A bright, talented junior at Catamount College in the druggy 1970s, Gillian Brauer strives to realise more than a poet's craft in her workshop with the charismatic, anti-establishment professor Andre Harrow. For Gillian has fallen in love - with Harrow, with his aesthetic sensibility and bohemian lifestyle, with his secluded cottage, with the mystique of his imposing, russet-haired French wife, Dorcas. A sculptress, Dorcas has outraged the campus and alumnae with the crude, primitive, larger than life-sized wooden totems that she has exhibited under the motto 'We are beasts and this is our consolation'.As if mesmerised, Gillian enters the rarefied world of the Harrows. She is special, even though she knows her classmates have preceded her here. She is helpless. She is powerful. And she will learn in full the meaning of Dorcas' provocative motto . . .
A celebration of the visual contributions of the bestiary--one of the most popular types of illuminated books during the Middle Ages--and an exploration of its lasting legacy. Brimming with lively animals both real and fantastic, the bestiary was one of the great illuminated manuscript traditions of the Middle Ages. Encompassing imaginary creatures such as the unicorn, siren, and griffin; exotic beasts including the tiger, elephant, and ape; as well as animals native to Europe like the beaver, dog, and hedgehog, the bestiary is a vibrant testimony to the medieval understanding of animals and their role in the world. So iconic were the stories and images of the bestiary that its beasts essentially escaped from the pages, appearing in a wide variety of manuscripts and other objects, including tapestries, ivories, metalwork, and sculpture. With over 270 color illustrations and contributions by twenty-five leading scholars, this gorgeous volume explores the bestiary and its widespread influence on medieval art and culture as well as on modern and contemporary artists like Pablo Picasso and Damien Hirst. Published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center May 14 to August 18, 2019.
Beasts! is a classic mythological menagerie, comprised only of creatures that were thought at one time to actually exist, depicted by about a hundred of the most acclaimed artists and cartoonists coming from the most avant-garde ambits of the art world. The Beasts project has fired the imaginations of luminaries such as Craig Thompson, Souther Salazar, Jeff Soto, Glenn Barr, Dave Cooper, Tim Biskup, Seonna Hong, Jeremy Fish and Jay Ryan, who will present never-before-seen art completely original to this book, superbly laid out in breathtaking, full-color two-page spreads. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.9px Arial; color: #424242}
Are the prophecies of The Apocalypse playing out right before our eyes? The young and healthy dying sudden, unexplained deaths. Skyrocketing miscarriage and stillbirth rates. Common sense becoming a crime. Public educators acting behind the backs of parents. The weaponizing of law enforcement agencies. We read and hear about these issues daily. But what if some take a stand and say, “Enough is enough?” What if some fight back in unexpected ways? Will they win? Or are these skirmishes in a larger war? Have the beasts of the Book of Revelation already risen? Is it too late to make a decision that will determine your eternity?
It is widely known that such Western institutions as the museum, the university, and the penitentiary shaped Japan’s emergence as a modern nation-state. Less commonly recognized is the role played by the distinctly hybrid institution—at once museum, laboratory, and prison—of the zoological garden. In this eye-opening study of Japan’s first modern zoo, Tokyo’s Ueno Imperial Zoological Gardens, opened in 1882, Ian Jared Miller offers a refreshingly unconventional narrative of Japan’s rapid modernization and changing relationship with the natural world. As the first zoological garden in the world not built under the sway of a Western imperial regime, the Ueno Zoo served not only as a staple attraction in the nation’s capital—an institutional marker of national accomplishment—but also as a site for the propagation of a new “natural” order that was scientifically verifiable and evolutionarily foreordained. As the Japanese empire grew, Ueno became one of the primary sites of imperialist spectacle, a microcosm of the empire that could be traveled in the course of a single day. The meaning of the zoo would change over the course of Imperial Japan’s unraveling and subsequent Allied occupation. Today it remains one of Japan’s most frequently visited places. But instead of empire in its classic political sense, it now bespeaks the ambivalent dominion of the human species over the natural environment, harkening back to its imperial roots even as it asks us to question our exploitation of the planet’s resources.
Alternating chapters of prose and comics (illustrated by Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist Nate Powell) are interwoven in Cecil Castelucci's extraordinary YA novel about jealousy and grief, and how they cut us off from the ones we love. Every summer the trucks roll in, bringing the carnival and its infinite possibilities to town. This year Tessa and her younger sister Lulu are un-chaperoned and want to be first in line to experience the rides, the food . . . and the boys. Except this summer, jealousy will invade their relationship for the first time, setting in motion a course of events that can only end in tragedy, putting everyone's love and friendship to the test. Castellucci's deft shifting between straight prose and graphic novel visualize how Tessa processes the events of the summer, seeing herself and her friends as freaks personified by characters from Greek mythology.
A dark threat faces the world of Erdas in this riveting new saga from the New York Times bestselling series. A heart-pounding new adventure from the New York Times bestselling series.In the world of Erdas, every child must discover if they will summon a spirit animal, a rare and incredible gift. Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan were rare even among those few. They summoned legendary animals--brave guardians who were reborn to protect their world. Now more of these legends are appearing across Erdas, bonded to special children. But a dark force has emerged. Older than memory, it has slept for centuries beneath the surface of the world. With the power to tear away spirit animals, it begins a rampage that will be felt in every corner of Erdas. If the young heroes can't stop it, the darkness will first consume the spirit animals . . . and then the world.
A preeminent medievalist presents a wonderful catalog of real and fanciful beasts, including the manticore, griffin, phoenix, amphivius, jaculus, and many other exotic animals. White's witty, erudite commentary on scientific and historical aspects enhances this survey of proto-zoology on which science is based and pre-scientific perceptions of the earth's creatures. 128 black-and-white illustrations.
Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Devil in the White City, delivers a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power. The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Nazi Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition. Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.
