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A large-hearted reimagining of beloved all-American legends, this epic debut novel brings men of myth Paul Bunyan and John Henry alive like never before, teaming up for an adventure quest with deeper interrogations of race, class, and industrialization. Paul Bunyan—legendary larger-than-life American lumberjack—is a man down on his luck. With a load of family debts on his broad back, he ekes out a miserable miner’s life in Lump Town, a bleak hamlet controlled by famed industrialist El Boffo. When Bunyan's wife Lucette falls ill with a disease caused by the toxic mineral Lump, he embarks on a quest to save her. His only guide: the Chilali—a mysterious creature who speaks only in questions. Bunyan’s path leads to The Windy City—and to John Henry. Henry is not yet the “steel-drivin’” man known to folklore, but a fugitive on the run from a rigged, racist prison system. As Bunyan and Henry strive to reunite with the families they love, they must work together to solve riddles, forge weapons, brawl with a behemoth, and confront at every turn the relentless, duplicitous El Boffo. A richly imaginative reinvention of myth, Bunyan and Henry is at once a timeless quest, a fresh origin story, and an urgent modern fable that wrestles with the two sides of the American dream—its wild idealism and cruel underbelly—to inspire the awakening of the folk hero in us all.
“Paxson provides songs, rituals, magical exercises, and practical advice to help you develop your own personal relationship with the Lord of Runes.” —Judika Illes, author of Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells Odin is arguably one of the most enigmatic and complex characters in Norse mythology. Revered since the Viking Age, Odin has been called the greatest of the gods—the god of words and wisdom, runes and magic, a transformer of consciousness, and a trickster who teaches truth. He is both war god and poetry god, and he is the Lord of Ravens, the All- Father, and the rune master. Odin: Ecstasy, Runes, and Norse Magic is the first book on Odin that is both historically sourced and accessible to a general audience. It explores Odin’s origins, his appearances in sagas, old magic spells, and the Poetic Edda, and his influence on modern media, such as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Each chapter features suggestions for rituals, exercises, and music, so readers can comprehend and become closer to this complicated god. Author Diana Paxson, an expert on Viking-era mythology, provides a complete portrait of Odin and draws on both scholarship and experience to provide context, resources, and guidance for those who are drawn to work with the Master of Ecstasy today. “This remarkable book is at times ribald and reverent, worldwise and innocent, pragmatic and idealistic, as needed to masterfully show the ways of a very complex God.” —Ivo Domiguez, Jr, author of Keys to Perception
"Cover"--"Contents"--"ACKNOWLEDGMENTS" -- "PREFACE" -- "CHAPTER ONE: The Primitive Baptists" -- "CHAPTER TWO: Orientations" -- "CHAPTER THREE: Multiplying by Dividing: Trouble at Low Valley" -- "CHAPTER FOUR: Interlude: Doctrine, Polity, History, and Form" -- "CHAPTER FIVE: Parallel Lives" -- "CHAPTER SIX: The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth" -- "CHAPTER SEVEN: Pilgrims and Paradoxes" -- "CHAPTER EIGHT: Theory and Ethnography" -- "APPENDIX A: 1983 Minutes of the Mountain District Primitive Baptist Association" -- "APPENDIX B: Excerpts from the London Meeting of 1689" -- "APPENDIX C: Number of Primitive Baptist Churches by State" -- "APPENDIX D: Demography of the Mountain District Primitive Baptist Association" -- "APPENDIX E: Membership of Churches in the Mountain District Association" -- "APPENDIX F: Characters and Their Affiliations" -- "APPENDIX G: Patterns of Reciprocity and Exclusion among the Churches" -- "APPENDIX H: Obituary of Elder Elmer Sparks" -- "APPENDIX I: Independent Protestants: Background Information" -- "NOTES" -- "INDEX" -- "A" -- "B" -- "C" -- "D" -- "E" -- "F" -- "G" -- "H" -- "I" -- "J" -- "K" -- "L" -- "M" -- "N" -- "O" -- "P" -- "Q" -- "R" -- "S" -- "T" -- "U" -- "V" -- "W" -- "Y
A stunning collection of darkly magical fairy tales featuring children who show true courage and face their fears
Could all that King Arthur fought for be lost? From the author of The Merlin Prophecy, a trilogy that Kirkus Reviews proclaimed, will “appeal to those who thrill to Game of Thrones,” the second installment in the action-packed historical trilogy is the epic tale of Arthur’s efforts to save the heart of his kingdom. Warrior of the West – King Arthur’s Journey Continues. Twelve years have passed since Arthur was crowned High King. Against all odds, he has united Celtic Britain and banished the Saxons. Although he’s succeeded in defeating all external threats and his kingdom is at its zenith, it is now being undermined from within. Arthur has chosen evil Wenhaver as his queen and second wife. Wenhaver will always love what she cannot have and have what she cannot love, and her bitterness threatens to bring down all those around her. Arthur is betrayed by his wife and also learns of appalling perversion at the heart of his kingdom. With his guide and master tactician, Myrddion, gone, Arthur must decide how to proceed if he wishes to see Britain stand strong. The fate of a kingdom rests on his shoulders and his selflessness is put to the test. Could all that Arthur has bought for be lost forever?
