Month: September 2025

  105 hikes in and around southwestern British Columbia /Stephen Hui ; foreword by Si:Yémiya Albert (Sonny) Mchalsie.  Explore the best of British Columbia’s backcountry.  Featuring new trails near Victoria, the Sunshine Coast and north of Pemberton. In the seven years since it was first published, 105 Hikes has become the go-to guide for hiking in the province. Locals and tourists have come to trust Hui’s clear directions to trails from Pemberton to northern Washington State, Sooke and Manning Park. The book is full of detail about the plants and animals along the trails, the people who’ve lived and worked in the area, the original names Indigenous peoples used for these places, and the changes wrought by weather and industry. Readers are encouraged to tread lightly on the land, understand how natural areas have shaped our province, and discover the mountains, rivers, forests, and ocean in this part of the world with curiosity and respect. What’s new for this edition? 36 new hikes, including jaunts on the South Powell Divide (northern Sunshine Coast) and Owl-Tenquille Traverse (Líl̓wat Nation territory), in Tetrahedron Park (southern Sunshine Coast) and Sooke Hills Wilderness Regional Park (near Victoria). There are all-new four-color photos throughout as well as 43 new topographic maps, a foreword by Stó:lō Elder and cultural advisor Sonny McHalsie, tips on staying healthy and safe in the backcountry by North Shore Search and Rescue members Kayla Brolly and Douglas Pope, tips on taking care of nature and preserving biodiversity by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s landscape conservationist Tori Ball, and lists of best hikes on rainy days, with dogs and for overnight trips.

Africa bears witness: Mission theology and praxis in the 21st century /edited by Harvey Kwiyani.  This remarkable collection of essays explores the role of African Christianity in God’s mission around the world. Featuring the contributions of African scholars and mission practitioners from throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the diaspora – including both men and women, veteran scholars, and fresh new voices.  This volume provides a diverse perspective on missiology as understood and practised by African Christians. Engaging such wide-ranging topics as gender violence, globalization, Westernization, peacebuilding, development, Pentecostalism, urban missiology, theological education, and African Christianity in Europe.  This volume ambitiously bridges the gap between academic and practitioner perspectives, engaging both theological discourse and the hands-on reality of how God’s mission is taking shape in Africa and beyond. This book offers an empowering look at the work God is accomplishing in and through the African church.

 Against worldview: reimagining Christian formation as growth in wisdom /Simon P. Kennedy.  In this book Kennedy challenges the conventions of Christian worldview education and provides a better way.  Although the current concept of Christian worldview appears incontestable, it rests upon shaky philosophical foundations, fails to account for the complexities of how we interact with the world, and may even undermine the curiosity essential for true learning. But rather than shattering the lenses of Christian worldview, Kennedy reframes worldview around wisdom.  A biblical worldview is not downloaded all at once. It is cultivated piece by piece, as we learn about God, his world, and ourselves. Christian education is an organic process of learning to wisely nurture a biblical worldview.

Biblical organizational spirituality. Volume 3, Development of New Testament-based culture and climate scales /Debra J. Dean, Bruce E. Winston, Mihai C. Bocarnea, editors.  This volume introduces scales for measuring organizational spirituality culture and climate. Based on interviews with employees, the chapters present empirical studies confirming the scales’ validity and reliability, rooted in principles aligned with Biblical concepts of love. The authors conduct concurrent and discriminant validity studies, comparing these scales with measures of servant leadership, person-supervisor fit, altruistic love, inner life, vision, person-organization fit, affective commitment, continuance commitment, normative commitment, and work-state anxiety in contemporary organizations. This book offers researchers with two reliable instruments to assess New Testament-based organizational spirituality culture and climate, contributing new insights to the field of organizational spirituality literature and aiding in diagnosing organizational spirituality-related issues.

Canada first, not Canada alone: a history of Canadian foreign policy /Adam Chapnick and Asa McKercher.  Three recent Canadian prime ministers, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, and Justin Trudeau made the same claim shortly after forming a government: ‘Canada is Back.’ Martin promised to reinvest in world affairs. Harper was focused on the military. Trudeau meant more involvement at the UN. Each leader made foreign policy a part of their political brand because they recognised that in today’s world, domestic and international politics are interconnected. Canada can no longer take care of its own interests if it ignores the world around it. This book traces the history of Canadian foreign policy from a time when positioning Canada First meant shunning international obligations to today. It highlights key decisions taken and not taken in Ottawa that have shaped Canadians’ safety, security, and prosperity over the last one hundred years.

