The Kaiserchronik (c.1152–1165) is the first verse chronicle to have been written in a language other than Latin. This story recounts the exploits of the Roman, Byzantine, Carolingian, and Holy Roman kings and rulers, from the establishment of Rome to the start of the Second Crusade. As an early example of popular history, it was written for a non-monastic audience who would have preferred to read, or may only have been able to read, in German. As a rhymed chronicle, its combined use of the styles of language found within a vernacular epic and a factual treaty was a German innovation. The Book of Emperors is the first complete translation of the Kaiserchronik from Middle High German to English. It is a rich resource not only for medieval German scholars and students, but also for those working in early cultural studies. It brings together an understanding of the conception of kingship in the German Middle Ages, from the relationship between emperor and king, to the moral, theological, and legal foundations of claims and legitimacy and the medieval epistemological approaches to historiography. This translation includes a substantial introduction that discusses the historical and philological context of the work, as well as the themes of power and kingship. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction that distinguishes historical truths from the epic fiction found within the original text.
Colorful, mysterious, and often fantastically shaped, fungi have been a source of wonder and fascination since the earliest hunter-gatherers first foraged for them. Today there are few, if any, places on Earth where fungi have not found themselves a home. And these highly specialized organisms are an indispensable part of the great chain of life. They not only partner in symbiotic relationships with over ninety percent of the world’s trees and flowering plant species, they also recycle and create humus, the fertile soil from which such flora receive their nutrition. Some fungi are parasites or saprotrophs; many are poisonous and, yes, hallucinogenic; others possess life-enhancing properties that can be tapped for pharmaceutical products; while a delicious few are prized by epicureans and gourmands worldwide.
In this lavishly illustrated volume, six hundred fungi from around the globe get their full due. Each species here is reproduced at its actual size, in full color, and is accompanied by a scientific explanation of its distribution, habitat, association, abundance, growth form, spore color, and edibility. Location maps give at-a-glance indications of each species’ known global distribution, and specially commissioned engravings show different fruitbody forms and provide the vital statistics of height and diameter. With information on the characteristics, distinguishing features, and occasionally bizarre habits of these fungi, readers will find in this book the common and the conspicuous, the unfamiliar and the odd. There is a fungal predator, for instance, that hunts its prey with lassos, and several that set traps, including one that entices sows by releasing the pheromones of a wild boar.
Mushrooms, morels, puffballs, toadstools, truffles, chanterelles—fungi from habitats spanning the poles and the tropics, from the highest mountains to our own backyards—are all on display in this definitive work.
Winner of the 2017 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise
Of all our childhood memories, few are quite as thrilling, or as tactile, as those of climbing trees. Scampering up the rough trunk, spying on the world from the cool green shelter of the canopy, lying on a limb and looking up through the leaves at the summer sun almost made it seem as if we were made for trees, and trees for us.Even in adulthood, trees retain their power, from the refreshing way their waves of green break the monotony of a cityscape to the way their autumn transformations take our breath away.
In this lavishly illustrated volume, the trees that have enriched our lives finally get their full due, through a focus on the humble leaves that serve, in a sense, as their public face. The Book of Leaves offers a visually stunning and scientifically engaging guide to six hundred of the most impressive and beautiful leaves from around the world. Each leaf is reproduced here at its actual size, in full color, and is accompanied by an explanation of the range, distribution, abundance, and habitat of the tree on which it’s found. Brief scientific and historical accounts of each tree and related species include fun-filled facts and anecdotes that broaden its portrait.
The Henry’s Maple, for instance, found in China and named for an Irish doctor who collected leaves there, bears little initial resemblance to the statuesque maples of North America, from its diminutive stature to its unusual trifoliolate leaves. Or the Mediterranean Olive, which has been known to live for more than 1,500 years and whose short, narrow leaves only fall after two or three years, pushed out in stages by the emergence of younger leaves.
From the familiar friends of our backyards to the giants of deep woods, The Book of Leaves brings the forest to life—and to our living rooms—as never before.
“Poet Alicia Ostriker is also a highly original scholar/teacher of midrash, the commentary and exegesis of scripture (the same root as madrasa, place of study). Here she ‘studies’ Jewish history, Jewish passion, Jewish contradictions, in a compendium of learned, crafted, earthy and outward-looking poems that show how this quest has informed and enriched her whole poet’s trajectory.”
