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Bakhtin/ Bakhtin
The Archives and Beyond, Volume 97
Peter Hitchcock
Duke University Press
Offering original research on Mikhail Bakhtin by leading scholars in the field, this special issue of SAQ both celebrates the recent centennial of Bakhtin’s birth and elaborates significant new strains in Bakhtinian thinking. The distinction between Bakhtin and “Bakhtin” is a measure of the incommensurable space between the biographically verifiable figure and the one who emerges from contemporary critical applications of his work. While the inevitability of this space must be acknowledged, so too must its implications for a politics of culture where theory is concerned. Can there be a real Bakhtin, and can this one simply be the relevant Bakhtin? Is the deified Bakhtin just a reified Bakhtin?
Exploring both the dynamism of Bakhtin versus “Bakhtin” and the dynamics of “possible Bakhtins,” the contributors tackle this theorist’s range of shifting shapes, from the carnival-messianistic and the chronotopic, through the philosophic and the ideologic, to the “applied Bakhtin” of the social sciences. Bakhtin’s texts are examined in the context of work by such disparate figures as Ernst Cassirer and Rudolph Rocker, while various aspects of the academic “Bakhtin industry” are examined, including the “will to mythology by anthology” and the inequities of a world market in ideas exemplified by the resource gap between Russian and Western scholarship. The “state of the archive” is assessed by both UK Bakhtin Centre Director David Shepherd and Russian Bakhtin Archivist Nikolai Pan’kov. Throughout the issue, which is framed by Peter Hitchcock’s introductory polemics and Michael Holquist’s afterword, author and archive are continually deconstructed and reconstructed.

Contributors. Robert Barsky, Rachel Falconer, Maroussia Hadjukowski-Ahmed, Ken Hirschkop, Peter Hitchcock, Michael Holquist, Vitaly Makhlin, Nikolai Pan’kov, Brian Poole, David Shepherd, Galin Tihanov, Anthony Wall

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Barrelhouse Words
A Blues Dialect Dictionary
Stephen Calt
University of Illinois Press, 2009

This fascinating compendium explains the most unusual, obscure, and curious words and expressions from vintage blues music. Utilizing both documentary evidence and invaluable interviews with a number of now-deceased musicians from the 1920s and '30s, blues scholar Stephen Calt unravels the nuances of more than twelve hundred idioms and proper or place names found on oft-overlooked "race records" recorded between 1923 and 1949. From "aggravatin' papa" to "yas-yas-yas" and everything in between, this truly unique, racy, and compelling resource decodes a neglected speech for general readers and researchers alike, offering invaluable information about black language and American slang.

[more]

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Becoming a Psychotherapist
A Clinical Primer
Rosemary Marshall Balsam and Alan Balsam
University of Chicago Press, 1984
This well-respected guide to psychoanalytic psychotherapy addresses key issues for both beginning and practicing therapists, from the rhythm of the initial, middle, and final stages of therapy to the setting up of an office and the handling of fees and insurance. The book also deals with the management of borderline and potentially suicidal or homocidal patients in an out-patient setting. Unique in their direct approach to problems in a therapist's own life, the authors also discuss transference and contertransference issues that arise with pregnancy, changes in the therapist's love attachments, age, illness and a death in the practitioner's family. New in this second edition is a chapter on women therapists and women patients.
[more]

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Before Harlem
An Anthology of African American Literature from the Long Nineteenth Century
Ajuan Maria Mance
University of Tennessee Press, 2016
Despite important recovery and authentication efforts during the last twenty-five years, the vast majority of nineteenth-century African American writers and their work remain unknown to today’s readers. Moreover, the most widely used anthologies of black writing have established a canon based largely on current interests and priorities. Seeking to establish a broader perspective, this collection brings together a wealth of autobiographical writings, fiction, poetry, speeches, sermons, essays, and journalism that better portrays the intellectual and cultural debates, social and political struggles, and community publications and institutions that nurtured black writers from the early 1800s to the eve of the Harlem Renaissance.
            As editor Ajuan Mance notes, previous collections have focused mainly on writing that found a significant audience among white readers. Consequently, authors whose work appeared in African American–owned publications for a primarily black audience—such as Solomon G. Brown, Henrietta Cordelia Ray, and T. Thomas Fortune—have faded from memory. Even figures as celebrated as Frederick Douglass and Paul Laurence Dunbar are today much better known for their “cross-racial” writings than for the larger bodies of work they produced for a mostly African American readership. There has also been a tendency in modern canon making, especially in the genre of autobiography, to stress antebellum writing rather than writings produced after the Civil War and Reconstruction. Similarly, religious writings—despite the centrality of the church in the everyday lives of black readers and the interconnectedness of black spiritual and intellectual life—have not received the emphasis they deserve.
            Filling those critical gaps with a selection of 143 works by 65 writers, Before Harlem presents as never before an in-depth picture of the literary, aesthetic, and intellectual landscape of nineteenth-century African America and will be a valuable resource for a new generation of readers.
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Behind the Academic Curtain
How to Find Success and Happiness with a PhD
Frank F. Furstenberg
University of Chicago Press, 2013
More people than ever are going to graduate school to seek a PhD these days. When they get there, they discover a bewildering environment: a rapid immersion in their discipline, a keen competition for resources, and uncertain options for their future, whether inside or outside of academia. Life with a PhD can begin to resemble an unsolvable maze. In Behind the Academic Curtain, Frank F. Furstenberg offers a clear and user-friendly map to this maze. Drawing on decades of experience in academia, he provides a comprehensive, empirically grounded, and, most important of all, practical guide to academic life.

While the greatest anxieties for PhD candidates and postgrads are often centered on getting that tenure-track dream job, each stage of an academic career poses a series of distinctive problems. Furstenberg divides these stages into five chapters that cover the entire trajectory of an academic life, including how to make use of a PhD outside of academia. From finding the right job to earning tenure, from managing teaching loads to conducting research, from working on committees to easing into retirement, he illuminates all the challenges and opportunities an academic can expect to encounter. Each chapter is designed for easy consultation, with copious signposts, helpful suggestions, and a bevy of questions that all academics should ask themselves throughout their career, whether at a major university, junior college, or a nonacademic organization. An honest and up-to-date portrayal of how this life really works, Behind the Academic Curtain is an essential companion for any scholar, at any stage of his or her career.
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Behind the Book
Eleven Authors on Their Path to Publication
Chris Mackenzie Jones
University of Chicago Press, 2018
Every book has a story of its own, a path leading from the initial idea that sparked it to its emergence into the world in published form. No two books follow quite the same path, but all are shaped by a similar array of market forces and writing craft concerns as well as by a cast of characters stretching beyond the author.
Behind the Book explores how eleven contemporary first-time authors, in genres ranging from post-apocalyptic fiction to young adult fantasy to travel memoir, navigated these pathways with their debut works. Based on extensive interviews with the authors, it covers the process of writing and publishing a book from beginning to end, including idea generation, developing a process, building a support network, revising the manuscript, finding the right approach to publication, building awareness, and ultimately moving on to the next project. It also includes insights from editors, agents, publishers, and others who helped to bring these projects to life.
Unlike other books on writing craft, Behind the Book looks at the larger picture of how an author’s work and choices can affect the outcome of a project. The authors profiled in each story open up about their challenges, mistakes, and successes. While their paths to publication may be unique, together they offer important lessons that authors of all types can apply to their own writing journeys.
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Beijing Film Academy Yearbook 2018
Edited by The Journal of Beijing Film Academy
Intellect Books, 2020

The annual Beijing Film Academy Yearbook continues to showcase the best academic debates, discussions, and research published in the prestigious Journal of Beijing Film Academy from the previous year. This volume brings together specially selected articles, covering the most up-to-date topics in Chinese cinema studies appearing for the first time in English, in order to bridge the gap in cross-cultural research in cinema and media studies, as well as to encourage new conversations. 

This book is the latest offering in Intellect China Library series, which publishes work by Chinese scholars that have not previously been available to English-language academia. Covering the subjects of film studies, visual arts, performing arts, media, and cultural studies, the series aims to foster intellectual debate and to promote closer cross-cultural intellectual exchanges by introducing important works of Chinese scholarship to readers.