Compassionate intercultural care practices for coping with grief : biblical theology in conversation with pastoral theology: biblical theology in conversation with pastoral theology /James Japheth Sudarshan Harrichand.  As humans, we all express our grief differently. Acknowledging this truth, Dr. James Harrichand examines Old Testament accounts of grief and mourning alongside the experiences of marginalized Guyanese and Vietnamese immigrant communities in Canada. He explores both biblical and pastoral theology through an anthropological lens, bridging the horizons of Scripture and culture in a hermeneutically and pastorally sensitive manner. Dr. Harrichand’s focus on prosaic prayers in the Old Testament fills a significant gap in the scholarship, but this book is also significant for its immense practicality, sensitizing readers to grief’s varied expressions and equipping culturally intelligent pastoral caregivers. He presents five compassionate intercultural care practices for coping with grief, grounding each in the living hope of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, the one who bore our griefs and carries our sorrows.

Every valley: the desperate lives and troubled times that made Handel’s Messiah /Charles King. The epic, dramatic story of the 18th century men and women behind the making of Handel’s Messiah, one of the world’s most beloved works of classical music, from a New York Times bestselling historian and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. George Frideric Handel’s Messiah is arguably the greatest piece of participatory art ever created. Adored by millions, it is performed each year by renowned choirs and orchestras as well as by fans singing along to the lyrics on their cell phones. But this work of triumphant joy was born in an age of anxiety. Britain in the early eighteenth century, the so-called age of Enlightenment, was a time of war, enslavement, political conspiracy, social polarization, and conflicts over everything from the legitimacy of government to the meaning of truth. Contrary to popular belief, the Messiah was not the product of a lone genius scribbling furiously on a musical staff. It came about because of a depressive political dissenter; an actress plagued by an abusive husband; an Atlantic sea captain and penniless philanthropist; an African Muslim man held captive in the American colonies; and Handel himself, once composer to kings but, at midlife, in ill health and straining to keep an audience’s attention. Set amid royal intrigue and theatrical scandal, and exploring the rich ideas of its day, Every Valley is a cinematic drama of the entangled lives that shaped a masterpiece.

 Power and purpose of blood In God’s design: Leviticus 17 and its implications for Christian engagement with Chinese culture / Cynthia Hsing-Wei Chang.  How can Christians delve into the relationship between biblical law, narrative, and rituals to reconcile beliefs with cultural heritage? In this study, Dr. Hsing-Wei Chang addresses the unfamiliar and impractical nature of Leviticus’s ritual teachings for Christians, particularly in the context of Chinese culture’s common practice of eating cooked blood pudding. Combining principles from biblical laws and rhetoric to distinguish Leviticus’s literary structure, this book examines well-being offerings in the Old Testament and Ugaritic sacrificial documents, and explores the meaning of blood atonement in rituals to provide a comprehensive theological response. By bridging ancient rituals and modern culture, Dr. Chang offers unique insights for cross-cultural understanding and practical guidance for those seeking to navigate cultural complexities while honoring their faith.

Science fiction and Christian theology /Victoria Lorrimar.  Theologians often struggle to engage with scientific and technological proposals meaningfully in our contemporary context. This Element provides an introduction to the use of science fiction as a conversation partner for theological reflection, arguing that it shifts the science – religion dialogue away from propositional discourse in a more fruitful and imaginative direction. Science fiction is presented as a mediator between theological and scientific disciplines and worldviews in the context of recent methodological debates. Several sections provide examples of theological engagement in relation to the themes of embodiment, human uniqueness, disability and economic inequalities, exploring relevant technologies such as mind-uploading, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality in dialogue with select works of science fiction. A final section considers the pragmatic challenge of progress in the real world towards the more utopian futures presented in science fiction.

Soul by soul: the Evangelical mission to spread the Gospel to Muslims /Adriana Carranca.  US-born Protestant evangelicalism has gone global to an extent of which many of us might be unaware. This book tells the story of Americans’ colossal mobilization to proclaim Christianity “to the ends of the Earth,” a movement that triumphed in the Global South, challenged the Vatican, then turned east in full force after 9/11 to spread the Gospel among Muslims. When the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq set off a wave of anti-American attacks and made the field too dangerous for US missionaries, thousands of disciples, particularly from Latin America, were mobilized to finish the task. In Soul by Soul, journalist Adriana Carranca follows the pilgrimage of a missionary family from Brazil as they move to Afghanistan. Carranca brings us on a harrowing journey through the underground passages of the global evangelical movement as it clashes with the full force of militant Islamic groups in the Middle East and South Asia, where contemporary religious wars are being fought, soul by soul.

