One of the most beautiful features of the Gospel of Luke is the way it depicts Christ as the Champion and Savior of the outcast and the oppressed. This series of studies examines in detail some of the case histories of people of this sort who were reclaimed and restored by Christ.

The wide appeal of McKnight's world is explained in part by its mixture of wild beauty and domestic luxury. His idyllic islands in the sun invariably include aspects of the developed culture he considers indispensable. McKnight's paradise has the best of everything -- what better definition of heaven can there be? Clearly and strongly, his beautiful images of places near and far appeal to our senses -- his lush but subtle color, his charming and elegant compositions, his skillful rendering of form -- these qualities we admire and enjoy in the works of master artists of all time. Thomas McKnight's work is in the collections of major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and millions of his paintings and silk-screen prints have sold through galleries and print stores across the nation. McKnight, who has devoted his time exclusively to art since 1972, is best known for his pictures of serene and beautiful rooms. These inviting, jewel-toned spaces have large windows or archways overlooking equally attractive outdoors scenes both local (Boston Public Garden or Manhattan Penthouse) and exotic (Venice, Parts, or the Greek isles).

Zany, madcap events transpire at the Reverend Lionel Toop's vicarage in Merton-cum-Middlewick. The plot revolves around Lionel's wife, Penelope, who dabbles in a football pool with the help of their maid, Ida, and Ida's suitor, the droll Willie Briggs. The most fantastic complications ensue when the triumvirate wins, or when they think they have won, more than 20,000 English pounds. Lending richly comic hands are the old maid parishioner, Miss Skillon, and Penelope's out-of-this-world uncle, The

This is a high quality enlarged replica reprint of the rare 1924 book by W. E. Van Amburgh, who was the Secretary/Treasurer of The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society for 43 years. It is worth noting that in his time W. E. Van Amburgh was one of only five members of the Watch Tower Editorial Committee qualified, as the Watch Tower said, "to approve as Truth each and every article appearing in these columns." He must have been very thoroughly familiar with all the Watch Tower's teachings to hold such responsibility. Today many of the doctrines taught in "The Way to Paradise" are no longer taught by Jehovah's Witnesses. This edition includes the biographical supplement, "Who was W. E. Van Amburgh?"

The First Day in Paradise tells the story of a young orphaned family who have been passed on from one set of relations to another, and whose eldest sibling, Adam, becomes enthralled by the impending opening nearby of a gigantic and beautiful shopping-mall by a flamboyant entrepreneur. To the consternation of his aunt and uncle, who run a small business, he joins the staff of one of its stores, and begins a dizzying ascent through the ranks, until circumstances induce him to question whether his entire value-system has become corrupted. Functioning both as social-economic critique, and as a personal moral fable about the conjuration of ambition from present-day consumer culture, The First Day in Paradise is an engrossing and layered tale loosely modelled on Dante's Paradiso, but most of all it's simply a great read.