An energetic, witty collection of stories where the supernatural meets the anomalies of everyday life--deception, infidelity, lost cats, cute memes, amateur pornography, and more. There are analogies between being female and being left-handed, I think, or being an animal. A woman answers a Craigslist ad (to write erotic diaries for money). A woman walks onto a tennis court (from her home at the bottom of the ocean). A woman goes to the supermarket and meets a friend's husband (who happens to be an immortal demon). A woman goes for a run (and accidentally time travels). Cosmogony takes accounts of so-called normal life and mines them for inconsistencies, deceptions, and delights. Incorporating a virtuosic range of styles and genres (Wikipedia entry, phone call, physics equation, encounters with the supernatural), these stories reveal how the narratives we tell ourselves and believe are inevitably constructed, offering a glimpse of the structures that underlie and apparently determine human existence.

In the bestselling literary tradition of Lewis Thomas's Lives of a Cell and James Watson's The Double Helix, Poetry of the Universe is a delightful and compelling narrative charting the evolution of mathematical ideas that have helped to illuminate the nature of the observable universe. In a richly anecdotal fashion, the book explores teh leaps of imagination and vision in mathematics that have helped pioneer our understanding of the world around us.

A stimulating investigation of some of Ovid's source-material.

Baal and the Politics of Poetry provides a thoroughly new interpretation of the Ugaritic Baal Cycle that simultaneously inaugurates an innovative approach to studying ancient Near Eastern literature within the political context of its production. The book argues that the poem, written in the last decades of the Bronze Age, takes aim at the reigning political-theological norms of its day and uses the depiction of a divine world to educate its audience about the nature of human politics. By attuning ourselves to the specific historical context of this one poem, we can develop more nuanced appreciation of how poetry, politics, and religion have interacted—in antiquity, and beyond.

Having established his reputation as an elegist, Ovid turned to the composition of hexameter narrative. Although the Metamorphoses has often been treated as an appendix to the history of Augustan poetry, the principal lines of stylistic and thematic development continue in Ovid's work. Drawing upon the structure and content of Vergil's Sixth Eclogue, the Metamorphoses is an intricate and allusive poem that combines elements from the entire range of Roman verse composed in the Alexandrian manner. Professor Knox focuses in particular upon the contributions of elegy and epyllion, examining the manner in which Ovid exploits the diction of these genres in order to distinguish his poem from traditional epic verse. The study concludes with an investigation of the aetiological stories of the final book and the sustained evocation of Callimachus' Aetia at its close.

This trio of volumes contains essays that explore vital existential, moral, or metaphysical issues surrounding the relationship between the sciences and the world's religions. In Science and the World's Religions, experts with scientific and religious backgrounds explore vital existential or practical issues, drawing on whatever sciences are relevant and engaging at least two religious traditions. The multidisciplinary essays exhibit rigorous intellectual, scholarly thinking but are written to clearly communicate to educated adult lay readers. The first volume addresses questions about the origins and purpose of the cosmos and the human project. The second volume investigates the roles of religion and spirituality in human existence, considering issues ranging from the brain and religious experience to the human life cycle. The third volume tackles controversies in which both religion and science are stakeholders, showing how both can deepen understanding and enrich human experience. Together, these three books present readers with powerful tools that enable them to think through the challenge of integrating science with their religious beliefs and spiritual practices.

Tremper Longman III and Peter E. Enns edit this collection of 148 articles by over 90 contributors on Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ruth and Esther.

Surveys the complex landscape of Hesiodic reception in lyric poetry and drama in the fifth century BCE.

The most comprehensive collection of essays on Renaissance poetry on the market Covering the period 1520–1680, A Companion to Renaissance Poetry offers 46 essays which present an in-depth account of the context, production, and interpretation of early modern British poetry. It provides students with a deep appreciation for, and sensitivity toward, the ways in which poets of the period understood and fashioned a distinctly vernacular voice, while engaging them with some of the debates and departures that are currently animating the discipline. A Companion to Renaissance Poetry analyzes the historical, cultural, political, and religious background of the time, addressing issues such as education, translation, the Reformation, theorizations of poetry, and more. The book immerses readers in non-dramatic poetry from Wyatt to Milton, focusing on the key poetic genres—epic, lyric, complaint, elegy, epistle, pastoral, satire, and religious poetry. It also offers an inclusive account of the poetic production of the period by canonical and less canonical writers, female and male. Finally, it offers examples of current developments in the interpretation of Renaissance poetry, including economic, ecological, scientific, materialist, and formalist approaches. • Covers a wide selection of authors and texts • Features contributions from notable authors, scholars, and critics across the globe • Offers a substantial section on recent and developing approaches to reading Renaissance poetry A Companion to Renaissance Poetry is an ideal resource for all students and scholars of the literature and culture of the Renaissance period.