Religion & Spirituality

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“Sonnet 55” (1609) is an English love sonnet by renowned poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The sonnet is part of Shakespeare’s Fair Youth sonnet sequence, which makes up the first 126 of his sonnets. This sonnet follows a number of the Fair Youth sonnets in the way it praises the fair youth’s beauty and claims his beauty is eternal. In this sonnet specifically, Shakespeare claims that the subject’s beauty will outlive all monuments of princes and... Read Sonnet 55 Summary

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Sophie's World is a young adult book by Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder. The book follows main character Sophie, a young girl who is fourteen years old and living with her parents in Norway. Sophie's life changes dramatically when she receives a series of strange postcards, which ask her large, existential questions about the world around her. Each day, Sophie receives a postcard, and in the evenings she receives a package from a man named Alberto... Read Sophie's World Summary

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Matthew Arnold’s “Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse” takes its name from a seventeenth-century monastery in Grenoble in the French Alps, famous as the headquarters of the Carthusian order of Catholic monks. Arnold wrote this philosophical poem after visiting the monastery in the early 1850s. Comprised of thirty-five stanzas, each of which contains six lines of iambic tetrameter verse set to an “ABABCC” rhyme scheme, the poem is one of the better-known examples of Arnold’s early poetry... Read Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse Summary

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Stories of Your Life and Others is a collection of short stories published in 2002 by the American science fiction and fantasy writer Ted Chiang. The book contains eight stories that belong to science fiction, science fantasy, alternative history, and magic realism genres. Seven of the eight stories appeared in previous publications. In the stories, Chiang explores concepts including the ethics of science, the benefits and dangers of intelligence, and cultural differences in alternate realities... Read Stories of Your Life and Others Summary

Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) is considered a classic of the science fiction genre. Heinlein, along with Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, is regarded as one of the Big Three writers of science fiction’s Golden Age. Stranger in a Strange Land examines themes of cultural otherness, the role of religion in public life, and the link between love and spirituality. Despite mixed reviews upon its release, the novel was awarded the... Read Stranger in a Strange Land Summary

Summa Theologica (originally Summa Theologiae) is the principal work of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), an Italian friar, philosopher, and theologian and one of the central figures in medieval Christian thought. Aquinas wrote the Summa between 1265 and 1273, intending it to serve as a summation of all known theological learning for seminarians. He never finished the massive Latin work, but what he completed has influenced Roman Catholic theology and Western thought in general. Aquinas’ central... Read Summa Theologica Summary

Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and academic Edward J. Larson is a work of historical non-fiction first published in 1997 that discusses the history of the Scopes trial, the events surrounding it, and the aftermath. The 2006 edition includes a new afterword by the author.Larson begins by describing the geopolitical environment in the United States at the time of the 1925... Read Summer for the Gods Summary

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Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’s spiritual autobiography, tracing the steps that led up to his conversion to Christianity. This guide refers to the 1955 Harcourt Brace & Company/Harvest Books edition. Lewis was born in 1898 in Ireland and begins his story with his childhood in Belfast, where he and his family lived in a maze-like house full of empty attics and heaps of books. He was close with his older brother, and together they... Read Surprised by Joy Summary

The Tao Te Ching is a guide to the philosophy of Taoism and commonly credited to 6th-century BCE Chinese philosopher and writer Lao Tzu, though some portions of the text date back to the late 4th century. Taoism was a school of thought and method for survival in turbulent times, and its eighty-one short books explain what the Tao (roughly translated as “the way”) consists of.The Tao Te Ching begins with the idea that the... Read Tao Te Ching Summary

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (2010) is a memoir written by Catholic priest Gregory (Greg) Boyle. The memoir relays Boyle’s experiences serving as the leader of the Dolores Mission Church in the gang capital of the world, Los Angeles. Boyle, a Jesuit, performed his earliest missionary work in an impoverished Bolivian village. There, Boyle gained two lifelong attributes: an unyielding desire to help the poor and the ability to speak Spanish... Read Tattoos on the Heart Summary

Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters is a collection of essays written by Annie Dillard and originally published in 1982. Dillard is an American writer whose 1974 narrative nonfiction work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Throughout the 14 essays of Teaching a Stone to Talk, Dillard touches on themes of nature, God, time, and memory. Some of the essays have received literary awards and distinctions: “Life on... Read Teaching a Stone to Talk Summary

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