 The anxious generation: how the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness /Jonathan Haidt.  An investigation into the collapse of youth mental health-and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood. After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on most measures. Why? In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the ‘play-based childhood’ began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the ‘phone-based childhood’ in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies. Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the ‘collective action problems’ that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood. Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes-communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children-and ourselves-from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.

The church in dark times: understanding and resisting the evil that seduced the Evangelical movement /Mike Cosper.  We expect evil to appear in obvious forms: malice, cruelty, and contempt. We also expect to find villains at the helm of evil movements and organizations, leaders with dark impulses and motivations. But all too often, malevolence is more subtle, hiding behind our own best intentions. In The Church in Dark Times, cultural critic Cosper unveils this dynamic in the growing crisis of abuse and other failures in modern evangelical churches. Drawing on the work of twentieth-century political theorist Hannah Arendt, Cosper explores what we can learn from her theory of the ‘banality of evil’–the thoughtlessness that allows ordinary people to become complicit in all manner of corruption. He uncovers the underlying causes of the breakdowns of the church and offers practices that foster healing and renewal.

  Thinking with type: a critical guide for designers, writers, editors, and students /Ellen Lupton.  Fully revised and expanded, the third edition of Thinking with Type features dozens of new fonts, examples, exercises, insights, and tips. Every inch of this classic work has been updated and redesigned. With thirty-two more pages than the previous editions, this new volume is packed with additional content, including a wider range of typefaces, beautiful artifacts from the Letterform Archive, and more work by women and BIPOC designers. Visual essays authored by leading experts explore a diverse array of writing systems. Thinking with Type, 3rd Edition, covers the basics and beyond, from typefaces and type families to kerning, tracking, balance, grids, alignment, and Gestalt principles. Lucid diagrams show how letters, words, and text can be space, ordered, and shaped. This accessible guide is essential reading for anyone working in, studying, or teaching graphic design, UI/UX, branding, or publishing.

Two tales of the death of God /Stephen LeDrew.  Across the western world, churches are emptying out and closing their doors, and more and more people are rejecting organized religion. This book addresses the causes of this decline in belief and participation in religious activities by examining two rival explanations. The first is the Enlightenment myth, which states that religious belief becomes less tenable as it is gradually replaced by a scientific worldview. This is the view promoted by a group of intellectuals known as the “new atheists” (represented most famously by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins), who in the early 2000s captured the imagination of young skeptics and ignited a movement for secularism by arguing that religion is the source of most of our social ills. Their view of religion as the antithesis of modern science is closely connected to ideological theories of social progress that work to justify social inequalities. After critiquing this ideological take on religion, a better alternative is presented: the sociological theory of secularization, which states that religious decline is a result of socio-economic development that has produced greater overall well-being and equality and shifting moral values that lead people to view religious ethics as a relic of a bygone era. The evidence on secularization suggests that only by working to achieve greater security and equality for all can we counter power and influence of organized religion.

Here is a selection of print and ebooks recently added to our collection.

  1 & 2 Thessalonians: a life in letters /Johannes W. H. van der Bijl.   In this second installment of A Life in Letters, Rev. Dr. van der Bijl once again weaves together details from the book of Acts and the Pauline Epistles, this time focusing on 1 and 2 Thessalonians. The result is a narrative commentary that is both highly engaging and easy to follow. The theological principles at the heart of Paul’s writings are creatively explored in the context of his life and ministry, as readers are invited to accompany Paul – alongside Silas, Timothy, and Luke – on the first half of his second missionary journey. Footnotes provide a rich biblical backdrop to the narrative, as well as offering historical, cultural, and archeological insight into the world of first-century Christianity. Like Paul’s letters themselves, this book offers readers compelling reasons to hope in times of external pressures and internal conflicts – for Christ is faithful to build his church.

 2 Corinthians /Ben Witherington III.  This commentary on 2 Corinthians by a New Testament scholar from the Spirit-filled tradition emphasizes how we listen alongside ancient audiences for the Spirit’s voice in our time and contexts.