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Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America
An Interpretive Guide
Cheryl Claassen
University of Alabama Press, 2015
A comprehensive and essential field reference, Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America reveals the spiritual landscape in the American Archaic period

Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America describes, illustrates, and offers nondogmatic interpretations of rituals and beliefs in Archaic America. In compiling a wealth of detailed entries, author Cheryl Claassen has created both an exhaustive reference as well as an opening into new archaeological taxonomies, connections, and understandings of Native American culture.
 
The material is presented in an introductory essay about Archaic rituals followed by two sections of entries that incorporate reports and articles discussing archaeological sites; studies of relevant practices of ritual and belief; data related to geologic features, artifact attributes, and burial settings; ethnographies; and pilgrimages to specific sites. Claassen’s work focuses on the American Archaic period (marked by the end of the Ice Age approximately 11,000 years ago) and a geographic area bounded by the edge of the Great Plains, Newfoundland, and southern Florida. This period and region share specific beliefs and practices such as human sacrifice, dirt mound burial, and oyster shell middens.
 
This interpretive guide serves as a platform for new interpretations and theories on this period. For example, Claassen connects rituals to topographic features and posits the Pleistocene-Holocene transition as a major stimulus to Archaic beliefs. She also expands the interpretation of existing data previously understood in economic or environmental terms to include how this same data may also reveal spiritual and symbolic practices. Similarly, Claassen interprets Archaic culture in terms of human agency and social constraint, bringing ritual acts into focus as drivers of social transformation and ethnogenesis.
 
Richly annotated and cross-referenced for ease of use, Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America will benefit scholars and students of archaeology and Native American culture. Claassen’s overview of the archaeological record should encourage the development of original archaeological and historical connections and patterns. Such an approach, Claassen suggests, may reveal patterns of influence extending from early eastern Americans to the Aztec and Maya.
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The Best in Children's Books
The University of Chicago Guide to Children's Literature, 1966-72
Edited by Zena Sutherland
University of Chicago Press, 1973
With so many new children's books published each year, how can children learn to choose good books, and how can adults help them? This guide is designed to aid adults—parents, teachers, librarians—in selecting from the best children's literature published in recent years. By encouraging reading and ownership of books, by suggesting better books, and by discussing good books with enthusiasm and understanding, adults may help children to acquire discrimination in reading.

This guide contains 1,400 reviews of the best children's literature published between 1966 and 1972.
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The Best in Children's Books
The University of Chicago Guide to Children's Literature, 1973-78
Zena Sutherland
University of Chicago Press, 1980
This collection reviews the best children's books that have appeared from 1973 to 1978. The reviews were written and selected by Zena Sutherland, the editor of the University of Chicago's Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. Her 1973 edition of The Best in Children's Books, which covered books published from 1966 to 1972, was cited by the American School Board Journal as one of the outstanding books of the year in education.
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The Best in Children's Books
The University of Chicago Guide to Children's Literature, 1979-84
Zena Sutherland
University of Chicago Press, 1986
Designed to aid adults—parents, teachers, librarians—in selecting from the best of recent children's literature, this guide provides 1,400 reviews of books published between 1979 and 1984.

This volume carries on the tradition established by Zena Sutherland's two earlier collections covering the periods from 1966 to 1972 and 1973 to 1978. Her 1973 edition of The Best in Children's Books was cited by the American School Board Journal as one of the outstanding books of the year in education.
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Between Freedom and Equality
The History of an African American Family in Washington, DC
Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green
Georgetown University Press, 2023

An original history of six generations of an African American family living in Washington, DC

Between Freedom and Equality begins with the life of Capt. George Pointer, an enslaved African who purchased his freedom in 1793 while working for George Washington’s Potomac Company. It follows the lives of six generations of his descendants as they lived and worked on the banks of the Potomac, in the port of Georgetown, and in a rural corner of the nation’s capital. By tracing the story of one family and their experiences, Between Freedom and Equality offers a moving and inspiring look at the challenges that free African Americans have faced in Washington, DC, since the district’s founding.

The story begins with an 1829 letter from Pointer that is preserved today in the National Archives. Inspired by Pointer’s letter, authors Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green began researching this remarkable man who was a boat captain and supervisory engineer for the Potomac canal system. What they discovered about the lives of Pointer and his family provides unique insight across two centuries of Washington, DC, history.

The Pointer family faced many challenges—the fragility of freedom in a slaveholding society, racism, wars, floods, and epidemics—but their refuge was the small farm they purchased in what is now Chevy Chase. However, in the early twentieth century, the DC government used eminent domain to force the sale of their farm and replaced it with an all-white school. Between Freedom and Equality grants Pointer and his descendants their long-overdue place in American history.

This book includes a foreword by historian Maurice Jackson exploring the significance of the Pointer family’s unique history in the capital. In another very personal foreword, James Fisher, an eighth-generation descendant of George Pointer, shares his complex emotions when he learned about his ancestors. Also featured in this important history is a facsimile and transcription of George Pointer’s original letter and a family tree.

Royalties from the sale of the book will go to Historic Chevy Chase DC (HCCDC), which has established a fund for promoting the legacy of George Pointer and his descendants.

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Beyond Homelessness
Frames of Reference
Benedict Giamo
University of Iowa Press, 1992

Homelessness is a haunting social problem that has, by all definitions, outgrown society's conventional solutions. Through their interviews with nine knowledgeable observers who range across the humanities, social and medical sciences, and human services, Giamo and Grunberg examines the nature and conditions of this ongoing crisis. No longer contained by traditional urban skid rows or state mental hospitals, homeless individuals now confront "normal" society face to face—and this "normal" society is at a loss for how to respond. The enormity of the problem has resulted in a stagnation of viable ideas, creating an industry with an endless litany of root cause and quick fix. But as these dialogues point out, there is no one root cause for the fact of homelessness. These timely, penetrating exhanges challenge established misconceptions of this problem.

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Beyond Words
Sobs, Hums, Stutters and Other Vocalizations
Steven Connor
Reaktion Books, 2014
In Beyond Words, Steven Connor seeks to understand spoken human language outside words, a realm that encompasses the sounds we make that bring depth, meaning, and confusion to communication. Plunging into the connotations and uses associated with particular groups of vocal utterances—the guttural, the dental, the fricative, and the sibilant—he reveals the beliefs, the myths, and the responses that surround the growls, stutters, ums, ers, and ahs of everyday language.
 
Beyond Words goes outside of linguistics and phonetics to focus on the popular conceptions of what language is, rather than what it actually is or how it works. From the moans and sobs of human grief to playful linguistic nonsense, Connor probes the fringes and limits of human language—and our definition of “voice” and meaning—to challenge our basic assumptions about what it is to communicate and where we find meaning in language. By engaging with vocal sounds and tics usually trivialized or ignored, Beyond Words presents a startling and fascinating new way to engage with language itself.
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The Bible As It Was
James L. Kugel
Harvard University Press, 1999

This is a guide to the Hebrew Bible unlike any other. Leading us chapter by chapter through its most important stories--from the Creation and the Tree of Knowledge through the Exodus from Egypt and the journey to the Promised Land--James Kugel shows how a group of anonymous, ancient interpreters radically transformed the Bible and made it into the book that has come down to us today.

Was the snake in the Garden of Eden the devil, or the Garden itself "paradise"? Did Abraham discover monotheism, and was his son Isaac a willing martyr? Not until the ancient interpreters set to work. Poring over every little detail in the Bible's stories, prophecies, and laws, they let their own theological and imaginative inclinations radically transform the Bible's very nature. Their sometimes surprising interpretations soon became the generally accepted meaning. These interpretations, and not the mere words of the text, became the Bible in the time of Jesus and Paul or the rabbis of the Talmud.

Drawing on such sources as the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish apocrypha, Hellenistic writings, long-lost retellings of Bible stories, and prayers and sermons of the early church and synagogue, Kugel reconstructs the theory and methods of interpretation at the time when the Bible was becoming the bedrock of Judaism and Christianity. Here, for the first time, we can witness all the major transformations of the text and recreate the development of the Bible "As It Was" at the start of the Common era--the Bible as we know it.

