Normally I post a cover crush on Fridays, but today I’m doing something different. There is so much information out there and the main-stream media has taken front and center in the world’s education. I want to recommend that people take a step back, start questioning what is being fed to them by this entity. Do you feel out of touch? Are you feeling ill at ease? Are you feeling controlled or that you’re not getting enough information and facts? There is a reason for that. Without going into a long discussion about this, I would like to recommend a few books you can start reading that would help. I might be posting a part II of this recommendation. There are so many extraordinary books out there that so many people are not aware of. -Stephanie Hopkins

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A must read: The Holy Bible: New American Standard Version, NASB!!

Notes from the Underground

Dostoevsky’s most revolutionary novel, Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In complete retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, inhabited by genetically modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by only a single individual: the story’s protagonist.

A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield – the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote his ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right.

1984 by George Orwell

The year 1984 has come and gone, but George Orwell’s prophetic, nightmarish vision in 1949 of the world we were becoming is timelier than ever. 1984 is still the great modern classic of “negative utopia”—a startlingly original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing, from the first sentence to the last four words. No one can deny the novel’s hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions—a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.

The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah by Alfred Edersheim

One of the best known and most important references on the life of Christ ever written, Alfred Edersheim’s “The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah” is a storehouse of information on the background of the New Testament. This classic work successfully portrays the streets, the marketplaces, the religious conflicts, the people, and the places of Jesus’ earthly ministry.

Edersheim divides his work into five sections, or books:
Book 1 “The Preparation for the Gospel”
Introductory historical, religious, political, and cultural material based on the author’s extensive knowledge of Jewish lore and customs.
Book 2 “From Bethlehem to Jordan”
The background of Herod and his reign, St. John the Baptist and his message, and the birth and baptism of Jesus.
Book 3 “From Jordan to the Mount of Transfiguration”
Thirty-seven chapters explore the miracles and teachings of Jesus’ early ministry.
Book 4 “The Descent into the Valley of Humiliation”
A history of the latter part of Jesus’ ministry from the Transfiguration to the journey to Jerusalem.
Book 5 “The Cross and the Crown”
A chronicle of each day of Passion Week, from Palm Sunday to the Resurrection.
Appendices
Valuable background material on Jewish history, tradition, and law”