Emphasizing personal style, Joan Barzilay Freund’s Defining Style is a freeing, inspiring and extremely innovative look at interior design.
Emphasizing personal style, Joan Barzilay Freund’s Defining Style is a freeing, inspiring and extremely innovative look at interior design.
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With guest appearances from the cast of “The Good Place,” this is a lively audio production for thoughtful readers interested in moral dilemmas.
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For your heroine Recently, much attention has been paid to the mythical heroes of the ancient world. Their representations have been primarily masculine, and if you read the ancient literature, it’s easy to see why. The timeless tales of heroes were created by men for the enjoyment of men. Women, for the most part, played minor roles.

With Women of Mythology by Kay Retzlaff, we see, at last, ancient myth from a feminine perspective women as doers. From the no-nonsense ferocity of the Amazon queen, Myrine, who captured Atlantis, to the exploits of Chinese General Mulan, women arise from myth in much the same way as their male counterparts.

Illustrated with exquisite full-color reproductions of famous depictions of art, Women of Mythology takes readers, young and old alike, on an inspiring journey of women as seen through the eye of the ages.

For your heroine Recently, much attention has been paid to the mythical heroes of the ancient world. Their representations have been primarily masculine, and if you read the ancient literature, it's easy to see why. The timeless tales of heroes were created by men for…
After 20 years of research, Jyoti Thottam shares the immersive and unlikely story of a group of nuns from Kentucky who opened a hospital in India in 1947.
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The hard work of making a living The unifying theme for this month’s column is work, but the term is broadly defined. A lot of choice, opportunity, conflict, change, and just plain worry can fit under the heading of making a living. We’ll feature a book on the role of office romances in the 1990s; one on business successes on the Internet; and another on perhaps the biggest workplace pressure-cooker in the capitalist system: the rooms, floors, pits, and exchanges where stocks, bonds, and every imaginable financial instrument is traded.

A fourth book is about how we work, but it covers much broader ground than that. It’s about how we live and the impact of the lack of permanence on our lives. It’s really not a new book at all, but it is a new and interesting publishing idea. Here it is in a nutshell: take a book published 30 years ago that was forward-looking and amazingly prescient. Have the authors write a new forward and new chapter introductions. The title explains the subject matter, and like much else in this intriguing book it reads like it could have been written yesterday, rather than in 1968, when it was actually penned. It’s called The Temporary Society: What Is Happening to Business and Family Life in America Under the Impact of Accelerating Change, by Warren Bennis and Philip Slater.

If nothing else, the re-release of this book proves the value of books that gaze into the future. People in business (or those just looking out for their own careers) have a big stake in anticipating economic and social trends. Those who get in early on seismic changes in technology and social attitudes can often reap huge rewards. Of course, not all predictive tomes are as on-target as this one (which is probably why they aren’t being re-released). But predicting the future is a preoccupation of many writers, and even if all else fails, such books are usually fun to read.

Warren Bennis, an author and a professor of business administration at the University of Southern California, and Philip Slater, an author and former professor of sociology at Brandeis University, were on the money about two mega-trends that have convulsed American business and society. They are the growing impermanence of employment relationships and the democratization of the business and political world. They even wrote this 30 years ago: . . . there is considerable evidence that autocracy is beginning to decay in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe. It took a while, but how’s that for spotting a trend? Why is democracy breaking out in the world and in the workplace? The authors posit that in a world where change becomes the only constant, bureaucracy and autocracy break down. In 1968 they wrote: . . . democracy in industry is not an idealistic conception but a hard necessity in those areas in which change is ever-present and in which creative scientific enterprise must be nourished. For democracy is the only system of organization that is compatible with perpetual change. Slater makes the interesting case that the American family is uniquely suited for adapting to change. Where parents might find in their growing children a simple lack of respect for their elders, Slater sees a silver lining. He says young people’s general lack of commitment to the status quo and their own long-standing heritage help them in a world of technological and social change. Fewer people get tied to the past and rendered unable to go with the flow. Meanwhile, Bennis readily concedes in a forward to the final chapter that the authors didn’t get everything right 30 years ago. He says they came up short on discussing the shadowy side of change, including the human cost in sense of security and sense of worth. Nor did they foresee the problems of the underclass or predict the huge role women now play in the economy and the workplace.