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Bibliographical Guide to the Study of the Literature of the USA, 5th ed., revised and enlarged
Clarence Gohdes and Sanford Marovitz
Duke University Press, 1984
The Bibliographical Guide remains the most useful handbook of its kind now available to scholars for research in the field. The fifth revised edition includes updating and considerable but highly selective expansion as well as a section on Women's Studies. This edition includes over 100 new editions as well as more than 750 additional studies and reference works for a total of approximately 1,900 reference items, all annotated with the exception of a few with explanatory subtitles.
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A Bibliography of Chinese Language Materials on the People's Communes
Ma Wei-yi
University of Michigan Press, 1982
A research tool for scholars studying modern China, particularly those focusing on the post-1949 communal system and economy. The work includes full bibliographic references to some 2,800 essay, articles, pamphlets, and other materials in Chinese taken from more than 130 publications, primarily from mainland. The entries are arranged are arranged topically with annotations. Includes a geographic index to the communes referred to in the listed items.
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A Bibliography of Studies and Translations of Modern Chinese Literature, 1918–1942
Donald Gibbs and Yun-chen Li
Harvard University Press, 1975

This is the first complete bibliography of the developing field of Republican-period Chinese literature. The bibliography lists all studies in Western European languages, including doctoral and masters’ theses, as well as all known translations into English of Chinese literary works of the period 1918–1942.

The era between imperial China and Communist China is one of uniqueness in Chinese history, and is a pivotal period in more ways than we can yet realize. The novels, plays, poetry, and essays of this era, apart from their intrinsic interest, furnish Westerners with an inside view of how it felt to be Chinese during this troubled time. By means of this bibliography it will now be possible for teachers systematically to develop literature-in-translation courses or supplementary reading lists to enable those who do not read Chinese to penetrate areas of Chinese life heretofore closed off.

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Bibliography of the Harvard Chiapas Project
The First Twenty Years, 1957–1977
Evon Z. Vogt
Harvard University Press, 1978
This volume publishes the complete annotated bibliography of the publications that resulted from the first 20 years of ethnological and archaeological work by faculty and graduate students in the Mexican state of Chiapas, sponsored by Harvard’s Peabody Museum and Department of Anthropology.
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Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism, 1921–1965
Donald W. Klein and Anne B. Clark
Harvard University Press, 1971

The Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism, first published in 1970, provides biographies of 433 influential figures of the Chinese Communist Party in the years from 1921 to 1965. Lucidly written, it has served as a valuable research tool, not only for students and scholars of Chinese history, but for scholars in other disciplines. By charting the careers of numerous Party officials, Donald W. Klein and Anne B. Clark provide insight into "notable patterns of career activity"--particularly, of the frequent, dramatic rise and fall from power.

These are political biographies; the overwhelming majority deal with CCP, government, or military personalities. Approximately 200 of the entries are on members of the Party Central Committee. Each of the others documents a top leader in some field, from government ministers, Party officials in the provinces, provincial governors, diplomats, military and labor leaders, scientists, and science administrators to women and youth leaders, artists, and writers. Each biography contains all information then available on the person's family, education, socio-economic status, early revolutionary activity, and career after the Communists came to power in 1949, as well as the dates and purposes of all foreign trips, information about important writings, and involvement in all kinds of Party activities.

The biographies are well documented, and accompanied by 96 appendices which integrate many of the materials found in the text. For example, one appendix lists every ministry and minister since the People's Republic was established. The Biographic Dictionary also contains a glossary-name index, which lists 1,750 persons found in the text and appendices, along with the Chinese characters for their name. An annotated general bibliography lists the major sources and general references used throughout the study.

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 1, Abaco to Belfille
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1973

Tobe completed in 12volumes, this monumental work here begins publica­tion with the first two volumes—Abaco to Bertie and Bertin to Byzard. When completed, it is expected that the bio­graphical dictionary will include informa­tion on more than 8,500 individuals.

Hundreds of printed sources have been searched for this project, and dozens of repositories combed, and the names of personnel listed have been filtered through parish registers whenever possible. From published and unpublished sources, from wills, archives of professional societies and guilds, from records of colleges, uni­versities, and clubs, and from the contri­butions of selfless scholars, the authors have here assembled material which il­luminates theatrical and musical activity in London in the 1660–1800 period.

The information here amassed will doubtless be augmented by other spe­cialists in Restoration and eighteenth-century theatre and drama, but it is not likely that the number of persons now known surely or conjectured finally to have been connected with theatrical en­terprise in this period will ever be in­creased considerably. Certainly, the contributions made here add immeasurably to existing knowledge, and in a number of instances correct standard histories or reference works.

The accompanying illustrations, esti­mated to be some 1,400 likenesses—at least one picture of each subject for whom a portrait exists—may prove to be a use­ful feature of the Work. The authors have gone beyond embellishment of the text, and have attempted to list all origi­nal portraits any knowledge of which is now recoverable, and have tried to ascer­tain the present location of portraits in every medium.

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 10, M'Intosh to Nash
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr.
Southern Illinois University Press, 1984

Those featured in Volume 10 include Margaret Martyr, a singer, actress, and dancer whose “conjugal virtues were often impeached,” according to the July 1792Thespian Magazine. The Diction­ary describes this least constant of lovers as “of middling height, with a figure well-proportioned for breeches parts. [Her] black-haired, black-eyed beauty and clear soprano made her an immedi­ate popular success in merry maids and tuneful minxes, the piquant and the pert, for a quarter century.”

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 12, Pinner to Rizzo
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1987

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 13, Roach to H. Siddons
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1991

Like the works already published, these latest volumes of the Biographical Dictionary deal with theatre people of every ilk, ranging from dressers and one-performance actors to trumpeter John Shore (inventor of the tuning fork) and the incomparable Sarah Siddons.

Also prominent is Susanna Rowson, a novelist, actress, and early female playwright. Although born into a British military family, Rowson often wrote plays that dealt with patriotic American themes and spent much of her career on the American stage.

The theatrical jewel of these volumes is the "divine Sarah" Siddons: "She raised the tragedy to the skies," wrote William Hazlitt, and "embodied to our imagination the fables of mythology, of the heroic and dignified mortals of elder time." She endured much tragedy herself, including a crippling debilitating illness and the deaths of five of her seven children. Siddons played major roles in both comedy and tragedy, not the least of which was a performance as Hamlet.

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 14, S. Siddons to Thynne
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1991

Like the works already published, these latest volumes of the Biographical Dictionary deal with theatre people of every ilk, ranging from dressers and one-performance actors to trumpeter John Shore (inventor of the tuning fork) and the incomparable Sarah Siddons.

Also prominent is Susanna Rowson, a novelist, actress, and early female playwright. Although born into a British military family, Rowson often wrote plays that dealt with patriotic American themes and spent much of her career on the American stage.

The theatrical jewel of these volumes is the "divine Sarah" Siddons: "She raised the tragedy to the skies," wrote William Hazlitt, and "embodied to our imagination the fables of mythology, of the heroic and dignified mortals of elder time." She endured much tragedy herself, including a crippling debilitating illness and the deaths of five of her seven children. Siddons played major roles in both comedy and tragedy, not the least of which was a performance as Hamlet.

[more]

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 15, Tibbett to M. West
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1993

A major project begun in 1973 reaches its conclusion with the publication of volumes 15 and 16 of the Biographical Dictionary, a series considered "a reference work of the first order" by Theatre and Performing Arts Collections.

Among performers highlighted in these last volumes is Catherine Tofts, a gifted singer whose popular acclaim was captured in lines by Samuel Phillips: "How are we pleas’d when beauteous Tofts appears, / To steal our Souls through our attentive Ears?’ / Ravish’d we listen to th’ inchanting Song, / And catch the falling Accents from her Tongue." The first singer of English birth to master the form of Italian opera, Tofts frequently won leading roles over native Italian singers. Her salary—£400 to £500 a season—was one of the highest in the theatre. Her popularity declined, however, as her demands for payment increased—a situation captured in an epigram Alexander Pope may have penned: "So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song, / As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along; /But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride, / That the beasts must have starved, and the poets have died."

