Life Is A Strange Place

“Oddly charming, deeply intelligent. . . . Anyone asking questions about their own place in the world might be drawn to these portrayals of ordinary life from almost 500 years ago—scenes of human beings who work and return home, who carry their kids and tend to chores, who nap, play, eat, drink and do other, less decorous things. And, with the author’s help, we look at them more closely than before." — Washington Post “Graceful, transcendent even.” — Los Angeles Times “Captivating . . . a vibrant portrait of the artist’s work and world…. A profusely illustrated, deeply thoughtful meditation.” — Kirkus “Thought-provoking. . . . [Ferris] blends memoir with philosophic meditation on art criticism in his thoughtful debut.” — Publishers Weekly

Under the desert's cracked and barren skin, spadefoot toads are waiting for rain. In the endless black of the deepest caves, blind fish find their way. Even in the frozen hearts of glaciers, ice worms by the billion flourish. In this fascinating look at fourteen animals who defy the odds by thriving in Earth's most dangerous places, renowned poet Marilyn Singer and celebrated artist Ed Young show that of all the miracles of life, it is life's persistence that astounds the most.

The original uncut edition of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Hugo Award winner Robert A Heinlein - one of the most beloved, celebrated science-fiction novels of all time. Epic, ambitious and entertaining, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND caused controversy and uproar when it was first published and is still topical and challenging today. Twenty-five years ago, the first manned mission to Mars was lost, and all hands presumed dead. But someone survived... Born on the doomed spaceship and raised by the Martians who saved his life, Valentine Michael Smith has never seen a human being until the day a second expedition to Mars discovers him. Upon his return to Earth, a young nurse named Jill Boardman sneaks into Smith's hospital room and shares a glass of water with him, a simple act for her but a sacred ritual on Mars. Now, connected by an incredible bond, Smith, Jill and a writer named Jubal must fight to protect a right we all take for granted: the right to love.

Can contemporary art say anything about spirituality? John Updike calls modern art "a religion assembled from the fragments of our daily life," but does that mean that contemporary art is spiritual? What might it mean to say that the art you make expresses your spiritual belief? On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art explores the curious disconnection between spirituality and current art. This book will enable you to walk into a museum and talk about the spirituality that is or is not visible in the art you see.

Revelstoke: Where the worlds of the living, dead, and extraordinary collide Embark on a fascinating journey into Revelstoke, Canada, a world-renowned ski destination with a well-kept secret: it has a long and active paranormal history just as breathtaking as its mountain views. Packed with stories of hauntings, UFOs, Sasquatch, missing time, and much more, A Strange Little Place takes you into a small town full of thrilling secrets and bizarre encounters. Chronicling over seventy years of unusual occurrences in his hometown, Brennan Storr provides exciting, first-hand accounts of unexplainable phenomena. Discover the sinister mysteries of Rogers Pass, the strange craft and spectral music of the Arrow Lakes, and generations of hauntings in the infamous Holten House. As a magnet for the supernatural, Revelstoke invites you to experience things you never thought possible.

Joe wakes up in a barley field with no clothes, no memories, and no idea how he got there. Before he knows it, he's off on the last great journey of his life. With his soul guide Baker and a charge to have courage from a mysterious, alluring, and somehow familiar Stranger, Joe sets off through a fantastical changing landscape to confront his past. The quest is not without challenges. Joe's past is not always an easy thing to relive, but if he wants to find peace—and reunite with the Stranger he is so strongly drawn to—he must continue on until the end, no matter how tempted he is to stop along the way.

Just as World War I introduced Americans to Europe, making an indelible impression on thousands of farmboys who were changed forever “after they saw Paree,” so World War II was the beginning of America’s encounter with the East – an encounter whose effects are still being felt and absorbed. No single place was more symbolic of this initial encounter than Hawaii, the target of the first unforgettable Japanese attack on American forces, and, as the forward base and staging area for all military operations in the Pacific, the “first strange place” for close to a million soldiers, sailors, and marines on their way to the horrors of war. But as Beth Bailey and David Farber show in this evocative and timely book, Hawaii was also the first strange place on another kind of journey, toward the new American society that began to emerge in the postwar era. Unlike the largely rigid and static social order of prewar America, this was to be a highly mobile and volatile society of mixed racial and cultural influences, one above all in which women and minorities would increasingly demand and receive equal status. With consummate skill and sensitivity, Bailey and Farber show how these unprecedented changes were tested and explored in the highly charged environment of wartime Hawaii. Most of the hundreds of thousands of men and women whom war brought to Hawaii were expecting a Hollywood image of “paradise.” What they found instead was vastly different: a complex crucible in which radically diverse elements – social, racial, sexual – were mingled and transmuted in the heat and strain of war. Drawing on the rich and largely untapped reservoir of documents, diaries, memoirs, and interviews with men and women who were there, the authors vividly recreate the dense, lush, atmosphere of wartime Hawaii – an atmosphere that combined the familiar and exotic in a mixture that prefigured the special strangeness of American society today.

After he is attacked by the angry father of a teenage girl he had seduced, compulsive womanizer Barry Munday awakens in the hospital to find his most prized possessions--his gonads--have been surgically removed.

From the Man Booker Prize–winner of The Promise: “This tale of ill-fated journeys through Greece, Africa and India shows” the author of The Quarry “at a superb new high” (The Guardian). In this newest novel from South African writer Damon Galgut, a young loner travels across eastern Africa, Europe, and India. Unsure what he’s after, and reluctant to return home, he follows the paths of travelers he meets along the way. Each new encounter—with an enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers, and a woman on the verge—leads him closer to confronting his own identity. Traversing the quiet of wilderness and the frenzy of border crossings, every new direction is tinged with surmounting mourning, as he is propelled toward a tragic conclusion. Shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, In a Strange Room is a hauntingly beautiful evocation of life on the road. It was first published in the Paris Review in three parts—“The Follower,” “The Lover,” and “The Guardian”—one of which was selected for a National Magazine Award and another for the O. Henry Prize.

Strange Places: The Political Potentials and Perils of Everyday Spaces offers a conceptual framework for thinking politically about place and space in an era in which globalization seems to be destabilizing places and transforming spaces at an unprecedented rate and scale. Responding critically to the tendencies within contemporary political theory to dismiss places as inherently confining spaces, author Alexandra Kogl explores the roles that places play in supporting a democratic politics of efficacy and resistance. Using concrete examples and cases, this interdisciplinary work is accessible to a broad scholarly audience, including political theory, urban affairs, geography, and sociology scholars. Book jacket.