A new and ancient evangelism: rediscovering the ways God calls and sends /Judith Paulsen.  Shows that God uses ordinary people of faith within their everyday spheres of influence to draw people to himself, offering a truly biblical understanding of evangelism that is ideally suited for sharing the good news in our current cultural context.

  An empire speaks: kavya narratives of India’s cultural history /poems by Rupinder S. Brar ; edited with introduction by Paul Michael Taylor.  An Empire Speaks: Kavya Narratives of India’s Cultural History, presenting poems by Dr. Brar, is designed with selected illustrative artworks relating to the themes of the poems. The title An Empire Speaks references an expression that Ralph Waldo Emerson used when he wrote of the Bhagavad Gita, “In the great books of India, an empire spoke to us.” This book recounts, in English yet in the “kavya” poetic format, tales of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist and other South Asian traditions. The readers coming across historic figures or place names can surely enjoy the poetic presentation of these lively stories even without deep background. The editor’s introduction provides an initial overview of the narrative, by prefacing the poems with some brief summaries of each poem’s subject-matter and historic context, in the hope that readers will better see the consistency of narrative as spoken by this historic “Empire” through the words of the poet-author.

Defending sin :a response to the challenges of evolution and the natural sciences /Hans Madueme. Offers a striking biblical and theological account of the doctrine of sin in dialogue with difficult questions from the natural sciences, helping readers engage with a range of controversial debates surrounding human origins, the fall, and original sin.

Mountaineering :the freedom of the hills /edited by Eric Linxweiler.  For more six decades, this how-to guide has endured as the classic mountaineering text, informing and inspiring both novice and experienced climbers.

Numbers 1-19 /L. Michael Morales.  In this comprehensive commentary, Morales sheds fresh light on a part of the Bible often referenced yet rarely preached and understood. Often overlooked and regularly misunderstood, the Book of Numbers is a daunting prospect for scholars, preachers and students. It covers part of the Israelites’ wilderness years between Egypt and the land of the promise – seemingly very different to and detached from our modern context. Yet God’s covenant love remains the same, and the book of Numbers remains extremely relevant for ecclesiology and for the church’s life within the already-not yet of the present ‘wilderness’ era. In his magisterial new commentary, Morales carefully demonstrates the ongoing relevance of Numbers, it’s positive vision for life and the surprising challenge it offers to contemporary Christians.

Organizational behavior in Christian perspective:  theory and practice for church and ministry leaders /Franklin A. Markow.   This introduction to organizational behavior accounts for the unique dynamics of Christian organizations, providing key insights and guidance to those studying or practicing leadership of churches and ministries.

Othered: finding belonging with the God who pursues the hurt, harmed, and marginalized /Jenai Auman.  God’s people are meant to be a blessing to others. Yet in the Scriptures, throughout history, and in our own times we too often see the people of God causing harm to people on the margins. Rather than caring for the widowed and the orphaned or loving the sojourner, too often we see abuse of power that breaks spirits and inflicts lasting harm. For anyone who has felt left out or pushed out of the church, Othered is your invitation to find spiritual rest and belonging in a God who loves, restores, and blesses the outcast and the marginalized. Jenai Auman draws on her experience growing up as a biracial kid in the American South as well as working within toxic ministry environments to reveal a hopeful, trauma-informed way forward. This book illuminates how hurt and betrayal in the church are longstanding problems that God neither sanctions nor tolerates. It offers holistic responses to the grief, anger, and trauma that come with being ostracized or oppressed by the church. And it shows how God provides shelter and provision in the midst of the wilderness. Because God sees, hears, and loves you–even if the church has failed you.

The art of preaching Old Testament poetry /Steven D. Mathewson.  A leading pastor theologian guides readers through preaching the Old Testament poetic books, introducing foundational issues and offering basic methodology and preaching strategies that are faithful to the text and attuned to listeners.

 The blurred cross:  a writer’s difficult journey with God /Richard Bauckham.  Esteemed New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham offers profound theological reflection on God’s providence amid life’s difficulties.

The Sage handbook of nursing education /edited by Carol Hall, Mary Gobbi, Kathryn Whitcomb Parker, Patricia S. Yoder-Wise.  This handbook provides and updated and detailed account of the factors impacting and changing education in nursing. With contributors from across the globe, this is the perfect resource for understanding this new phase of learning and teaching.