John Vanbrugh, whose play The Relapse is ranked as one of the best comedies of the Restoration period, became a subordinate crown architect under Sir Christopher Wren in 1702. In 1703, Vanbrugh began plans for the Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket, an enterprise endorsed by the Kit Cat Club (of which Vanbrugh was a member). Even though his lavish design was acoustically defective, restructuring helped correct the problem and the theatre eventually became the exclusive center for opera in London.

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 16, W. West to Zwingman
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1993

A major project begun in 1973 reaches its conclusion with the publication of volumes 15 and 16 of the Biographical Dictionary, a series considered "a reference work of the first order" by Theatre and Performing Arts Collections.

Among performers highlighted in these last volumes is Catherine Tofts, a gifted singer whose popular acclaim was captured in lines by Samuel Phillips: "How are we pleas’d when beauteous Tofts appears, / To steal our Souls through our attentive Ears?’ / Ravish’d we listen to th’ inchanting Song, / And catch the falling Accents from her Tongue." The first singer of English birth to master the form of Italian opera, Tofts frequently won leading roles over native Italian singers. Her salary—£400 to £500 a season—was one of the highest in the theatre. Her popularity declined, however, as her demands for payment increased—a situation captured in an epigram Alexander Pope may have penned: "So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song, / As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along; /But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride, / That the beasts must have starved, and the poets have died."

John Vanbrugh, whose play The Relapse is ranked as one of the best comedies of the Restoration period, became a subordinate crown architect under Sir Christopher Wren in 1702. In 1703, Vanbrugh began plans for the Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket, an enterprise endorsed by the Kit Cat Club (of which Vanbrugh was a member). Even though his lavish design was acoustically defective, restructuring helped correct the problem and the theatre eventually became the exclusive center for opera in London.

[more]

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 2, Belfort to Byzand
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1973

Tobe completed in 12volumes, this monumental work here begins publica­tion with the first two volumes—Abaco to Bertie and Bertin to Byzard. When completed, it is expected that the bio­graphical dictionary will include informa­tion on more than 8,500 individuals.

Hundreds of printed sources have been searched for this project, and dozens of repositories combed, and the names of personnel listed have been filtered through parish registers whenever possible. From published and unpublished sources, from wills, archives of professional societies and guilds, from records of colleges, uni­versities, and clubs, and from the contri­butions of selfless scholars, the authors have here assembled material which il­luminates theatrical and musical activity in London in the 1660–1800 period.

The information here amassed will doubtless be augmented by other spe­cialists in Restoration and eighteenth-century theatre and drama, but it is not likely that the number of persons now known surely or conjectured finally to have been connected with theatrical en­terprise in this period will ever be in­creased considerably. Certainly, the contributions made here add immeasurably to existing knowledge, and in a number of instances correct standard histories or reference works.

The accompanying illustrations, esti­mated to be some 1,400 likenesses—at least one picture of each subject for whom a portrait exists—may prove to be a use­ful feature of the Work. The authors have gone beyond embellishment of the text, and have attempted to list all origi­nal portraits any knowledge of which is now recoverable, and have tried to ascer­tain the present location of portraits in every medium.

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 3, Cabanel to Cory
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1975

Volumes three and four of this monumen­tal work include full entries for all such illustrious names as those of the Cibbers—Colley, Theophilus, and Susanna Maria—Kitty Clive, and Charlotte Charke, George Colman, the Elder, and the Younger, William Davenant, and De Loutherboug. But here also are full entries for dozens of important secondary figures and of minor ones whose stories have never been told, as well as a census (and at least a few recoverable facts) for even the most inconsiderable performers and servants of the theatres.

As in the previous volumes in this dis­tinguished series, the accompanying illus­trations include at least one picture of each subject for whom a portrait exists.

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 4, Corye to Dynion
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1975

Volumes three and four of this monumen­tal work include full entries for all such illustrious names as those of the Cibbers—Colley, Theophilus, and Susanna Maria—Kitty Clive, and Charlotte Charke, George Colman, the Elder, and the Younger, William Davenant, and De Loutherboug. But here also are full entries for dozens of important secondary figures and of minor ones whose stories have never been told, as well as a census (and at least a few recoverable facts) for even the most inconsiderable performers and servants of the theatres.

As in the previous volumes in this dis­tinguished series, the accompanying illus­trations include at least one picture of each subject for whom a portrait exists.

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 5, Eagan to Garrett
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1978

In contrast to each other, Volume 5 is a sociological portrait of mostly little people in their tragic and comic efforts to achieve fame on the London stage during the Restoration and eighteenth century, whereas Volume 6 is dom­inated by the glamour of David Gar­rick, Nell Gwyn, and Joseph Grimaldi, the celebrated clown. Some 250 por­traits individualize the great and small of the theatres of London.

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 6, Garrick to Gyngell
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1978

In contrast to each other, Volume 5 is a sociological portrait of mostly little people in their tragic and comic efforts to achieve fame on the London stage during the Restoration and eighteenth century, whereas Volume 6 is dom­inated by the glamour of David Gar­rick, Nell Gwyn, and Joseph Grimaldi, the celebrated clown. Some 250 por­traits individualize the great and small of the theatres of London.

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 7, Habgood to Houbert
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1982

Volume 7 includes such notables as the composers Handel and Haydn and the alluring actress Elizabeth Hartley.

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A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 8, Hough to Keyse
Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Southern Illinois University Press, 1982
Volume 8 dis­cusses, among others, the careers of Charles Incledon, the “English Ballad-Singer,” boxing champion of England, “Gentleman” John Jackson, and members of the famous Kemble family— Charles, Maria Theresa, Frances, Henry, John Philip, Priscilla, Elizabeth, Roger, and Stephen.
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The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa
David Hudson
University of Iowa Press, 2009
Iowa has been blessed with citizens of strong character who have made invaluable contributions to the state and to the nation. In the 1930s alone, such towering figures as John L. Lewis, Henry A. Wallace, and Herbert Hoover hugely influenced the nation’s affairs. Iowa’s Native Americans, early explorers, inventors, farmers, scholars, baseball players, musicians, artists, writers, politicians, scientists, conservationists, preachers, educators, and activists continue to enrich our lives and inspire our imaginations.
     Written by an impressive team of more than 150 scholars and writers, the readable narratives include each subject’s name, birth and death dates, place of birth, education, and career and contributions. Many of the names will be instantly recognizable to most Iowans; others are largely forgotten but deserve to be remembered. Beyond the distinctive lives and times captured in the individual biographies, readers of the dictionary will gain an appreciation for how the character of the state has been shaped by the character of the individuals who have inhabited it.
     From Dudley Warren Adams, fruit grower and Grange leader, to the Younker brothers, founders of one of Iowa’s most successful department stores, The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa is peopled with the rewarding lives of more than four hundred notable citizens of the Hawkeye State. The histories contained in this essential reference work should be eagerly read by anyone who cares about Iowa and its citizens.

Entries include Cap Anson, Bix Beiderbecke, Black Hawk, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, William Carpenter, Philip Greeley Clapp, Gardner Cowles Sr., Samuel Ryan Curtis, Jay Norwood Darling, Grenville Dodge, Julien Dubuque, August S. Duesenberg, Paul Engle, Phyllis L. Propp Fowle, George Gallup, Hamlin Garland, Susan Glaspell, Josiah Grinnell, Charles Hearst, Josephine Herbst, Herbert Hoover, Inkpaduta, Louis Jolliet, MacKinlay Kantor, Keokuk, Aldo Leopold, John L. Lewis, Marquette, Elmer Maytag, Christian Metz, Bertha Shambaugh, Ruth Suckow, Billy Sunday, Henry Wallace, and Grant Wood.

