Is morality based on some essential truth or is it defined by society? In this highly original critique of American social mores and popular culture, David Klinghoffer argues that the Ten Commandments are essential to maintaining a morally healthy society. With the meticulousness of a scholar, he begins by excavating the meaning of the Commandments. Drawing on the millennia-old rabbinical work Mechilta, he explains that the Decalogue was written on two tablets to show that when a country neglects the Commandments written on the first tablet—those having to do with the relationship between God and people—the interpersonal relationships described on the second tablet suffer irreparable damage as well. Addressing such timely topics as the controversy over public displays of the Commandments and the battles over intelligent design, Klinghoffer demonstrates that Christians and Jews are united in their opposition to the pagan aspects of our culture. In the tradition of Hebrew prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah, he describes our failings with humor and compassion but also with anger and disappointment. An unusual, incisive perspective on the role of religion in society, Shattered Tablets is sure to spark debate. In the end Klinghoffer argues that by shrugging off the Bible as a guide and turning toward secularism, America has created a crude, cruel, and dishonest national life.

“An eloquent argument for speaking even the most difficult truths.” —New York Times Book Review Paul Moore’s vocation as an Episcopal priest took him— with his wife, Jenny, and their family of nine children—from robber-baron wealth to work among the urban poor, leadership in the civil rights and peace movements, and two decades as the bishop of New York. The Bishop’s Daughter is his daughter’s story of that complex, visionary man: a chronicle of her turbulent relationship with a father who struggled privately with his sexuality while she openly explored hers and a searching account of the consequences of sexual secrets.

Four English sisters share a terrible family secret in this novel from “the suspense writers’ suspense writer” and author of Trick or Treat (Harper’s Bazaar). Winner of the Somerset Maugham and Betty Trask Awards In a decaying house along the marshy Fenlands of Eastern England, four sisters—Milly, Agatha, and identical, inseparable twins Ellen and Esther—have lived in self-imposed isolation for more than sixty years. Like good sisters, they bicker, go about their daily routines, and believe the bright myth they’ve created about their childhood. Sometimes Milly can recall a blessedly unexceptional youth of ordinary days, domestic tranquility, and young love. But what came after is so much more consuming, and so much harder to forget. So are the questions no one dares to answer out loud . . . Why does Milly still count the knives? What was the corruption their father warned them about? Was their mother really swallowed up by the roaring river? And why does no one sing to Baby George anymore, who’s locked away in the cellar? As a ceaseless rain lashes away at the house, the sisters prepare for a coming storm. With it comes the threat of steadily rising waters that will give up the secrets still holding them in thrall. “A fairytale gone gruesomely wrong”, Lesley Glaister’s debut novel was the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award, for which she joined the likes of Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, Sarah Waters, and Ian McEwan (The Literary Review). An “eerily tragic and mesmerizing first novel” (Publishers Weekly), Honour Thy Father is “a true original” (The Sunday Times).

We are all children of someone, we ought to pursue God's blessings, and we need to give prominence to God's prominent command. Thus, we can no longer ignore the forgotten Fifth Commandment: Honor your father and mother. In the home, church, and workplace, it provides a stable foundation for society, and we fail to appreciate its relevance.