Why religion went obsolete:  the demise of traditional faith in America /Christian Smith.  The decline of traditional American religion has been well documented. Many books, articles, and reports leave no doubt that a major shift has occurred. There is no need to rehash the details here. Still, a fundamental principle of social science is the need to “establish the phenomenon” before attempting to explain it. So, while the rest of this book will focus on the why, we begin here with the what. What has happened to traditional American religion? What do things look like to religious leaders on the ground? The evidence offers multiple empirical indicators of a larger latent fact about traditional American religion: that it has not only suffered weakening and decline, but has become obsolete-at least among Americans under the age of 50, which is to say, nearly all of America in the not-distant future.

Here is a selection of print and ebooks recently added to our collection.

  Creative teaching strategies for the nurse educator /Judith W. Herrman.  This book provides practical, easy-to implement, thought-provoking, and meaningful exercises and activities for nurse educators to consider, adapt, and use to augment current teaching. Individuals, organizations, and the nursing education community as a whole need this meaningful, planned, and purposeful change to prepare the future cohorts of nurses. The text seeks to capture the art of innovative teaching with active learning and creative strategies intended to motivate learners and learning. The goal of this book is to increase learning and retention by making teaching more enjoyable and effective. In doing so, it should enhance future nurses’ clinical judgment, encourage teamwork, foster a sense of lifelong learning, facilitate problem-solving, and stimulate active learning-thereby increasing the number of intelligent, skilled, and high-quality nurses in the workforce.

  Critical sustainability sciences: intercultural and emancipatory perspectives /edited by Stephan Rist, Patrick Bottazzi and Johanna Jacobi.  This book explores Critical Sustainability Sciences, a new field of scientific inquiry into sustainability issues. It builds on a highly novel integration of elements from relational ontologies, critical theory, political ecology, and intercultural philosophy in support of emancipatory perspectives on sustainability and development. The book Critical Sustainability Sciences begins by uncovering the weaknesses of mainstream sustainability science and debates on sustainable development. The new field of Critical Sustainability Sciences has grown out of a deep engagement with relational ontologies, which helps to overcome the dualist ontology underlying mainstream notions of sustainability and development. Dualist ontologies reinforce problematic anthropocentric divisions, for example, between humans and nature, subjects and objects, mind and matter, body and soul, etc. Examples from indigenous peoples in Bolivia, India, and Ghana – as well as integrative movements in Chile, Brazil, and Europe – show that relational conceptions of life, rooted in ecosophy and cosmosophy, can provide an intercultural philosophical foundation for Critical Sustainability Sciences. The book concludes by describing three key topics for exploration in Critical Sustainability Sciences: societal reorganization in view of emancipatory, existential, and cognitive self-determination; living labor and commons; and the development of new comprehensive relational scientific paradigms. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners of emancipatory and intercultural approaches to sustainability and development.

 Digital Victorians: from nineteenth-century media to digital humanities /Paul Fyfe.  Perhaps no period better clarifies our current crisis of digital information than the nineteenth century. Self-aware about its own epochal telecommunications changes and awash in a flood of print, the nineteenth century confronted the consequences of its media shifts in ways that still define contemporary responses. In this authoritative new work, Fyfe argues that writing about Victorian new media continues to shape reactions to digital change. Among its unexpected legacies are what we call digital humanities, characterized by the self-reflexiveness, disciplinary reconfigurations, and debates that have made us digital Victorians, so to speak, struggling again to resituate humanities practices amid another technological revolution. Engaging with writers such as Thomas De Quincey, George Eliot, George du Maurier, Henry James, and Robert Louis Stevenson who confronted the new media of their day, Fyfe shows how we have inherited Victorian anxieties about quantitative and machine-driven reading, professional obsolescence in the face of new technology, and more-telling a longer history of how writers, readers, and scholars adapt to dramatically changing media ecologies, then and now. The result is a predigital history for the digital humanities through nineteenth-century encounters with telecommunication networks, privacy intrusions, quantitative reading methods, remediation, and their effects on literary professionals. As Fyfe demonstrates, well before computers, the Victorians were already digital.

