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From the bestselling author of The Boy Who Drew Monsters and The Stolen Child comes a modern take on the Orpheus and Eurydice Myth—A Suspenseful tale of romance and enchantment In the Old City of Québec, Kay Harper falls in love with a puppet in the window of the Quatre Mains, a toy shop that is never open. She is spending her summer working as an acrobat with the cirque while her husband, Theo, is translating a biography of the pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Late one night, Kay fears someone is following her home. Surprised to see that the lights of the toy shop are on and the door is open, she takes shelter inside. The next morning Theo wakes up to discover his wife is missing. Under police suspicion and frantic at her disappearance, he obsessively searches the streets of the Old City. Meanwhile, Kay has been transformed into a puppet, and is now a prisoner of the back room of the Quatre Mains, trapped with an odd assemblage of puppets from all over the world who can only come alive between the hours of midnight and dawn. The only way she can return to the human world is if Theo can find her and recognize her in her new form. So begins the dual odyssey of Keith Donohue’s The Motion of Puppets: of a husband determined to find his wife, and of a woman trapped in a magical world where her life is not her own.
Puppets of Nostalgia is the first major work in any Western language to examine the ritual origins and religious dimensions of puppetry in Japan. In a lucid and engaging style accessible to the general reader, Jane Marie Law describes the "life, death, and rebirth" of awaji ningyo shibai, the unique form of puppet theater of Awaji Island that has existed since the sixteenth century. Puppetry rites on Awaji helped to maintain rigid ritual purity codes and to keep dangerous spiritual forces properly channeled and appeased. Law conducted fieldwork on Awaji, located in Japan's Inland Sea, over a ten-year period. In addition to being a detailed history and ethnography of this ritual tradition, Law's work is, at a theoretical level, a study of the process and meaning of tradition formation, reformation, invention, and revitalization. It will interest scholars in a number of fields, including the history of religions, anthropology, cultural studies, ritual and theater studies, Japanese studies, and social history. Focusing on the puppetry tradition of Awaji Island, Puppets of Nostalgia describes the activities of the island's ritual puppeteers and includes the first English translation of their performance texts and detailed descriptions of their rites. Because the author has lived on Awaji during extended periods of research, the work includes fine attention to local detail and nuanced readings of religious currents in Japan that affect popular religious expression. Illustrated throughout with rare photographs, the book provides an in-depth view of a four-hundred-year-old tradition never so thoroughly revealed to Western readers. Originally published in 1997. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The puppet creates delight and fear. It may evoke the innocent play of childhood, or become a tool of ritual magic, able to negotiate with ghosts and gods. Puppets can be creepy things, secretive, inanimate while also full of spirit, alive with gesture and voice. In this eloquent book, Kenneth Gross contemplates the fascination of these unsettling objects—objects that are also actors and images of life. The poetry of the puppet is central here, whether in its blunt grotesquery or symbolic simplicity, and always in its talent for metamorphosis. On a meditative journey to seek the idiosyncratic shapes of puppets on stage, Gross looks at the anarchic Punch and Judy show, the sacred shadow theater of Bali, and experimental theaters in Europe and the United States, where puppets enact everything from Baroque opera and Shakespearean tragedy to Beckettian farce. Throughout, he interweaves accounts of the myriad faces of the puppet in literature—Collodi’s cruel, wooden Pinocchio, puppetlike characters in Kafka and Dickens, Rilke’s puppet-angels, the dark puppeteering of Philip Roth’s Micky Sabbath—as well as in the work of artists Joseph Cornell and Paul Klee. The puppet emerges here as a hungry creature, seducer and destroyer, demon and clown. It is a test of our experience of things, of the human and inhuman. A book about reseeing what we know, or what we think we know, Puppet evokes the startling power of puppets as mirrors of the uncanny in life and art.
From the creator of Little Owl Lost and Oh No, George! comes a funny, strikingly illustrated story of best-laid plans — and the secret to attracting the birdie. Four friends creep through the woods, and what do they spot? An exquisite bird high in a tree! “Hello birdie,” waves one. “Shh! We have a plan,” hush the others. They stealthily make their advance, nets in the air. Ready one, ready two, ready three, and go! But as one comically foiled plan follows another, it soon becomes clear that their quiet, observant companion, hand outstretched, has a far better idea. Award-winning author-illustrator Chris Haughton is back with another simple, satisfying story whose visual humor plays out in boldly graphic, vibrantly colorful illustrations.
"Intricate, elegant and sharp as a blade―The Throne of the Five Winds is sweeping political fantasy at its finest." ―Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne Two women are forced to navigate a treacherous imperial court determined to consume them in this sweeping and richly detailed first book of an East Asian-inspired epic fantasy series. The imperial palace―full of ambitious royals, sly gossip, and unforeseen perils―is perhaps the most dangerous place in the Empire of Zhaon. Komor Yala, the lady-in-waiting to the princess of the vanquished kingdom of Khir, has only her wits and a hidden blade to protect herself and her charge, who was sacrificed in marriage to secure a tenuous peace. Soon, Komor Yala and the Khir princess find themselves pawns in the deadly schemes for the throne. And when the emperor falls ill, a far bloodier game begins... A single hidden blade could alter the course of history in this epic tale of ambition, honor, and sacrifice, perfect for fans of The Tiger's Daughter and The Grace of Kings. Praise for the Hostage of Empire series: "With a deliberate pace and fine attention to details of dress and custom, Emmett weaves a masterful tale of court intrigues." ―Booklist (starred review) "Action and intrigue takes place within a layered and beautifully realized fantasy world that will appeal to readers of K. Arsenault Rivera's The Tiger's Daughter."―B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Hostage of Empire The Throne of the Five Winds The Poison Prince The Blood Throne
Kansas-born Pauline Benton (1898-1974) was encouraged by her father, one of America's earliest feminist male educators, to reach for the stars. Instead, she reached for shadows. In 1920s Beijing, she discovered shadow theatre (piyingxi), a performance art where translucent painted puppets are manipulated by highly trained masters to cast coloured shadows against an illuminated screen. Finding that this thousand-year-old forerunner of motion pictures was declining in China, Benton believed she could save the tradition by taking it to America. Mastering the male-dominated art form in China, Benton enchanted audiences eager for the exotic in Depression-era America. Her touring company, Red Gate Shadow Theatre, was lauded by theatre and art critics and even performed at Franklin Roosevelt's White House. Grant Hayter-Menzies traces Benton's performance history and her efforts to preserve shadow theatre as a global cultural treasure by drawing on her unpublished writings, the recollections of her colleagues, the testimonies of shadow masters who survived China's Cultural Revolution, as well as young innovators who have carried on Benton's pioneering work.
