MÄR, Märchen Awakens Romance


Book Description

The tale of Ginta Toramizu, a junior high loser who enters the vivid world of his dreams where, at last, he is a hero.




Hello Ocean


Book Description

Dive into this playful poem about the draw of the shore and the effect the ocean has on all five senses. Relive a day at the beach with this lovely book of memories. You can almost feel the salt spray on your face and smell the musky scent of ocean in the cool morning air. Remember how the sand squishes between your toes as the tide rushes to shore and taste the tang of the ocean on your lips. Spirited language evokes a sense of closeness and nostalgia for an old friend. The inspiration of the ocean will make learning the five senses as easy as a day at the beach. Crisp, realistic illustrations fill the pages with the rush of surf and the warmth of sun-baked sand. The sights and smells and sensations of the sea become vividly clear in these beautifully rendered paintings.




Mar


Book Description

"Writing with uncanny skill, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence leads us gently into the world of birds. Her perception, intuition and experience give her insights that she here freely shares with us all. "I knew this remarkable lady for years, and had previously read her Mar, but on re-reading it, I was struck with the sensitive, magical way she reveals the behaviour of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers. "At her doorstep, at almost everyone’s doorstep, there is a wondrous, beautiful world, if we will only be patient and observant. In Mar, Mrs. Lawrence shows us the way. "Naturalists, birders, aspiring ornithologists, scientists, all should take time to read Mar." - Robert W. Nero, Author of The Great Gray Owl and Redwings "Mar is a glimpse into the natural life of a woodpecker – a yellow-bellied sapsucker – in two nesting seasons, as it interacts with its mate and other forest creatures. "The narrative, deceptively simple, consolidates a lifetime of careful observation and imaginative research. It should appeal to all birdwatchers, novice or expert." - Maureen Johnson, The Ottawa Citizen




Witches of America


Book Description

"Witches are gathering." When most people hear the word "witches," they think of horror films and Halloween, but to the nearly one million Americans who practice Paganism today, witchcraft is a nature-worshipping, polytheistic, and very real religion. So Alex Mar discovers when she sets out to film a documentary and finds herself drawn deep into the world of present-day magic. Witches of America follows Mar on her immersive five-year trip into the occult, charting modern Paganism from its roots in 1950s England to its current American mecca in the San Francisco Bay Area; from a gathering of more than a thousand witches in the Illinois woods to the New Orleans branch of one of the world's most influential magical societies. Along the way she takes part in dozens of rituals and becomes involved with a wild array of characters: a government employee who founds a California priesthood dedicated to a Celtic goddess of war; American disciples of Aleister Crowley, whose elaborate ceremonies turn the Catholic mass on its head; second-wave feminist Wiccans who practice a radical separatist witchcraft; a growing "mystery cult" whose initiates trace their rites back to a blind shaman in rural Oregon. This sprawling magical community compels Mar to confront what she believes is possible-or hopes might be. With keen intelligence and wit, Mar illuminates the world of witchcraft while grappling in fresh and unexpected ways with the question underlying every faith: Why do we choose to believe in anything at all? Whether evangelical Christian, Pagan priestess, or atheist, each of us craves a system of meaning to give structure to our lives. Sometimes we just find it in unexpected places.




The Legend of Mar Qardagh


Book Description

Explores the history of Christianity in Iraq. This study uses an early seventh-century Christian martyr legend to elucidate the culture and society of late antique Iraq. It introduces a hero of epic proportions whose characteristics confound simple classification.







The Sol e Mar Tragedy off Martha's Vineyard


Book Description

On March 22, 1990, local fishermen Hokey Hokanson and his teenage son, Billy, set sail for Cape Cod in the "Sol e Mar." When disaster struck three days later, Billy transmitted a brief, heavily garbled radio distress call. A hoax call immediately followed Billy's cry for help, and believing that the two were connected, the U.S. Coast Guard did not launch rescue units for several days. The Hokansons' deaths prompted a new anti-hoax law and changed United States Coast Guard search and rescue procedures. Historian Captain W. Russ Webster, U.S. Coast Guard (Ret.), and journalist Elizabeth B. Webster chronicle the fascinating story of the "Sol e Mar" and its crew and explain the psychology of hoax callers and Coast Guard technological advancements since the tragedy.




THE MAR THOMA STORY


Book Description

The epic of the apostle St. Thomas is reported in this treatise. The traditional tale tells an unacceptable story without credibility and relevance to the reality of how Jesus and His apostles preached—to whom, when, where and why hearers left their earlier faith to become the first believers in the faith, which has since come to be known as Christianity in spite of all the resistance, persecutions and tortures these believers had to endure, suffer and die cruel deaths for. Then there are the enduring unassailable facts—a people on the west Malabar coast of Peninsular India, the Syrian Christians, claiming from the very beginning of their existence of having been Christianised only by the testimony and witness of the apostle to their ancestors, and a tomb on the east Coromandel Coast of peninsular India at Mylapore, forlorn and without any local devotees (until the coming of the Portuguese), that has always been known and claimed to be the only burial place of the apostle. Then it has to be critically evaluated, why among the apostles, St. Thomas alone travelled about 7000 km east and south of Palestine (in a direction away from the travels and mission of all other apostles), traversing desert and ocean to preach only to two similar communities at two seaports at Muziris and Mylapore on either side of peninsular India. This is the enigmatic and perplexing matter thoroughly researched, analysed, evaluated and reported in this book and treatise. The book finally arrives at the factors that led to the success of the apostle’s mission at the seaport of Muziris.




The Mar Chiquita Salt Lake (Córdoba, Argentina)


Book Description

This book provides a comprehensive, updated syntheses of all the information available on Mar Chiquita, covering various aspects of the geography, geological history, biology and ecology of the site, as well as a detailed analysis of the current land-use patterns, environmental threats, and conservation issues. Mar Chiquita, located in the province of Cordoba, Argentina, is a protected wilderness area that includes South America’s largest saline lake and wetland. It has a very rich bird biodiversity, including three of the six species of flamingos that exist in the world, and high numbers of intercontinental migratory shorebirds. For this reason, the area has been declared an International Site by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, and also a Site of Hemispheric Importance by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserves Network. Largely unknown until very recently, particularly in terms of the English literature, the site is rapidly gaining international visibility, not only in terms of scientific research, but also as site of interest for the nature lovers around the globe. Written in a language accessible to the non-specialists, the book focuses on integrating the dynamic, functional processes in the ecosystem, while at the same time providing the necessary descriptive information. Accordingly, it is of interest to scientists from diverse disciplines interested in saline wetlands, as well as to students, managers, and the general public.