This extraordinarily comprehensive, well-documented, biographical dictionary of some 1,500 photographers (and workers engaged in photographically related pursuits) active in western North America before 1865 is enriched by some 250 illustrations. Far from being simply a reference tool, the book provides a rich trove of fascinating narratives that cover both the professional and personal lives of a colorful cast of characters.
When Cecil B. DeMille's epic, The Ten Commandments, came out in 1956, lines of people crowded into theaters across America to admire the movie's spectacular special effects. Thanks to DeMille, the commandments now had fans as well as adherents. But the country's fascination with the Ten Commandments goes well beyond the colossal scenes of this Hollywood classic. In this vividly rendered narrative, Jenna Weissman Joselit situates the Ten Commandments within the fabric of American history. Her subjects range from the 1860 tale of the amateur who claimed to have discovered ancient holy stones inside a burial mound in Ohio to the San Francisco congregation of Sherith Israel, which commissioned a luminous piece of stained glass depicting Moses in Yosemite for its sanctuary; from the Kansas politician Charles Walter, who in the late nineteenth century proposed codifying each commandment into state law, to the radio commentator Laura Schlessinger, who popularized the Ten Commandments as a psychotherapeutic tool in the 1990s. At once text and object, celestial and earthbound, Judaic and Christian, the Ten Commandments were not just a theological imperative in the New World; they also provoked heated discussions around key issues such as national identity, inclusion, and pluralism. In a country as diverse and heterogeneous as the United States, the Ten Commandments offered common ground and held out the promise of order and stability, becoming the lodestar of American identity. While archaeologists, theologians, and devotees across the world still wonder what became of the tablets that Moses received on Mount Sinai, Weissman Joselit offers a surprising answer: they landed in the United States.
Many people are unaware of how influential Mormons have been on American popular culture. This book parts the curtain and looks behind the scenes at the little-known but important influence Mormons have had on popular culture in the United States and beyond. Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon provides an unprecedented, comprehensive treatment of Mormons and popular culture. Authored by a Mormon studies librarian and author of numerous writings regarding Mormon folklore, culture, and history, this book provides students, scholars, and interested readers with an introduction and wide-ranging overview of the topic that can serve as a key reference book on the topic. The work contains fascinating coverage on the most influential Mormon actors, musicians, fashion designers, writers, artists, media personalities, and athletes. Some topics—such as the Mormon influence at Disney, and how Mormon inventors have assisted in transforming American popular culture through the inventions of television, stereophonic sound, video games, and computer-generated animation—represent largely unknown information. The broad overview of Mormons and American popular culture offered can be used as a launching pad for further investigation; researchers will find the references within the book's well-documented chapters helpful.
"Stained Glass of the Middle Ages in England and France" by Hugh Arnold Hugh Arnold was an English stained glass artist which gave him the expertise to write about the topic and its evolution through history. Starting with how to make a stained glass window, he then moves on to discuss how the style of this artform has changed from the first panes all the way through to the fifteenth century.
When forbidden desire becomes something deeper, the past is exposed, and the betrayal is more than expected.Krystina I'm flawed and damaged. My capacity for love is limited, and I'm the only one who can repair the pieces of my shattered heart.But that was before meeting Alexander Stone. Now, he is everywhere I turn-in my mind, in my heart, and in my soul. I can't deny him. He's the glue holding my soul together. He's my addiction, and I'm unable to stay away. But committing to love Alexander is only the beginning. When he's blackmailed about a secret he's kept since childhood, everything we fought to overcome is threatened. It rocks the fragile foundation on which our relationship is built-trust. Alexander I have rules. Krystina breaks them. She's strong, determined, devastatingly beautiful-and stubborn as hell. Her quick wit and firecracker attitude is the complete opposite of what I want in a woman. But I still want to claim her, tame her, and make her mine. I can't get her out of my mind.However, being with someone like her is a risk. I have too many secrets. Surrendering the truth about my father's murder would be devastating-not only to the empire that I worked so hard to build, but to my very identity.Follow the journey of Alexander Stone and Krystina Cole in The Stone Series, a heart-wrenching and seductively steamy three-book series.
Jordan Spade doesn’t get involved. The last thing she wants is to be responsible for someone. When her father needed her the most she wasn’t there, and she never got a chance to express her regret. She’s channeled her guilt into building her business as a general contractor, to at least have a sense of purpose even if she isn’t exactly happy. Callie Burke is well on her way to making a name for herself as a stained-glass artist. Her next job puts her on a job site with Jordan, where some of the crew harass her. Callie knows how to handle it. She doesn’t need Jordan’s assistance, but she can’t help but notice Jordan doesn’t intervene. Jordan later feels compelled to make it up to Callie, and an unlikely friendship fans their simmering attraction. But to get close to Callie, Jordan must open her heart and accept she can’t control every outcome, and that means forgiving herself for a mistake she can never undo.
*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti* Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).