I've always viewed the constellations as rather paper doll-like, static images pinned against the blackness of the night sky, but a few evenings ago while surveying the heavens for a night's viewing, I spotted the star Sirius and started wondering about a passage in Euripides' play, "Iphigeneia at Aulis," that seemingly serves no narrative purpose. The tragedy concerns the Greek fleet prior to sailing for Troy to fight the Trojans and return Helen to Sparta. At the beginning of the play, A...

Novelsmithing provides the beginning novelist, or perhaps even the experienced novelist who has lost his way, with a discussion of the underlying structure and methods of novel writing. Nowhere else can the aspiring author learn the skills necessary to achieve the organic unity of the novelist's divine trinity: character, conflict and theme, so necessary to a fine work of literature.

Brenda is sitting up in bed leaning against the headboard with the white sheet and pink quilt pulled to her neck. She's naked and has her right hand down between her legs and her left hand on her right nipple squeezing hard. She's also thinking hard about Norman Todd, so hard in fact sweat is breaking out on her forehead and in her armpits. Spit is filling her mouth so fast she has to keep swallowing to keep it from running down her chin. She's thinking of the future, on a fantasy date wit...

In the summer of 1816, five young people (Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori) came together on the shores of Lake Geneva to spend the summer. It would be one of the most important events in literary history and result in the creation of a work that would never go out of print. That work is the novel Frankenstein. This is the story of how it all happened, and the tragedy that struck in its aftermath. Painstakingly researched and thoroughly documente...

Available for the first time complete in one volume. Previously published in two volumes as Daughter of Darkness and The Dadouchos. In 480 BC, fifteen-year-old Melaina's biggest worry, she thinks, is wishing to follow Artemis and remain virgin when her mother and grandfather want her to marry and became a priestess. But when the Persians invade, the gods themselves have plans for Melaina, including carrying a divine child and divining for the Greek fleet in a battle to determine the salvat...

This book is about pursuing sleep. It presents all the information you need to chase sleep all the way to Slumberland. It is not about tricking yourself into going to sleep. The method is based on scientific principles and decades of research. It builds off of what we know about the way the mind works. It does not involve medication. And it doesn't take weeks of learning before you can get started. You don't have to change your lifestyle. Read this today, use the method tonight.If ...

Among the 5 finalists in the Faulkner Society Novel Competition. The Escape of Bobby Ray Hammer is a second generation "Grapes of Wrath" novel in that Bobby's parents migrated to California during the 1930s, the "Dust Bowl" days. Bobby is just entering his senior year in high school and eager to graduate and go on to college to get out of his rural farming community; however, he realizes that he must resolve family problems that originated, he believes, with the death of his older brother ...

The burden of uemployment and disadvantage falls unequally on our divided society. It hits the urban poor most sharply. These people are robbed of choices which God wills for all human beings. The Gospel is both about changing people from inside out and changing the course of events to set people free. David Sheppard spent many years at the centre of urban life. He writes from first-hand experience from his ministry in London and Liverpool, offering still valuable insights into ecumenical ...

Anyone traveling to Greece should consider taking this book with them. It contains both archaeological and mythological information on most the major and some of the minor sites throughout Greece and the western coast of Turkey. Painstakingly researched and documented, 505 footnotes.It's a catalyst for the mixture of all the components of the existential traveling experience. The author, during the ten weeks of his journey (bus, train and ferry), ruminates over powerful events in hi...

In this major study, so highly-rated at the time of publication (1974), David Sheppard, the then new Bishop of Liverpool, focuses on the big city and more particularly on those groups of citizens who feel most powerless and hemmed in. With themes as relevant today as they ever were, this is an essential title in understanding the role of the Church in inner-city life.

Father/daughter stories have resonated with readers throughout history, and this current narrative depicts three such relationships encountered in (1) ancient myth, (2) the Elizabethan stage, and (3) modern cinema. Volume one, Introduction to Frankenstein, of this the Tales of the Mythic World series dealt peripherally with the relationship between Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, and her father, the philosopher William Godwin. In this second volume, titled The Eternal Return, we ...

Not many will go it alone in a foreign country, particularly if they can't speak the language. Still one day I found myself wrestling with plans for a ten-week odyssey about Greece, the mainland and islands. The longest I'd ever been on the road by myself was the week I spent motoring about Ireland a few years before. But I was pretty much a loner anyway, had been divorced for the past twelve years, my kids grown and off on their own. After making the decision, I hired a tutor and studied ...