Drawing on thirty years of making theatre with objects, this field-defining book maps the terrain of applied puppetry. Through a range of case studies both personal and practical, Matt Smith offers a reflective and engaging study which provides makers, thinkers and students alike with a toolkit for thinking about and making puppetry in community settings. Through eight chapters, Smith muses on the nature of creativity, explores approaches to puppetry through ecology, and considers how puppets and objects affect the act of making and – in turn – how they affect those who make, use and experience them in performance. Along the way, Applied Puppetry offers practical exercises in theatre-making, demonstrates the political power of puppetry beyond borders, and interrogates the limitations and possibilities of puppetry and object theatre in local communities, volatile contexts and difficult circumstances.
Presents the story of a young girl of Bologna who worked in her father's all-male painting studio and came to enjoy more fame than any female artist before her.
The Amadeuses were always considered somewhat strange. Even before the incident. When six-year-old Beatrice Willoughby vanished at the Amadeuses’ annual All Hallows Eve party, people in the tiny mountain town of Nevermore were quick to whisper: They were always odd. Their house is full of dark magic. And when Mort Amadeus was pegged for the crime, the Amadeuses, once the center of society, retreated. They closed their doors, disappeared from life. People almost forgot. Until thirteen years later, when six envelopes land at the doorstep of six households in town: We cordially invite you to a celebration on the 31st of October this Saturday evening at the Amadeus household. So begins the mystery of who was really responsible for the missing girl thirteen years ago. Was it Duchess von Pelt, whose face no one has ever seen? Mrs. Raven, the keeper of the local inn? Wormwood, the Amadeuses’ mysterious caretaker? Dr. Foozle, the town pharmacist? Count Baines, who seems to know when unlucky things are about to happen? Judge Ophelius, who presided over Beatrice’s case originally? Mr. and Mrs. H, a couple who no one can ever quite remember? Or somehow, might precocious, eleven-year-old Dewey and his storytelling dad, Chaucer, be somehow mixed up in all this? The guests must work together to identify the guilty party among them over the course of the evening—but beware the ticking clock, because at midnight, everything is going to change! Told from different perspectives, this is a sly, darkly funny mystery. Filled with strange characters and set in a mansion deep, deep in the woods. G. Z. Schmidt has crafted an unforgettable puzzle, perfect for reading on a dark autumn night.
The definitive, deluxe art book about Edward Gorey's theater work—from the Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Dracula to the wildly creative productions to which he devoted the last decade of his life. Edward Gorey (1925-2000) was a prodigious and original artist who published more than one hundred beloved works, including The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Doubtful Guest, and Amphigorey, and illustrations that appeared regularly in such publications as The New Yorker and The New York Times and books by authors ranging from Charles Dickens and T.S. Eliot to John Updike and Virginia Woolf, among many others. His animated credits for the PBS Mystery! series introduced him to millions of television viewers. In addition to his intricate pen-and-ink drawings and darkly humorous storybooks, Gorey also nurtured a lifelong passion for the performing arts. This volume is the first to showcase his extensive theatrical work, including his transition from designing major productions to crafting original community theater pieces on Cape Cod. Written by his friend and collaborator Carol Verburg, this handsome hardcover edition is filled with annotated scripts, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and over two hundred images, including archival photos and previously unpublished artwork. It unveils Gorey at work and play, drawing back the curtain on his enigmatic genius, which continues to inspire artists and collectors today. BELOVED ARTIST: Edward Gorey's art is instantly recognizable. Storytellers such as Tim Burton and Daniel Handler cite him as an inspiration, and his influence is visible in the works of illustrators ranging from Tom Gauld to Stephanie von Reiswitz. With an oeuvre that ranges widely from storybooks to the stage, Gorey is a major artist of the 20th century. RARE AND UNPUBLISHED CONTENT: This is the first book focused on Gorey's theater work and includes previously unpublished and rarely seen archival photos, illustrations, and scripts—some annotated in Gorey's own hand. It is an essential read for collectors and fans. THE INSIDE STORY: Carol Verburg was Gorey's close friend and creative comrade-in-arms all through the last decade of his life, and she writes with insight and a personal touch. She intersperses her own reminiscences with quotes from actors and other collaborators to weave a vivid narrative. EXQUISITE GIFT: With rich visuals, engaging writing, and a luxurious hardcover package featuring a red velvet spine, this is a beautiful volume to display on a coffee table and the perfect gift for Gorey fans and theater buffs. Perfect for: Fans and collectors of Edward Gorey's books and illustrations Lovers of theater, theater history, and theatrical design and production Art students and collectors Readers of memoirs and biographies