The Land of Open Graves

The Land of Open Graves
Author: Jason De Leon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2015-10-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520958683

In this gripping and provocative “ethnography of death,” anthropologist and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Jason De León sheds light on one of the most pressing political issues of our time—the human consequences of US immigration and border policy. The Land of Open Graves reveals the suffering and deaths that occur daily in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona as thousands of undocumented migrants attempt to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. Drawing on the four major fields of anthropology, De León uses an innovative combination of ethnography, archaeology, linguistics, and forensic science to produce a scathing critique of “Prevention through Deterrence,” the federal border enforcement policy that encourages migrants to cross in areas characterized by extreme environmental conditions and high risk of death. For two decades, systematic violence has failed to deter border crossers while successfully turning the rugged terrain of southern Arizona into a killing field. Featuring stark photography by Michael Wells, this book examines the weaponization of natural terrain as a border wall: first-person stories from survivors underscore this fundamental threat to human rights, and the very lives, of non-citizens as they are subjected to the most insidious and intangible form of American policing as institutional violence. In harrowing detail, De León chronicles the journeys of people who have made dozens of attempts to cross the border and uncovers the stories of the objects and bodies left behind in the desert. The Land of Open Graves will spark debate and controversy.

Attic Grave Reliefs that Represent Women in the Dress of Isis

Attic Grave Reliefs that Represent Women in the Dress of Isis
Author: Elizabeth J. Walters
Publisher: ASCSA
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1988
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780876615225

The author investigates the appearance of a fashion in clothing, involving a knotted mantle worn across the chest, on many Attic stelae of the Roman period. She suggests that this style can be traced to Egyptian roots, and might have been particularly associated with a cult of Isis, popular among wealthy Athenians. The book presents a catalogue of the 106 known Isis reliefs from Attica and a review of all forms of evidence for the cult.

Merciful Days

Merciful Days
Author: Jesse Graves
Publisher:
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2020-10
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9780881467567

In language both plainspoken and lyrical, East Tennessee poet Jesse Graves examines the connections that hold people together across generations and against the breaches of time and distance. The landscapes of his native region possess a mythic beauty and Graves writes of the animating force it can become in a poet's imagination. Graves's poems are haunted by the lost futures of lives cut short and by speculative narrations of omens and portents. For all the darkness visible in the world, Graves elevates the great joy of feeding birds, walking in the woods, and sharing a life, sometimes only in memory, with the people we love. Those who have passed on are remembered here and their stories become a source of light. The new work in MERCIFUL DAYS will remind readers why Ron Rash has said, These poems have the music, wisdom, and singular voice of a talent fully realized, and make abundantly clear that Jesse Graves is one of America's finest young poets.

Little Bitty Lies

Little Bitty Lies
Author: Mary Kay Andrews
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0061827371

“Little white lies have never been so risky—or so much fun.” — Orlando Sentinel New York Times bestselling author Mary Kay Andrews delivers a tantalizing tale about an abandoned Atlanta housewife and mother who tells one tiny white lie that sets her world spiraling outrageously out of control. This winning and wonderful romp focuses on all the important things in life: marriage and divorce, mothers and daughters, friendship and betrayal. Throw in small town secrets, one woman’s lifelong quest for home, and the perfect chicken salad recipe, and you have an ideal escape for fans of Fannie Flagg, Jennifer Crusie, Adriana Trigiani, Emily Giffin, and the Sweet Potato Queens.

Grave Disturbances

Grave Disturbances
Author: Edeltraud Aspöck
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2020-07-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789254450

