo today stands as perhaps the greatest thinker of Christian antiquity, and his Confessions is one of the great works of Western literature. In this intensely personal narrative, Augustine relates his rare ascent from a humble Algerian farm to the edge of the corridors of power at the imperial court in Milan, his struggle against the... (more)

Benedita Da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman's Story of Politics and Love

Benedita Da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman's Story of Politics and Love

by Benedita da Silva

In this engaging memoir, Brazilian cabinet member Benedita da Silva shares the inspiring story of her life as an advocate for the rights of women, people of color, and the poor, and argues persuasively for economic and social human rights in Brazil and everywhere.

Discourse On Free Will (Continuum Impacts)

Discourse On Free Will (Continuum Impacts)

by Martin Luther, Desiderius Erasmus

Desiderius Eramsus (1466/9-1536) was the most renowned scholar of his age, a celebrated humanist and Classicist, and the first teacher of Greek at Cambridge. An influential figure in the Protestant Reformation, though without ever breaking from the Church himself, he satirised both human folly and the corruption of the Church. Martin Luther (1483-1546) was the founder of the German Reformation. His 95 Theses... (more)

The Merchant of Venice

by William Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library The world's leading center for Shakespeare studies Each edition includes: • Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play • Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play • Scene-by-scene plot summaries • A key to famous lines and phrases • An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language • An essay by an... (more)

Paradise Lost

by John Milton

Edited with an introduction and notes by John Leonard.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself (Dodo Press)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself (Dodo Press)

by Frederick Douglass

Large format for easy reading. Classic work from one of the most prominent African-Americans of his time, and one of the most influential lecturers and authors in American history. Douglass was an African-American, born into slavery, who became an editor, orator, author, publisher, statesman and reformer. His most well-known work is his first autobiography which critics frequently attacked as inauthentic, not... (more)

The Iliad

by Homer

"Each new generation is bound to produce new translations. <Lattimore> has done better with nobility, as well as with accuracy, than any other modern verse translator. <In> our age we do not often find a fine scholar who is also a genuine poet and who takes the greatest pains over the work of translation."--Hugh Lloyd-Jones, New York Review of Books

The History of the Peloponnesian War

by Thucydides

Translated by Richard Crawley

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno (Vol 1)

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno (Vol 1)

by Dante Alighieri

The first volume of this new Divine Comedy presents the Italian text of the Inferno, and, on facing pages, Robert Durling's new prose translation, which brings a new power and accuracy to the rendering of Dante's extraordinary vision of Hell, with all its terror, pathos, and sardonic humor, and its penetrating analyses of the psychology of sin and the ills that plague society. Readers will prize the directness and... (more)

Guns, Germs, and Steel

The Fates of Human Societies

by Jared Diamond

With a new chapter. The phenomenal bestseller—over 1.5 million copies sold—is now a major PBS special. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the... (more)

Bruchko

by Bruce Olson

What happens when a nineteen-year-old boy and heads into the jungles to evangelize a murderous tribe of South American Indians? For Bruce Olson it meant capture and torture, but what he discovered revolutionized the world of missions.

Machiavelli's The Prince

by Niccolo Machiavelli

Rufus Goodwin has made a new translation into modern English of Machiavelli's masterpiece, The Prince. Machiavelli, father of Social Sciences, continues to have relevance in our modern world, and his observations on the nature of human being and the political systems are as new today as they were during the Renaissance. In the Introduction, the adjective "Machiavellian" is analyzed.

Nicomachean Ethics, 2nd Edition

by Aristotle

Building on the strengths of the first edition, the second edition of the Irwin Nicomachean Ethics features a revised translation (without extensive editorial intervention), expanded notes (including a summary of the argument of each chapter), an expanded Introduction, and a revised glossary. Terence Irwin is Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy, Cornell University.

The Republic of Plato

by Plato

Plato's "Republic" is widely acknowledged as the cornerstone of Western philosophy. Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, it is an enquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation other questions are raised: what is goodness; what is reality; what is knowledge? "The Republic" also addresses the purpose of... (more)

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