This absorbing book approaches the perennially fascinating history of ancient Egypt in a highly original way. Egyptologist John Ray has chosen twelve lives drawn from across the three millennia of that civilization to illuminate it. Some are famous: Imhotep, Egypt's Leonardo, royal architect (of the Step Pyramid), inventor of stone building and seer; Hatshepsut, the female Pharaoh, Egypt's Gloriana; Horemheb, self-made politician and general and finally king, who cleaned up the mess after Akhenaten and Tutankhamun; the legendary magician Pharaoh - Nectanebo II, the greatest builder of temples. The lives of others much less famous have been preserved thanks to the desert: Heqanakhte, a cantankerous peasant farmer who has problems with his sons - and they with their stepmother; Prince Khaemwise, son of the megalomaniac Rameses II, High Priest of Ptah and restorer of ancient monuments - the first Egyptologist; Petiese, a scribe whose petition to the authorities preserves a feud stretching back over generations that has poisoned the temple-based economy of a small town. Most fascinating of all perhaps are the people of the Serapeum: a Greek recluse, his brother, rootless adolescent and police informer, two temple dancers with financial difficulties, and a temple scribe, whom we can briefly come to know intimately, even their dreams. Last is the god Osiris, judge of the netherworld, creator of the land of Egypt, before whom all the above believed they would appear at the end of their lives.

Raw, honest, intellectual, and unapologetic. Reflections of the Son is a very deep meditation on the meaning of life. It lays out the urban experience like no other book. Reflections captures the urban gaze in fine detail. Stripping away the facade, Reflections exposes what is underneath the male mask. And brings the reader closer to understanding masculinity, aggression, and madness.If Tupac Shakur & Frederick Nietzsche wrote a book together this would be it.

Read the Bldg Blog interview with Mary Beard about the Wonders of the World series(Part I and Part II) The Rosetta Stone is one of the world's great wonders, attracting awed pilgrims by the tens of thousands each year. This book tells the Stone's story, from its discovery by Napoleon's expedition to Egypt to its current--and controversial-- status as the single most visited object on display in the British Museum. A pharaoh's forgotten decree, cut in granite in three scripts--Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian demotic, and ancient Greek--the Rosetta Stone promised to unlock the door to the language of ancient Egypt and its 3,000 years of civilization, if only it could be deciphered. Capturing the drama of the race to decode this key to the ancient past, John Ray traces the paths pursued by the British polymath Thomas Young and Jean-Francois Champollion, the "father of Egyptology" ultimately credited with deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. He shows how Champollion "broke the code" and explains more generally how such deciphering is done, as well as its critical role in the history of Egyptology. Concluding with a chapter on the political and cultural controversy surrounding the Stone, the book also includes an appendix with a full translation of the Stone's text. Rich in anecdote and curious lore, The Rosetta Stone and the Rebirth of Ancient Egypt is a brilliant and frequently amusing guide to one of history's great mysteries and marvels.

The Osiris Papers: Reflections on the Life and Writings of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing is intended to be the first of many treatises written to examine the life, theories, and contributions of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing. Some of these writings will be hagiographic. Some will be critical, but all will expand our understanding of one of the greatest African thinkers of the past 100 years.

Discover how the ancient Egyptians controlled their immortal destiny! This book, edited by Foy Scalf, explores what the Book of the Dead was believed to do, how it worked, how it was made, and what happened to it.

For the first time New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice writes as C. Travis Rice. Under his new pen name, Rice offers tales of passion, intrigue, and steamy romance between men. The first novel, SAPPHIRE SUNSET, transports you to a beautiful luxury resort on the sparkling Southern California coast where strong-willed heroes release the shame that blocks their heart's desires. Logan Murdoch is a fighter, a survivor, and a provider. When he leaves a distinguished career in the Marine Corps to work security at a luxury beachfront resort, he’s got one objective: pay his father’s mounting medical bills. That means Connor Harcourt, the irresistibly handsome scion of the wealthy family that owns Sapphire Cove, is strictly off limits, despite his sassy swagger and beautiful blue eyes. Logan’s life is all about sacrifices; Connor is privilege personified. But temptation is a beast that demands to be fed, and a furtive kiss ignites instant passion, forcing Logan to slam the brakes. Hard. Haunted by their frustrated attraction, the two men find themselves hurled back together when a headline-making scandal threatens to ruin the resort they both love. This time, there’s no easy escape from the magnetic pull of their white hot desire. Will saving Sapphire Cove help forge the union they crave, or will it drive them apart once more?

Of all human inventions, the mirror is perhaps the one most closely connected to our own consciousness. As our first technology for contemplation of the self, the mirror is arguably as important an invention as the wheel. Mirror Mirror is the fascinating story of the mirror's invention, refinement, and use in an astonishing range of human activities -- from the fantastic mirrored rooms that wealthy Romans created for their orgies to the mirror's key role in the use and understanding of light. Pendergrast spins tales of the 2,500year mystery of whether Archimedes and his "burning mirror" really set faraway Roman ships on fire; the medieval Venetian glassmakers, who perfected the technique of making large, flat mirrors from clear glass and for whom any attempt to leave their cloistered island was punishable by death; Isaac Newton, whose experiments with sunlight on mirrors once left him blinded for three days; the artist David Hockney, who holds controversial ideas about Renaissance artists and their use of optical devices; and George Ellery Hale, the manic-depressive astronomer and telescope enthusiast who inspired (and gave his name to) the twentieth century's largest ground-based telescope. Like mirrors themselves, Mirror Mirror is a book of endless wonder and fascination.

"[This] magnificent critical survey, with its inherent respect for both the 'Westt's mainstream high culture' and the 'radically changing world' of the 1990s, offers a new breakthrough for lay and scholarly readers alike....Allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture for the first time." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.

John Burnham studies the history of changing patterns in the dissemination, or "popularization," of scientific findings to the general public since 1830. Focusing on three different areas of science -- health, psychology, and the natural sciences -- Burnham explores the ways in which this process of popularization has deteriorated. He draws on evidence ranging from early lyceum lecturers to the new math and argues that today popular science is the functional equivalent of superstition.

"Marie Louise von Franz's Projection and Re-Collection is thorough in its wide-ranging exploration as both a map and a guide to the recognition and reclaiming of projection. Von Franz skillfully brings theory to life as she builds on and further develops C.G. Jung's research on projection". -- Julia Jewett Jungian Analyst "The book is stimulating in going to the core of psychotherapeutic work, and invites a response from psychotherapists in general and from Jungian analysts in particular". -- San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal