New Book Highlight: Surprised by Hope

Welcome to our first New Book Highlight! Every first Friday of the month, I will be posting information about one of the new items we received recently in the library. Along with “normal” title/author information, we thought it would be interesting to post some of our “behind the scenes” library knowledge with you too!

Surprised by hope: Rethinking heaven, the resurrection, and the mission of the church by N. T. Wright, New York: HarperOne, 2008.

(Click here to view this item in our catalog)

Call Number: 236 W952s 2008
Circulation Policy: This book is located in the main library stacks and is circulating.


Special Note: It is our policy at the Darling Library to present each graduating student worker with a book to be added to our library collection in their honor. Each student is given the opportunity to select a book not currently owned by the library that they would like see added to our collection. When the book arrives, a special bookplate is placed in the front of the book. These labels are specialized individually with the student’s name listed on the inside cover, so that everyone who checks out the book will be aware of the unique nature of the book.

This past year, the library saw three of our student workers graduate, and, while they will be missed, our honor books are just another way that we celebrate their accomplishments with them. Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright was selected by Brian Burns, who graduated from Hope this past May (2010). Brain was unable to make it to our end of the year event honoring seniors, but we hope this special post demonstrates just a little bit of our appreciation!

Abstract: Surprised by Hope offers a reinterpretation of biblical teaching on what happens after death, arguing that literal bodily resurrection is at the heart of Christianity and exploring the implications of this for the church's work in the world.

Subject Descriptors:
Subject descriptors are terms that catalogers and indexers select from a standardized list which best describe the contents of an item. These terms can then be used to find other items that address the same or similar topic. Under this entry in our catalog, if you click on one of the following terms, you will find a list of all other materials in our collection that have the same descriptor.

Eschatology.
Resurrection.
Mission of the church.
Future life.
Church and the world.


Class Descriptors:
The numbers listed here, both the LC and more relevant to us, Dewey, not only provide the start of call numbers to find a book in the shelves, but actually they also correspond to a specific subject heading i.e. topic. Like subject descriptors, the subject heading that best describes a book is the one that gets chosen. In the case of this month's book, the class descriptors are:

LC: BT903 and Dewey: 236

You can actually learn a lot about a book just by considering its class descriptor. In the case of this book the Dewey Decimal number of all items falling under 236 is “Eschatology and End Times.” The LC number of BT903 equates to the topic of “Future Life.” Other items focused on these topics can be found here as well.

This book is also available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Better World Books.

Look forward to our next “New Book Highlight” the first Friday of October!