A Short History of Myth:What are myths? How have they evolved? And why do we still so desperately need them?Heralding a major series of retellings of international myths by authors from around the world, Karen Armstrong's characteristically insightful and eloquent book serves as a brilliant and thought-provoking introduction to myth in the broadest sense - and why we dismiss it only at our peril.The Penelopiad:In a splendid contemporary twist to the ancient story of Penelope and Odysseus, Margaret Atwood has chosen to give the telling of it to Penelope and to her twelve hanged Maids, asking: "What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to?" In Atwood’s dazzling, playful retelling, the story becomes as wise and compassionate as it is haunting, and as wildly entertaining as it is disturbing. Weight:In ancient Greek mythology, the victorious Olympians force Atlas, guardian of the Garden of Hesperides and its golden apples of life, to bear the weight of the earth and the heavens for eternity.With her typical wit and verve, Jeanette Winterson brings Atlas into the twenty-first century. Simultaneously, she asks her own difficult questions about the nature of choice and coercion, and how we forge our own destiny.

At a time when speculative fiction seems less and less far-fetched, Margaret Atwood lends her distinctive voice and singular point of view to the genre in a series of essays that brilliantly illuminates the essential truths about the modern world. This is an exploration of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as 'science fiction,' a relationship that has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, whereshe worked on the Victorian ancestor of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer. This book brings together her three heretofore unpublished Ellmann Lectures from 2010: 'Flying Rabbits,' which begins with Atwood's early rabbit superhero creations and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos, and Things with Wings; 'Burning Bushes,' which follows her into Victorian otherlands and beyond; and 'Dire Cartographies,' which investigates Utopias and Dystopias. In Other Worlds also includes some of Atwood's key reviews and thoughts about the form. Among those writers discussed are Marge Piercy, Rider Haggard, Ursula Le Guin, Ishiguro, Bryher, Huxley, and Jonathan Swift. She elucidates the differences (as she sees them) between 'science fiction' proper and 'speculative fiction,' as well as between 'sword and sorcery/fantasy' and 'slipstream fiction.' For all readers who have loved The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood, In Other Worlds is a must.

In High Latitudes, Farley Mowat chronicles for the first time thehazardous journey he took across northern Canada in 1966. Hehoped to write a book that would let northern people speak forthemselves and that would expose the speciousness of the politicalidea that the North was “a bloody great wasteland” with no peoplein it, and therefore resource developers could exploit it howeverthey chose. For reasons Mowat describes, that book did not getwritten then. But here it is now, with the original conversationsrecorded by Mowat during that epic journey.

In vintage Mowat fashion, the legendary writer delivers a sweepingnarrative brimming with breathtaking nature writing, suspensefulstorytelling, larger-than-life characters, ferocious humor,pitiless rage, iconoclastic insights, and compassionate concern. Inher foreword, Margaret Atwood writes: “High Latitudes gives us,with passion and insight, a vertical section of time past—the timethat preceded our present. The choices that were made then affectour now, just as the choices we make now will determine thefuture...”

The Nobel Prize–winner’s second novel to appear in an Everyman edition is a spellbinding story of a poet seeking his lost love in a remote Turkish town riven by religious conflict and cut off from the world by a blizzard.

Returning to Turkey from exile in the West, Ka is driven by curiosity to investigate a surprising wave of suicides among religious girls forbidden to wear their head scarves in school. But the epicenter of the suicides, the eastern border city of Kars, is also home to the radiant and newly divorced Ýpek, a friend of Ka’s youth whom he has never forgotten and whose spirited younger sister is a leader of the rebellious schoolgirls. As a fierce snowstorm descends on Kars, violence between the military and local Islamic radicals begins to explode, and Ka finds his sympathies drawn in unexpected and dramatic directions.

At a time when speculative fiction seems less and less far-fetched, Margaret Atwood lends her distinctive voice and singular point of view to the genre in a series of essays that brilliantly illuminates the essential truths about the modern world. This is an exploration of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as 'science fiction,” a relationship that has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestor of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer.  This book brings together her three heretofore unpublished Ellmann Lectures from 2010: 'Flying Rabbits,' which begins with Atwood's early  rabbit superhero creations, and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos, and Things with Wings; 'Burning Bushes,' which follows her into Victorian otherlands and beyond; and 'Dire Cartographies,' which investigates Utopias and Dystopias.  In Other Worlds also includes some of Atwood's key reviews and thoughts about the form. Among those writers discussed are Marge Piercy, Rider Haggard, Ursula Le Guin, Ishiguro, Bryher, Huxley, and Jonathan Swift. She elucidates the differences (as she sees them) between 'science fiction' proper, and 'speculative fiction,' as well as between 'sword and sorcery/fantasy' and 'slipstream fiction.' For all readers who have loved The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood, In Other Worlds is a must.

The size and severity of the global climate crisis is such that even the most committed environmentalists are liable to live in a state of denial. The award-winning writers collected here have made it their task to shake off this nagging disbelief, bringing the incomprehensible within our grasp and shaping an emotional response to the deterioration of our global habitat. From T. C. Boyle's account of early eco-activists, to Nathaniel Rich's vision of a near future where oil sells for $800 a barrel—these ten provocative, occasionally chilling, sometimes satirical stories bring a human reality to disasters of inhuman proportions.

