Month: October 2023 (Page 2 of 2)

Here is a selection of print books recently added to the circulating collection as well as some some special, recently catalogued material from the The Kouwenberg C.S. Lewis and Friends Collection

 A brief history of video games: from Atari to virtual reality /Richard Stanton. A Brief History of Video Games reveals the vibrant history and culture of interactive entertainment. this is a book about the games – how the experience of playing has developed from simple, repetitive beginnings into a cornucopia of genres and styles, at once utterly immersive and socially engaging. With full-colour illustrations throughout, it shows how technological advances have transformed the first dots and dashes of bored engineers into sophisticated, responsive worlds that are endlessly captivating.

 A concise history of Canada /Margaret Conrad. Beginning in Canada’s deep past with the arrival of its Indigenous peoples, Conrad traces its history through the conquest by Europeans, the American Revolutionary War, and the industrialization of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to its prosperous present. As a social historian, Conrad emphasizes the peoples’ history: the relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers, French and English, Catholic and Protestant, rich and poor. She writes of the impact of disease, how women fared in the early colonies, and the social transformations that took place after the Second World War as Canada began to assert itself as an independent nation. It is this grounded approach that drives the narrative and makes for compelling reading. In its final chapters, the author explains the social, economic, and political upheavals that have bedeviled the nation in recent years.

 Boom and bust: a global history of financial bubbles /William Quinn, John D. Turner. Quinn and Turner take us on a journey through the history of financial bubbles, visiting, among other places, Paris and London in 1720,  New York in the 1920s, Silicon Valley in the 1990s and Shanghai in the 2000s. As they do so, they help us understand why bubbles happen, and why some have catastrophic economic, social and political consequences whilst others have actually benefited society.

 The incredible dream /by Harry Schmidt ; with James R. Coggins. TWU AUTHOR  A book about a young boy with an incredible dream.  As a boy, Harry Schmidt could not have been expected to accomplish much. The eighth of thirteen children born to an impoverished immigrant farm family on the Canadian prairies, he had no money, little education and a serious speech impediment. About all he could do was dream. But he took the first job he could get, one thing led to another, and, before he knew it, his dreams had become reality. After relocating to Abbotsford, B.C., he became a successful building contractor, specializing in the construction of low-cost, high-quality seniors’ housing. Through the Schmidt Family Foundation, Harry and his wife Marlene now travel around the world using their own money to build shelters for needy children. This book tells their remarkable story.  Along the way, Harry offers fascinating reflections on a world that many people have never seen.

 The secret pocket /Peggy Janicki ; illustrated by Carrielynn Victor. This nonfiction picture book tells the true story of how a group of girls at a residential school sewed secret pockets into their clothes to hide food..

Threaten to undo us /Rose Seiler Scott.  Based on a true story, Threaten to Undo Us exposes shocking history in the shadow of World War Two. Liesel and her young children are forced to flee their home. But losing the only home she has ever known is only the beginning. The brutal advance of Stalin’s forces into Poland results in a regime of terror and uncertainty, threatening to destroy Liesel’s family. Interrogated and imprisoned in a labour camp, her dream to re-unite with her husband and children seems impossible. Her only hope? A dangerous gamble, buoyed by a sliver of faith.

 Abolishing man in other worlds: breaking and recovering the chain of being in C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy /Courtney Petrucci. This text investigates why Lewis brings humans into outer space in order to recover a Christian worldview during a time of war. Explore Lewis’s science fiction through J. R. R. Tolkien’s Recovery lens for a connection between Lewis’s Christian worldview, the potential for human self-abolition, and recovering the Cosmic Chain of Being for modern humans.

The Rev. Dr. Hans and Colleen Kouwenberg C.S. Lewis and Friends Collection was donated to Trinity Western University in the spring of 2019. Envisioned as a teaching resource to support scholarship, in particular the Inklings Institute of Canada, and enrich the broader Christian community, the donation consists predominately of the work of C.S. Lewis. The collection includes first editions, publishers’ file copies, and titles signed by C.S. Lewis, Walter Hooper (Lewis’ editor), and Owen Barfield.

 Boxen: the imaginary world of the young C.S. Lewis /edited by Walter Hooper. A collection of maps, histories, sketches, and stories created by C.S. Lewis as a child to describe his private fantasy world, known as Animal-Land or Boxen. A scholarly introduction explains the stories in the context of Lewis’s life.

 Out of the silent planet /by C.S. Lewis ; with notes and questions prepared by Margaret Heery and David King. Dr. Ransom, Cambridge philologist, sets out on a walking tour on which he encounters two old school acquaintances. Unexpectedly they drug and abduct him to Mars–or Malacandra, as its inhabitants call it. There he discovers a world of strange and sometimes horrifying adventure and looks back at the antics of worldlings with Malacandran detachment and irony.

