The Wisdom of the Bones

The Wisdom of the Bones
Author: Alan Walker
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 368
Release: 1997-09-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0679747834

"Fascinating. . . . As engaging an explanation of how scientists study fossil bones as any I have ever read." --John R. Alden, Philadelphia Inquirer In 1984 a team of paleoanthropologists on a dig in northern Kenya found something extraordinary: a nearly complete skeleton of Homo erectus, a creature that lived 1.5 million years ago and is widely thought to be the missing link between apes and humans. The remains belonged to a tall, rangy adolescent male. The researchers called him "Nariokotome boy." In this immensely lively book, Alan Walker, one of the lead researchers, and his wife and fellow scientist Pat Shipman tell the story of that epochal find and reveal what it tells us about our earliest ancestors. We learn that Nariokotome boy was a highly social predator who walked upright but lacked the capacity for speech. In leading us to these conclusions, The Wisdom of the Bones also offers an engaging chronicle of the hundred-year-long search for a "missing link," a saga of folly, heroic dedication, and inspired science. "Brilliantly captures [an] intellectual odyssey. . . . One of the finest examples of a practicing scientist writing for a popular audience." --Portland Oregonian "A vivid insider's perspective on the global efforts to document our own ancestry." --Richard E. Leakey

The Wisdom of Bones

The Wisdom of Bones
Author: Kitty Aldridge
Publisher: Corsair
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2020-01-09
Genre: Dwarves
ISBN: 9781472154408

'To find a creature part eel, part African lion, who steps the tightrope, plays the viola, frightens the ladies and sings like a nightingale. This is my task. I must conjure, procure and invent, as a novelty is only novel once and no success succeeds as surely as failure fails. ' London 1879 - In a gloomy room on Islington's backstreets showman Percy Unusual George dreams of the miracle that will change his fortunes and that of his troupe of performing Remarkables. This waking dream will lead him to an infamous French dwarf, an exiled Polish king, and a superstar of the Enlightenment... and alter the course of his life forever. France 1746-1764 - At the court of Lunéville, in the Alsace region of Lorraine, exiled Polish King Stanislas hosts grand parties for the French nobility and luminaries of the Enlightenment. While Voltaire dotes on his lover, Émilie du Châtelet, the Polish king presents his horrified queen with a gift of an infant dwarf from the Vosges Mountains. King Stanislas names the child Bébé, and watches indulgently as his protégé becomes the most notorious and celebrated dwarf in France, until an unexpected guest arrives and unforeseen tragedy follows. Two ambitious men. One hundred years apart. Kitty Aldridge entwines their stories to powerful effect in this astonishingly imaginative and daring novel. The Wisdom of Bones is a high-wire performance: a hypnotic tale of desire and ambition, a quest for celebrity, and the human ache to be loved and remembered. 'Time runs backwards and I see myself anew. Not a man but a child. Not English but French. Not here but there. And I am stranger than a sphinx.'

Mapping the Bones

Mapping the Bones
Author: Jane Yolen
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2019-01-15
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0399546677

Jane Yolen, the bestselling and award-winning author of The Devil's Arithmetic, returns to World War II and the Holocaust with this timely and necessary novel. It's 1942 in Poland, and the world is coming to pieces. At least that's how it seems to Chaim and Gittel, twins whose lives feel like a fairy tale torn apart, with evil witches, forbidden forests, and dangerous ovens looming on the horizon. But in all darkness there is light, and the twins find it through Chaim's poetry and the love they have for each other. Like the bright flame of a Yahrzeit candle, his words become a beacon of memory so that the children and grandchildren of survivors will never forget the atrocities that happened during the Holocaust. Filled with brutality and despair, this is also a story of poetry and strength, in which a brother and sister lose everything but each other. Nearly thirty years after the publication of her award-winning and bestselling The Devil's Arithmetic and Briar Rose, Yolen once again returns to World War II and captivates her readers with the authenticity and power of her words. Perfect for fans of Markus Zuzak's The Book Thief and Ruta Sepetys's Salt to the Sea.

The Bones of Time

The Bones of Time
Author: Liliane Richman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2016-04-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9780996635608

Bones of Time is a poignant memoir of fortitude, transformation, and miraculous reunion. Liliane Richman's story captures not only the zeitgeist, but also the individual quest for freedom and happiness in a world at war. It is also a story of Paris of the 1930s and 40s, wounded and broken, but still resilient and resplendent.

Between You and These Bones

Between You and These Bones
Author: F. D. Soul
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2019-05-14
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1524854271

From celebrated New Zealand poetess F.D. Soul comes her highly anticipated second collection of poetry, prose, illustrations, and wisdom. Her messages grapple with relationships: interpersonal relationships, her relationship with herself, and the relationship between poetry and the world. Unchaptered and raw, Between You and These Bones reads much like a memoir or meditation yet maintains all the musicality of poetry. “This book is a garden, a hymn, a forgiveness. A falling back in love. It is all the pieces of light you forgot you held, remembered.”

