A compilation of verse reveals the American poet's lighthearted view of everyday life

For nearly two decades he has been reading, studying, researching and compiling the best and most impressive quotations for writing The Wisdom of The Great. The book is about the lives, works, achievements and quotations of over 450 notables from 50 countries of the world. It contains over 2600 quotations in the span of three millenniums (9th century B.C. to the present time.) Nearly 250 of the individuals have detailed biographies. It is arranged chronically and has a comprehensive glossary, names index, and subject index. What is great about this book is that there are 86 notables (68%) whose names are mentioned in the book People Who Made America. And 30 people in the book 100 People Who Influenced and Changed the World. It is not only a quotation book but also a literary piece, a book of biographies, and an accurate reference book. Read them again and again, seeking their wisdom, their joy, their passion and their beauty. The Wisdom of the Great has been accepted for the 2013 Kansas Notable Books List.

Time for a Heart-to-Heart is not your typical memoir, but is rather eclectic in tone — at times philosophical, poetic, poignant, uplifting, confessional, hysterically funny, and nostalgic. But most of all, it is an inspiring story of the triumph of hope and the human spirit in the face of the direst of circumstances and the ultimate challenge of survival. People who have gone through significant heart disease or have undergone organ transplants – as well as their families and friends – will appreciate this book. About a year ago, Bob Mitchell became very sick. He would endure three near-fatal episodes of ventricular tachycardia due to a heart muscle comprised of 54% scar tissue, as well as heart surgeries, two harrowing months of waiting on the transplant list for a new heart on life supporting IV drips (during which time a malignant tumor was detected in his kidney), partial nephrectomy surgery to remove the cancer, another month of waiting, 12-hour heart and kidney transplant surgery, and 100 days on life support in four different hospitals. A novelist at heart, Bob’s ordeal seemed like a memoir screaming to be written. Not simply a narrative of the physical and emotional experience of what it’s like to go through and recover from a transplant, it is at its core both a thought-provoking, introspective monologue, and an intimate dialogue with the reader, concerning life’s fundamental conflicts that the author pondered during his ordeal. These experiences and tribulations gave clarity and perspective to the things Bob had been thinking, teaching, and writing for over five decades: fear and hope, despair and joy, failure and success, pride and humility, thought and feeling, control and surrender, arbitrariness and justice, constriction and freedom, youth and age, life and death.

These sparkling essays from a seasoned scholar are “a great breath of fresh air in our claustrophobic and catastrophic time” (Cornel West). Capturing a career’s worth of thought and erudition, this rich volume treats readers to creative thought, careful argumentation, and sophisticated analysis transmitted through the lucid, accessible prose that has earned the author a wide readership of academics and non-academics alike. In tackling “radical theology,” John D. Caputo has in mind the deeper stream that courses its way through various historical and confessional theologies, upon which these theologies draw even while it disturbs them from within. They are well served by this disturbance because it keeps them on their toes. When we read about professional theologians’ losing their jobs in confessional institutions, the chances are that, by earnestly digging into what is going on in their tradition, they have hit upon radical theological rock. Unlike modernist dismissals of religion, radical theology does not debunk but re-invents the theological tradition. Radical theology, Caputo says, is a double deconstruction—of supernatural theology on the one hand and of transcendental reason on the other, and therefore of the settled distinctions between the religious and the secular. Caputo also addresses the challenge for radical theology to earn a spot in the curriculum, given that the “radical” makes it suspect among the confessional seminaries while the “theology” renders it suspect among university seminars. Journeying from the academy to contemporary American culture, In Search of Radical Theology includes a captivating presentation of radical political theology for the time of Trump. This utterly unique volume not only brings readers on an enlightening tour of Caputo’s thought but also invites us to accompany the author as he travels into intriguing new territories.