American Babylon : notes of a Christian exile

by Richard John Neuhaus. In this posthumous volume, Neuhaus (Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus on the Cross) offers some well-wrought reflections on what it means to be an American who is aware that he or she is "in exile," on pilgrimage to a heavenly homeland. We are all, he argues, in between. We must care for our place of exile and care for one another but not settle down. He makes an eloquent case for the role of religion in this care for the community and considers the issue of bioethics, the role of Jews in salvation history, whether atheists can be moral, and the need for hope. (Check Catalog)

If that ever happens to me : making life and death decisions after Terri Schiavo

by Lois L. Shepherd. As illustrated so heartbreakingly in the Terri Schiavo case, it is extremely difficult to determine a patient's wishes in end-of-life decisions because all the idiosyncrasies of individual situations cannot be predicted in advance. Admitting that decisions relating to permanent vegetative states are different from those surrounding terminally ill or minimally conscious patients, Shepherd (law & public health sciences, Univ. of Virginia) considers some of the tough ethical and emotional considerations involved and how existing laws may be strengthened. Pointing out weaknesses related to living wills and offering suggestions on alternative ways to ensure that a patient's rights and wishes are respected, she also expresses concern for the need to respect patients' privacy and gives careful consideration to whether nutrition and hydration should be considered "basic care." For extensive background reading on Schiavo's case and how it relates to end-of-life concerns, The Case of Terri Schiavo, edited by Arthur L. Caplan and others, remains the definitive work. Shepherd's book nicely updates and complements William Colby's Unplugged. (Check catalog)

Philosophy and social hope

by Richard Rorty. One of the most provocative figures in recent philosophical and wider literary and cultural debate, Richard Rorty brings together in this collection a wide range of philosophical, political and cultural writings, many published in book form for the first time. He explains how he began to move away from Plato towards James and Dewey, culminating in his own version of pragmatism. What matters, he suggests, is not whether our ideas correspond to some fundamental reality but whether they help us carry out practical tasks and create a fairer and more democratic society. (Check Catalog)

Eternal chalice : the enduring legend of the Holy Grail

by Juliette Wood. "'What is the secret of the Grail?' So intoned a heavenly voice to Sir Percival in John Boorman's stylish and influential film Excalibur (1981). The sacred allure of the Holy Grail has fascinated writers and ensnared knights for over a thousand years. From Malory to Monty Python, the eternal chalice - said to be the very cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper - has the richest associations of any icon in British myth. Many different meanings have been devised for the Grail, which has been linked to the Celts and King Arthur, the eucharistic rites of Eastern Christianity, ancient mystery religions, Jungian archetypes, dualist heresies, Templar treasure and even the alleged descendants of Christ himself and Mary Magdalene. The common thread running through all these stories is the assumption that the Grail legend has a single source with a meaning that - if only we could decode it - is concealed in the romances themselves. (Check Catalog)

The philosophers' quarrel : Rousseau, Hume, and the limits of human understanding

by Robert Zaretsky. Imagine a world where philosophers are celebrities, their works are greeted with stone throwing and literary correspondences are the stuff of tabloid-style publication. This was the world of 18th-century Europe, where David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's friendship, which lasted but six months, created a public stir and has a remarkable enough trajectory to be the centerpiece of this study of Enlightenment mores.--Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

The music of Pythagoras : how an ancient brotherhood cracked the code of the universe and lit the path from antiquity to outer space

by Kitty Ferguson. Through the insightful eyes of popular science writer Ferguson (Tycho & Kepler; Measuring the Universe), readers glimpse the enormous impact of the Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras and his followers and the ideas gathered around them. She describes the mythology that surrounded Pythagoras, as well as the facts behind the man, and how those myths changed over time but continued to influence natural inquiry. --Library Journal. (Check catalog)

Practicing Catholic : a personal history of belief

by James Carroll. Carroll, a former Catholic priest who wrote of his conflict with his father over the Vietnam War in An American Requiem, revisits and expands on that tension in this spiritual memoir infused with church history. Here, Carroll traces his life as a son of the Catholic Church, showing how he and the church changed as he moved from boyhood into adulthood. (Check Catalog)