Excerpt from the entry on:
Gallup, George Horace (November 19, 1901–July 26, 1984)—founder of the American Institute of Public Opinion, better known as the Gallup Poll, whose name was synonymous with public opinion polling around the world—was born in Jefferson, Iowa. . . . . A New Yorker article would later speculate that it was Gallup’s background in “utterly normal Iowa” that enabled him to find “nothing odd in the idea that one man might represent, statistically, ten thousand or more of his own kind.” . . . In 1935 Gallup partnered with Harry Anderson to found the American Institute of Public Opinion, based in Princeton, New Jersey, an opinion polling firm that included a syndicated newspaper column called “America Speaks.” The reputation of the organization was made when Gallup publicly challenged the polling techniques of The Literary Digest, the best-known political straw poll of the day. Calculating that the Digest would wrongly predict that Kansas Republican Alf Landon would win the presidential election, Gallup offered newspapers a money-back guarantee if his prediction that Franklin Delano Roosevelt would win wasn’t more accurate. Gallup believed that public opinion polls served an important function in a democracy: “If govern¬ment is supposed to be based on the will of the people, somebody ought to go and find what that will is,” Gallup explained.

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Biotic Communities
Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico
David E. Brown
University of Utah Press, 1994

Biotic Communities catalogs and defines by biome, or biotic community, the region centered on Arizona, New Mexico, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Baja California Norte, plus California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Texas, Coahuila, Sinaloa, and Baja California Sur. Originally published in 1982 by the Boyce Thompson Southwestern Arboretum, this ambitious book is still a "must-have" for those working in natural resources management and ecological research, as well as non-specialists who wish to know more about a particular locale.

Biotic Communities is arranged by climatic formation with a short chapter for each biome describing climate, physiognomy, distribution, dominant and common plant species, and characteristic vertebrates. Subsequent chapters contain careful descriptions of zonal subdivisions. The text is supplemented with over one hundred black and white photographs illustrating almost every community type.


 

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Bird Coloration
Geoffrey E. Hill
Harvard University Press, 2006

One cannot help being struck with wonder at the vivid pink of 10,000 flamingos rising from Lake Nakuru or the glowing red gorget of a ruby-throated hummingbird feeding outside the kitchen window. How birds produce the brilliant and striking coloration of their feathers and other body parts is the focus of this first volume of Bird Coloration. It has been more than 40 years since the mechanisms of color production of birds have been reviewed and synthesized and in those 40 years new pigments have been discovered, new genetic mechanisms have been described, new theories have been developed, and hundreds of new experiments have been conducted.

Geoffrey Hill and Kevin McGraw have assembled the world’s leading experts in perception, measurement, and control of bird coloration to contribute to this book. This sumptuously illustrated volume synthesizes more than 1,500 technical papers in this field. The focus is on the three primary mechanisms of color production—melanin pigmentation, carotenoid pigmentation, and structural coloration—but less common as well as newly described mechanisms of color production are also reviewed in detail. The visual perception of birds and the best ways to collect and analyze color data are, for the first time, presented as part of the review of mechanisms of coloration. This book will be essential reading for biologists studying animal coloration, but it will also be treasured by anyone curious about how birds produce and perceive their bold and brilliant color displays.

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Bird Coloration
Geoffrey E. Hill
Harvard University Press, 2006

In this companion volume to Bird Coloration, Volume 1: Mechanisms and Measurements, Geoffrey E. Hill and Kevin J. McGraw have assembled some of the world’s leading experts in the function and evolution of bird coloration to contribute to a long-overdue synthesis of a burgeoning field of inquiry. In Volume 2, the authors turn from the problem of how birds see and produce color, and how researchers measure it, to the function of the colorful displays of birds and the factors that shape the evolution of color signals.

The contributors to this volume begin by examining the function of coloration in a variety of contexts from mate choice, to social signaling, to individual recognition, synthesizing a vast amount of recent findings by researchers around the world. The volume and the series conclude with chapters that consider coloration from an explicitly evolutionary perspective, examining selective pressures that have led to the evolution of colors and patterns on body and plumage. These functional and evolutionary studies build from research on mechanisms of production and controls of expression, covered in the previous volume, bringing the study of color full circle.

This sumptuously illustrated book will be essential reading for biologists studying animal coloration, but it will also be treasured by anyone curious about why birds are colorful and how they got that way.

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Black and White Cinema
A Short History
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Rutgers University Press, 2015
From the glossy monochrome of the classic Hollywood romance, to the gritty greyscale of the gangster picture, to film noir’s moody interplay of light and shadow, black-and-white cinematography has been used to create a remarkably wide array of tones. Yet today, with black-and-white film stock nearly impossible to find, these cinematographic techniques are virtually extinct, and filmgoers’ appreciation of them is similarly waning.  
 
Black and White Cinema is the first study to consider the use of black-and-white as an art form in its own right, providing a comprehensive and global overview of the era when it flourished, from the 1900s to the 1960s. Acclaimed film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon introduces us to the masters of this art, discussing the signature styles and technical innovations of award-winning cinematographers like James Wong Howe, Gregg Toland, Freddie Francis, and Sven Nykvist. Giving us a unique glimpse behind the scenes, Dixon also reveals the creative teams—from lighting technicians to matte painters—whose work profoundly shaped the look of black-and-white cinema.  
 
More than just a study of film history, this book is a rallying cry, meant to inspire a love for the artistry of black-and-white film, so that we might work to preserve this important part of our cinematic heritage. Lavishly illustrated with more than forty on-the-set stills, Black and White Cinema provides a vivid and illuminating look at a creatively vital era.
 
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A Blake Dictionary
The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake
S. Foster Damon
Dartmouth College Press, 2013
William Blake, poet, artist, and mystic, created a vast multidimensional universe through his verse and art. Spun from a fabric of symbolism and populated by a host of complex characters, Blake’s comprehensive world has provided endless inspiration to subsequent generations. For the reader of Blake, background knowledge of his symbolism is a necessity. In this volume, first published in 1965, S. Foster Damon, father of modern Blake studies and a professor at Brown University until his death, has assembled all references to particular symbols or aspects of Blake’s work and life, so that readers can see the entire spectrum of Blake’s thought on a variety of topics. For this edition of S. Foster Damon’s classic reference work, Morris Eaves has written an updated annotated bibliography and a new foreword, included here along with his original 1988 index.
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The Book by Design
The Remarkable Story of the World's Greatest Invention
Edited by P.J.M. Marks and Stephen Parkin
University of Chicago Press, 2023
A richly illustrated look at some of the British Library’s most beautiful books from around the world.
 
For centuries across the world, books have been created as objects of beauty, with bookmakers lavishing great care on their paper, binding materials, illustrations, and lettering.
 
The Book by Design, featuring an array of books from the British Library's collection, focuses on the sensory experience of holding and reading these objects. Each selection represents a specific moment in the development of what we know today as the book—from scrolls and bound illuminated manuscripts to paperbacks and formatted digital information. These range from the seventh century to the present and include examples from China, Japan, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America, in addition to a look at book traditions in Africa and Oceania. John James Audubon’s Birds of America, the works of Chaucer, Russian Futurist books, limited editions, historic copies of the Qur’an and the Bible, mass-market paperbacks, and more come together to tell the visual, tactile, artistic, and cultural history of books.
 
Expert curators and specialists explore these books from the perspective of design and manufacturing, original art photographs offer vivid representations of their textures and materials, and graphics detail the size and specifications of each book. Offering a wide-ranging look at the creation and use of books, illustrated with hundreds of color images, this volume is itself an object of beauty.
 
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The Book Lovers' Miscellany
Claire Cock-Starkey
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2017
How is ink made? What is the bestselling book of all time? What are the oldest known books in the world? And how does one make sense of the colors found on Penguin paperbacks? The answers to these questions and many more await readers in The Book Lovers’ Miscellany.

The Book Lovers’ Miscellany is a cornucopia for bibliophiles. With customary wisdom and wit, Claire Cock-Starkey presents a brief illustrated history of paper, binding, printing, and dust jackets, with a wealth of arcane facts that even the most avid book lovers may be hard-pressed to answer: Which natural pigments were used to decorate medieval bibles? Which animal is needed for the making of vellum? Curious facts are drawn from throughout the history of books and publishing, including many more recent examples, such as a short history of the comic and the story behind the massively successful Harlequin romance imprint Mills and Boon. Readers can explore the output of the most prolific writers and marvel at the youth of the youngest published authors—or lament the decisions of the publishers who rejected books that later became colossal bestsellers. The book also includes a collection of lists, including unfinished novels, books that have faced bans, books printed with mistakes, the most influential academic books of all time, and the longest established literary families.