  Perelandra: a novel /by C.S. Lewis. After his visit to Mars, Dr. Ransom  is  transported into the unknown. This time his destination is Venus, or, as its inhabitants call it, Perelandra, a world of sweet smells and delicious tastes, where beasts are friendly and naked beauty is unashamed. In that new Garden of Eden is re-enacted, but with a difference, the story of the Temptation.

That hideous strength: a modern fairy-tale for grown-ups /by C.S. Lewis. Lewis relates the final adventure of Dr. Ransom, now returned from his interplanetary travels and living on the outskirts of an English university town, where he and Professor Weston again represent the struggle between good and evil.

 The cosmic trilogy: Out of the silent planet ; Perelandra ; That hideous strength /C.S. Lewis. The cosmic trilogy relates the interplanetary travels of Ransom, Lewis’s ill-informed and terrified victim who leaves Earth much against his will

Here is a selection of recently added print titles.

 A song of ascents: a spiritual autobiography / E. Stanley Jones. More a theological exposition than an autobiography, this book reveals Jones as a man far ahead of his time. Jones reveals that a missional mindset doesn’t require a complete disconnection from church and tradition.

 All one in Christ: a Catholic critique of racism and critical race theory /: Edward Feser. Critical Race Theory, far from being a remedy for racism, is in fact a new and insidious form of racism that cannot be reconciled with the social teaching of the Church and must be vigorously opposed by all Catholics.

 Chronicles of transformation:: a spiritual journey with C.S. Lewis /: Leonard J. DeLorenzo, Stephen Barany, Catherine Cavadini, David Fagerberg, Madeline Lewis Infantine, Rebekah Lamb, et al.  A collection of essays, poems and illustrations examining and appreciating how C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia incite moral and spiritual transformation.

 Fighting the first wave: why the coronavirus was tackled so differently across the globe /: Peter Baldwin. Baldwin uncovers the global politics of pandemic. He shows that how nations responded depended above all on the political tools available – how firmly could the authorities order citizens’ lives and how willingly would they be obeyed? In Asia, nations quarantined the infected and their contacts. In the Americas and Europe they shut down their economies, hoping to squelch the virus’s spread. Others, above all Sweden, responded with a light touch, putting their faith in social consensus over coercion. Whether citizens would follow their leaders’ requests and how soon they would tire of their demands were crucial to hopes of taming the pandemic.

 Five little Indians /: Michelle Good. Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention. Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission. With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.

 Jesus v. evangelicals: a biblical critique of a wayward movement /: Constantine R. Campbell. Jesus v. Evangelicals is an insider’s critique of the evangelical movement according to its own rules. Since evangelicals regard themselves governed by the Bible, Campbell engages the Bible to critique evangelicals and to call out the problems within the contemporary evangelical movement. By revealing evangelical distortions of the Bible, this book seeks to restore the dignity of the Christian faith and to renew public interest in Jesus, while calling evangelicals back to his teaching.  Campbell appeals to evangelicals to break free from the grid that has distorted their understanding of the Bible and to restore public respect for Christianity in spite of its misrepresentations by the evangelical church.

 Land, man, and the law: the disposal of crown lands in British Columbia, 1871-1913 /: Robert E. Cail. During the Hudson Bay Company’s years, when trapping and trading were the only concerns of the few white occupants of British Columbia, land tenure was of little interest and few provisions were made for it. With the arrival of settlers, the officers of the colony were forced to act. Encouraging settlement, forestalling speculation, and securing revenue were the three aims of Colonial and early Provincial legislature. This book examines their success in the face of rapid exploitation of natural resources.

Land: how the hunger for ownership shaped the modern world /: Simon Winchester. Explores the concept of land ownership and how it has shaped history, examining how people fight over, steward, and occasionally share land, and what humanity’s proprietary relationship with land means for the future.

 Mere humanity: G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien on the human condition /: Donald T. Williams. Williams plumbs the writings of three beloved Twentieth-Century authors to find answers that still resonate in the Twenty-First. Chesterton, Lewis, and Tolkien explain in their expositions and incarnate in their fiction a robust biblical doctrine of man that gives us a firm place to stand against the various forms of reductionism that dominate our thinking about human nature today.

 Mexique: a refugee story from the Spanish Civil War /: María José Ferrada, Ana Penyas ; translated by Elisa Amado. Follows a group of 456 children whose families sent them to Mexico aboard the Mexique at the start of the Spanish Civil War for what was expected to be a short stay. Includes historical notes.

 Old babes in the wood: stories /: Margaret Atwood. In this collection of fifteen extraordinary stories, Atwood speaks to our times with her characteristic wit and intellect. Of special significance are the seven works revolving around the long-term married couple Tig and Nell. Acting as bookends for the collection, these stories look deeply in the heart of what it means to spend a life together. In other works, characters grapple with loss and memory, alienation and miscommunication; and on the fantastical, examining a mother-daughter relationship in which the mother purports to be a witch.

