The transformation of man to beast is a central aspect of traditional pagan rituals that are centuries old and which celebrate the seasonal cycle, fertility, life and death.

Charles Jackson’s novel The Lost Weekend—the story of five disastrous days in the life of an alcoholic—was published in 1944 to triumphant success. Although he tried to escape its legacy, Jackson is often remembered only as the author of this thinly veiled autobiography. In Farther & Wilder, the award-winning biographer of Richard Yates and John Cheever goes deeper, exploring Jackson’s life—from growing up in the scandal-plagued village of Newark, New York, to a career in Hollywood and friendships with everyone from Judy Garland and Billy Wilder to Thomas Mann and Mary McCarthy. This is the fascinating biography of a writer whose life and work encapsulated what it meant to be an addict and a closeted homosexual in mid-century America, and who was far ahead of his time in bringing these forbidden subjects into the popular discourse.

Explores the masks, costumes and characters that reappear with each returning season in Japan

A powerful and fascinating exploration of the important but relatively unknown region of the Northern Caucasus and its people. It lies between the Black and Caspian Seas and is within European Russia. Wars have been fought here for centuries - the most recent in Chechnya. Monteleone examines the stubborn, rebellious culture of this region, which although part of Russia, differs in the ethnicity, religion and social customs of its inhabitants. 'If you shoot in the Caucasus, the echo will be heard for centuries,' says an old proverb from the region.

Acclaimed fantasist Mary Robinette Kowal has enchanted many fans with her beloved novels featuring a Regency setting in which magic—known here as glamour—is real. In Valour and Vanity, master glamourists Jane and Vincent find themselves in the sort of a magical adventure that might result if Jane Austen wrote Ocean's Eleven. After Melody's wedding, the Ellsworths and Vincents accompany the young couple on their tour of the continent. Jane and Vincent plan to separate from the party and travel to Murano to study with glassblowers there, but their ship is set upon by Barbary corsairs while en route. It is their good fortune that they are not enslaved, but they lose everything to the pirates and arrive in Murano destitute. Jane and Vincent are helped by a kind local they meet en route, but Vincent is determined to become self-reliant and get their money back, and hatches a plan to do so. But when so many things are not what they seem, even the best laid plans conceal a few pitfalls. The ensuing adventure is a combination of the best parts of magical fantasy and heist novels, set against a glorious Regency backdrop. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

My Brother's War tells the story of a soldier, Gary Hines, and his younger sister's search to understand the circumstances surrounding his life with Post Traumatic Stress - and his untimely death by his own hand ten years after returning home from war.

A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, chosen by Tom Stoppard "A revelation."—Marc Weingarten, Washington Post Acclaimed film director Billy Wilder’s early writings—brilliantly translated into English for the first time Before Billy Wilder became the screenwriter and director of iconic films like Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, he worked as a freelance reporter, first in Vienna and then in Weimar Berlin. Billy Wilder on Assignment brings together more than fifty articles, translated into English for the first time, that Wilder (then known as "Billie") published in magazines and newspapers between September 1925 and November 1930. From a humorous account of Wilder's stint as a hired dancing companion in a posh Berlin hotel and his dispatches from the international film scene, to his astute profiles of writers, performers, and political figures, the collection offers fresh insights into the creative mind of one of Hollywood’s most revered writer-directors. Wilder’s early writings—a heady mix of cultural essays, interviews, and reviews—contain the same sparkling wit and intelligence as his later Hollywood screenplays, while also casting light into the dark corners of Vienna and Berlin between the wars. Wilder covered everything: big-city sensations, jazz performances, film and theater openings, dance, photography, and all manner of mass entertainment. And he wrote about the most colorful figures of the day, including Charlie Chaplin, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Prince of Wales, actor Adolphe Menjou, director Erich von Stroheim, and the Tiller Girls dance troupe. Film historian Noah Isenberg's introduction and commentary place Wilder’s pieces—brilliantly translated by Shelley Frisch—in historical and biographical context, and rare photos capture Wilder and his circle during these formative years. Filled with rich reportage and personal musings, Billy Wilder on Assignment showcases the burgeoning voice of a young journalist who would go on to become a great auteur.

Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy gives you nine Precepts, ways to restructure your thinking about how you create and why so that you can just get to work and create the work of your dreams.

This series of extraordinary photographic portraits by Charles Fréger brings to life the vivid costumes used in festivals by the descendants of African slaves in America. All across the Americas, from the sixteenth century onwards, enslaved Africans escaped their captors and struck out on their own. These runaways established their own communities or joined with indigenous peoples to forge new identities. Cimarrón, borrowing a Spanish-American term for these fugitive former slaves, is a new series of photographic portraits of their descendants by acclaimed photographer Charles Fréger, whose work is defining a new genre of documentary photography. From Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean islands, Central America, and as far as the southern United States, elaborate masquerades are staged that celebrate and keep alive the history and memory of African slaves and their creole or mixed-race descendants. Unique photographs of people in dynamic costumes from remote regions of the world will enthrall followers of social history, ethnic folklore, and unusual fashion experimentation. Vividly colored silks and cottons combine with woven fibers, leaves, feathers, and body paint; props include emblems of slavery and slave masters— ropes, sticks, guns, and machetes. These photographs, supplemented with texts by specialists in social anthropology to provide ethnographic and historical context, record real people whose collective sense of memory, folk history, and imagination dramatically challenge our expectations.