The Age Of Questions

A groundbreaking history of the Big Questions that dominated the nineteenth century In the early nineteenth century, a new age began: the age of questions. In the Eastern and Belgian questions, as much as in the slavery, worker, social, woman, and Jewish questions, contemporaries saw not interrogatives to be answered but problems to be solved. Alexis de Tocqueville, Victor Hugo, Karl Marx, Frederick Douglass, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and Adolf Hitler were among the many who put their pens to the task. The Age of Questions asks how the question form arose, what trajectory it followed, and why it provoked such feverish excitement for over a century. Was there a family resemblance between questions? Have they disappeared, or are they on the rise again in our time? In this pioneering book, Holly Case undertakes a stunningly original analysis, presenting, chapter by chapter, seven distinct arguments and frameworks for understanding the age. She considers whether it was marked by a progressive quest for emancipation (of women, slaves, Jews, laborers, and others); a steady, inexorable march toward genocide and the "Final Solution"; or a movement toward federation and the dissolution of boundaries. Or was it simply a farce, a false frenzy dreamed up by publicists eager to sell subscriptions? As the arguments clash, patterns emerge and sharpen until the age reveals its full and peculiar nature. Turning convention on its head with meticulous and astonishingly broad scholarship, The Age of Questions illuminates how patterns of thinking move history.

Winner of the 2022 Goldstein-Goren Book Award from the Goldstein-Goren International Center for Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Yehuda Halper examines Jewish depictions of Socrates and Socratic questioning of the divine among European and North African Jews of the 12th-15th centuries. Without direct access to Plato, their understanding of Socrates is indirect, based on legendary material, on fragmentary quotations from Plato, or on Aristotle. Out of these sources, Jewish authors of this period formed two distinct views of Socrates: one as a wise, ascetic, monotheist, and the other as a vocal skeptic. The latter view has its roots in Plato's Apology where Socrates describes his divine mandate to question all knowledge, including knowledge of the divine. After exploring how this and similar questions arise in the works of Judah Halevi and the Hebrew Averroes, Halper traces how such open-questioning of the divine arises in the works of Maimonides, Jacob Anatoli, Gersonides, and Abraham Bibago.

A Best Book of the Year: The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • NPR • Vogue • Elle • Real Simple • InStyle • Good Housekeeping • Parade • Slate • Vox • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal • BookPage Longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize An Instant New York Times Bestseller A Reese's Book Club Pick "The most provocative page-turner of the year." --Entertainment Weekly "I urge you to read Such a Fun Age." --NPR A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both. Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.

By the age responses to tough questions kids ask parents about sex (for parents of kids aged 3 -14)

The dramatic recent advances and emergent trends in technologies have brought to the fore many vital and challenging questions and dilemmas for leaders and organizations. These are issues that call for a critical, insightful examination of key questions such as: are modern technologies beneficial or problematic for the well-being of individuals, organizations, and societies at large; why do we seem to feel more disconnected in an age of technological connectivity; can organizations reduce technology-induced stresses and find ways to enable the mindful use of technologies and how can organizations, governments and societies manage the use of technologies wisely? Such questions, when explored from various perspectives of wisdom, can yield significant insights, increase awareness of the issues, deepen the dialogue and help redesign an increasingly technology-driven future. However, there is little researched published material available on such questions and issues. Practical Wisdom in the Age of Technology: Insights, Issues and Questions for a New Millennium will provide a space to engage in thought-provoking dialogue and critical reflection on a variety of themes linking technology and practical wisdom. It will offer a foundation for exploration, inquiry, engagement, and discussion among organizational, political and social leaders, technology professionals, information systems academicians, wisdom researchers, managers, philosophers of technology, and other practitioners.

When Nina Collins entered her forties she found herself awash in a sea of hormones. As symptoms of perimenopause set in, she began to fear losing her health, looks, sexuality, sense of humor-perhaps all at once. Craving a place to discuss her questions and concerns, and finding none, Nina started a Facebook group with the ironic name, "What Would Virginia Woolf Do?," which has grown exponentially into a place where women-most with strong opinions and fierce senses of humor--have surprisingly candid, lively, and intimate conversations. Mid-life is a time when women want to think about purpose, about how to be their best selves, and how to love themselves as they enter the second half of life. They yearn to acknowledge the nostalgia and sadness that comes with aging, but also want to revel in their hard-earned wisdom. Part memoir and part resource on everything from fashion and skincare to sex and surviving the empty nest, What Would Virginia Woolf Do? is a frank and intimate conversation mixed with anecdotes and honesty, wrapped up in a literary joke. It's also a destination, a place where readers can nestle in and see what happens when women feel comfortable enough to get real with each other: defy the shame that the culture often throws their way, find solace and laugh out loud, and revel in this new phase of life.

Full of roller-coaster twists and turns, Neal Shusterman's page-turner is an Orpheus-like adventure into one boy's psyche. Sixteen-year-old Blake and his younger brother, Quinn, are exact opposites. Blake is the responsible member of the family. He constantly has to keep an eye on the fearless Quinn, whose thrill-seeking sometimes goes too far. But the stakes get higher when Blake has to chase Quinn into a bizarre phantom carnival that traps its customers forever. In order to escape, Blake must survive seven deadly rides by dawn, each of which represents a deep, personal fear--from a carousel of stampeding animals to a hall of mirrors that changes people into their deformed reflections. Blake ultimately has to face up to a horrible secret from his own past to save himself and his brother--that is, if the carnival doesn't claim their souls first!

“The Power of One has everything: suspense, the exotic, violence; mysticism, psychology and magic; schoolboy adventures, drama.” –The New York Times “Unabashedly uplifting . . . asserts forcefully what all of us would like to believe: that the individual, armed with the spirit of independence–‘the power of one’–can prevail.” –Cleveland Plain Dealer In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams–which are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him. He embarks on an epic journey through a land of tribal superstition and modern prejudice where he will learn the power of words, the power to transform lives, and the power of one. “Totally engrossing . . . [presents] the metamorphosis of a most remarkable young man and the almost spiritual influence he has on others . . . Peekay has both humor and a refreshingly earthy touch, and his adventures, at times, are hair-raising in their suspense.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review “Marvelous . . . It is the people of the sun-baked plains of Africa who tug at the heartstrings in this book. . . . [Bryce] Courtenay draws them all with a fierce and violent love.” –The Washington Post Book World “Impressive.” –Newsday “A compelling tale.” –The Christian Science Monitor