From the Joint Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces and BBC Television series including Lucy Worsley: Mozart's London Odyssey and Six Wives with Lucy Worsley, available on Netflix. “Worsley is a thoughtful, charming, often hilarious guide to life as it was lived, from the mundane to the esoteric.” -The Boston Globe Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two “dirty centuries”? Why, for centuries, did rich people fear fruit? In her brilliantly and creatively researched book, Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen, covering the history of each room and exploring what people actually did in bed, in the bath, at the table, and at the stove-from sauce stirring to breast-feeding, teeth cleaning to masturbating, getting dressed to getting married-providing a compelling account of how the four rooms of the home have evolved from medieval times to today, charting revolutionary changes in society.

Philadelphia's community muralism movement is transforming the City of Brotherly Love into the Mural Capital of the World. This remarkable groundswell of public art includes some 3,500 wall-sized canvases: On warehouses and on schools, on mosques and in jails, in courthouses and along overpasses. In If These Walls Could Talk, Maureen O'Connell explores the theological and social significance of the movement. She calls attention to some of the most startling and powerful works it has produced and describes the narratives behind them. In doing so, O'Connell illustrates the ways that the arts can help us think about and work through the seemingly inescapable problems of urban poverty and arrive at responses that are both creative and effective. This is a book on American religion. It incorporates ethnography to explore faith communities that have used larger-than-life religious imagery to proclaim in unprecedented public ways their self-understandings, memories of the past, and visions of the future. It also examines the way this art functions in larger public discourse about problems facing every city in America. But If These Walls Could Talk is also theological text. It considers the theological implications of this most democratic expression of public art, mindful of the three components of every mural: the pieces themselves, those who create them, and those who interpret them. It illuminates a kind of beauty that seeks after social change or, in other words, the largely unexplored relationship between theological aesthetics and ethics.

If the Walls Could Speak focuses on the lives of women in prison in postwar communist Poland and how they took on different roles and personalities to protect themselves and create a semblance of normality, despite abuses and prison confinement, and reveals how life in a Stalinist prison adds to our understanding of coercion and resistance under totalitarian regimes.

"Richard Wurmbrand reveals what Communist imprisonment and torture can do to a Christian's mind and faith. In these intensely moving pages, he shows us faith going right to the breaking point and beyond--and remaining unbroken" -- Back cover.

In case you've ever wondered, the walls at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have eyes and ears -- and, what's more, they don't miss a thing. Now, listen up because the walls have a thing or two to tell you! During President John Tyler's presidency, the White House was such a mess that it was called the "Public Shabby House." President William Howard Taft was so large that he had to have a jumbo-size bathtub installed -- one big enough for four people. President Andrew Jackson's "open door" policy at the White House resulted in 20,000 people showing up for his inauguration party. (The new president escaped to the quiet of a nearby hotel!) President Abraham Lincoln didn't mind at all that his younger sons, Tad and Willie, kept pet goats in their White House bedrooms. Children all across the country sent in their own money to build an indoor swimming pool for wheelchair-bound President Franklin D. Roosevelt so that he could exercise. President Harry S. Truman knew it was time to renovate the White House after a leg on his daughter's piano broke right through the floor. Hear these funny, surprising stories and more about the most famous home in America and the extraordinary families who have lived in it.

Led by stars like Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, Mike Singletary, William "Refrigerator" Perry, head coach Mike Ditka, and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan, the Chicago Bears in the 1980s were an NFL powerhouse. As anyone who's seen "The Super Bowl Shuffle" surely knows, they were also an unforgettable group of characters. Otis Wilson, the Bears starting outside linebacker, was right in the center of the action, and in this book, Wilson provides a closer look at the great moments and personalities that made this era legendary. Readers will meet the players, coaches, and management and share in their moments of triumph and defeat. Be a fly on the wall as Wilson recounts stories from those days in Chicago, including the 1985 Super Bowl-winning season. If These Walls Could Talk: Chicago Bears will make fans a part of the team's storied history.

Firsthand tales of the most memorable moments in Cornhusker football history A traditional powerhouse, the Nebraska Cornhuskers are one of the most successful NCAA football teams, with five national championships and the highest winning percentage of any program over the last half century. Authors Jerry Murtaugh, an All-American linebacker at Nebraska in 1970, Jimmy Sheil, George Achola, and Brian Rosenthal, through interviews with current and past players, provide fans with a one-of-a-kind, insider's look into the great moments, the lowlights, and everything in between in Cornhuskers history. Readers will hear from players, coaches, and administrators as they discuss their moments of greatness as well as their defeats, making If These Walls Could Talk: Nebraska Cornhuskers a keepsake no fan will want to miss.

One of the world’s greatest and most thoughtful architects recounts his extraordinary career and the iconic structures he has built—from Habitat in Montreal to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore—and offers a manifesto for the role architecture should play in society Over more than five decades, legendary architect Moshe Safdie has built some of the world’s most influential and memorable structures—from the 1967 modular housing scheme in Montreal known as “Habitat” and the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel, to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas and the Marina Bay Sands development and extraordinary Jewel Changi airport interior garden and waterfall in Singapore. For Safdie, the way a space functions is fundamental; he is deeply committed to architecture as a social force for good, believing that any challenge, including extreme population density and environmental distress, can be addressed with solutions that enhance community and uplift the human spirit. Safdie always refers to the “silent client” an architect must ultimately serve: the people who live in, work in, or experience a building. If Walls Could Speak takes readers behind the veil of an essential yet mysterious profession to explain through Safdie’s own experiences how an architect thinks and works—“from the spark of imagination through the design process, the model-making, the politics, the engineering, the materials.” Relating memorable stories about what has inspired him—from childhoods in Israel and Montreal to the projects and personalities worldwide that have captured his imagination—Safdie reveals the complex interplay that underpins every project and his vision for the role architecture can and should play in society at large. Illustrated throughout with drawings, sketches, photographs, and documents from his firm’s voluminous archives that illuminate his stories, If Walls Could Speak ends with a chapter outlining seven projects Safdie would pursue around the world if resources and will were no issue and the choices were his to make. A book like no other, If Walls Could Speak will forever change the way you look at and appreciate any built structure.

The Boston Bruins are one of the most successful and historic teams in the NHL, with six Stanley Cup championships and counting. Author Dale Arnold, as a longtime broadcaster for the team, has gotten to witness more than his fair share of that history up close and personal. Through singular anecdotes only Arnold can tell as well as conversations with current and past players, this book provides fans with a one-of-a-kind, insider's look into the great moments, the lowlights, and everything in between. Bruins fans will not want to miss this book.

If walls could talk, what would they say? Perhaps they would tell us who built them and why. Maybe they could even tell us about people's lives today or about how our ancestors lived thousands of years ago. In this book walls really do talk, and oh, the stories they tell.This new edition combines the beloved children's books Talking Walls and Talking Walls: The Stories Continue. Together, those titles sold more than 170,000 copies. This new edition, thoroughly revised by the author, makes the text more accessible to young readers and English Language Learners and produces a book that is ideal for reading aloud. The back matter includes a world map that helps readers locate the many walls described, as well as additional information about the walls, the places, and the people. The Talking Walls books have been much honored, including: Top 25 Non-Fiction Children's Books Boston Globe Children's Books of Distinction Hungry Mind Review Noteworthy Book from Parallel Cultures: Horn Book Paperback Plum Booklinks Notable Children's Trade Book in the Social Studies: Children's Book Council/National Council on the Social Studies Winner of a Mom's Choice Gold Award -- Picture Books category