The Ball and the Cross is G. K. Chesterton's third novel. In the introduction Martin Gardner notes that it is a mixture of fantasy, farce and theology. Gardner continues: Evan MacIan is a tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed Scottish Highlander and a devout Roman Catholic.... James Turnbull is a short, red-haired, gray-eyed Scottish Lowlander and a devout but naive atheist.... The two meet when MacIan smashes the window of the street office where Turnbull publishes an atheist journal. This act of rage occurs when MacIan sees posted on the shop's window a sheet that blasphemes the Virgin Mary, presumably implying she was an adulteress who gave birth to an illegitimate Jesus. When MacIan challenges Turnbull to a duel to the death, Turnbull is overjoyed. For twenty years no one had paid the slightest attention to his Bible bashing. Now at last someone is taking him seriously! Most of the rest of the story is a series of comic events in which the two enemies wander about seeking a spot for their duel. MacIan and Turnbull become friends as they protect each other from interference from the modern world, which has trivialized their views over lif...

Fiction, Fantasy, Religion

Anglais flegmatique, enragé joueur de whist, Phileas Fogg, dont on ignore tout, mène une vie réglée comme une horloge. Jamais un mot, ni un mouvement inutiles. Ce mercredi 2 octobre 1872, tout pourrait bien changer : contre l'avis de ses partenaires de jeu du Reform-Club, Phileas Fogg soutient qu'on peut maintenant parcourir la terre en quatre-vingts jours seulement. Un pari est lancé. S'il n'est pas de retour le samedi 21 décembre, à huit heures quarante-cinq du soir, notre homme perd tout. Avec Jean Passepartout, domestique français fraîchement engagé, il devra sauter mathématiquement des railways dans les paquebots, et des paquebots dans les chemins de fer ». Mais sa route pourrait bien être parsemée d'embûches ... A bet: Phileas Fogg, an English man, is to travel around the world in eighty days by land and sea. Will he make it? Let's follow his adventure through the writings of Jules Verne, in French. (Summary by Ezwa)...

Adventure, Teen/Young adult

volunteers bring you 19 recordings of The Window on the Hill by Madison Julius Cawein. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 22, 2012. Madison Julius Cawein was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the fifth child of William and Christiana (Stelsly) Cawein. His father made patent medicines from herbs. Cawein thus became acquainted with and developed a love for local nature as a child. After graduating from high school, Cawein worked in a pool hall in Louisville as a cashier in Waddill's New-market, which also served as a gambling house. He worked there for six years, saving his pay so he could return home to write. His output was thirty-six books and 1,500 poems. His writing presented Kentucky scenes in a language echoing Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. He soon earned the nickname the Keats of Kentucky. He was popular enough that, by 1900, he told the Louisville Courier-Journal that his income from publishing poetry in magazines amounted to about $100 a month...

Nature, Romance, Poetry

A good candidate for 'the most under-appreciated work by Mark Twain' would be 'The Treaty With China,' which he published in the New York Tribune in 1868. This piece, which is an early statement of Twain's opposition to imperialism and which conveys his vision of how the U.S. ought to behave on the global stage, has not been reprinted since its original publication until now. (the online, open-access Journal of Transnational American Studies published it in the spring, 2010). (Introduction by Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Twain scholar and Director of American Studies at Stanford University, used by permission) (Transcription by Martin Zehr for the Journal of Transnational American Studies, American Cultures and Global Contexts Center, UC Santa Barbara - http://escholarship.org/uc/acgcc_jtas)...

History

Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch. The Hebrew title, [spoken] words, is taken from the opening phrase, These are the words...; the English title is from the Greek and Latin, both meaning second law, a mistranslation of the Hebrew phrase mishneh ha-torah ha-zoth, a copy of this law, in Deuteronomy 17:18. The book consists of three sermons or speeches delivered to the Israelites by Moses on the plains of Moab, shortly before they enter the Promised Land. The first sermon recapitulates the forty years of wilderness wanderings which have led to this moment, and ends with an exhortation to observe the law (or teachings); the second reminds the Israelites of the need for exclusive allegiance to one God and observance of the laws he has given them, on which their possession of the land depends; and the third offers the comfort that even should Israel prove unfaithful and so lose the land, with repentance all can be restored. One of its most significant verses is Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema, which has become the definitive statement of Jewish identity: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the ...

Religion, History

volunteers bring you 18 recordings of A Ballade of Suicide by G. K. Chesterton. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 20, 2012. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer. He published works on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the prince of paradox. Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out. For example, Chesterton wrote Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. (Summary by Wikipedia )...

Poetry, Humor, Philosophy

When the self-proclaimed Mahdi (“Guided One”) gathered Islamic forces and kicked the Anglo-Egyptians out of the Sudan, he unleashed a backlash. With the image of the heroic General Charles Gordon dying at Khartoum, the British public was ready to support a war to reclaim the lost territories. And when the political time was right, a British-Egyptian-Sudanese expedition led by the redoubtable Herbert Kitchener set out to do just that. The river involved was the Nile. For millennia, its annual flood has made habitable a slender strip, though hundreds of miles of deserts, between its tributaries and its delta. Through this desolate region, man and beast struggled to supply the bare essentials of life. Though this same region, the expedition had to find and defeat an enemy several times larger than itself. The young Churchill was hot to gain war experience to aid his career, and so he wangled a transfer to the 21st Lancers and participated in the last successful cavalry charge the world ever saw, in the climactic battle of Omdurman. He also had a position as war correspondent for the Morning Post, and on his return to England he used hi...

War stories, History

volunteers bring you 13 recordings of Pillow and Stone by Abram S. Isaacs. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 24, 2011. Abram S. Isaacs (1851-1920) was an American rabbi, author, and professor. Isaacs received his education at the New York University, from which he was graduated in 1871. He became a Rabbi at Barnett Memorial Temple at Paterson, New Jersey. For thirty-five years he occupied a chair at the New York University, first as Professor of Hebrew, then of Germanic languages, and later of Semitics. (summary from Wikipedia)...

Instruction, Philosophy, Religion, Poetry