Neal Lipschutz is managing editor of Dow Jones News Service.

The hard work of making a living The unifying theme for this month's column is work, but the term is broadly defined. A lot of choice, opportunity, conflict, change, and just plain worry can fit under the heading of making a living. We'll feature a…

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Though it will probably be shelved in the True Crime section, Disco Bloodbath is only ostensibly about ultrahip New York party promoter Michael Alig’s 1996 co-murder and dismemberment of his drug dealer. The gruesome act and Alig’s subsequent imprisonment bookends what is really more of a fascinating memoir by St. James, an Alig friend/foe and well-known gadfly on the city’s predominately homosexual nightclub circuit.

Chronicling the scene and all its excesses between the demise of Warhol and the rise of the Club Kids, St. James is the catty tour guide to a Felliniesque netherworld. In it, days are spent deciding which outrageous way to dress or dye your hair for the evening’s activities, Special K is a designer drug and not a breakfast cereal, and the after-party entertainment just might include a middle-aged drag queen pulling fully lit Christmas bulbs out of his (or her) anus. St. James is the epitome of the literary convention known as the unreliable narrator. His recollections (amazing that he even has them, since he admits to being drugged up during much of the period) are filled with subjectivity, petty and pithy personality shredding, and yes a flamboyant queenly bitchiness accentuated by the hefty usage of bold, italic, and all-caps typefaces. But rather than off-putting, this is actually the book’s biggest strength, as St. James’s inimitable voice in full Diva mode rings through loud and clear even if it is a bit shrill at times.

Along the way he introduces many true-life and pathetic (but unforgettable) characters, happy when they’ve schmoozed successfully or gotten a mention in The Village Voice, but desolate when their supply of coke and the latest boy toy have run out, sometimes simultaneously.

So while the title might bring to mind a bad ’70s drive-in flick and no literal carnage takes place on the dance floor populated by has-beens, wannabes, and never-wases, Disco Bloodbath is a journey into a land of strange creatures with bizarre manners. Hmm, maybe they could also put a few copies in the Science Fiction section.

Bob Ruggiero is a freelance entertainment journalist based in Houston.

Though it will probably be shelved in the True Crime section, Disco Bloodbath is only ostensibly about ultrahip New York party promoter Michael Alig's 1996 co-murder and dismemberment of his drug dealer. The gruesome act and Alig's subsequent imprisonment bookends what is really more of…

Vagina Obscura is impressive in its scope and thrilling in the hope it offers to those whose bodies have been overlooked by the medical establishment.
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The legacy of the ancient Greeks is so overwhelming in so many areas democracy, literature, philosophy, science, mathematics, mythology, drama, art, the Olympic games it is easy to idealize them. As Charles Freeman writes, A popular image of Athens has survived in which the marble is always shining, the streets are clean, and there is a lot of time for passionate philosophical discussions about art, theater, and the meaning of life. But Freeman is keenly aware of the human reality behind the reputation and the paradoxes that accompanied the towering accomplishments. His magnificent The Greek Achievement: The Foundation of the Western World offers the general reader an excellent introduction to the subject. The author uses the best of recent scholarship and excerpts from the works of many classic sources such as Homer, Plato, Aeschylus, and Sappho, in a fast-paced narrative that covers almost 2,000 years of cultural, diplomatic, and military history.

