Justin Kellner's Book Lists

World War II  has always been in my blood. It was the defining event of my parents' lives, and from early childhood I started to absorb their stories of the great cataclysm. My father was in London after D-day, enduring the V-1 "buzz bombs" and the V-2 "doodlebugs," German missiles that would strike the city hard and at random, each with almost a ton of high explosives. A junior member of the American Foreign Service, he was preparing to deploy to Germany on a joint US State Department-British Foreign Office team to capture the Third Reich's Foreign Office documents before they were destroyed. My mother was one thousand miles away in Hungary, enduring the siege of Budapest and the Soviet occupation that followed. What they wanted for their children after the war was a more peaceful existence, one without incoming German bombs or trigger-happy Red Army soldiers standing on every street corner. But what I wanted from childhood on was to understand what it was

  The Purpose Driven Life is a bible study book written by Christian pastor Rick Warren and published by Zondervan in 2002. The book offers readers a 40-day personal spiritual journey and presents what Warren says are God's five purposes for human life on Earth. [ Source ] The Purpose Driven Life will help you understand why you are alive and reveal God's amazing plan for you--both here and now, and for eternity. Rick Warren will guide you through a personal forty-day spiritual journey that will transform your answer to life's most important question: What on earth am I here for? Knowing God's purpose for creating you will reduce your stress, focus your energy, simplify your decisions, give meaning to your life, and most important, prepare you for eternity. [ Source ]

  The Emperor of Ocean Park is a 2002 novel by American author and law professor Stephen L. Carter. It is the first part of Carter's Elm Harbor series; two more novels in the series were published in 2007 and 2008.  The book was Carter's first work of fiction, and spent 11 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list following its publication. Described as a murder mystery, the novel tells the story of Talcott Garland, a law professor who uncovers a mystery surrounding his father, the titular 'Emperor of Ocean Park'. Written from Tal's first person perspective, the book explores themes of privileged black identity, politics, and law, and contains many allusions to chess. [ Source ]

Tertullian (c. AD 160 - 225) was one of the first theologians of the Western Church and ranks among the most prominent of the early Latin fathers. His literary output is wide-ranging, and provides an invaluable insight into the Christian Church in the crucial period when the Roman Empire was in decline. These crucial works studied, together with Geoffrey D. Dunn 's comprehensive commentary, illuminate the early church's reaction to paganism, Judaism, Scripture, and its development of a distinctive Christian ethic. [ Source ]

The Book of Illusions is a novel by American writer Paul Auster , published in 2002. It was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2004. Set in the late 1980s, the story is written from the perspective of David Zimmer, a university professor who, after losing his wife and children in a plane crash, falls into a routine of depression and isolation. After seeing one of the silent comedies of Hector Mann, an actor missing since the 1920s, he decides to occupy himself by watching all of Mann's films and writing a book about them. The publishing of the book, however, triggers another series of events that draw Zimmer even deeper into the actor's past. The middle of the story is largely dedicated to telling the life story of Hector Mann, involving his self-imposed exile from his past life and career, which serves as a form of penance for his role in the death of a woman who loved him. In his last days, Mann's wife sends a letter to Zimmer, requesting him to com

  The Noonday Demon examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, doctors and scientists, policy makers and politicians, drug designers, and philosophers, Andrew Solomon reveals the subtle complexities and sheer agony of the disease as well as the reasons for hope. He confronts the challenge of defining the illness and describes the vast range of available medications and treatments, and the impact the malady has on various demographic populations—around the world and throughout history. He also explores the thorny patch of moral and ethical questions posed by biological explanations for mental illness. With uncommon humanity, candor, wit and erudition, award-winning author Solomon takes readers on a journey of incomparable range and resonance into the most pervasive of family secrets. His contribution to our understanding not only of mental illness but also of the human condition i

  Empire Falls is a 2001 novel written by Richard Russo . It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2002, and follows the story of Miles Roby in a fictional, small blue-collar town in Maine and the people, places, and the past surrounding him, as manager of the Empire Grill diner.