  Disability studies: an interdisciplinary introduction /Dan Goodley.  What if disability isn’t a problem but a resource? This updated edition of a classic text in the field of disability studies interrogates the commonly held view that disability is something that needs to be ‘cured’ or ‘eradicated’. It shows us how disability can challenge our thinking and help us to imagine a more socially just society, offering an engaging introduction to a diverse and globally expanding subject. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this text will be of interest to undergraduates, graduates, and researchers across the social sciences. Making the case that disability is much more than just impairment, this book uncovers the ways in which disabled people are challenging discrimination and marginalisation. Ranging across topics such as health, activism and education, this book asks questions about the ways in which society tends to understand disability and offers alternative explanations that are more exciting, radical and transformative.

Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics /Andy Field.   With its unique combination of humour and step-by-step instruction, this award-winning book is the statistics lifesaver for everyone. From initial theory through to regression, factor analysis and multilevel modelling, Field animates statistics and SPSS software with his famously bizarre examples and activities. Features: Flexible coverage to support students across disciplines and degree programs to support classroom or lab learning and assessment.  Analysis of real data with opportunities to practice statistical skills and highlights common misconceptions and errors. Also includes revamped online resource that uses video, case studies, datasets, testbanks and more to help students negotiate project work, master data management techniques, and apply key writing and employability skills. Now fully up to date with latest versions of IBM SPSS Statistics©. All the online resources above (video, case studies, datasets, testbanks) can be easily integrated into your institution’s virtual learning environment or learning management system. This allows you to customize and curate content for use in module preparation, delivery and assessment.  .

  Good nature: why seeing, smelling, hearing and touching plants is good for our health /Katherine Willis. A ground-breaking investigation into newly discovered evidence showing that remarkable things happen to our bodies and our minds when our senses connect with the natural world. We all take for granted the idea that being in nature makes us feel better. But if you were a skeptical scientist—or indeed any kind of sceptic—who wanted hard scientific evidence for this idea, where would you look? And how would that evidence be gathered? It wasn’t until Dr. Willis was asked to contribute to an international project looking for the societal benefits we gain from plants that she stumbled across a study that radically changed the way she saw the natural world. In the study there was clear proof that patients recovering from gall bladder operations recovered more quickly if they were looking at trees. In fact, in the last decade there has been an explosion of “proof’ that incredible things happen to our bodies and our minds when our senses interact with the natural world. In Good Nature, Willis takes the reader on a journey with her to dig out all the experiments around the world that are looking for this evidence—experiments made easier by the new kinds of data being collected from satellites and big-data biobanks. Having a vase of roses on your desk or a green wall in your office makes a measurable difference to your wellbeing; certain scents in room diffusers genuinely can boost your immune system; and, in a chapter that Kathy calls ‘Hidden Sense’ we learn that touching organic soil has a significant effect on the healthiness of your microbiome. What is remarkable about this book is how its revelations should to be commonsense– schools should let children play in nature to improve their health and concentration; urban streets should have trees—and yet it reveals just how difficult it is to prove this to businesses and governments. As Willis says in her narrative, ‘We now know enough to self-prescribe in our homes, offices or working spaces, gardens, and when out walking. However small these individual actions might be, overall they have the potential to provide a large number of health benefits. And we need to be encouraging others to do the same. Nature is far more than just something that is useful for our health. It is not a dispensable commodity. It is an inherent part of us”.

 James:  a commentary /Joel B. Green.  Examines the Letter of James from a variety of angles-its social and cultural contexts, its relationship to Israel’s Scriptures and to the teaching of Jesus, the development of its message, and its significance theologically.

  Key concepts and issues in nursing ethics /P. Anne Scott, Shane M. Scott, editors.  This second edition of Key concepts and issues in nursing ethics offers updates, new topics, and new short case studies, based on real stories from the health care arena, ensuring that each chapter of this book is rooted in descriptions of nursing practice that are grounded, salient narratives of nursing care. The reader is assisted to explore the ethical dimension of nursing practice: what it is and how it can be portrayed, discussed, and analyzed within a variety of practice and theoretical contexts. One of the unique contributions of this book is to consider nursing not only in the context of the individual nurse-patient relationship but also as a social good that is of necessity limited, due to the ultimate limits on the nursing and health care resource. This book will help the reader consider what good nursing looks like, both within the context of limitations on resources, during crises situations, and under conditions of scarcity. Indeed, any discussion of ethical issues in nursing should be well grounded in a conceptualization of nursing that nursing students and practicing nursing can recognize, accept and engage with. Nursing, like medicine, social work and teaching has a clear moral aim — to do good. In the case of nursing to do good for the patient. However, in the pressurized, constrained , post-COVID-19 pandemic health service of the 21st century, it is vital that we help nurses explore what this might mean for nursing practice and what can reasonably be expected of the individual nurse, and the nursing profession, in terms of good nursing care.

