Includes two of John Ruskin's famous essays: "The Nature of the Gothic" and "The Work of Iron" from his book The Stones of Venice. Ruskin's insights into the need for individual artistic freedom, and his disdain for the mass-production art of the Victorian era, radically altered society's perception of creative design and remain powerfully relevant to our ideas of beauty today.
George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times
"A book you will want to read and read again." -- Eugene Peterson Afterword by Bono. How can you find a more transparent, resilient, and fearless life of faith? Open and Unafraid by David Taylor takes readers on a profound journey through the book of Psalms, which has been a central pillar for God's people for millennia, across all walks of life and cultural contexts. In reading it, we discover that we are never alone in our joys, sorrows, angers, doubts, praises, or thanksgivings. In it, we learn about prayer and poetry, honesty and community, justice and enemies, life and death, nations and creation. As a professor, pastor, author, and producer of the short film Bono and Eugene Peterson: The Psalms, David Taylor has created an accessible guide to the psalms that resonates deeply with first-time and long-time Bible readers, poets and artists, devout believers and spiritual seekers alike. Open and Unafraid shows you how to read the psalms in a fresh, life-giving way, and so access the bottomless resources for life and experience the presence of God--in order to deepen discipleship and worship. Endorsements: "David Taylor’s take is 'open and unafraid' alright. He really goes there, exposing himself before God in the most beautiful way. He might have called the book Naked, because if you don’t find your own self feeling a little exposed here, it might be time to take some armor off." -- Bono, from the Afterword "A book that you will want to read and read again, and yet again, in order to discover the wisdom of the Psalms that shows us how to walk in the life-giving way of Jesus." -- Eugene Peterson, from the Foreword "A winsome, accessible entry into the Book of Psalms…Connects the poetry of the psalms to real-life wonders and struggles." -- Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary "Taylor reads these biblical prayers with Dr. Seuss, rappers, and other poets, along with theologians and the daily news....Guides readers in tracing out patterns of holy speech that have the potential for healing our hearts and our communities." -- Ellen F. Davis, Duke Divinity School "I have always loved the psalms--for their defiant devotion, their deep joy, and their brutal yet beautiful honesty. And after reading this fantastic book about them, I love them even more." -- Matt Redman, worship leader and song writer "In these fraught and fearsome days, we need the psalms more than ever. And we need more faithful artists and thinkers like David Taylor to mine the infinite gifts the psalms offer across the ages." -- Karen Swallow Prior, author of Fierce Convictions
How do the arts in worship form individuals and communities? Every choice of art in worship opens up and closes down possibilities for the formation of our humanity. Every practice of music, every decision about language, every use of our bodies, every approach to visual media or church buildings forms our desires, shapes our imaginations, habituates our emotional instincts, and reconfigures our identity as Christians in contextually meaningful ways, generating thereby a sense of the triune God and of our place in the world. Glimpses of the New Creation argues that the arts form us in worship by bringing us into intentional and intensive participation in the aesthetic aspect of our humanity—that is, our physical, emotional, imaginative, and metaphorical capacities. In so doing they invite the people of God to be conformed to Christ and to participate in the praise of Christ and in the praise of creation, which by the Spirit’s power raises its peculiar voice to the Father in heaven, for the sake of the world that God so loves.
