Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr
by John Crowley, Melody Newcomb
Dar Oakley—the first Crow in all of history with a name of his own—was born two thousand years ago. When a man learns his language, Dar finally gets the chance to tell his story. He begins his tale as a young man, and how he went down to the human underworld and got hold of the immortality meant for humans, long before Julius Caesar came into the Celtic lands; how he sailed West to America with the Irish monks searching for the Paradise of the Saints; and how he continuously went down into the land of the dead and returned. Through his adventures in Ka, the realm of Crows, and around the world, he found secrets that could change the humans’ entire way of life—and now may be the time to finally reveal them. – Amazon.
Boneland by Alan Garner
(The Concluding Volume in the Weirdstone Trilogy 3)
Evolution Man: Or, How I Ate My Father by Roy Lewis
Containing an
eyewitness account of the first human courtship ever, a study of the lives of
an everyday, ordinary cave family includes portraits of Mom, the ape woman;
brother William and his attempted animal domestication; and Dad, the inventor.
– Amazon.
Book
of Dreams by
Jack Kerouac, Robert Creeley
Book of Dreams is Jack Kerouac's record of his dream life, a parallel
autobiography of the soul, the sleeper's On the Road:
"I got my weary bones out of bed & through eyes
swollen with sleep swiftly scribbled in pencil in my little dream notebook till
I had exhausted every rememberable item … "
Awake of asleep, Jack's mind spun the web of relationships
that were the substance of almost everything he wrote:
"In the book of dreams I just continue the same story
but in the dreams I had of the real-life characters I always write about."
"Lost love, madness, castration, cats that speak, cats
in danger of their lives, people giving birth to cats, grade school classrooms,
Mel Torme, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Tolstoy and Genet all make repeated appearances,
Book of Dreams is Jack Kerouac's record of his dream life, a parallel
autobiography of the soul, the sleeper's On the Road:
"I got my weary bones out of bed & through eyes
swollen with sleep swiftly scribbled in pencil in my little dream notebook till
I had exhausted every rememberable item …"
Awake or asleep, Jack's mind spun the web of relationships
that were the substance of almost everything he wrote:
"In the book of dreams I just continue the same story but
in the dreams I had of the real-life characters I always write about." –
Amazon.
Hard Reading: Learning from Science
Fiction (Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies LUP) by Tom Shippey
The fifteen essays collected in Hard Reading argue, first,
that science fiction has its own internal rhetoric, relying on devices such as
neologism, dialogism, semantic shifts, the use of unreliable narrators. It is a
"high-information" genre which does not follow the Flaubertian ideal
of le mot juste, "the right word", preferring le mot imprévisible,
"the unpredictable word". Both ideals shun the facilior lectio, the
"easy reading", but for different reasons and with different effects.
The essays argue further that science fiction derives much of its energy from
engagement with vital intellectual issues in the "soft sciences",
especially history, anthropology, the study of different cultures, with a
strong bearing on politics. Both the rhetoric and the issues deserve to be
taken much more seriously than they have been in academia, and in the wider
world. Each essay is further prefaced by an autobiographical introduction.
These explain how the essays came to be written and in what ways they (often)
proved controversial. They, and the autobiographical introduction to the whole
book, create between them a memoir of what it was like to be a committed fan,
from teenage years, and also an academic struggling to find a place, at a time
when a declared interest in science fiction and fantasy was the kiss of death
for a career in the humanities. – Amazon.
Pensées (Penguin Classics) by Blaise Pascal, A. J. Krailsheimer
Blaise Pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of
Descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished
apologia for the Christian religion upon which his reputation now rests.
The Penseés is a collection of philosophical fragments, notes
and essays in which Pascal explores the contradictions of human nature in
psychological, social, metaphysical and - above all - theological terms.
Mankind emerges from Pascal's analysis as a wretched and desolate creature
within an impersonal universe, but who can be transformed through faith in
God's grace. – Amazon.
The Life of Merlin, Vita Merlini by Geoffrey of Monmouth
Vita Merlini, or The Life of Merlin, is a work by the
Norman-Welsh author Geoffrey of Monmouth, composed in Latin around AD 1150. It
retells incidents from the life of the Brythonic seer Merlin, and is based on
traditional material about him. Merlin is described as a prophet in the text.
