Choice, the premier source for reviews for academic books, announced their 2014 Outstanding Academic Titles earlier this month. Congratulations to authors S.L. Kotar and J.E. Gessle (Cholera: A Worldwide History) and John A. Lent (Southeast Asian Cartoon Art: History, Trends and Problems) for their outstanding academic titles!
Congratulations to Charles Brownson (The Figure of the Detective: A Literary History and Analysis) and Jim Mancall (James Ellroy: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction) whose works were nominated by The Mystery Writers of America for the 2015 Edgar Awards’ Best Critical/ Biographical category.
The annual prize is named after beloved writer Edgar Allan Poe, awarded to the best authors in the mystery genre since 1945. These awards recognize the following categories: novel, first novel, paperback original, fact crime, critical/biographical, short story, juvenile, young adult, play, and TV episode.
Game of Thrones Presentation at the Company Theater near Boston! Award-winning author Valerie Estelle Frankel discusses Game of Thrones, inspiration for her five books including Women in Game of Thrones. Learn how George RR Martin’s prophecies and the classic heroine’s journey foretell the ending. Daenerys’s surprising path becomes clear as she “wakes the dragon” and harnesses a surprising magic. Is Jon Snow destined to be her lover, her nemesis, her sacrifice, or all three? And what of Tyrion? Or Arya? What does Varys really want? Discover the deeper meaning of black dragons, golden roses, seasons, heraldic colors, and all the symbols of ice and fire. Share your secret longings and fears for the upcoming season, as we prepare for the oncoming storm. Saturday, February 28, 2015 – 8:00 pm. The event is on sale–tickets are down to $10 for a short time. http://companytheatre.com/game-of-thrones-a-look-beyond-the-wall/
Instructors, to examine Language in the Visual Arts as a prospective textbook for your course, contact us using our exam copy request form.
Language in the Visual Arts: The Interplay of Text and Imagery by Leslie Ross — This book discusses text and image relationships in the history of art from ancient times to the contemporary period across a diversity of cultures and geographic areas. Focusing on the use of words in art and words as art forms, thematic chapters include “Pictures in Words/Words in Pictures,” “Word/Picture Puzzles,” “Picture/Word Puzzles,” “Words as Images,” “The Power of the Word,” and “Monumental and Moving Words.” Chapter subsections further explore cross-cultural themes. Examining text and image relationships from the obvious to the elusive, the puzzling to the profound, the minor to the major, the book demonstrates the diverse ways in which images and writing have been combined through the ages, and explores the interplay between visual and written communication in a wide range of thought-provoking examples.
McFarland & Company, at your service! (Thank you, Bilbo, for teaching us proper etiquette.) While we’d like to offer you all ale, seed-cake, mince pies, buttered scones, apple tarts and cheese, we do have some fine scholarship about Tolkien to share (links listed below). And in lieu of burgling a dragon’s hoard for you, we’re extending a 20% discount with the coupon code HOARD. This “weekly” deal is good through New Year’s. (New deal coming January 2, 2015.)
Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays
J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard and the Birth of Modern Fantasy
The Evolution of Tolkien’s Mythology: A Study of the History of Middle-earth
The Hobbit and Tolkien’s Mythology: Essays on Revisions and Influences
Tolkien and the Modernists: Literary Responses to the Dark New Days of the 20th Century
Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy
The Body in Tolkien’s Legendarium: Essays on Middle-earth Corporeality
Tolkien and Shakespeare: Essays on Shared Themes and Language
Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey
Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien
The office tree is decorated, and we’re sharing the Christmas spirit with this week’s deal – through December 14, 2014, get 20% off the following books when you enter the coupon code WENCESLAS!
The Christmas Encyclopedia, 3d ed.
Are you a book review editor, reviewer, or folklorist interested in receiving a media copy of Tales of Superhuman Powers: 55 Traditional Stories from Around the World? McFarland has a supply of review copies available upon request. Contact us via our review copy request form, filling out the form completely, to receive your copy.
Csenge Virág Zalka, a Hungarian storyteller, has collected 55 foltktales from around the world about supernatural abilities like superhuman strength, invulnerability, flying, heightened senses, speed, invisibility, healing, agility, precognition, telepathy, fire manipulation, teleportation, water powers, and shifting. These tales represent powers that people have dreamed of, conjured up and strived for through the ages. Many of the powers are present in popular culture, making the superheroes who wield them the direct descendants of characters such as the princess who could see through walls or the invulnerable Isfandiyar. Zalka excluded stories about magic or about gods with divine powers, and focused on less well-known stories. She included information on similar heroes, the ability in the story, sources of the powers, the origin of the story, teachings in it, the recommended age group, sources, variants, and comments.
#folklore #superheoes #comics #popculture
Congratulations to author Jason Fisher whose Tolkien and the Study of His Sources was awarded the Mythopoeic Society’s Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies for 2014. Terrific work!
It was fall semester 1991 that I acquired two prized possessions: Pearl Jam’s Ten and the “gray King Arthur book.” Ever since the one-of-a-kind Dr. Dennis J. McKevlin, Jr., taught his Arthurian Legends class at Western Carolina University, I’ve treasured the gray book. We used Arthur, King of Britain: History, Chronicle, Romance & Criticism, with Texts in Modern English, from Gildas to Malory (edited by Richard L. Brengle, Prentice-Hall, 1964) as our sole textbook, though generously supplemented by notes and handouts from McKevlin. For the majority of us, it was our first time encountering persons and works such as Bede, Nennius, Gildas, Wace, Layamon, The Mabignogion, and the Historia Regum Britanniae. Now, William W. Kibler and R. Barton Palmer have brought us a very useful book for the classroom, Medieval Arthurian Epic and Romance: Eight New Translations. The just published book offers new translations from Latin, Middle English and Old French of texts that exemplify the most important traditions of Arthurian literature in the Middle Ages. On my bookshelf, this one is going to line up right beside the gray book! — Karl-Heinz Roseman, Vice President, Sales and Marketing
For more about Medieval Arthurian Epic and Romance, go to the book’s page in McFarland’s online catalog. For teaching academics who would like to examine a copy for possible use in their classroom, use our exam copy request form.
