“A provocative and entertaining magical mineral tour through the life and afterlife of bone.” —Wall Street Journal Our bones have many stories to tell, if you know how to listen. Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over more than four hundred million years of evolutionary history. It gives your body its shape and the ability to move. It grows and changes with you, an undeniable document of who you are and how you lived. Arguably, no other part of the human anatomy has such rich scientific and cultural significance, both brimming with life and a potent symbol of death. In this delightful natural and cultural history of bone, Brian Switek explains where our skeletons came from, what they do inside us, and what others can learn about us when these artifacts of mineral and protein are all we've left behind. Bone is as embedded in our culture as it is in our bodies. Our species has made instruments and jewelry from bone, treated the dead like collectors' items, put our faith in skull bumps as guides to human behavior, and arranged skeletons into macabre tributes to the afterlife. Switek makes a compelling case for getting better acquainted with our skeletons, in all their surprising roles. Bridging the worlds of paleontology, anthropology, medicine, and forensics, Skeleton Keys illuminates the complex life of bones inside our bodies and out.

Since its publication in 1939, countless would-be readers of "Finnegans Wake" - James Joyce's masterwork, which consumed a third of his life - have given up after a few pages, dismissing it as a "perverse triumph of the unintelligible." In 1944, a young professor of mythology and literature named Joseph Campbell, working with Henry Morton Robinson, wrote the first "key" or guide to entering the fascinating, disturbing, marvelously rich world of "Finnegans Wake." The authors break down Joyce's "unintelligible" book page by page, stripping the text of much of its obscurity and serving up thoughtful interpretations via footnotes and bracketed commentary. They outline the book's basic action, and then simplify -- and clarify -- its complex web of images and allusions. "A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake" is the latest addition to the "Collected Works of Joseph Campbell" series.

"Caring for Ironwood is a dream come true for Cage Foster. The dream doesn't last long when a skeleton is found buried beneath the antebellum home. The unearthing of two additional fresh bodies quickly turns into a nightmare which could land him on Mississippi's death row. Newcomer Dani Evans, a pushy Yankee specialist in historical renovation, is the only person certain of his innocence. She's convinced the legend of Ironwood's treasure cache is the motive for the murders. Cage believes the killer is someone with an old grudge, and the evidence against Cage is mounting fast. Can Dani find the truth before Cage is arrested? Her search for answers uncovers a descent into madness that should have stayed buried"--Amazon.com.

In Skeleton Keys: An Introduction to Human Skeletal Morphology, Development, and Analysis, Second Edition, Jeffrey H. Schwartz presents a detailed yet highly accessible introduction to the study of the human skeleton. This unique volume examines the skeleton from its developmental basis to the expression of individual variation. It reviews a variety of different approaches used to determine an individual's sex, age, and pathological history and challenges readers to think critically about how to analyze a human skeleton rather than learning formulas for quick results. An ideal text for courses in human osteology, skeletal analysis, and bioarchaeology, this book is also a helpful reference for professionals. Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of Skeleton Keys features: * A unique CD-ROM containing hundreds of color images of skeletons and skeletal elements--demonstrating morphology, pathology, and nonmetric variation--that can be used as classroom projections or for individual study * Coverage of the most recent developments in the field, including the molecular regulation of bone and tooth formation * Expanded studies in each area of analysis: sex, age, nonmetric variation, pathology, biodistance and bioarchaeology, and stable isotope analysis * Additional photographic images, especially in the pathology and sexing chapters * Two separate and extensively illustrated chapters on the skull, one dealing with articulated elements and one with isolated bones (these topics were covered in one chapter in the first edition) * Integration of material--such as anthropometric landmarks--from appendices in the previous edition into relevant chapters as tables * More accessible language throughout and an extensive glossary

NOW AN EBOOK FOR THE FIRST TIME For fifty years and more than two thousand shows, the Grateful Dead have been earning the "deadication" of more than a million fans. Along the way, Deadheads have built an original and authentic American subculture, with vivid jargon and rich love, and its own legends, myths, and spirituality. Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads is the first map of what Jerry Garcia calls "the Grateful Dead outback," as seen through the eyes of the faithful, friends, and family, including Bill Walton, Elvis Costello, Tipper Gore, Al Franken, Bob Bralove, Dick Latvala, Blair Jackson, David Gans, Bruce Hornsby, Rob Wasserman, and Robert Hunter. Skeleton Key puts you on the Merry Pranksters' bus behind the real Cowboy Neal, uncovers the origins of Cherry Garcia, follows the dancing bear on its trip from psychedelic artifact to trademarked icon, and unlocks the Dead's own tape vault. Informative reading for the new fan or the most grizzled "tourhead," Skeleton Key shines throughout with Deadheads' own stories, wit, insiders' knowledge, sincere appreciation of the music of the "band beyond description," and the diverse and soulful culture it inspires.

Help Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose solve mysteries from A to Z! Kids love collecting the entire alphabet and super editions! With over 8 million copies in print, the A to Z Mysteries® have been hooking chapter book readers on mysteries and reading for years. Now this classic kid favorite is back with a bright new look! S is for Skeleton . . . It’s a bona fide mystery at Dink’s school! Someone has stolen Mr. Bones, the skeleton from the nurse’s office. Soon mysterious clues start showing up all over the school. Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose must follow the clues and put those old bones to rest.

WHY did my brilliant father, Ross Lockridge, Jr., execute himself at 33, March 6, 1948, while his first novel, RAINTREE COUNTY, was the Number-One Bestseller in America? Critics were hailing it as the sole recent contender for the ultimate American title, "The Great American Novel." Even as my father was murdering himself, he was experiencing critical and financial success beyond the greatest of great expectations. He died with full knowledge that his life, viewed from the street, had exceeded all but the most extravagant of human dreams. My book holds the SKELETON KEY that unlocks the Riddle of Raintree County. I offer this painful story less from choice than from an obligation to history and to truth, in order that the truth will not die with me. Squeamishness and mendacity, blood brothers, go hand in hand. Miss Manners plays no part this tragedy. Truth is not subject to etiquette or taste, and it is precisely because the truth about my father's brief, terrible life and his forlorn death is unspeakable that the truth demands to be told.

Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over 500 million years of evolutionary history. It has manifested itself in wings, sails, horns, armour, and an even greater array of appendages since the time of its origin. In dinosaur fossils, skeletons are biological time capsules that tell us of lives we’ll never see in the flesh. Inherited from a common fishy ancestor, it is the stuff that binds all of us vertebrates together into one great family. Swim, slither, stomp, fly, dig, run - all are expressions of what bones make possible. But that’s hardly all. In The Secret Life of Bones, Brian Switek frames the history of our species through the importance of bone from instruments and jewellery, to objects of worship and conquest from the origins of religion through the genesis of science and up through this very day. While bone itself can reveal our individual stories, the truth very much depends on who’s telling it. Our skeletons are as embedded in our culture as they are in our bodies. Switek, an enthusiastic osteological raconteur, cuts through biology, history, and culture to understand the meaning of what’s inside us and what our bones tell us about who we are, where we came from and the legacies we leave behind.

In this town, I'm free from shameA place where everyone knows my nameGlamorizing corpses to feed a needThat's why they call me Skeleton KingThey all worship me, but they don't know the real meAll they see is my painted faceTruth is, I'm terrified, all the hope inside me diedDeath and cold will forever be my morbid fateThen she showed me something moreSomehow stealing death's allureTrigger Warning: This book contains many triggers and this warning should be taken seriously. The sexual and graphically depicted scenes in this novel are not for the squeamish and will be disturbing for some readers.