You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Inspired by true events, Far Away Bird delves into the complex mind of Byzantine Empress Theodora. This intimate account deftly follows her rise from actress-prostitute in Constantinople's red-light district to the throne of the Byzantine Empire. Her salacious past has left historians blushing and uncomfortable. Tales of her shamelessness have survived for centuries, and yet her accomplishments as an empress are unparalleled. Theodora goes on to influence sweeping reforms that result in some of the first ever Western laws granting women freedom and protection. More than a millennium before the women's rights movement, Theodora, alone, took on the world's greatest superpower and succeeded. Far Away Bird goes where history classrooms fear to tread in hopes that Theodora can finally take her seat among the greatest women in history. Theodora seems impossible--yet her transcendence teaches us that society can't tell us who we are deep down. Before there was a legendary empress, there was a conflicted young woman from the lower classes. And her name was Theodora.
The growing scholarly attention in recent years to the religious world of late antiquity has focused new attention on the quest for holiness by the strange, compelling, often obscure early Christian monks known as the desert fathers. Yet until now, little attention has been given to one of the most vital dimensions of their spirituality: their astute, penetrating interpretation of Scripture. Rooted in solitude, cultivated in an atmosphere of silence, oriented toward the practical appropriation of the sacred texts, the desert fathers' hermeneutic profoundly shaped every aspect of their lives and became a significant part of their legacy. This book explores the setting within which the early monastic movement emerged, the interpretive process at the center of the desert fathers' quest for holiness, and the intricate patterns of meaning woven into their words and their lives.
In the bestselling tradition of Douglas Kennedy. A rich, tense and absorbing novel of a woman's journey to Jerusalem from Manhattan to follow her heart, no matter what the cost. When New York journalist Natasha Bernstein loses her job and discovers her fiancé has been keeping a dark secret, her world collapses. Turning to her family, she takes inspiration from her formidable grandmother Esther, who runs a community centre in downtown Manhattan. As she starts to rebuild her life, Natasha's friendship with Rafi - the enigmatic architect working on Esther's centre - restores her sense of wonder at the world and her faith in who she is. But when Rafi and Natasha take a trip to Jerusalem, they are plunged into a story far deeper than their own. Here, questions of family and loyalty mean more than life itself, and they must ask themselves what they are ultimately prepared to fight for. In a divided world, is it history or love that makes us who we are?
Christ's robe has a strange effect on the pagan soldier who wins it in a dice game after the Crucifixion.
Archaeological chemistry is a subject of great importance to the study and methodology of archaeology. This comprehensive text covers the subject with a full range of case studies, materials, and research methods. With twenty years of experience teaching the subject, the authors offer straightforward coverage of archaeological chemistry, a subject that can be intimidating for many archaeologists who do not already have a background in the hard sciences. With clear explanations and informative illustrations, the authors have created a highly approachable text, which will help readers overcome that intimidation. Topics covered included: Materials (rock, pottery, bone, charcoal, soils, metals, and others), Instruments (microscopes, NAA, spectrometers, mass spectrometers, GC/MS, XRF & XRD, Case Studies (Provinience, Sediments, Diet Reconstruction, Past Human Movement, Organic Residues). The detailed coverage and clear language will make this useful as an introduction to the study of archaeological chemistry, as well as a useful resource for years after that introduction.
“Young Mungo seals it: Douglas Stuart is a genius.” —The Washington Post From the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain, Young Mungo is both a vivid portrayal of working-class life and the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men. Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation. They should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the dovecote that J...
A novella set in the hard-scrabble world of James S. A. Corey's NYT-bestselling Expanse series, The Churn takes the bestselling sci-fi series to the dark world of organized crime, drugs, secrets, and murder that shaped the Rocinante's mechanic, Amos. Now a Prime Original series. This story will be available in the complete Expanse story collection, Memory’s Legion. HUGO AWARD WINNER FOR BEST SERIES Before his trip to the stars, before the Rocinante, Timmy was confined to a Baltimore where crime paid you or killed you. Unless the authorities got to you first. On a future Earth beset by overpopulation, pollution, and poverty, people do what they must to survive. The Churn follows a crime bos...
Modern-day New York, a subway train. David, an American-Jewish jazz musician, torn between his dreams and his parents' expectations, sees a woman across the carriage. Ameena, a British-Pakistani artist who left Manchester to escape the pressure from her conservative family, sees David. When a moment of sublime beauty occurs unexpectedly, the two connect, moved by their shared experience. From this flows a love that it appears will triumph above all. But as David and Ameena navigate their relationship, their ambitions and the city they love, they discover the external world is not so easy to keep at bay. Ami Rao's masterful debut novel picks apart the lives of two people, stripping them of their collective identities and, in doing so, facing up to the challenge of today: can love give us the freedom to accept our differences?
A member of the so-called Pictures Generation, Troy Brauntuch ndash; whose career spans some three decades ndash; has often been characterized, with his peer Jack Goldstein, as taking a postmodern attitude toward representation. He is well known for his works from the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s in which he decontextualized what would otherwise be hyperbolically charged content. In his most recent work, Brauntuch extends his investigations to the space between a thing and our idea of it. In his photographs, everyday objects assert their ephemerality, and a tangible, intimate silence seems as much a part of the pictures as the simple domestic scenes they convey. This book offers the first survey of Brauntuch's work and includes newly commissioned essays by Johanna Burton and Douglas Eklund (the curator of the recent Pictures Generation exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York). English text.
Maybelle was a cable car a San Francisco cable car. . . She rang her gong and sang her song from early morn till late at night. . . . By recounting the actual events in San Francisco's effort to keep the city's cable cars running, this classic story illustrates how the voice of the people can be heard in the true spirit of democracy. Virginia Lee Burton's original art for Maybelle the Cable Car was retrieved from the archives of the San Francisco Public Library to re-create this edition with all the vibrant charm of the original, which was published in 1952.