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.

'Hollywood Independents' explores the crucial period between 1948 and 1962 when independent film producers first became key components of the modern corporate entertainment industry. Mann examines their impact, the decline of the studios, the rise of television, and the rise of potent talent agencies such as MCA.

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.

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.

Through the decades, Theodore Mann has kept Circle in the Square alive by leaping from the precipice of one hit to another, taking on every task from stoking a dilapidated furnace to directing Tony Award-winning productions. In the process Mann has helped restore the reputation of one of our greatest playwrights, Eugene O'Neill, first with a landmark revival of The Iceman Cometh and then with the American premiere of Long Day's Journey Into Night. Mann's own long journey has been inextricably linked with O'Neill, and he presents here some extremely significant, previously unreported aspects of the O'Neill saga." "Here is Theodore Mann's own account of the theatrical and cultural revolution that is Circle in the Square. If you ever wondered how off-Broadway came to be (and how it ever managed to survive), this is the tale to read."--BOOK JACKET. (Blackwell).

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.

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.