Royalties from I'm With the Bears will go to 350.org, an international grassroots movement working to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

La porta è la raccolta di poesie più recente di Margaret Atwood pubblicata nel 2007. Le cinquantuno poesie scandagliano il mistero della creatività, il passaggio del tempo e la consapevolezza della mortalità. Coraggioso e compassionevole The Door - La porta interroga le certezze che faticosamente costruiamo intorno alle nostre vite. L'opera consacra Atwood tra i maggiori e più amati poeti contemporanei. La porta è punteggiata da riflessioni sul corpo femminile e sulla sua vulnerabilità, soprattutto verso gli effetti del tempo, che sono registrati con una buona dose di ironia e di sarcasmo. Molto spazio è dedicato alla fatica, alla stanchezza, ma anche alle vessazioni della vita di una celebrità. Tutte le poesie sono piene di passaggi, di soglie spesso avvolte dall'oscurità, come quelle che si aprono e si chiudono con lo scorrere implacabile del tempo nell'ultimo componimento. Il ruolo del poeta si rivela cruciale, in quanto è l'unico ad avere familiarità con il buio e con il mondo delle ombre.

Due bambini che giocano sull'albero, due castori dispettosi, un'aquila gentile.... Rime buffe e stravaganti raccontano una storia di emozioni, libertà e amicizia. Età di lettura: da 5 anni.

Set in the visionary future of Atwood's acclaimed Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood is at once a moving tale of lasting friendship and a landmark work of speculative fiction. In this second book of the MaddAddam trilogy, the long-feared waterless flood has occurred, altering Earth as we know it and obliterating most human life. Among the survivors are Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, who is barricaded inside a luxurious spa. Amid shadowy, corrupt ruling powers and new, gene-spliced life forms, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move, but they can't stay locked away.

In un mondo pericolosamente vicino al nostro, la Creatura si è sostituita al suo Creatore e, grazie all'ingegneria genetica, ha stravolto la Natura. La fede nella scienza è ormai un credo assoluto, integralista, fanatico. Tutto si vende, tutto si compra - l'identità, il sesso, la giovinezza - ma a che prezzo? Eppure c'è chi ha deciso di sottrarsi a questa logica perversa e distruttiva: è la setta dei Giardinieri di Dio. Novelli Adami e Ève, vivono nel sacro rispetto delle Specie animali e vegetali del pianeta sfuggite all'estinzione, cercando di convertire gli altri esseri umani in vista dell'imminente catastrofe. Anno venticinque del calendario dei Giardinieri di Dio: la profezia si è avverata, un Diluvio Senz'Acqua si è abbattuto sul pianeta, l'umanità è decimata. Un quadro desolante, in cui però si apre un flebile spiraglio: due voci, quelle di Toby e Ren. Un tempo adepte dei Giardinieri di Dio, si ritrovano catapultate in un mondo stravolto e scoprono che la lotta per la sopravvivenza è appena iniziata. Armate unicamente dell'amicizia che le unisce e animate dal desiderio di ritrovare i compagni di un tempo, si avventurano in un coraggioso viaggio, costellato di pericoli a ogni angolo. Che ne sarà di loro? Faranno sorgere una nuova alba per la specie umana, oppure ogni speranza di vita è ormai perduta per sempre?

"Bah Humbug!" That's how Ebeneezer Scrooge feels about Christmas--until the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future decide to show the crotchety old miser the error of his ways. Together they travel through time, revisiting all the people who have played an important role in Scrooge's life. And as their journey concludes, Scrooge is reminded of what it means to have love in his heart, and what the true spirit of Christmas is all about. A timeless story the whole family will enjoy!


From the Trade Paperback edition.

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.

The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners—a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life—has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.

Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers . . .

Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away . . .

By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.

'Debito': una parola molto di moda in questo tempo scosso dalla crisi. Una parola sempre di moda, racconta Margaret Atwood, visto che il meccanismo del dare-avere è vecchio quanto l'uomo e che su di esso l'immaginazione umana ha costruito precetti religiosi, codici morali, sistemi giuridici e capolavori poetici e letterari. Il debito lega inestricabilmente denaro, cultura e religione; quando parliamo di dare e avere, e abbiamo a che fare con Cesare o con Dio, con la Giustizia, la Fortuna e il Destino, parliamo dei nostri desideri più profondi e delle nostre paure più tremende. Ecco allora che la Atwood ci guida in un viaggio nella storia, nelle religioni e nei libri alla ricerca dei mille volti del debito. Ma non solo. Risponde anche alla domanda più attuale, la stessa a cui oggi stanno rispondendo i politici più lungimiranti. Con il denaro bisogna cominciare a fare cose diverse da quelle fatte finora, e 'calcolare il costo reale del nostro stile di vita e delle risorse naturali che abbiamo sottratto alla biosfera'. La Terra non è nostra, come diceva Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: l'abbiamo avuta in prestito dai nostri figli, e a loro dovremo restituirla. Questo è il debito che dobbiamo prendere più sul serio.

Present a history of women from prehistoric times up to the present day, examining the changing roles of women in different ages, and covering such topics as work, marriage, family, sex roles, religion, and poltics.

Present a history of women from prehistoric times up to the present day, examining the changing roles of women in different ages, and covering such topics as work, marriage, family, sex roles, religion, and poltics.

This is the first of French's four volumes, which could be considered as the missing half of standard human history textbooks, taking an eye to women's experiences beginning with prehistory and moving through early civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Peru, India, Greece, and Rome, through the first millennium BCE. The text's language is non-technical and accessible to a wide readership. French discusses women as they related with and were treated in spiritual, institutional, social, political, and family life, among other forums, beginning with a chapter on parents in prehistoric Zaire and other sites. The final three chapters comprise brief histories of women in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam through the ages. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)