—Marilyn Hacker
This magical account of King Arthur’s last night on earth, rediscovered in a collection of T. H. White’s papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, spent twenty-six weeks on the New York Times bestseller list following its publication in 1977. While preparing for his final, fatal battle with his bastard son, Mordred, Arthur returns to the Animal Council with Merlyn, where the deliberations center on ways to abolish war. More self-revealing than any other of White’s books, Merlyn shows his mind at work as he agonized over whether to join the fight against Nazi Germany while penning the epic that would become The Once and Future King. The Book of Merlyn has been cited as a major influence by such illustrious writers as Kazuo Ishiguro, J. K. Rowling, Helen Macdonald, Neil Gaiman, and Lev Grossman.
“Arriving from beyond the curve of time and apparently from the grave, The Book of Merlyn stirs its own pages, saying, wait: you didn’t get the whole story. . . . It gives us a final glimpse of those two immortal characters, Wart and Merlyn, up close, slo-mo, with a considered and affectionate scrutiny. The book is an elegiac posting from a master storyteller of the twentieth century. Its reissue in our next century is just as welcome as when it first arrived forty years ago. . . . Certainly the moral questions about the military use of force perplex the world still. . . . The efficacy of treaties, the trading of insults among the potentates of the day, the testing of weapons, the weaponizing of trade—these strategies are still front and center. Rather terrifyingly so. We do well to revisit what that old schoolteacher of children, Merlyn, has been trying to point out to us about power and responsibility.”
—Gregory Maguire, from the foreword
The story of queer Mormons is one that some might not expect to be joyful. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has traditionally asserted that queerness is counter to God’s plan and that gender as determined at birth is eternal. Any marriage other than a monogamous pairing of male and female is “counterfeit.” So called “wickedness,” we are told, “never was happiness.”
But queer Mormons tell different stories—stories filled with joy. This collection includes essays by queer Mormons across the LGBTQ spectrum who, when they looked inside themselves, found divinity rather than sin. Stories by people who are made exactly as they are meant to be, and live accordingly.
Queer Mormons who feel forced out of the institutional church don’t typically find despair on the outside or abandonment by the divine. Instead, their lives are rich and beautiful—made all the more so by the struggle. The Book of Mormon tells us, “Men are that they might have joy.” The Book of Queer Mormon Joy affirms that trans, nonbinary, intersex, asexual, bisexual, polyamorous, and gay people have joy. Joy is for everyone.
Who among us hasn’t marveled at the diversity and beauty of shells? Or picked one up, held it to our ear, and then gazed in wonder at its shape and hue? Many a lifelong shell collector has cut teeth (and toes) on the beaches of the Jersey Shore, the Outer Banks, or the coasts of Sanibel Island. Some have even dived to the depths of the ocean. But most of us are not familiar with the biological origin of shells, their role in explaining evolutionary history, and the incredible variety of forms in which they come.
Shells are the external skeletons of mollusks, an ancient and diverse phylum of invertebrates that are in the earliest fossil record of multicellular life over 500 million years ago. There are over 100,000 kinds of recorded mollusks, and some estimate that there are over amillion more that have yet to be discovered. Some breathe air, others live in fresh water, but most live in the ocean. They range in size from a grain of sand to a beach ball and in weight from a few grams to several hundred pounds. And in this lavishly illustrated volume, they finally get their full due.
The Book of Shells offers a visually stunning and scientifically engaging guide to six hundred of the most intriguing mollusk shells, each chosen to convey the range of shapes and sizes that occur across a range of species. Each shell is reproduced here at its actual size, in full color, and is accompanied by an explanation of the shell’s range, distribution, abundance, habitat, and operculum—the piece that protects the mollusk when it’s in the shell. Brief scientific and historical accounts of each shell and related species include fun-filled facts and anecdotes that broaden its portrait.
The Matchless Cone, for instance, or Conus cedonulli, was one of the rarest shells collected during the eighteenth century. So much so, in fact, that a specimen in 1796 was sold for more than six times as much as a painting by Vermeer at the same auction. But since the advent of scuba diving, this shell has become far more accessible to collectors—though not without certain risks. Some species of Conus produce venom that has caused more than thirty known human deaths.
The Zebra Nerite, the Heart Cockle, the Indian Babylon, the Junonia, the Atlantic Thorny Oyster—shells from habitats spanning the poles and the tropics, from the highest mountains to the ocean’s deepest recesses, are all on display in this definitive work.
First published in 1939 and extensively revised in 1943, The Book of the Dead, loosely inspired by the tale of Isis and Osiris from ancient Egypt, is a sweeping historical romance that tells a gothic tale of love between a noblewoman and a ghost in eighth-century Japan. Its author, Orikuchi Shinobu, was a well-received novelist, distinguished poet, and an esteemed scholar. He is often considered one of the fathers of Japanese folklore studies, and The Book of the Dead is without a doubt the most important novel of Orikuchi’s career—and it is a book like no other.