Descartes' Bones

Descartes' Bones
Author: Russell Shorto
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2009-08-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307275663

Sixteen years after René Descartes' death in Stockholm in 1650, a pious French ambassador exhumed the remains of the controversial philosopher to transport them back to Paris. Thus began a 350-year saga that saw Descartes' bones traverse a continent, passing between kings, philosophers, poets, and painters. But as Russell Shorto shows in this deeply engaging book, Descartes' bones also played a role in some of the most momentous episodes in history, which are also part of the philosopher's metaphorical remains: the birth of science, the rise of democracy, and the earliest debates between reason and faith. Descartes' Bones is a flesh-and-blood story about the battle between religion and rationalism that rages to this day. A New York Times Notable Book

Bones of the Master

Bones of the Master
Author: George Crane
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2001-05-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0553379089

In 1959 a young monk named Tsung Tsai (Ancestor Wisdom) escapes the Red Army troops that destroy his monastery, and flees alone three thousand miles across a China swept by chaos and famine. Knowing his fellow monks are dead, himself starving and hunted, he is sustained by his mission: to carry on the teachings of his Buddhist meditation master, who was too old to leave with his disciple. Nearly forty years later Tsung Tsai — now an old master himself — persuades his American neighbor, maverick poet George Crane, to travel with him back to his birthplace at the edge of the Gobi Desert. They are unlikely companions. Crane seeks freedom, adventure, sensation. Tsung Tsai is determined to find his master's grave and plant the seeds of a spiritual renewal in China. As their search culminates in a torturous climb to a remote mountain cave, it becomes clear that this seemingly quixotic quest may cost both men's lives.

Dem Dry Bones

Dem Dry Bones
Author: Luke A. Powery
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2012-12-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1451424396

In an age when the so-called prosperity gospel holds sway in many Christian communities or the good news of Christ is reduced to feel-good bromides, it would seem that death has little place in contemporary preaching. Embracing the vision of the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37 as a metaphor for preaching in the Spirit, acclaimed homiletician Luke Powery asserts that death is the context for all preaching. In fact, the Spirit leads preachers to the context of death each Sunday in order to proclaim a word of life that ultimately breathes hope into people's lives. Yet many preachers avoid death because they are at a loss of what to say about it and do not realize its vital connection to the substance of Christian hope. As a result the church is too often left with sermons that are fundamentally devoid of hope. Dem Dry Bones aims to remedy some of the theological and homiletical shortcomings in contemporary preaching by looking closely at the African American spirituals tradition. Through this study, Powery demonstrates how to preach in the Spirit so that proclaiming death becomes an avenue toward hope. In short: no death, no hope.

Breath for the Bones

Breath for the Bones
Author: Luci Shaw
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2009-08-31
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1418589187

“The double question we must always ask is,‘How does faith inform art?’ and ‘How can art animate faith?’” Imagination, appreciation of beauty, creativity: all of these qualities have been given to us by God. For the Christian artist, the drive to create something wonderful is also a means to glorify and better understand our Lord. Using excerpts from her own works as well as those of writers who have gone before her—Emily Dickinson, Annie Dillard, C.S. Lewis, and others—poet and writer Luci Shaw proves that symbolism and metaphor provide ways for humans to experience God in new and powerful ways. Shaw offers a rich and thought-provoking exploration of art, creativity, and faith. Believing that art emanates from God, she shows how imagination and spirituality “work in tandem, each feeding on and nourishing the other.” Faith informs art and art enhances faith. They both, for each other, are “breath for the bones.” Provocative, enlightening, and above all, inspiring, Breath for the Bones will help readers discover the artist within, and bring them further along the path to God Himself. Include s Discussion Questions and Writing Exercises

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
Author: Paul Reps
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Total Pages: 220
Release: 1998-09-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1462902987

"It has stayed with me for the last 30 years, a classic portraying Zen mind to our linear thinking." --Phil Jackson, Head Coach of the Chicago Bulls and author of Sacred Hoops Zen Flesh, Zen Bones offers a collection of accessible, primary Zen sources so that readers can contemplate the meaning of Zen for themselves. Within the pages, readers will find: 101 Zen Stories, a collection of tales that recount actual experiences of Chinese and Japanese Zen teachers over a period of more than five centuries The Gateless Gate, the famous thirteenth-century collection of Zen koans Ten Bulls, a twelfth century commentary on the stages of awareness leading to enlightenment Centering, a 4,000 year-old teaching from India that some consider to be the roots of Zen. When Zen Flesh, Zen Bones was published in 1957, it became an instant sensation with an entire generation of readers who were just beginning to experiment with Zen. Over the years it has inspired leading American Zen teachers, students, and practitioners. Its popularity is as high today as ever.