This commentary sets the ancient Jewish story of Tobit within a broad tradition-historical context, analyzing the conceptions of angels and demons it contains, as well as its notions of ancient medicine, together with its understanding of the Torah. Presented along with this is a synchronically oriented interpretation of the whole text, which shows that the narrative should ultimately be understood in terms of historical theology. It reveals how, in the days of Hellenistic rule, ancient Ju...

"A heartfelt exploration of one man's psychic deterioration and the slim reed of hope to which, miraculously, he still clings" from the author of Want Not ( Los Angeles Times).Sometimes the planes don't fly on time.Bennie Ford, a fifty-three-year-old failed poet turned translator, is traveling to his estranged daughter's wedding when his flight is canceled. Stuck with thousands of fuming passengers in the purgatory of O'Hare airport, he watc...

A " shrewd, funny, and sometimes devastating" novel about the things we desire and the things we throw away ( Entertainment Weekly).A New York Times Notable BookA highly inventive, corrosively funny story of our times, Want Not exposes three different worlds in various states of disrepair—a young freegan couple living off the grid in New York City; a once-prominent linguist, sacked at midlife by the dissolution of his marr...

**A blackly comic literary gem in which a broken man confronts a broken world on an uninhabited Pacific island, where a conservation assignment becomes a moral reckoning.“An instant classic.” —The Washington Post • “Excellent ” —The New York Times • “Urgent and lyrical.” —NPR“Beautifully weird, eerie, unexpected — a story for our times.”—Kevin Barry, author of The Heart in Winter**Reeling from tragedy, former jazz musician–turned–schooltea...

'Excellent' New York Times'An instant classic. . . Hamlet but with goats everywhere' Washington Post'Beautifully weird, eerie, unexpected - a story for our times' Kevin Barry'A work of genius. Eradication is a beautiful and devastating novel' Luke Kennard**'**A deft, unsettling exploration of what it means to play God'...

**A blackly comic literary gem in which a broken man confronts a broken world on an uninhabited Pacific island, where a conservation assignment becomes a moral reckoning.“An instant classic.” —The Washington Post • “Excellent ” —The New York Times • “Urgent and lyrical.” —NPR“Beautifully weird, eerie, unexpected — a story for our times.”—Kevin Barry, author of The Heart in Winter**Reeling from tragedy, former jazz musician–turned–schooltea...

**“Funny, bighearted...Miles specializes in giving fully rounded humanity to characters who might elsewhere be treated as stock figures...pitch-perfect.”— New York Times Book Review"Miles is a writer so virtuosic that readers will feel themselves becoming better, more observant people from reading him."— Los Angeles Review of BooksA profound new novel about a paralyzed young man’s unexplainable recovery—a stunning exploration of faith, scienc...

A "thrilling . . . captivating" account of the most famous shipwreck before the Titanic—a tragedy that inspired an unforgettable masterpiece of Western art ( The Boston Globe).In June 1816, the Medusa set sail. Commanded by an incompetent captain, the frigate ran aground off the desolate West African coast. During the chaotic evacuation a privileged few claimed the lifeboats, while 147 men and one woman were herded aboard a makeshift raft...

'Phenomenal... Utterly absorbing' Sunday Times, 'Book of the Week''[A] fabulous romp of a book' ***** Mail on SundayA Financial Times 'Book to Read in 2023'In 1835, Lord Brougham founded Cannes, introducing bathing and the manicured lawn to the wilds of the Mediterranean coast. Today, much of that shore has become a concrete mass from which escape is an e...

What is myth? Why do myths exist? What do myths do? Where are myths going?This reader is organized into 4 parts which explore these questions. Drawing on over 10 years of experience teaching myth in religious studies and anthropology departments in the UK, USA and Continental Europe the editors have brought together key works in the theory of myth. Key features include:- a general introduction to the reader that outlines a comparative and interpretative framework

This book explores the material religion of contemporary Shimla, a vibrant postcolonial city, famed for its colonial heritage, set against the backdrop of the North-Western Himalayas. Jonathan Miles-Watson demonstrates that this landscape is able to peacefully reconcile the apparent tensions of faith, heritage and identity in a way that unseats traditional theories of religion, politics and heritage. It presents a mystery that is written in space through time; the key to unlocking this mys...

This volume breaks new ground in the study of landscapes, both rural and urban. The innovative notion of this landscape collection is rupture. The book explores the ways in which societal, economic and cultural changes are transforming the meanings and understandings of landscapes. The text explores both how landscapes are contesting changes in society and changing society. The volume combines empirically fine-grained accounts of landscape rupture, from different parts of ...