A riveting debut psychological thriller about the power memory has over us. Portia Willows was a senior in high school in Los Angeles when her world fell apart. While dealing with the aftermath of the accident that took the lives of her mother and sister, she finds herself forced to face her own memory―which may not be quite what it seems. But Portia suffers from severe social anxiety disorder that prevented her from having any sort of life, while her little sister, Piper, was her best, and only, friend. Now, five years later, Portia is forced to recall the events of the past while being questioned about a horrific crime she doesn’t remember. During those years, Portia had created a toxic, agoraphobic, life with her father, cigarettes and alcohol her only companions, unable to cope with her loss. That is, until Ethan Torke moved in across the street and changed Portia’s perspective in ways she could not possibly comprehend. But the truth always catches up with you, and fantasies never last. An unforgettable tale of memory, love, and strength through the darkest of times, Remember announces a brave new voice in psychological suspense.
Join Adrian Gilbert on an exciting look at the Mayan Calendar and the many mysteries it holds. Discover why the year 2012 is predicted to be a year of exciting and extreme changes and the reasoning behind these changes. Learn why and how the ancient Maya, a people of exceptional astronomical skill and understanding, invented a calendar so accurate that it ends exactly when the Sun enters a specific portion of the Milky Way as it rises on the Winter Solstice, December 21, 2012, marking the shift to a New Age. Look at the possibility that we are, according to those ancient people, actually living through the “end times.” Gilbert explores theories in this well-written, informative book. Includes lots of color photos.
_____________ 'It is almost impossible not to fall under the spell of Eustace Conway ... his accomplishments, his joy and vigor, seem almost miraculous' - New York Times Review of Books 'Gilbert takes a bright-eyed bead on Eustace, hitting him square with a witty modernist appraisal of folkloric American masculinity' - The Times 'Conversational, enthusiastic, funny and sharp, the energy of The Last American Man never ebbs' - New Statesman _____________ A fascinating, intimate portrait of an endlessly complicated man: a visionary, a narcissist, a brilliant but flawed modern hero At the age of seventeen, Eustace Conway ditched the comforts of his suburban existence to escape to the wild. Away from the crushing disapproval of his father, he lived alone in a teepee in the mountains. Everything he needed he built, grew or killed. He made his clothes from deer he killed and skinned before using their sinew as sewing thread. But he didn't stop there. In the years that followed, he stopped at nothing in pursuit of bigger, bolder challenges. He travelled the Mississippi in a handmade wooden canoe; he walked the two-thousand-mile Appalachian Trail; he hiked across the German Alps in trainers; he scaled cliffs in New Zealand. One Christmas, he finished dinner with his family and promptly upped and left - to ride his horse across America. From South Carolina to the Pacific, with his little brother in tow, they dodged cars on the highways, ate road kill and slept on the hard ground. Now, more than twenty years on, Eustace is still in the mountains, residing in a thousand-acre forest where he teaches survival skills and attempts to instil in people a deeper appreciation of nature. But over time he has had to reconcile his ambitious dreams with the sobering realities of modernity. Told with Elizabeth Gilbert's trademark wit and spirit, The Last American Man is an unforgettable adventure story of an irrepressible life lived to the extreme. The Last American Man is a New York Times Notable Book and National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.
Fresh, stylish new translations of Gogol's greatest short stories collected in a beautiful edition 'One of the most profound, and influential, writers Russia has ever produced, he is probably also the funniest' Guardian 'The most morally complete writer: baffled, outraged, reverent, mock-didactic, mocking, all at once. He honours life by feeling no one way about it' GEORGE SAUNDERS No writer has captured the absurdity of the human condition as acutely as Nikolai Gogol. In a lively new translation by Oliver Ready, this collection contains his great classic stories - 'The Overcoat', 'The Nose' and 'Diary of a Madman' - alongside lesser known gems depicting life in the Russian and Ukranian countryside. Together, they reveal Gogol's marvellously skewed perspective, moving between the urban and the rural with painfully sharp humour and scorching satire. Strikingly modern in his depictions of society's shambolic structures, Gogol plunders the depths of bureaucratic and domestic banalities to unearth moments of dark comedy and outrageous corruption. Defying categorisation, the stories in this collection range from the surreal to the satirical to the grotesque, united in their exquisite psychological acuteness and tender insights into the bizarre irrationalities of the human soul. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852) was born in Ukraine and moved to St Petersburg after his studies in 1828 to work, at first, in various government departments. His first collection of stories, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka (1831), brought him widespread fame, and he went on to write further collections of stories, as well as the play The Government Inspector. The first part of his great, and only, novel Dead Souls appeared in 1842. In his later life he was increasingly tormented both physically and psychologically and he repeatedly burned his manuscripts, including the second part of Dead Souls. After the final burning in February 1852, he stopped eating and died in great pain ten days later.