The perfect gift for every bibliophile, The Book Lovers’ Miscellany is equally well suited to reading straight through or dipping into here and there.
 
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The Book of Beetles
A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred of Nature's Gems
Patrice Bouchard
University of Chicago Press, 2014
When renowned British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane was asked what could be inferred about God from a study of his works, Haldane replied, “An inordinate fondness for beetles.” With 350,000 known species, and scientific estimates that millions more have yet to be identified, their abundance is indisputable as is their variety.  They range from the delightful summer firefly to the one-hundred-gram Goliath beetle. Beetles offer a dazzling array of shapes, sizes, and colors that entice scientists and collectors across the globe.

The Book of Beetles celebrates the beauty and diversity of this marvelous insect. Six hundred significant beetle species are covered, with each entry featuring a distribution map, basic biology, conservation status, and information on cultural and economic significance. Full-color photos show the beetles both at their actual size and enlarged to show details, such as the sextet of spots that distinguish the six-spotted tiger beetle or the jagged ridges of the giant-jawed sawyer beetle. Based in the most up-to-date science and accessibly written, the descriptive text will appeal to researchers and armchair coleopterists alike.

The humble beetle continues to grow in popularity, taking center stage in biodiversity studies, sustainable agriculture programs, and even the dining rooms of adventurous and eco-conscious chefs. The Book of Beetles is certain to become the authoritative reference on these remarkably adaptable and beautiful creatures.
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The Book of Caterpillars
A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World
Edited by David G. James
University of Chicago Press, 2017
The weird and wonderful world of insects boasts some of the strangest creatures found in nature, and caterpillars are perhaps the most bizarre of all. While most of us picture caterpillars as cute fuzzballs munching on leaves, there is much more to them than we imagine. A caterpillar’s survival hinges on finding enough food and defending itself from the array of natural enemies lined up to pounce and consume. And the astounding adaptations and strategies they have developed to maximize their chances of becoming a butterfly or moth are only just beginning to be understood, from the Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar that resembles a small snake to the Eastern Carpenter Bee Hawkmoth caterpillar that attempts to dissuade potential predators by looking like a diseased leaf.
 
The Book of Caterpillars unveils the mysteries of six hundred species from around the world, introducing readers to the complexity and beauty of these underappreciated insects. With the advent of high-quality digital macrophotography, the world of caterpillars is finally opening up. The book presents a wealth of stunning imagery that showcases the astonishing diversity of caterpillar design, structure, coloration, and patterning. Each entry also features a two-tone engraving of the adult specimen, emphasizing the wing patterns and shades, as well as a population distribution map and table of essential information that includes their habitat, typical host plants, and conservation status. Throughout the book are fascinating facts that will enthrall expert entomologists and curious collectors alike.
 
A visually rich and scientifically accurate guide to six hundred of the world’s most peculiar caterpillars, this volume presents readers with a rare, detailed look at these intriguing forms of insect life. 
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The Book of Eggs
A Life-Size Guide to the Eggs of Six Hundred of the World's Bird Species
Mark E. Hauber
University of Chicago Press, 2014
From the brilliantly green and glossy eggs of the Elegant Crested Tinamou—said to be among the most beautiful in the world—to the small brown eggs of the house sparrow that makes its nest in a lamppost and the uniformly brown or white chickens’ eggs found by the dozen in any corner grocery, birds’ eggs have inspired countless biologists, ecologists, and ornithologists, as well as artists, from John James Audubon to the contemporary photographer Rosamond Purcell. For scientists, these vibrant vessels are the source of an array of interesting topics, from the factors responsible for egg coloration to the curious practice of “brood parasitism,” in which the eggs of cuckoos mimic those of other bird species in order to be cunningly concealed among the clutches of unsuspecting foster parents.

The Book of Eggs introduces readers to eggs from six hundred species—some endangered or extinct—from around the world and housed mostly at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. Organized by habitat and taxonomy, the entries include newly commissioned photographs that reproduce each egg in full color and at actual size, as well as distribution maps and drawings and descriptions of the birds and their nests where the eggs are kept warm. Birds’ eggs are some of the most colorful and variable natural products in the wild, and each entry is also accompanied by a brief description that includes evolutionary explanations for the wide variety of colors and patterns, from camouflage designed to protect against predation, to thermoregulatory adaptations, to adjustments for the circumstances of a particular habitat or season. Throughout the book are fascinating facts to pique the curiosity of binocular-toting birdwatchers and budding amateurs alike. Female mallards, for instance, invest more energy to produce larger eggs when faced with the genetic windfall of an attractive mate. Some seabirds, like the cliff-dwelling guillemot, have adapted to produce long, pointed eggs, whose uneven weight distribution prevents them from rolling off rocky ledges into the sea.

A visually stunning and scientifically engaging guide to six hundred of the most intriguing eggs, from the pea-sized progeny of the smallest of hummingbirds to the eggs of the largest living bird, the ostrich, which can weigh up to five pounds, The Book of Eggs offers readers a rare, up-close look at these remarkable forms of animal life.
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The Book of Frogs
A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World
Tim Halliday
University of Chicago Press, 2015
With over 7,000 known species, frogs display a stunning array of forms and behaviors. A single gram of the toxin produced by the skin of the Golden Poison Frog can kill 100,000 people. Male Darwin’s Frogs carry their tadpoles in their vocal sacs for sixty days before coughing them out into the world. The Wood Frogs of North America freeze every winter, reanimating in the spring from the glucose and urea that prevent cell collapse.

The Book of Frogs commemorates the diversity and magnificence of all of these creatures, and many more. Six hundred of nature’s most fascinating frog species are displayed, with each entry including a distribution map, sketches of the frogs, species identification, natural history, and conservation status. Life-size color photos show the frogs at their actual size—including the colossal seven-pound Goliath Frog. Accessibly written by expert Tim Halliday and containing the most up-to-date information, The Book of Frogs will captivate both veteran researchers and amateur herpetologists.

As frogs increasingly make headlines for their troubling worldwide decline, the importance of these fascinating creatures to their ecosystems remains underappreciated. The Book of Frogs brings readers face to face with six hundred astonishingly unique and irreplaceable species that display a diverse array of adaptations to habitats that are under threat of destruction throughout the world.
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The Book of Orchids
A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World
Mark W. Chase, Maarten J. M. Christenhusz, and Tom Mirenda
University of Chicago Press, 2017
One in every seven flowering plants on earth is an orchid. Yet orchids retain an air of exotic mystery—and they remain remarkably misunderstood and underappreciated. The orchid family contains an astonishing array of colors, forms, and smells that captivate growers from all walks of life across the globe. Though undeniably elegant, the popular moth orchid—a grocery store standard—is a bland stand-in when compared with its thousands of more complex and fascinating brethren, such as the Demon Queller, which grows in dark forests where its lovely blooms are believed to chase evil forces away. There is the Fetid Sun-God, an orchid that lures female flies to lay their eggs on its flowers by emitting a scent of rancid cheese. Or the rare, delicate Lizard Orchid, which mimics the appearance of lizards but smells distinctly of goat.
 
The Book of Orchids revels in the diversity and oddity of these beguiling plants. Six hundred of the world’s most intriguing orchids are displayed, along with life-size photographs that capture botanical detail, as well as information about distribution, peak flowering period, and each species’ unique attributes, both natural and cultural. With over 28,000 known species—and more being discovered each year—the orchid family is arguably the largest and most geographically widespread of the flowering plant families. Including the most up-to-date science and accessibly written by botanists Mark Chase, Maarten Christenhusz, and Tom Mirenda, each entry in The Book of Orchids will entice researchers and orchid enthusiasts alike.
 
With stunning full-color images, The Book of Orchids is sure to become the go-to reference for these complex, alluring, and extraordinarily adaptable plants.
 