#tbt #kingarthur #books #wcu
On April 1st, 1979, founder Robert McFarland Franklin departed Plainfield, New Jersey, heading south in a Volkswagen bug towing a U-Haul. With wife Cheryl behind the wheel, Robert began company operations on a yellow pad in his lap.
Thirty-five years ago, libraries provided almost the sole market (but a robust one!) for the heavily-researched books that McFarland made its specialty. Over the decades, the company won ever-growing numbers of devoted readers who appreciated the care McFarland and its authors lavished on our books. Our authors, a throng of thousands now, teach us something new every day.
We’re having an open house Friday, June 20, from noon until 5:00. Join us for tours, conversation, punch, finger food, art and books.
Ken Jeremiah, author of Living Buddhas: The Self-Mummified Monks of Yamagata, Japan and Christian Mummification: An Interpretative History of the Preservation of Saints, Martyrs and Others, was featured in a recent article by iO9 about how to mummify yourself. As one might imagine, the monks of Yamagata did not decide to mummify themselves on the spur of the moment. According to Jeremiah, there was “a 3,000-day training process for turning an ordinary ascetic’s body into a mummy’s. The key element of the process is dietary; Japanese ascetics would commonly abstain from cereals, removing wheat, rice, foxtail millet, pros so millet, and soybeans. Instead, they would eat things like nuts, berries, pine needles, tree bark, and resin (which is why the diet of the sokushinbutsu was called mokujikyo, or tree-eating.” Go here for io9’s entire article about self-mummification.
And good for the month of May, there is a 20% discount on mummy books with the coupon code MUMMY. Mummy Books from McFarland:
Living Buddhas: The Self-Mummified Monks of Yamagata, Japan
Christian Mummification: An Interpretative History of the Preservation of Saints, Martyrs and Others
Mummies in Nineteenth Century America: Ancient Egyptians as Artifacts
The Mummy Unwrapped: Scenes Left on Universal’s Cutting Room Floor
The Mummy in Fact, Fiction and Film
Modern Mummies: The Preservation of the Human Body in the Twentieth Century
The Egyptian Pyramids: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Reference
Ancient Egypt in the Popular Imagination: Building a Fantasy in Film, Literature, Music and Art
Boris Karloff: A Critical Account of His Screen, Stage, Radio, Television and Recording Work
Kalamazoo, Michigan, is the home of Bell’s Brewery and the International Congress on Medieval Studies. If you are in K’zoo, stop by the McFarland book stand and remind senior acquisitions editor Gary Mitchem that we’re counting on him to return with some Hopslam and a rune-hallowed seax!
Allende, anyone? Booklist recently reviewed Isabel Allende: A Literary Companion thusly: “an expertly crafted study guide and tribute…the entries are rich in relevant historical detail, insightful literary criticism, and reflections on Allende’s place among contemporary writers of serious fiction…engaging essays on specific Allende writings…an erudite, affectionate, and wonderfully rich treatment of Isabel Allende and her work.”
We couldn’t agree more. Allende–”la Famosa” to her fellow Chileans–is the world’s most widely read Spanish language author. Her bravura study of the interwoven roles of women in family history opens the minds of outsiders to the sufferings of women and their children during years of social and political nightmare. Her powerfully honest, revelatory works touch the pulse points of humankind. This reference work provides an introduction to Allende’s life as well as a guided overview of her body of work. Designed for the fan and scholar alike, this text features an alphabetized, fully-annotated listing of major terms in the Allende canon, including fictional characters, motifs, historical events and themes. A comprehensive index is included.
For more about the book, or to purchase directly from McFarland:
http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-7127-0
For more McFarland Literary Companions:
http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/book-categories/mcfarland-literary-companions/
Our holiday sale ends today, Dec. 31st, so don’t delay! Best wishes to all from your McFarland friends…happy reading! Enjoy 20% off your order through today. On the McFarland website, use coupon code HOLIDAY in the cart as you are checking out. Or, call toll-free 800-253-2187 (Mon-Fri 8:00am to 4:30pm Eastern Time). http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/2013/11/holiday-sale/
Local folks: it’s a beautiful day in the mountains and we’re currently at the Ashe County Literary Festival here in town–come see us at the Ashe Arts Center. While you’re at it, add this to tomorrow’s agenda–at 10:00 am our very own Stephen Shoemaker and Janet Pittard (Stephen Shoemaker: The Paintings and Their Stories) will be at the Ashe County Farmers’ Market with books on hand. Be sure to stop by for a visit!
Last week we posted news of Tim Peeler’s recent reading in Boston, where he was the guest of the Boston Red Sox and read from Waiting for Godot’s First Pitch. Now one of the people who helped make it happen, George Mitrovich, has published an appreciation of the poet, which can be found online at The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-mitrovich/of-baseball-life-poetry_b_3786811.html?utm_hp_ref=style.
Come by and see McFarland at the High Country Book Festival in Boone, North Carolina, this Saturday, June 22 from 9:00 A.M. -4:00 P.M.
Yankee Stories Untold
$35.00
When Baseball Was Still Topps
$39.95
Runnin’ Redbirds
$35.00