 On savage shores: how indigenous Americans discovered Europe /: Caroline Dodds Pennock. A landmark work of narrative history that shatters our previous Eurocentric understanding of the Age of Discovery by telling the story of the Indigenous Americans who journeyed across the Atlantic to Europe after 1492.

Oxford street: poetry in the psychology of childhood, volume 1. / Bellusci, David C. TWU AUTHOR Greek mythology, schools of psychology, and a child growing up on Oxford Street create the structure for this collection of poems where childhood emotions are explored. The collection opens to a six-year-old boy’s world  where the reader enters the boy’s home, discovers the rooms, and unlocks the symbols. Interpreting Oxford Street in terms of the relation between the powerlessness and fear of a child, Freud, Jung, Maslow, Adler, Erikson, Sullivan are included in the poetry as avenues of revisiting childhood. Oxford Street is a fascinating exploration of the family as the primary form and foundation of human connection and emotions, told with intense spirituality, power, and elegance.”

 Robert’s rules of order newly revised /: General Henry M. Robert, U.S. Army. Robert’s Rules of Order is the recognized guide to smooth, orderly, and fairly conducted meetings. This manual has been maintained and updated since 1876 under the continuing program established by Robert himself. As indispensable now as the original edition was more than a century ago, Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised is the acknowledged ‘gold standard’ for meeting rules.

 The fall of Gondolin /: by J.R.R. Tolkien ; edited by Christopher Tolkien ; with illustrations by Alan Lee. The Fall of Gondolin is a book compiling texts written by Tolkien and edited by his son, Christopher . It brings together several existing passages of work into one volume, along with commentary from Christopher. The story tells of the ancient hidden city of Gondolin. The story is one of three “great tales” set in the First Age of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

 The game console 2.0: a photographic history from Atari to Xbox /: Evan Amos. Revised and updated since the first edition’s celebrated 2018 release, The Game Console 2.0 is an even bigger archival collection of vividly detailed photos of more than 100 video-game consoles. This ultimate archive of gaming history spans five decades and nine distinct generations, chronologically covering everything from market leaders to outright failures, and tracing the gaming industry’s rise, fall, and monumental resurgence.

 The great upheaval: higher education’s past, present, and uncertain future /: Arthur Levine and Scott Van Pelt. In forecasting the future of higher education in the United States, the authors conduct a 360-degree survey that looks backward, forward, and sideways to explore how other business sectors have weathered seismic transformations.

 The letter writer : Paul’s background and Torah perspective / Tim Hegg. Hegg reveals a  Paul different from the one well entrenched in the contemporary Church – one who maintained his Jewish identity and love of Torah; an Apostle of Yeshua the Messiah who not only lived an obedient Torah-life himself, but expected those he taught to do the same. In The Letter Writer, Paul is seen to be both Apostle of grace and Torah, when received in the context of faith in Yeshua, is God’s revelation of sanctifying grace.

 The Penguin treasury of popular Canadian poems and songs /: [edited by] John Robert Colombo. Canadian songs and poems.

 The ultimate history of video games.: volume 2: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and the billion dollar battle to shape modern gaming  /: Steven L. Kent. Kent narrates gaming’s entrance into the twenty-first century, as Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft battle to capture the global market. In this book, you will learn about the cutthroat environment at Microsoft as rival teams created console systems; how lateral thinking with withered technology put Nintendo back on top and much more! Gripping and comprehensive, The Ultimate History of Video Games: Volume 2 explores the origins of modern consoles and of the franchises-from Grand Theft Auto and Halo to Call of Duty and Guitar Hero-that would define gaming in the new millennium.

 War is a force that gives us meaning /: Chris Hedges. A thought-provoking reflection on how life is lived during times of war, and the ugly truths about humanity’s love affair with war, offering a sophisticated, intelligent meditation on the subject. Hedges draws on his own experiences in Latin America, Bosnia, and elsewhere; treatments of war in literature; and historical events to examine the way human beings experience war and to suggest that war gives rise to dangerous myths of the nobility of the cause. He argues that there are very few people who are not susceptible to the allure of war, but that, in the end, war becomes a contest between eros and thanatos, in which thanatos comes out on top all too often.

Washington Black /: Esi Edugyan. Eleven-year-old George Washington Black – or Wash – a field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is intially terrified when he is chosen to be the manservant of his master’s brother. To his surprise, however, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is intiated into a world where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. Spanning the Caribbean to the Far North, London to Morocco, Washington Black is a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, and of a world destroyed and made whole again.

 Women talking: a novel /: Miriam Toews. One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm. While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women–all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in–have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they’ve ever known or should they dare to escape?