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The Book of Seeds
A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World
Edited by Paul Smith
University of Chicago Press, 2018
Seeds are nature’s consummate survivors. The next time you admire a field of waving green grassland or a stunning grove of acacia, stop to consider how it got that way—often against incredible odds. Seeds can survive freezing temperatures and drought. They can pass through our digestive systems without damage and weather a trip across the ocean, hitching a ride on marine debris. They can even endure complete desiccation, a feat taken to extraordinary lengths by the date palm, a seed from which was recovered from the palace of Herod the Great was germinated after some two thousand years.

The Book of Seeds takes readers through six hundred of the world’s seed species, revealing their extraordinary beauty and rich diversity. Each page pairs a beautifully composed photo of a seed—life-size, and, in some cases, enlarged to display fine detail—with a short description, a map showing distribution, and information on conservation status. The whole spectrum of seeds is covered here. There are prolific species like corn and less widely distributed species, like the brilliant blue seeds of the traveler’s palm or the bird of paradise flower, aptly named for its distinctive orange coiffure. There are tiny seeds and seeds weighing up to forty pounds. And while seeds in all their shapes, sizes, and colors grant us sustenance, there are even some we would be wise to treat with caution, such as the rosary pea, whose seeds are considered more toxic than ricin.

The essential guide to these complex plant creations, The Book of Seeds offers readers a rare, up-close look that will inspire scientists and nature lovers alike.
 
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The Book of Shells
A Life-Size Guide to Identifying and Classifying Six Hundred Seashells
M. G. Harasewych and Fabio Moretzsohn
University of Chicago Press, 2010

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.

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The Book of Snakes
A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World
Mark O'Shea
University of Chicago Press, 2023
Updated to reflect the most recent species classifications, a second edition of the beautifully illustrated and beloved guide to 600 members of the suborder Serpentes.
 
For millennia, humans have regarded snakes with an exceptional combination of fascination and revulsion. Some people recoil in fear at the very suggestion of these creatures, while others happily keep them as pets. Snakes can convey both beauty and menace in a single tongue flick, and so these creatures have held a special place in our cultures. Yet, for as many meanings as we attribute to snakes—from fertility and birth to sin and death—the real-life species represent an even wider array of wonders.

Now in a new edition, reflecting the most recent species classifications, The Book of Snakes presents 600 species of snakes from around the world, covering roughly one in seven of all snake species. It will bring greater understanding of a group of reptiles that have existed for more than 160 million years and that now inhabit every continent except Antarctica, as well as two of the great oceans.

This volume pairs spectacular photos with easy-to-digest text. It is the first book on these creatures that combines a broad, worldwide sample with full-color, life-size accounts. Entries include close-ups of the snake’s head and a section of the snake at actual size. The detailed images allow readers to examine the intricate scale patterns and rainbow of colors as well as special features like a cobra’s hood or a rattlesnake’s rattle. The text is written for laypeople and includes a glossary of frequently used terms. Herpetologists and herpetoculturists alike will delight in this collection, and even those with a more cautious stance on snakes will find themselves drawn in by the wild diversity of the suborder Serpentes.
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The Book of Snakes
A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World
Mark O'Shea
University of Chicago Press, 2018
For millennia, humans have regarded snakes with an exceptional combination of fascination and revulsion. Some people recoil in fear at the very suggestion of these creatures, while others happily keep them as pets. Snakes can convey both beauty and menace in a single tongue flick and so these creatures have held a special place in our cultures. Yet, for as many meanings that we attribute to snakes—from fertility and birth to sin and death—the real-life species represent an even wider array of wonders.

The Book of Snakes presents 600 species of snakes from around the world, covering nearly one in six of all snake species. It will bring greater understanding of a group of reptiles that have existed for more than 160 million years, and that now inhabit every continent except Antarctica, as well as two of the great oceans.

This volume pairs spectacular photos with easy-to-digest text. It is the first book on these creatures that combines a broad, worldwide sample with full-color, life-size accounts. Entries include close-ups of the snake’s head and a section of the snake at actual size. The detailed images allow readers to examine the intricate scale patterns and rainbow of colors as well as special features like a cobra’s hood or a rattlesnake’s rattle. The text is written for laypeople and includes a glossary of frequently used terms. Herpetologists and herpetoculturists alike will delight in this collection, and even those with a more cautious stance on snakes will find themselves drawn in by the wild diversity of the suborder Serpentes.
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Boredom
The Literary History of a State of Mind
Patricia Meyer Spacks
University of Chicago Press, 1994
This book offers a witty explanation of why boredom both haunts and motivates the literary imagination. Moving from Samuel Johnson to Donald Barthelme, from Jane Austen to Anita Brookner, Spacks shows us at last how we arrived in a postmodern world where boredom is the all-encompassing name we give our discontent. Her book, anything but boring, gives us new insight into the cultural usefulness—and deep interest—of boredom as a state of mind.
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Bound by Law?
Tales from the Public Domain, New Expanded Edition
Keith Aoki, James Boyle, and Jennifer Jenkins
Duke University Press, 2008
A documentary is being filmed. A cell phone rings, playing the Rocky theme song. The filmmaker is told she must pay $10,000 to clear the rights to the song. Can this be true? Eyes on the Prize, the great civil rights documentary, was pulled from circulation because the filmmakers’ rights to music and footage had expired. What’s going on here? It’s the collision of documentary filmmaking and intellectual property law, and it’s the inspiration for this comic book. Follow its heroine Akiko as she films her documentary and navigates the twists and turns of intellectual property. Why do we have copyrights? What’s “fair use”? Bound by Law? reaches beyond documentary film to provide a commentary on the most pressing issues facing law, art, property, and an increasingly digital world of remixed culture.

Readers can download a pdf of the book here.

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Breve historia de la lengua española
Segunda edición revisada
David A. Pharies
University of Chicago Press, 2015
Publicada inicialmente en 2007, esta Breve historia de la lengua española se ha convertido en la introducción más difundida a una de las lenguas más importantes del mundo por la extensión de su dominio y el número de hablantes. Este libro ofrece al lector un relato conciso que se propone profundizar en la evolución de la lengua desde sus raíces latinas hasta el presente, prestando especial atención a los cambios históricos y culturales que contribuyeron a su evolución y propagación por el mundo.
La Breve historia de la lengua española se concentra en los cambios más importantes de la evolución de la lengua, evitando la jerga académica ininteligible y favoreciendo la claridad en las explicaciones. Por el camino, intenta dar respuesta a muchas de las preguntas que con frecuencia desconciertan a los hablantes nativos y no nativos: ¿Por qué se utiliza en algunos lugares y vos en otros? ¿Cómo surgió la pronunciación como fricativa interdental de la zeta castellana? ¿Por qué se dice la mesa pero el agua con un artículo que parece masculino?
            David A. Pharies es un experto en el estudio de la historia y evolución del español, que goza de un reconocido prestigio en la escena internacional. Para actualizar esta segunda edición ha revisado en profundidad todos los aspectos de la evolución del español, incluido su desarrollo demográfico. El libro va dirigido a quienes tienen un conocimiento básico del español y desean aprender más sobre sus orígenes. También constituye una base ideal para emprender el estudio de cualquier aspecto de la lingüística histórica española y de la literatura medieval. Entretenida y accesible, la Breve historia de la lengua española es un gran viaje de descubrimiento en una presentación amena y sucinta.

Since its publication in 2007, A Brief History of the Spanish Language has become the leading introduction to the history of one of the world’s most widely spoken languages. Moving from the language’s Latin roots to its present-day forms, this concise book offers readers insights into the origin and evolution of Spanish, the historical and cultural changes that shaped it, and its spread around the world.
A Brief History of the Spanish Language focuses on the most important aspects of the development of the Spanish language, eschewing technical jargon in favor of straightforward explanations. Along the way, it answers many of the common questions that puzzle native and nonnative speakers alike, such as: Why do some regions use while others use vos? How did the th sound develop in Castilian? And why is it la mesa but el agua?
David A. Pharies, an internationally recognized expert on the history and development of Spanish, has updated this edition with new research on all aspects of the evolution of Spanish while adding current demographic information as well. This book is perfect for anyone with a basic understanding of Spanish and a desire to further explore its roots. It also provides an ideal foundation for further study in any area of historical Spanish linguistics and early Spanish literature. Both absorbing and accessible, A Brief History of the Spanish Language is a grand journey of discovery in a beautifully compact format.
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Bridges to Knowledge
Foreign Students in Comparative Perspective
Elinor G. Barber, Philip G. Altbach, and Robert G. Myers
University of Chicago Press, 1984

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A Brief History of the Spanish Language
Second Edition
David A. Pharies
University of Chicago Press, 2015
Since its publication in 2007, A Brief History of the Spanish Language has become the leading introduction to the history of one of the world’s most widely spoken languages. Moving from the language’s Latin roots to its present-day forms, this concise book offers readers insights into the origin and evolution of Spanish, the historical and cultural changes that shaped it, and its spread around the world.

