"Quest for the Best is not just a nostalgic look, however, at the age of handcrafted elegance. Marcus gives good advice on how consumers can educate themselves about the best, demand it, and get it. He describes his own experiences with the best in chapters such as "The Things You Love to Touch" and "Bed and Board." Witty, urbane, but always accessible, Marcus is a joy to read."--BOOK JACKET.

A princess and her dragon go on a quest for good manners so they won't be banned from the Queen's table.

Why efforts to create a scientific basis of morality are neither scientific nor moral In this illuminating book, James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky trace the origins and development of the centuries-long, passionate, but ultimately failed quest to discover a scientific foundation for morality. The "new moral science" led by such figures as E. O. Wilson, Patricia Churchland, Sam Harris, Jonathan Haidt, and Joshua Greene is only the newest manifestation of that quest. Though claims for its accomplishments are often wildly exaggerated, this new iteration has been no more successful than its predecessors. But rather than giving up in the face of this failure, the new moral science has taken a surprising turn. Whereas earlier efforts sought to demonstrate what is right and wrong, the new moral scientists have concluded, ironically, that right and wrong don't actually exist. Their (perhaps unwitting) moral nihilism turns the science of morality into a social engineering project. If there is nothing moral for science to discover, the science of morality becomes, at best, a feeble program to achieve arbitrary societal goals. Concise and rigorously argued, Science and the Good is a definitive critique of a would-be science that has gained extraordinary influence in public discourse today and an exposé of that project's darker turn.

Placed on a medical leave of absence from her job as a special agent in the National Protection and Investigation Unit, Mikala Flynn is a woman on the edge—guilt-ridden, depressed, battling war wounds and personal demons. The world and the relationships as she knew them no longer exist. Now, the streets of New York, the bottle, and anonymous sex have become her solace. In the midst of a fire escape bender, Flynn overhears her crazy-like-a-fox grandmother and her art-world cronies planning a daring theft of a valuable historical document. Eventually Flynn crashes the party and agrees to take on the heist herself. Along the way, Flynn runs into, both literally and figuratively, her now wheelchair-bound best friend, an alluring, mysterious thief who throws multiple wrenches into the works, and the ex-love of her life. Can Flynn pull off the job without falling victim to vodka and lost love…and somehow begin to find herself again along the way?

"This is woke comics at its very best." — The Beat Invulnerability is a pretty useless superpower if you’ve only got a one-hundred pound frame to back it up. That’s what Quinton West’s life became when he went from small guy who got beat up to small guy who can’t get hurt after the meteor shower dubbed “The Event” gifted him the power of invulnerability but no other powers to compliment it. But there’s more to Quin than meets the eye, and after some encouragement from his new mentor—a local New Orleans–based superhero named Glow—Quin realizes that he can use his quirky hobby of creating Rube Goldberg devices to outsmart the opposition. But being a hero paints a target on your back, and Quin’s got to risk it all to join the ranks of the superheroes he looks up to. It’s a good thing he can take a punch.

The stories and contributions of the apostles provide an important entrée into church history. This comprehensive historical and literary introduction uncovers their lives and legacies, underscoring the apostles' impact on the growth of the early church. The author collects and distills the histories, legends, symbols, and iconography of the original twelve and locates figures such as Paul, Peter, and John in the broader context of the history of the apostles. He also explores the continuing story of the gospel mission and the twelve disciples beyond the New Testament.

In A Quest for Humanity, Menno Boldt presents a persuasive new framework for achieving a human social order in the global age. Boldt explores the concept of 'the good society' as a world in which every person can realize their potential for humanity through liberty, social justice, and equal human dignity. A Quest for Humanity innovatively positions globalization as a deterministic phenomenon of expanding interdependence and shared knowledge — resulting in ever-larger economic and political jurisdictions, but also creating social and psychological links between peoples across the world. Boldt challenges mainstream certainty that Western democracy and constitutional human rights are the exemplary doctrines for the global good society. With a fresh vision designed to inspire a universal acknowledgement of human dignity, A Quest for Humanity powerfully affirms the value of each human being.