Archaeologists excavating burials often find that they are not the first to disturb the remains of the dead. Graves from many periods frequently show signs that others have been digging and have moved or taken away parts of the original funerary assemblage. Displaced bones and artefacts, traces of pits, and damage to tombs or coffins can all provide clues about post-burial activities. The last two decades have seen a rapid rise in interest in the study of post-depositional practices in graves, which has now developed into a new subfield within mortuary archaeology. This follows a long tradition of neglect, with disturbed graves previously regarded as interesting only to the degree they revealed evidence of the original funerary deposit. This book explores past human interactions with mortuary deposits, delving into the different ways graves and human remains were approached by people in the past and the reasons that led to such encounters. The primary focus of the volume is on cases of unexpected interference with individual graves soon after burial: re-encounters with human remains not anticipated by those who performed the funerary rites and constructed the tombs. However, a first step is always to distinguish these from natural and accidental processes, and methodological approaches are a major theme of discussion. Interactions with the remains of the dead are explored in eleven chapters ranging from the New Kingdom of Egypt to Viking Age Norway and from Bronze Age Slovakia to the ancient Maya. Each discusses cases of re-entries into graves, including desecration, tomb re-use, destruction of grave contents, as well as the removal of artefacts and human remains for reasons from material gain to commemoration, symbolic appropriation, ancestral rites, political chicanery, and retrieval of relics. The introduction presents many of the methodological issues which recur throughout the contributions, as this is a developing area with new approaches being applied to analyze post-depositional processes in graves.

Veronica's Grave

Veronica's Grave
Author: Barbara Bracht Donsky
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2016-05-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 163152075X

2017 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award: Silver for Memoir 2017 National Indie Excellence Awards: Finalist 2017 Independent Press Award: Distinguished Favorite for Memoir 2016 Beverly Hills Book Awards: Memoir Finalist 2016 Readers' Favorite:Silver Medal for Non-fiction Memoir New York Public Library Top Pick Summer 2017 When Barbara Bracht's mother disappears, she is left a confused child whose blue-collar father is intent upon erasing any memory of her mother. Forced to keep the secret of her mother's existence from her younger brother, Barbara struggles to keep from being crushed under the weight of family secrets as she comes of age and tries to educate herself, despite her father's stance against women's education. The story is not only of loss and resilience, but one showing the power of literature—from Little Orphan Annie to Prince Valiant to the incomparable Nancy Drew—to offer hope where there is little. Told with true literary sensibility, this captivating memoir asks us to consider what it is that parents owe their children, and how far a child need go to make things right for her family.

The Victorian Book of the Dead

The Victorian Book of the Dead
Author: Chris Woodyard
Publisher: Kestrel Publications (OH)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN: 9780988192522

Macabre tales of death and mourning in Victorian America.

When Breath Becomes Air

When Breath Becomes Air
Author: Paul Kalanithi
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2016-01-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0812988418

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living? NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • The Washington Post • Slate • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly • BookPage Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

The Lost Art of Dress

The Lost Art of Dress
Author: Linda Przybyszewski
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2014-04-29
Genre: Design
ISBN: 0465080472

"A tribute to a time when style -- and maybe even life -- felt more straightforward, and however arbitrary, there were definitive answers." -- Sadie Stein, Paris Review As a glance down any street in America quickly reveals, American women have forgotten how to dress. We lack the fashion know-how we need to dress professionally and beautifully. In The Lost Art of Dress, historian and dressmaker Linda Przybyszewski reveals that this wasn't always true. In the first half of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of women -- the so-called Dress Doctors -- taught American women that knowledge, not money, was key to a beautiful wardrobe. They empowered women to design, make, and choose clothing for both the workplace and the home. Armed with the Dress Doctors' simple design principles -- harmony, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasis -- modern American women from all classes learned to dress for all occasions in ways that made them confident, engaged members of society. A captivating and beautifully illustrated look at the world of the Dress Doctors, The Lost Art of Dress introduces a new audience to their timeless rules of fashion and beauty -- rules which, with a little help, we can certainly learn again.

Shallow Grave

Shallow Grave
Author: Brian Thiem
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-07-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1683311477

When the Oakland coroner’s office uncovers a body buried in a shallow grave in the outskirts of the city, homicide sergeant Matt Sinclair expects to find a drug dealer caught in the crosshairs of a turf war. Instead, the victim is identified as Phil Roberts, the commander of the police department’s intelligence unit and Sinclair’s former partner. Police brass want to pin the murder on a dead member of an outlaw motorcycle gang and they want the case closed quickly, but Sinclair and his current partner, Cathy Braddock, aren’t satisfied with that answer. As Sinclair delves into the details of Roberts’s past, secrets from his work and personal life come to the surface--secrets that some people will go to any length to keep buried. But Sinclair won’t stop until he finds the truth, even if it means sacrificing his former partner’s reputation and possibly his own career. With Shallow Grave, Brian Thiem brings back his beloved detective for a thrilling third adventure in his acclaimed police procedural series.