From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road comes a taut, expansively imagined drama about four generations of an American family. The setting is Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970s. The Telfairs are stonemasons and have been for generations. Ben Telfair has given up his education to apprentice himself to his grandfather, Papaw, a man who knows that "true masonry is not held together by cement but...by the warp of the world." Out of the love that binds these two men and the gulf that separates them from the Telfairs who have forsaken—or dishonored—the family trade, Cormac McCarthy has crafted a drama that bears all the hallmarks of his great fiction: precise observation of the physical world; language that has the bite of common speech and the force of Biblical prose; and a breathtaking command of the art of storytelling. Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.

Author Ian Cramb was a fifth-generation stonemason who relied on traditional methods to create and restore beautiful stone structures. In this do-it-yourself manual for homeowners, masonry contractors, and restoration specialists, Cramb drew on his fifty years of life experience in the craft to cover restoration techniques for historic structures in the U.S. and Britain. The book covers various types of stone, stone-cutting, and traditional mortar mixes for walls, foundations, and buildings.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1873.

Winner of the 2019 Palestine Book Awards “They demolish our houses while we build theirs.” This is how a Palestinian stonemason, in line at a checkpoint outside a Jerusalem suburb, described his life to Andrew Ross. Palestinian “stone men,” using some of the best-quality limestone deposits in the world and drawing on generations of artisanal knowledge, have built almost every state in the Middle East except one of their own. Today the business of quarrying, cutting, fabricating, and dressing is the Occupied Territories’ largest private employer and generator of revenue, and supplies the construction industry in Israel, along with other countries in the region and overseas. Ross’s engrossing, surprising, and gracefully written story of this fascinating ancient trade shows how the stones of historic Palestine, and Palestinian labor, have been used to build the state of Israel—in the process, constructing “facts on the ground”—even while the industry is central to Palestinians’ own efforts to erect bulwarks against the Occupation. For more than a century, the hands that built Israel’s houses, schools, offices, bridges, and even its separation barriers have been Palestinian. Looking at the Palestinian–Israeli conflict in a new light, this book, largely based on field interviews in the region, asks how this record of labor and achievement can and should be recognized.

"Presents a completely new look at cathedrals, abbeys and churches through the eyes of a vastly-experienced working stone mason." --Cover.

This work provides a clear and simple guide to the subject, based on meticulous and beautiful drawings. Organized in three sections, it includes chapters on construction details; methods of working particular structural shapes; both basic and advanced geometry and setting-out. It also includes forms and tables omitted from later editions to be used as templates for costing and estimating work. These are as relevant today as they were in the 1920s. It includes a new introduction by Christopher Weeks.

Death is only a stone’s throw away. When a series of accidents begin to occur during the building of the chapel at Queen’s College, they do not appear a cause for major concern. But they quickly grow more serious, and stonemasons are injured. Nicholas Elyot becomes involved after it is discovered that an intruder has reached the college by way of his garden. And when Jordain Brinkylsworth’s youngest student goes missing, it seems at first that his disappearance is unconnected... Surely this serious and studious boy cannot be responsible for the troubles? But when a murder is committed, both Nicholas and Jordain must put their personal views aside to catch the killer, before they can strike again. A totally immersive historical thriller, and the final tale in the Oxford Medieval Mysteries, perfect for fans of C. J. Sansom, S. J. Parris and D. V. Bishop.

“I was across the marsh, by a stone wall.” I hadn’t intended to give away where I’d been, but I was getting flustered. “By the Stonemason’s Playground?” Tommy asked. “What’s that?” I said, trying to sound dumb. “It’s a haunted playground,” Brad said with a shiver. I could tell he liked being scared. “The kids who sneak into the playground to play are turned to stone. They never come back?” Tommy added. Haunted or not, this was the one place I could go to be myself. I decided that no story was going to stop me from visiting the Stonemason’s Playground. Ages 9 and up. LearningIsland.com believes in the value of children practicing reading for 15 minutes every day. Our 15-Minute Books give children lots of fun, exciting choices to read, from classic stories, to mysteries, to books of knowledge. Open the world of reading to a child by having them read for 15 minutes a day.