A Brief History of the Spanish Language focuses on the most important aspects of the development of the Spanish language, eschewing technical jargon in favor of straightforward explanations. Along the way, it answers many of the common questions that puzzle native speakers and non-native speakers alike, such as: Why do some regions use while others use vos? How did the th sound develop in Castilian? And why is it la mesa but el agua?

David A. Pharies, a world-renowned expert on the history and development of Spanish, has updated this edition with new research on all aspects of the evolution of Spanish and current demographic information. This book is perfect for anyone with a basic understanding of Spanish and a desire to further explore its roots. It also provides an ideal foundation for further study in any area of historical Spanish linguistics and early Spanish literature.

A Brief History of the Spanish Language is a grand journey of discovery, revealing in a beautifully compact format the fascinating story of the language in both Spain and Spanish America.
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Burnham of Chicago
Architect and Planner
Thomas S. Hines
University of Chicago Press, 1979
By the time he died in 1912, Daniel H. Burnham was one of the most famous architects in America as well as an internationally renowned city planner. A contemporary of Louis Sullivan and his student, Frank Lloyd Wright, Burnham has often been characterized as a betrayer of the Chicago school of architecture that Sullivan and Wright were instrumental in defining. Thomas Hines's book gives long-due emphasis to the artistry of Burnham and places his accomplishments in a new perspective.

"Professor Hines has written what may prove to be an epoch-making book in the study of American civilization."—Reyner Banham, Times Literary Supplement

"Indeed, the book as a whole is a model of the balanced portrait, sure of Burnham's importance but always conscious of his failings."—Paul Goldberger, New York Times Book Review

"In every sense this is the definitive biography, and it is long overdue."—Harry Weese, Chicago Tribune

"This is a many-faceted book. Even if one were not interested in architecture or city planning, nor especially in Burnham the man, one would likely find the book rewarding because of the window it provides on a significant period of American history. . . . Hines brings alive many of the forces that were beating upon Burnham and his contemporaries, and which are shaping our lives today."—Edmund M. Bacon, Architectural Record

"Hines has provided an intelligently organized, well-written, and fascinating account of Burnham's entire career. The analysis [is] a model of scholarship, good judgment, and literary grace that satisfies a long felt need."—Kenneth T. Jackson, American Historical Review
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The Business of Being a Writer
Jane Friedman
University of Chicago Press, 2018
Writers talk about their work in many ways: as an art, as a calling, as a lifestyle. Too often missing from these conversations is the fact that writing is also a business. The reality is, those who want to make a full- or part-time job out of writing are going to have a more positive and productive career if they understand the basic business principles underlying the industry.

The Business of Being a Writer offers the business education writers need but so rarely receive. It is meant for early-career writers looking to develop a realistic set of expectations about making money from their work or for working writers who want a better understanding of the industry. Writers will gain a comprehensive picture of how the publishing world works—from queries and agents to blogging and advertising—and will learn how they can best position themselves for success over the long term.

Jane Friedman has more than twenty years of experience in the publishing industry, with an emphasis on digital media strategy for authors and publishers. She is encouraging without sugarcoating, blending years of research with practical advice that will help writers market themselves and maximize their writing-related income. It will leave them empowered, confident, and ready to turn their craft into a career.
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Business Plans for Filmmakers
John W. Cones
Southern Illinois University Press, 2010

The practical and legal aspects of writing a business plan for a film venture can be daunting to  navigate without a firm grasp of know-how. With this in mind, John W. Cones's Business Plans for Filmmakers arms independent movie-makers and students with everything they need to successfully tackle the confusing intersection of law, business, and art when creating a business plan for a movie. This pragmatic volume offers plenty of examples and strategies for success, sharing straightforward insight into some of the toughest challenges independent filmmakers face when encountering these documents.

With simple yet thorough detail and clarity, Cones outlines the legal requirements affecting movie proposals, including ways to evaluate the necessity for a business plan or a securities disclosure document, as well as the legal definition of "an active investor." Also addressed are the numerous subjects filmmakers and students must consider before a film offering, including the efficacy of a business plan to fund the development, production, and distribution phases of a film; common elements of fraud of which fledgling filmmakers should beware; the intricacies of revenue sharing; and how to render financial projections. Cones also imparts useful distinctions between such industry terms as "company financing" versus "project financing," along with many others.

This bookalso includes in-depth guidance through the murky paths of investor analysis and key strategies to find and attract parties interested in financing film. Drawing upon his many years as a securities and entertainment attorney, and his experiences advising independent film producers, Cones offers the tools necessary not only to understand investors' motivations but also to use that knowledge to the filmmaker's advantage. Also provided are perceptive studies of the investment vehicles commonly used in business plans seeking investors, with analysis of each method's pros and cons. Throughout the volume, Cones uses sample plans to offer a real-world grasp of the intricacies of the business.

In the business of this art, knowledge is power. Business Plans for Filmmakers dispels the myths and misinformation circulating among filmmakers to provide accurate and useful advice.

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But Can I Start a Sentence with "But"?
Advice from the Chicago Style Q&A
The University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff
University of Chicago Press, 2016
Q. Is it “happy medium” or “happy median”? My author writes: “We would all be much better served as stewards of finite public funds if we could find that happy median where trust reigns supreme.” Thanks!
A. The idiom is “happy medium,” but I like the image of commuters taking refuge from road rage on the happy median.
Q. How do I write a title of a song in the body of the work (caps, bold, underline, italics, etc.)? Example: The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” looped in his head.
A. Noooo! Now that song is looping in my head (“but it’s too late to say you’re sorry . . .”). Use quotation marks. Thanks a lot.
 
Every month, tens of thousands of self-declared word nerds converge upon a single site: The Chicago Manual of Style Online's Q&A. There the Manual’s editors open the mailbag and tackle readers’ questions on topics ranging from abbreviation to word division to how to reform that coworker who still insists on two spaces between sentences. Champions of common sense, the editors offer smart, direct, and occasionally tongue-in-cheek responses that have guided writers and settled arguments for more than fifteen years.

But Can I Start a Sentence with “But”? brings together the best of the Chicago Style Q&A. Curated from years of entries, it features some of the most popular—and hotly debated—rulings and also recovers old favorites long buried in the archives.

Questions touch on myriad matters of editorial style—capitalization, punctuation, alphabetizing, special characters—as well as grammar, usage, and beyond (“How do I spell out the sound of a scream?”). A foreword by Carol Fisher Saller, the Q&A’s longtime editor, takes readers through the history of the Q&A and addresses its reputation for mischief. (“It’s not that we set out to be cheeky,” she writes.)

Taken together, the questions and answers offer insights into some of the most common issues that face anyone who works with words. They’re also a comforting reminder that even the best writer or editor needs a little help—and humor—sometimes.
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Butterflies of Illinois
A Field Guide
Michael R. Jeffords, Susan L. Post, and James R. Wiker
University of Illinois Press, 2019
Prairie spaces and abundant wildflowers make Illinois an amateur lepidopterist's delight. Butterflies of Illinois offers a portable, easy-to-use guide rich with descriptions, field photography, and life-sized specimen photos of all the state's native species. It also includes:• identification quick guides depicting the tops and undersides of all butterfly species• scientific information and photos that explain life cycles, habitats, and ecology• range maps• flight period charts• key characteristics relevant to field identification• descriptions of rarely seen butterflies and irregular visitors from nearby states• supplemental information on various species, including collection records and unusual sightings Geared toward enthusiasts and experts alike, Butterflies of Illinois is a must-have companion for any nature hike or garden walk.
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