Numerose sono le isole dell'Insulindia che vantano colossali monumenti e statue di pietra tali da gareggiare con i giganti dell'isola di Pasqua; nonostante ciò queste affascinanti manifestazioni artistiche sono state finora oggetto solo di studi specialistici, rimanendo in gran parte sconosciute al grande pubblico. Il volume, che comprende i saggi di Alan Viaro, Arlette Ziegler, Jean Paul Barbier e Janet Hoskins, analizza le diverse tipologie, significati e funzioni di queste suggestive sculture monumentali attraverso una selezione di cinquanta esemplari delle straordinarie collezioni del Museo Barbier-Mueller. Annotation Supplied by Informazioni Editoriali

Download the first section from Cairns now. (Provide us with a little information and we'll send the free section directly to your inbox!) Praise for author David B. Williams: “Makes stones sing” --Kirkus Reviews “Williams’s lively mixture of hard science and piquant lore is sure to fire the readers’ curiosity” --Publisher’s Weekly *Part history, part folklore, part geology * Features charming black-and-white illustrations From meadow trails to airy mountaintops and wide open desert, cairns -- those seemingly random stacks of rocks -- are surprisingly rich in stories and meaning. For thousands of years cairns have been used by people to connect to the landscape and communicate with others, and are often an essential guide to travelers. Cairns, manmade rock piles can indicate a trail, mark a grave, serve as an altar or shrine, reveal property boundaries or sacred hunting grounds, and even predict astronomical activity. The Inuit have more than two dozen terms to describe cairns and their uses! In Cairns: Messengers in Stone, geologist and acclaimed nature writer David B. Williams (Stories in Stone: Travels through Urban Geology) explores the history of cairns from the moors of Scotland to the peaks of the Himalaya -- where they come from, what they mean, why they’re used, how to make cairns, and more. Cairns are so much more than a random pile of rocks, knowing how to make cairns can drastically alter the meaning of the formation. Hikers, climbers, travelers, gardeners, and nature buffs alike will delight in this quirky, captivating collection of stories about cairns.

Stefan Zweig was a leading talisman of a united Europe of unfettered movement, of pro-active cultural exchange, humane decency and tolerance, all polar opposites of the Nationalist regimes he loathed, and which came to power in the 1930s. In these poignant essays and addresses, forged in the last years or even months of his life, he shows his profound concern for and dedication to the survival of Europe's spiritual integrity. These essays form the natural accompaniment to Zweig's renowned memoir The World of Yesterday, registering the same themes and evoking the same nostalgia for a world brutally consigned to history. They can be seen as a vital addendum to that major work or as a prefiguration. But perhaps even more so than the prose of the memoir, these essays, few in number but rich in content, reveal the essence of Zweig's thought.

Readers and critics alike can’t resist New York Times bestselling author Kimberla Lawson Roby’s beloved Reverend Curtis Black series. Now the classic novel that introduced the trials and triumphs of a church family and their congregation is available in a beautiful new edition—and includes a letter from the author. Tanya Black has everything a woman could want: a fulfilling career, a beautiful daughter, an elegant home, and a handsome, charismatic husband who is pastor of a prominent Baptist church. And yet, none of it can hide the growing turbulence in her marriage. Her husband, Reverend Curtis Black, once a loving, devoted, and passionate partner, has grown remote, and Tanya is thrown into doubt about what she once cherished. When she uncovers disturbing truths, confirming scandalous rumors about Curtis, she questions all that she’s ever believed in. But it is when Tanya is dealt the worst kind of betrayal a woman can face that her life is changed forever. Plunged into a bittersweet journey of discovery, she finds herself learning painful new lessons about love, loyalty—and sensual temptation—and is forced to make some very hard decisions for her daughter, herself, and her future.

Something to Hold, a book about guardian angels and their ability to help anyone, even the most isolated people. Each one of us is attached to an angel who guides us and protects us from birth to death. These guardian angels, present in most cultures since the Greeks and Romans, are our daily companions. Once we communicate with them, their light energy may help us. The images of this very unique book show different representations of angels, and inspired the reflective text written by Sharon Stone: 'They encompass the feeling that I have when I meet others who are looking for some kind of solace,' she says. A book to revel in, over and over, as much for its message as for its emotionally charged beauty. Completing this testimony, is a guide in which readers can identify the angel associated with their dates of birth. Illustrated

When Stick rescues Stone from a prickly situation with a Pinecone, the pair becomes fast friends. But when Stick gets stuck, can Stone return the favor? Author Beth Ferry makes a memorable debut with a warm, rhyming text that includes a subtle anti-bullying message even the youngest reader will understand. New York Times bestselling illustrator Tom Lichtenheld imbues Stick and Stone with energy, emotion, and personality to spare. In this funny story about kindness and friendship, Stick and Stone join George and Martha, Frog and Toad, and Elephant and Piggie, as some of the best friend duos in children's literature.

In Bleeding Hands, Weeping Stone, popular Catholic author Elizabeth Ficocelli reveals history's most magnificent miracles. Some are quiet and simple, others dramatic, bordering on outrageous, but all of them are signs of God's guiding hand at work in the world, continually inflaming our hearts to greater faith and more ardent love.

"A collection of meditations like polished stones--painstakingly worded, tough-minded, yet partial to mystery, and peerless when it comes to injecting larger resonances into the natural world." — Kirkus Reviews Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings. Veering away from the long, meditative studies of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek or Holy the Firm, Annie Dillard explores and celebrates moments of spirituality, dipping into descriptions of encounters with flora and fauna, stars, and more, from Ecuador to Miami.

In 1866, Alexander Dunlop, a free black living in Williamsburg Virginia, did three unusual things. He had an audience with the President of the United States, testified in front of the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction, and he purchased a tombstone for his wife, Lucy Ann Dunlop. Purchases of this sort were rarities among Virginia’s free black community—and this particular gravestone is made more significant by Dunlop’s choice of words, his political advocacy, and the racialized rhetoric of the period. Carved by a pair of Richmond-based carvers, who like many other Southern monument makers, contributed to celebrating and mythologizing the “Lost Cause” in the wake of the Civil War, Lucy Ann’s tombstone is a powerful statement of Dunlop’s belief in the worth of all men and his hopes for the future. Buried in 1925 by the white members of a church congregation, and again in the 1960s by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the tombstone was excavated in 2003. Analysis, conservation, and long-term interpretation were undertaken by the Foundation in partnership with the community of the First Baptist Church, a historically black church within which Alexander Dunlop was a leader. “Stories in Stone: Memorialization, the Creation of History and the Role of Preservation” examines the story of the tombstone through a blend of object biography and micro-historical approaches and contrasts it with other memory projects, like the remembrance of the Civil War dead. Data from a regional survey of nineteenth-century cemeteries, historical accounts, literary sources, and the visual arts are woven together to explore the agentive relationships between monuments, their commissioners, their creators and their viewers and the ways in which memory is created and contested and how this impacts the history we learn and preserve.