Here, for the first time, is the complete English translation of Orikuchi’s masterwork, whose vast influence is evidenced by multiple critical studies dedicated to it and by its many adaptations, which include an animated film and a popular manga. This translation features an introduction by award-winning translator Jeffrey Angles discussing the historical background of the work as well as its major themes: the ancient origins of the Japanese nation, the development of religion in a modernizing society, and the devotion necessary to create a masterpiece. Also included are three chapters from The Mandala of Light by Japanese intellectual historian Andō Reiji, who places the novel and Orikuchi’s thought in the broader intellectual context of early twentieth-century Japan.
The Book of the Dead focuses on the power of faith and religious devotion, and can be read as a parable illustrating the suffering an artist must experience to create great art. Readers will soon discover that a great deal lies hidden beneath the surface of the story; the entire text is a modernist mystery waiting to be decoded.
Book of the Disappeared confronts worldwide human rights violations of enforced disappearance and genocide and explores the global quest for justice with forceful, outstanding contributions by respected scholars, expert practitioners, and provocative contemporary artists. This profoundly humane book spotlights our historic inhumanity while offering insights for survival and transformation.
Christine de Pizan (ca. 1364–ca. 1431) has long been recognized as France’s first professional woman of letters, and interest in her voluminous and wide-ranging corpus has been steadily rising for decades. During the tumultuous later years of the Hundred Years’ War, Christine’s lone but strong feminine voice could be heard defending women, expounding the highest ideals for good governance, and lamenting France’s troubled times alongside her own personal trials. In The Mutability of Fortune, Christine fuses world history with autobiography to demonstrate mankind’s subjugation to the ceaselessly changing, and often cruel, whims of Fortune. Now, for the first time, this poem is accessible to an English-speaking audience, further expanding our appreciation of this ground-breaking woman author and her extraordinary body of work.
A critical collection for specialists and serious students of prophetic literature
This book contains a collection of essays dealing with texts in the Book of the Twelve written by James D. Nogalski beginning in 1993. Essays use various methodological approaches to prophetic literature, including redaction criticism, form criticism, text criticism, intertextuality, and literary analysis. The variety of methods employed by one scholar, as well as the diverse texts treated, makes this volume useful for exploring changes in the field of prophetic studies in the last quarter century.
Features
An exploration of genre questions for scholars and students
Contributors to this volume explore the theoretical issues at stake in recent changes in form criticism and the practical outcomes of applying the results of these theoretical shifts to the Book of the Twelve. This volume combines self-conscious methodological reflection with examination of specific texts illustrating the value of certain methodological approaches.
Features:
Word spreads from one recovering self-inflicted eye surgery patient to the next of a mystical book capable of overturning the Burlingtonian empire.
Captivating and devious, the book of webs is constructed out of misremembered fragments, conflicting histories, and secrets whispered in the darkness. The insurgents tell of an enemy so powerful it owns the air, dictates reality, and has even managed to co-opt their thoughts. Their only hope is to conspire with the uprisings of their bodies: slips of the tongue, excretions, tics, bad hair days, and, most importantly, their dreams.
In this darkly comic and inventive debut novel, Jesse Kohn introduces a network of shape-shifters and misfits. A militant priestess broods over orphaned angel eggs. A post-punk band animates a messianic homunculus made of belly button lint. A failed dream journalist goes on a terrible first date to heaven. Each misadventure is a chapter in a book devised to oppose the despotic order of their enemy—the book of webs.
Widely acclaimed as the greatest Western ever made, Lonesome Dove has become a true American epic. Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel was a New York Times best seller, with more than 2.5 million copies currently in print. The Lonesome Dove miniseries has drawn millions of viewers and won numerous awards, including seven Emmys.
A Book on the Making of Lonesome Dove takes you on a fascinating behind-the-scenes journey into the creation of the book, the miniseries, and the world of Lonesome Dove. Writer John Spong talks to forty of the key people involved, including author Larry McMurtry; actors Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Anjelica Huston, Diane Lane, Danny Glover, Ricky Schroder, D. B. Sweeney, Frederic Forrest, and Chris Cooper; executive producer and screenwriter Bill Wittliff; executive producer Suzanne de Passe; and director Simon Wincer. They and a host of others tell lively stories about McMurtry’s writing of the epic novel and the process of turning it into the miniseries Lonesome Dove. Accompanying their recollections are photographs of iconic props, costumes, set designs, and shooting scripts. Rounding out the book are continuity Polaroids used during filming and photographs taken on the set by Bill Wittliff, which place you behind the scenes in the middle of the action.
Designed as a companion for A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove, Wittliff’s magnificent fine art volume, A Book on the Making of Lonesome Dove is a must-have for every fan of this American epic.
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