  Language in the mission of God /Micheal Greed, general editor ; Allen Yeh, foreword. Whether spoken, written, signed, or thought, language is part of everything we do. How often do we reflect on the role of language in God’s kingdom? The world’s 7,000 languages are not merely obstacles to be overcome; they are part of God’s beautiful plan. Language in the Mission of God will deepen your understanding of the role of language in your faith and practice. Through 22 contributing authors from around the globe, this collection of writings will challenge Christian leaders to engage in ministry across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

Love’s braided dance: hope in a time of crisis /Norman Wirzba. A moving exploration of the place of hope in the world today, drawing on agrarian principles.   In this series of meditations, Wirzba recasts hope not as something people have, like a vaccine to prevent pain and trouble, but as something people do. Hope evaporates in conditions of abandonment and abuse. It grows in contexts of nurture and belonging. Hope ignites when people join in what Wendell Berry calls “love’s braided dance”–a commitment to care for one another and our world.   Through personal narratives and historical examples, Wirzba explores what sustains hope and why it so often seems absent from our vision of the future. The vitality of hope, he maintains, depends on a collective commitment to care for the physical world (its soils and waters, plants and animals, homes and neighborhoods) and to promote the moral, aesthetic, and spiritual ideals that affirm life as good, beautiful, and sacred.   Engaging with such contemporary topics as climate change, AI and social media, and the intensifying refugee crises and drawing on the wisdom of James Baldwin, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Martha Graham, and others, Wirzba offers a powerful argument for hope as a way of life in which people are intimately and practically joined with all the living.

Milestone documents of Christianity:  exploring the essential primary sources /Joseph T. Stuart, editor in chief. From iconic Biblical texts to influential essays and papal opinions, this collection explores primary sources about the world’s largest religion. It pairs the text of each document (in English or English translation) with in-depth scholarly commentary and analysis, guiding readers to a better understanding of the document’s historical context. Entries are arranged chronologically by year, and divided into 3 main sections: Fact Box, Commentary and Analysis, and Document Text.

  Rhetorical democracy: how communication shapes political culture /Robert Danisch. This book addresses the characteristics of communication systems and communication practices that inhibit or enhance democratic life and how both can be altered to make democracy thrive.

  The researcher’s guide to influencing policy /Mark S. Reed.  Designed to help researchers navigate the complex and ethical challenges of working with policy to effect change that is both deep and wide, this must-read book provides guidance on how to negotiate complex power dynamics, learn informing and influencing strategies and the different roles researchers can take within policy networks. Readers are invited to interrogate the assumption that evidence-based policy is either possible or desirable, question why they do the research they do and learn how they can use their power to give voice to those who are rarely heard. Based on two decades of Professor Reed’s peer-reviewed work on research impact as well as his experience using his environmental research to influence policy around the world, this guide covers the crucial, tried and tested practical skills needed to communicate research effectively to policy audiences and collect evidence of policy impacts. Applicable to all disciplines and career stages, The Researcher’s Guide to Influencing Policy provides the confidence needed to start engaging with policy safely, responsibly, and effectively. It is time to get out of the echo chamber of research and policy elites and to start getting our hands dirty with the messy reality of real-world policy.

  The Routledge international handbook of intersectionality studies /edited by Kathy Davis and Helma Lutz. Intersectionality is one of the most popular theoretical paradigms in gender studies and feminist theory today. Initially developed to explore how gender and race interact in the experiences of US women of colour, it has since been taken up in different disciplines and national contexts, where it is used to investigate a wide range of intersecting social identities and experiences of exclusion and subordination. This volume explores intersectionality studies as a burgeoning international field with a growing body of research, which is increasingly drawn upon in policy, political interventions, and social activism. Bringing together contributors from different disciplines and locations, The Routledge International Handbook of Intersectionality Studies maps the history and travels of intersectionality between continents and countries and takes up debates surrounding the privileged role of race in intersectional analysis, the ways in which intersectional analysis should or should not be carried out, and the political implications of thinking intersectional analysis and thought. Opening up new avenues of enquiry for a future generation of scholars and practitioners, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, gender studies, politics, and cultural studies with interests in feminist thought, social identity, social exclusion, and social inequality.