As she did in the bestselling novel A Friend of the Family, Lauren Grodstein has written another provocative morality tale, this time dissecting the permeable line between faith and doubt. College professor Andy Waite is picking up the pieces of a shattered life. Between his research in evolutionary biology and caring for his young daughters, his days are reassurringly safe, if a bit lonely. But when Melissa Potter—charismatic, unpredictable, and devout—asks him to advise her study of intelligent design, he agrees. Suddenly, the world that Andy has fought to rebuild is rocked to its foundations. “A well-crafted story of wayward souls searching for forgiveness, healing and personal truth.” —Family Circle “Grodstein handles everything with a subtle wit, managing to skewer both the ultraconservative and the ultraliberal without making either seem absolutely wrong . . . Reminiscent of Carolyn Parkhurst’s Dogs of Babel.” —Booklist “Finding or losing God proves to be an equally destabilizing tectonic shift, and this novel is full of them . . . Their cumulative force will leave you happily unsteady, and moved.” —The Washington Post “A master storyteller . . . Tackles the tough topics: healing after loss, the relevance and possibility of the divine in our lives, the gilded shackles of academic life, and life in Southern New Jersey—all while always being terrifically entertaining.” —*Ben Schrank, author of Love Is a Canoe “Engrossing . . . You’ll likely close the book with a new perspective on faith, justice, mercy, and the difficulty of holding a moral high ground.” —Bust “A novel of ideas and a deeply felt story of love, loss, hope, and the healing powers of forgiveness . . . A provocative, moving story, and a beautifully written one.” —Dani Shapiro, author of Devotion

"The claim 'I'm straight' is the psychosexual analogue of 'The check is in the mail': if you need to say it, your credit or creditability is already in doubt." So begins Paul Morrison's dazzling polemic, which takes as its point of departure Foucault's famous remark that sex is "the explanation for everything." Combining psychoanalytic, literary, and queer theory, The Explanation for Everything seeks to account for the explanatory power attributed to homosexuality, and its relationship to compulsory heterosexuality. In the process, Morrison presents a scathing indictment of psychoanalysis and its impact on the study of sexuality. In bold but graceful leaps, Morrison applies his critique to a diversity of examples: subjectivity in Oscar Wilde, the cultural construction and reception of AIDS, the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, the practice of bodybuilding, and the contemporary reception of the sexual politics of fascism. Analytical, witty and astute, The Explanation for Everything will challenge and amuse, establishing Paul Morrison as one of our most exciting cultural critics.

Debates over constitutional rights impact you every day as an American citizen. But do you know what the U.S. Constitution actually says? This accessible guide contains the complete text of the Constitution, with short, descriptive margin notes throughout. Articles and amendments are then analyzed in depth to help you comprehend the basis of democracy. This valuable handbook covers: How the articles and amendments were drafted Insight into the intentions of the creators and the sources they used Controversial interpretations and Supreme Court decisions How the Constitution affects citizens every day The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and unratified Constitutional amendments This book walks you through the history of this essential document and shows how it has guided lawmakers and judges for more than 200 years. This unbiased look at the Constitution will help you feel confident in your knowledge of this all-important document, gain a firmer understanding of how our government works, and put context around today's most pressing issues.

Cosmology & the universe.

"A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything is an entirely original philosophy that shows how ancient spiritual traditions harmonize with cutting-edge scientific discoveries. The Simple Explanation proceeds from the fundamental idea that the ground state of creation is consciousness. Using only four basic principles, A Simple Explanation explains our universal cosmology as a fractal pattern of consciousness that repeats itself in endless cycles of organization and cooperation, from the smallest quanta through the largest astronomical objects. A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything gives the reader new clarity to classical spiritual concepts such as 'centering,' 'God,' and "The Golden Rule,' while at the same time explaining new ideas like fractals and quantum entanglement. This most ecumenical and inclusive philsophy is able to bridge science with world religions by making sense of esoteric passages in such diverse works as the Bible and the Tao Te Ching and relating them to one, simple-to-understand, theory of everything."--Back cover.

Drawn from the cutting-edge frontiers of science, This Explains Everything will revolutionize your understanding of the world. What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org ("The world's smartest website"—The Guardian), posed to the world's most influential minds. Flowing from the horizons of physics, economics, psychology, neuroscience, and more, This Explains Everything presents 150 of the most surprising and brilliant theories of the way of our minds, societies, and universe work. Jared Diamond on biological electricity • Nassim Nicholas Taleb on positive stress • Steven Pinker on the deep genetic roots of human conflict • Richard Dawkins on pattern recognition • Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek on simplicity • Lisa Randall on the Higgs mechanism • BRIAN Eno on the limits of intuition • Richard Thaler on the power of commitment • V. S. Ramachandran on the "neural code" of consciousness • Nobel Prize winner ERIC KANDEL on the power of psychotherapy • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on "Lord Acton's Dictum" • Lawrence M. Krauss on the unification of electricity and magnetism • plus contributions by Martin J. Rees • Kevin Kelly • Clay Shirky • Daniel C. Dennett • Sherry Turkle • Philip Zimbardo • Lee Smolin • Rebecca Newberger Goldstein • Seth Lloyd • Stewart Brand • George Dyson • Matt Ridley

After his best friend's daughter, Laura, sets her sights on his son, Alec, Pete Dizinoff sees his plans for a perfect son not just unraveling but being destroyed completely and sets out to derail the romance.