Mother of All Pigs


Book Description

Hussein's illegal pork business has started to cause some headaches, and not just because of his permanent hangovers-- the town is tired of the smell, a mujahid has arrived on his doorstep, his American niece is visiting, and his sister has joined the Syrian rebel cause, but worst of all, his sow is severely depressed




The Good Good Pig


Book Description

"In loving yet unsentimental prose, Sy Montgomery captures the richness that animals bring to the human experience. Sometimes it takes a too-smart-for-his-own-good pig to open our eyes to what most matters in life.” —John Grogan, author of Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own among wild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always felt more comfortable with animals than with people. So she gladly opened her heart to a sick piglet who had been crowded away from nourishing meals by his stronger siblings. Yet Sy had no inkling that this piglet, later named Christopher Hogwood, would not only survive but flourish—and she soon found herself engaged with her small-town community in ways she had never dreamed possible. Unexpectedly, Christopher provided this peripatetic traveler with something she had sought all her life: an anchor (eventually weighing 750 pounds) to family and home. The Good Good Pig celebrates Christopher Hogwood in all his glory, from his inauspicious infancy to hog heaven in rural New Hampshire, where his boundless zest for life and his large, loving heart made him absolute monarch over a (mostly) peaceable kingdom. At first, his domain included only Sy’s cosseted hens and her beautiful border collie, Tess. Then the neighbors began fetching Christopher home from his unauthorized jaunts, the little girls next door started giving him warm, soapy baths, and the villagers brought him delicious leftovers. His intelligence and fame increased along with his girth. He was featured in USA Today and on several National Public Radio environmental programs. On election day, some voters even wrote in Christopher’s name on their ballots. But as this enchanting book describes, Christopher Hogwood’s influence extended far beyond celebrity; for he was, as a friend said, a great big Buddha master. Sy reveals what she and others learned from this generous soul who just so happened to be a pig—lessons about self-acceptance, the meaning of family, the value of community, and the pleasures of the sweet green Earth. The Good Good Pig provides proof that with love, almost anything is possible.




The Roman Goddess Ceres


Book Description

Interest in goddess worship is growing in contemporary society, as women seek models for feminine spirituality and wholeness. New cults are developing around ancient goddesses from many cultures, although their modern adherents often envision and interpret the goddesses very differently than their original worshippers did. In this thematic study of the Roman goddess Ceres, Barbette Spaeth explores the rich complexity of meanings and functions that grew up around the goddess from the prehistoric period to the Late Roman Empire. In particular, she examines two major concepts, fertility and liminality, and two social categories, the plebs and women, which were inextricably linked with Ceres in the Roman mind. Spaeth then analyzes an image of the goddess in a relief of the Ara Pacis, an important state monument of the Augustan period, showing how it incorporates all these varied roles and associations of Ceres. This interpretation represents a new contribution to art history. With its use of literary, epigraphical, numismatic, artistic, and archaeological evidence, The Roman Goddess Ceres presents a more encompassing view of the goddess than was previously available. It will be important reading for all students of Classics, as well as for a general audience interested in New Age, feminist, or pagan spirituality.




Murder's a Swine


Book Description

"I should imagine this was murder, too, because it would be very difficult to build yourself into a heap of sandbags and then die..." In the blackout conditions of a wintry London night, amateur sleuth Agnes Kinghof and a young air-raid warden have stumbled upon a corpse stowed in the walls of their street's bomb shelter. As the police begin their investigation, the night is interrupted once again when Agnes' upstairs neighbour, Mrs. Sibley is terrorised by the sight of a grisly pig's head at her fourth-floor window. With the discovery of more sinister threats mysteriously signed "Pig-sticker," Agnes and her husband, Andrew—unable to resist a good mystery—begin their investigation to deduce the identity of a villain living amongst them in their block of flats. A witty and light-hearted mystery full of intriguing period detail, this rare gem of Golden Age crime returns to print for the first time since its publication in 1943. This edition includes an Introduction by award-winning author Martin Edwards.




Lean's Collectanea


Book Description




Love Spells - A Grimoire of Ancient Charms, Lore, and Ceremonies


Book Description

Love Spells celebrates the ancient art of love magic in a collection of authentic traditions used throughout the ages to invoke love, practice divination, and heal broken hearts. A carefully curated grimoire of traditional magic and ancient knowledge, Love Spells features many charms, folkloric rituals, and ceremonies that have been passed down through generations. Discover methods of invoking, strengthening, predicting, and repelling love that garner the magic of the moon, amulets, herbs, and plants. Touching on elements of dark magic and the occult, some of these spells serve purely as historical context, offering a deep understanding of love magic's powerful legacy. Breathing new life into magical traditions and bringing hidden knowledge to light, Love Spells is a testament to the rich history of love magic.










The Bridal Wreath


Book Description

From the Nobel Prize-winning author who "should be the next Elena Ferrante” (Slate) comes a stormy romance set in 14th-century Norway. The acknowledged masterpiece of the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian novelist Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter has never been out of print in this country since its first publication in 1927. Its story of a woman's life in fourteenth-century Norway has kept its hold on generations of readers, and the heroine, Kristin—beautiful, strong-willed, and passionate—stands with the world's great literary figures. Volume 1, The Bridal Wreath, describes young Kristin's stormy romance with the dashing Erlend Nikulausson, a young man perhaps overly fond of women, of whom her father strongly disapproves.




Guinea Pigs


Book Description

Guinea pigs have been reared and eaten by indigenous people in the Andes since ancient times, and it seemed rational to development planners to ‘modernize' their production. When these development projects ran into trouble, a team of anthropologists was invited to study the reasons for this lack of success. This intriguing book is the product of that study.What the author shows is that guinea pigs have a meaning in the social and ritual life of Ecuadorian peasants which is far from mundane. Rejecting the attempts of some anthropologists to reduce the production of guinea pigs and the festive life of the Andean community to a quest for protein, he explores the full complex of social and cultural practices which centre on this animal, and uses his study of its role within Andean culture to provide telling insights into how that culture itself is constituted -- its values, beliefs and attitudes. By working in a variety of communities with different ecological and ethnographic characteristics, the author has made a major contribution to ethnographic accounts of Ecuador and to the more general study of ritual, consumption and indigenous knowledge. He points us, in particular, towards the importance of the knowledge of women, who are those principally responsible for the care of an animal which is prized for its role in healing and central to Andean sociality. The book not only presents us with a colourful description of the range of cultural practices surrounding the guinea pig, ranging from the way the animals are reared, through a rich and complex cuisine, to their role in ritual life, but also highlights the way the gender dimension is central to understanding resistances to ‘modernization' and the power of ‘experts'.




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