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5 books match the query 'Astrology'
Follow the Signs
Searching for Linda Goodman, America’s Forgotten Astrology QueenCourtney Ann LaFaive
University of Iowa Press, 2026
If you have ever been asked “What’s your sign?” you have Linda Goodman to thank—or blame. America’s first New Age celebrity, Goodman’s 1968 book, Sun Signs, sold over 60 million copies, while the advance for her second book, Love Signs, broke an unprecedented $2.25 million. And yet, while Goodman was teaching the world how to search the skies for clarity, her gaze was fixed upon her own dark, mysterious pursuit.
In 1973, Goodman’s daughter was found dead and the police declared it a suicide; Goodman believed otherwise. She spent years depleting her fortune, chasing down leads that might uncover the real truth about her beloved daughter’s death. Headlines criticized and discredited Goodman, ultimately overshadowing the revolutionary nature of her work.
Courtney Ann LaFaive first discovered Goodman’s books as a teenager. Reading her astrological wisdom decades after its heyday, LaFaive contemplates the redemption of Goodman as a literary and spiritual figure, all the while reckoning with her own impulsive forays into love and relationships. Follow the Signs asks what it means when facts become stranger than fiction and who we become when we must walk away from those we love.
In 1973, Goodman’s daughter was found dead and the police declared it a suicide; Goodman believed otherwise. She spent years depleting her fortune, chasing down leads that might uncover the real truth about her beloved daughter’s death. Headlines criticized and discredited Goodman, ultimately overshadowing the revolutionary nature of her work.
Courtney Ann LaFaive first discovered Goodman’s books as a teenager. Reading her astrological wisdom decades after its heyday, LaFaive contemplates the redemption of Goodman as a literary and spiritual figure, all the while reckoning with her own impulsive forays into love and relationships. Follow the Signs asks what it means when facts become stranger than fiction and who we become when we must walk away from those we love.
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Influences
Art, Optics, and Astrology in the Italian RenaissanceMary Quinlan-McGrath
University of Chicago Press, 2013
Today few would think of astronomy and astrology as fields related to theology. Fewer still would know that physically absorbing planetary rays was once considered to have medical and psychological effects. But this was the understanding of light radiation held by certain natural philosophers of early modern Europe, and that, argues Mary Quinlan-McGrath, was why educated people of the Renaissance commissioned artworks centered on astrological themes and practices.
Influences is the first book to reveal how important Renaissance artworks were designed to be not only beautiful but also—perhaps even primarily—functional. From the fresco cycles at Caprarola, to the Vatican’s Sala dei Pontefici, to the Villa Farnesina, these great works were commissioned to selectively capture and then transmit celestial radiation, influencing the bodies and minds of their audiences. Quinlan-McGrath examines the sophisticated logic behind these theories and practices and, along the way, sheds light on early creation theory; the relationship between astrology and natural theology; and the protochemistry, physics, and mathematics of rays.
An original and intellectually stimulating study, Influences adds a new dimension to the understanding of aesthetics among Renaissance patrons and a new meaning to the seductive powers of art.
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Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life
A Critical Edition and TranslationCarol V. Kaske
Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2019
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Star Charting
Bess Matassa
Duke University Press, 2026
Astrology is the language in which all of existence speaks, says astrologer and tarotist Bess Matassa. In Star Charting, she leads readers on a vivid journey through the twelve signs of the zodiac as a poetic practice and transformative framework for befriending both the familiar and the strange. Matassa blends personal narrative, sensory immersion, inquiry exercises, and communal calls to action to reframe this ancient art as a modern manifesto for healing division by exalting the astounding complexity within this wild world. In contrast to more technical manuals on birth chart interpretation, this is magic-making as an exploratory treasure hunt, forging radical pathways to personal and collective evolution. Twelve modes of bearing witness to life and moving with its currents. Twelve styles of championing creative change. And twelve ways of never, ever losing heart.
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Uncommon Sense
Understanding Nature's Truths Across Time and CultureAnthony Aveni
University Press of Colorado, 2006
The divide between teaching “intelligent design” and evolution in U.S. schools has brought to the public eye a struggle that archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni argues is as old as culture itself. All societies seek to understand the natural world, but their search is shaped by culturally distinct views and experiences. In Uncommon Sense, Aveni explores the common and conflicting ways that ancient and contemporary societies have searched for the literal truth about the natural world’s mysteries, from dinosaur bones to the Star of Bethlehem. Aveni demonstrates that a society’s approach to making sense of the natural world can serve as a working definition of its culture, so strongly does it resonate with fundamental values and assumptions.
In ten fascinating essays, Aveni examines topics that have absorbed scientists, religious figures, and ordinary citizens over the centuries. He traces the tug of war between astronomy and astrology, reveals the underpinnings of our notions of cartography and the representation of space and time, and much more.
Readers interested in science, history, and world cultures will revel in this celebration of different cultures’ common and uncommon questions and conclusions about the natural world.
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