There are a number of episodes in which he loses his mind and lives in the
wilderness like a wild animal, like Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel. It is
also the first work to describe the Arthurian sorceress Morgan le Fay, as
Morgen. Geoffrey had written of Merlin in his two previous works, the
Prophetiae Merlini, purported to be a series of prophecies from the sage, and
the Historia Regum Britanniae, which is the first work presenting a link
between Merlin and King Arthur. The Vita Merlini presents an account of Merlin
much more faithful to the Welsh traditions about Myrddin Wyllt, the archetype
behind Geoffrey's composite figure of Merlin. Whereas the Historia had Merlin
associating with Arthur, his father Uther Pendragon, and his uncle Ambrosius in
the 5th century, the Vita's timeframe is during the late 6th century, and
includes references to various figures from that period, including Gwenddoleu
and Taliesin. Geoffrey attempts to synchronize the Vita with his earlier work
by having Merlin mention he had been with Arthur long before. – Amazon.
Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman:
Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Magician by Ingmar Bergman
Sex and society in Shakespeare's age:
Simon Forman the astrologer by A. L Rowse
An intimate look at Elizabethan social & sex life as seen
through the diaries of Simon Forman, a famous astrologer who was consulted by
hundreds of people from great court ladies to sailors' wives & whores. –
Amazon.
Smart: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) by Christopher Smart, Karina
Williamson
A selection of poems from the 18th-century poet Christopher
Smart. This book includes his four most famous works. – Amazon.
The Book of Saints and Heroes by Mrs. Lang
The first Christians to visit Europe and the British Isles
met pagans who told tales of fairies, talking beasts, and other wonderful
things. To these marvelous stories, they soon added new ones about the
Christian saints. These marvelous legends and exciting true stories of
Christian saints and heroes will provide many hours of delightful reading to
believers and non-believers alike! – Amazon.
The Young Wizard's Hexopedia: A Guide
to Magical Words & Phrases by Anthemion Deckle Buckram, Craig Conley
The Hexopedia is a one-of-a-kind story of magic words—what they’re
made of, where they came from, where they can take you, and how they interact
with the world and with each other. It is a whimsical training manual on
speaking, writing, and listening magically. It is a treasure chest of hands-on
techniques to access the full wisdom and power for beginning things, attracting
things, protecting things, and bestowing things. It reveals how to assemble,
paint, and manipulate words, even invisible words. It teaches how to become
fluent in the language, or rather languages, of spellcraft, and how to interact
on a magical level with the elements, the animals, and the trees. It is meant
to enlighten its young readers and inspire them to create pure wonder and awe
whenever they speak. Sources range from the hierophants of ancient Egypt; to
the high priests, medicine men, sorcerers, and alchemists of the Middle Ages;
to the necromancers and wizards of legend and fairy tale; to the workers of
wonders and miracles throughout history. The Hexopedia showcases
those powerful words and spells that give shape and form to ungraspable feats.
The Hexopedia was inspired by the fact that the shop windows of
Universal Studios’ Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Los Angeles and Orlando)
display genuine-looking tomes of magic but don’t offer them for sale. The
Hexopedia looks, feels, and reads like an authentic artifact of
wizardry, appealing to young fans of Harry Potter, Oz, Lord of the Rings, and
other sword-and-sorcery books, films, and video games.
Magic words are naturally as old as conjuring itself, echoes of the rhythm and
vibration of creative power. A great many of these words have stood the test of
time, passed on from master to apprentice, generation through generation. These
ancient, musical, poetic incantations have a profound—but not necessarily
unfathomable—mystique. For example, there is profound meaning in the
clichéd image of a magician pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat with the
word abracadabra. The magician is speaking an ancient Hebrew phrase
that means “I will create with words.” He is making something out of nothing,
echoing that famous line from Genesis: “Let there be light, and there was
light,” only in this case the light is a white rabbit and perhaps a flash of
fire. The magic word, whether it be abracadabra or another of
the magician’s choosing, resonates with us because there is an instinctive
understanding that words are powerful, creative forces.
Unlike with so many magic books on the market, parents need not fear any
nefarious intent or ideological subtext; The Hexopedia promotes
a deliberately positive, universal message about empowering one’s communication
skills for beneficial results. This is not an indoctrination into any system of
belief or religious practice; rather, the book encourages readers’ imaginations
as it slyly teaches ways to choose words carefully. The book offers text and
diagrams that seem mysterious and occult yet are constructive and purposively
devoid of religious overtones of any kind. The Hexopedia is
expressly designed to foster treasured youthful experiences, inspiring a love
of literacy and learning as it promotes intellectual growth through enchantment
and entertainment. – Amazon.
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice by James Branch
Cabell. Illustrations by Frank C. Pape.
The darkly comic allegory Jurgen caused quite a stir when it was originally published, with several jurisdictions deeming it obscene and calling for it to be pulled from store shelves. After his wife mysteriously vanishes, middle-aged pawnbroker Jurgen sets off on a not-so-heroic quest to find her, traveling through a series of strange lands in the process. – Amazon.
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