Tia and the Terracotta Horse


Book Description

Tia, a little girl from the Indian town of Bishnupur, makes a terracotta horse. To her astonishment, the terracotta horse comes alive, but Tia must keep it a secret. They immediately become best friends. When the grown-ups take their afternoon siesta, Tarak the terracotta horse takes Tia on magical trips to some of the most beautiful places in India. Read the book to join the duo on their extraordinary trips.




The Earthspinner


Book Description

'A horse was in flames. It roamed beneath the ocean breathing fire . . .' When he wakes up, Elango knows his life has changed. His dream will consume him until he gives it shape. The potter must create a terracotta horse whose beauty will be reason enough for its existence. Yet he cannot pin down from where it has galloped into his mind - the Mahabharata, or Trojan legend, or his anonymous potter-ancestors. Nor can he say where it belongs - in a temple compound, within a hotel lobby, or with Zohra, whom he despairs of ever marrying. The astral, indefinable force driving Elango towards forbidden love and creation has unleashed other currents. A neighbourhood girl begins her bewildering journey into adulthood, developing a complicated relationship with him. A lost dog adopts him, taking over his heart. Meanwhile, his community is driven by inflammatory passions of a different kind. Here, people, animals, and even the gods live on a knife's edge and the consequences of daring to dream against the tide are cataclysmic. Moving between India and England, The Earthspinner reflects the many ways in which the East encounters the West. It breathes new life into ancient myths, giving allegorical shape to the war of fanaticism against reason and the imagination. It is an intricate, wrenching novel about the changed ways of loving and living in the modern world.




A People's History of the World


Book Description

Building on A People’s History of the United States, this radical world history captures the broad sweep of human history from the perspective of struggling classes. An “indispensable volume” on class and capitalism throughout the ages—for readers reckoning with the history they were taught and history as it truly was (Howard Zinn) From the earliest human societies to the Holy Roman Empire, from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, from the Industrial Revolution to the end of the twentieth century, Chris Harman provides a brilliant and comprehensive history of the human race. Eschewing the standard accounts of “Great Men,” of dates and kings, Harman offers a groundbreaking counter-history, a breathtaking sweep across the centuries in the tradition of “history from below.” In a fiery narrative, he shows how ordinary men and women were involved in creating and changing society and how conflict between classes was often at the core of these developments. While many scholars see the victory of capitalism as now safely secured, Harman explains the rise and fall of societies and civilizations throughout the ages and demonstrates that history moves ever onward in every age. A vital corrective to traditional history, A People's History of the World is essential reading for anyone interested in how society has changed and developed and the possibilities for further radical progress.




Taste Portugal 101 Easy Portuguese Recipes


Book Description

"From the creators of Tia Maria's Portuguese food blog."







The Potters' Quarter


Book Description

Pt. 1: "Excavated between 1928 and 1931, the area of the "Potters' Quarter" is marked by many finds of moulds and wasters. The site seems to have occupied between the 8th and 4th centuries B.C. This volume, the first of three on the finds from this area, describes the graves and metal objects, the buildings, and the molds for making figurines." Pt. 2: "This particular volume contains all the objects made of clay except the pottery and plaques. Lamps, spindle whorls, and clay altars are also described." Pt. 3: "The long-awaited final part of the publication of the Corinth Potters' Quarter is based on the work of the excavator, A.N. Stillwell, edited and supplemented after her death by J.L. Benson. The pottery, although frequently fragmentary, can often be assigned to known painters or workshops, and the deposits, especially in view of the defective pieces in them, can be argued to contain material almost exclusively of local manufacture. A brief introduction serves to explain the organization of the catalogue and to characterize the principal deposits, most of which contained material from several periods; a summary of represented painters and workshops concludes the chapter. The catalogue presents over 2,300 examples from more than 4,000 inventoried pieces. Almost all are illustrated with photographs, frequently supplemented with detail line drawings of motifs; selected profile drawings represent the principal shapes. A new foldout plan of the Potters' Quarter is included."--Publisher's website.




The Phantom Image


Book Description

Drawing from a rich corpus of art works, including sarcophagi, tomb paintings, and floor mosaics, Patrick R. Crowley investigates how something as insubstantial as a ghost could be made visible through the material grit of stone and paint. In this fresh and wide-ranging study, he uses the figure of the ghost to offer a new understanding of the status of the image in Roman art and visual culture. Tracing the shifting practices and debates in antiquity about the nature of vision and representation, Crowley shows how images of ghosts make visible structures of beholding and strategies of depiction. Yet the figure of the ghost simultaneously contributes to a broader conceptual history that accounts for how modalities of belief emerged and developed in antiquity. Neither illustrations of ancient beliefs in ghosts nor depictions of afterlife, these images show us something about the visual event of seeing itself. The Phantom Image offers essential insight into ancient art, visual culture, and the history of the image.




Unknown India


Book Description




Staying with the Trouble


Book Description

In the midst of spiraling ecological devastation, multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants. She eschews referring to our current epoch as the Anthropocene, preferring to conceptualize it as what she calls the Chthulucene, as it more aptly and fully describes our epoch as one in which the human and nonhuman are inextricably linked in tentacular practices. The Chthulucene, Haraway explains, requires sym-poiesis, or making-with, rather than auto-poiesis, or self-making. Learning to stay with the trouble of living and dying together on a damaged earth will prove more conducive to the kind of thinking that would provide the means to building more livable futures. Theoretically and methodologically driven by the signifier SF—string figures, science fact, science fiction, speculative feminism, speculative fabulation, so far—Staying with the Trouble further cements Haraway's reputation as one of the most daring and original thinkers of our time.




The Earthspinner


Book Description

'A writer of great subtlety and intelligence, who understands that emotional power comes from the steady accretion of detail' Kamila Shamsie, Guardian 'She writes elegantly and intelligently whatever the subject matter' Francesca Angelini, The Times 'A compulsively readable novel' Manil Suri, New York Times 'A horse was in flames. It roamed beneath the ocean breathing fire . . . ' When he wakes up, Elango knows his life has changed. His dream will consume him until he gives it shape. The potter must create a terracotta horse whose beauty will be reason enough for its existence. Yet he cannot pin down from where it has galloped into his mind – the Mahabharata, or Trojan legend, or his anonymous potter-ancestors. Nor can he say where it belongs – in a temple compound, within a hotel lobby, or with Zohra, whom he despairs of ever marrying. The astral, indefinable force driving Elango towards forbidden love and creation has unleashed other currents. A neighbourhood girl begins her bewildering journey into adulthood, developing a complicated relationship with him. A lost dog adopts him, taking over his heart. Meanwhile, his community is driven by inflammatory passions of a different kind. Here, people, animals, and even the gods live on a knife's edge and the consequences of daring to dream against the tide are cataclysmic. Moving between India and England, The Earthspinner reflects the many ways in which the East encounters the West. It breathes new life into ancient myths, giving allegorical shape to the war of fanaticism against reason and the imagination. It is an intricate, wrenching novel about the changed ways of loving and living in the modern world.