How to Mellify a Corpse

How to Mellify a Corpse
Author: Vicki León
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2013-01-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1620402971

In How to Mellify a Corpse, Vicki León brings her particular hybrid of history and humor to the entwined subjects of science and superstition in the ancient world, from Athens and Rome to Mesopotamia, the Holy Land, Egypt, and Carthage. León covers subjects as diverse as astronomy and astrology, philosophy and practicalities of life and death (including the titular ancient method of embalming), and ancient mechanical engineering. How to Mellify a Corpse of course invokes legendary thinkers (Pythagoras and his discoveries in math and music, Aristotle's books on politics and philosophy, and Archimedes' "Eureka" moment), but it also delves deeply into the lives of everyday people, their understanding and beliefs. A feast for the curious mind, How to Mellify a Corpse is not only for those with an interest in the experimental: it's for anyone who's inspired by the imagination and ingenuity humanity uses to understand our world.

Death

Death
Author: Mario Erasmo
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2021-03-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0755698266

Personal and yet utterly universal, inevitable and yet unknowable, death has been a dominant theme in all cultures, since earliest times. Different societies address death and the act of dying in culturally diverse ways; yet, remarkably, across the span of several millennia, we can recognize in the customs of ancient Greece and Rome ceremonies and rituals that have enduring present-day resonance. For example, preparing the corpse of the deceased, holding a memorial service, the practice of cremation and of burial in 'resting places' are all liminal processes that can trace their origin to ancient practices. Such rites - described by Cicero and Herodotus, among others - have defined traditional modern funerals. Yet of late there has been a shift away from classical ritual and sombre memorialization as the dead are transformed into spectacles. Ad hoc roadside shrines, 'virtual' burials, online guest-books and even jazz memorial processions and firework displays have come to the fore as new modes of marking, even celebrating, bereavement. What is causing this change, and how do urbanisation, economic factors and the rise of individualism play a part? Mario Erasmo creatively explores the nexus between classical and contemporary approaches to dying, death and interment. From theme funerals in St Louis to Etruscan sarcophagi, he offers a rich and insightful discussion of finitude across the ages.

The Joy of Sexus

The Joy of Sexus
Author: Vicki Le�n
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2013-01-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 080271997X

Reveals tales of sex and love from ancient Greece, Rome, and other Mediterranean cultures, offering insight into these civilizations' beliefs about contraception, bisexuality, cross-dressing, nymphomania, and erotic practices.

All Things Under the Sun

All Things Under the Sun
Author: Lindsay Powell
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2011-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1257378708

Combing a researcher's skill at finding unexpected connections in everyday events and a historian's knowledge of source material, Lindsay Powell takes a clear eyed and often witty look at modern times through the longer perspective of ancient history.

The Scratch Daughters

The Scratch Daughters
Author: H. A. Clarke
Publisher: Erewhon Books
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2024-02-20
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1645660443

“Sharp and exciting, always vivacious and sensory . . . All I want is more—more of these sweet vicious girls and their helplessly loving leader, changing themselves, one another and the world.” —Amal El-Mohtar, The New York Times Book Review The Craft for Gen Z: The Scratch Daughters, indie bestselling author H. A. Clarke crafts a brilliant, award-nominated sequel to The Scapegracers: a raw and roiling tribute to queer lineage, to finding oneself, and to the deep love of chosen family. Sideways Pike is desperate. It turns out that Madeline Kline didn’t want to make out with her; infinitely worse, she was only flirting to get access to Sideways’ specter. Madeline has ripped the magical soul out of Sideways’ throat, and with it, everything that makes a witch feel whole. Madeline would know: the Chantry boys took hers, and she’s going to use Sideways’ specter to hunt them down and get it back. Sideways Pike, lesbian witch extraordinaire, isn’t going to let little things like a treacherous crush or a brutal family of creepy witch hunters stop her, even if it means tracking down Madeline without the Scapegracers—her best friends, her coven, the girls she’s come to love ferociously above all else. But Sideways and her trusty bike are in for a bumpy ride . . .

On the Move

On the Move
Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2015-04-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0385352557

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “wonderful memoir” (Los Angeles Times) about a brilliantly unconventional physician and writer, a man who has illuminated the many ways that the brain makes us human. • “Intimate.... Brim[s] with life and affection.” —The New York Times When Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster wrote: “Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far.” It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has never stopped going. With unbridled honesty and humor, Sacks writes about the passions that have driven his life—from motorcycles and weight lifting to neurology and poetry. He writes about his love affairs, both romantic and intellectual; his guilt over leaving his family to come to America; his bond with his schizophrenic brother; and the writers and scientists—W. H. Auden, Gerald M. Edelman, Francis Crick—who have influenced his work.