Greek society had a rich spiritual tradition that involved a complex mythology. For example, It was typical for a new city to find a protecting god, Athena at Athens, Apollo in Corinth, for instance, and sacred areas, both inside and outside of the city were set aside for temples . . . in which to worship them. After her victory in the Persian wars, for 75 years Athens became the most important force in the Greek world. Democracy was sustained by empire; drama was an essential part of democratic participation, philosophy fostered by the experience of intense debate within a city setting. The city’s pride was enhanced by the magnificent building program on the Acropolis. But Freeman notes: Athens’ democracy depended on slavery and the fruits of empire. Democratic government did not necessarily mean benign government. The Athenian assembly could order the massacre of the entire male population of another Greek island and the enslavement of its women and children. Women were segregated and marginalized in almost every area.

Freeman explains that until recently we knew virtually nothing about the Greeks as farmers. But Ninety percent of Greeks made their living on the land and it was their surpluses which underpinned city life. He discusses the close relationship between town and country. There is no sense of an urban elite who use the countryside primarily as a leisure source and look down on the more ignorant country dweller. Such an idea comes only in Hellenistic times when poems about the countryside are written by urban poets who clearly see the countryside as something to enjoy or use as a backdrop to tales of love and seduction in shady groves. There is a fascinating discussion of the intense interest in the place of the hero that began in the eighth century. Who was the hero? How limited were his powers? Alongside heroic behavior comes the idealization of the heroic male body. The search for perfection in the human form was to prove one of the driving forces of Greek art. Homer’s epics are not concerned only with glorifying the hero. The greatness of the Iliad and Odyssey as literature lies arguably in the way they illustrate the difficulties inherent in the heroic role.

The greatest glory for the hero comes from activities which court death and yet death brings nothing but a shadowy existence in the underworld. Here is the ultimate and inexplicable human tragedy. This rich overview points out the flaw of the Greek political system was that it never developed a theory of human rights. Rights and duties were assigned not on a universal basis but on the grounds of status and sex. The author also notes that a major point to remember is the resilience of the Greek culture. As he surveys the Greeks from 1550 B.

C. to A.

D. 600, from Mycenae to the Byzantine Empire, their influence spreads to other lands, other cultures.

The legacy of the ancient Greeks is so overwhelming in so many areas democracy, literature, philosophy, science, mathematics, mythology, drama, art, the Olympic games it is easy to idealize them. As Charles Freeman writes, A popular image of Athens has survived in which the marble…

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For pilgrims and seekers Over the centuries Christians have considered Rome almost as sacred as Jerusalem. Nothing proves this better than a stunning new book entitled Pilgrimage: A Chronicle of Christianity Through the Churches of Rome. The book unites a respectful but nicely gossipy text by June Hager, who has been writing about the churches of Rome for 15 years, with hundreds of beautiful photos by Grzegorz Galazka, who is one of the official papal photographers. All of the requisite stops on the tour are here, of course the Sistine ceiling, the towering dome of Saint Peter’s. But you encounter more than the top ten tourist sights. From Filippino Lippi’s amazing frescoes in Rome’s only Gothic church, S. Maria Sopra Minerva, to the S. Andrea della Valle’s Barberini Chapel, where Puccini set the first act of Tosca, the tour rambles engagingly from one unexpected stop to the next.

Pilgrimage will make you yearn to go to Rome, and you will need a guidebook worthy of your new ambition. Fortunately Fodor’s has anticipated your every wish with a new full-color guide in their Thematic Itineraries series, Holy Rome: Exploring the Eternal City: A Millennium Guide to the Christian Sights ($21, 0679004548).

Handy cross-referencing allows you to move easily between essays and site maps. Sidebars provide useful historical and cultural information. Calendars give schedules of millennial celebrations. More than 200 photos show an up-to-date Rome, after the current restorations of many monuments. Where is the only evidence of an Arian cult in the whole of Rome? Which church claims to have the chalice from which St. John drank poison? What are the best times to visit the most popular sites? The answers are all here.

Before you go, you may want to read up on Christianity and other beliefs in the newest contribution to Merriam-Webster’s lineup of world-class reference books the fat, gorgeous Encyclopedia of World Religions ($49.95, 0877790442). These 1,181 pages literally range from the African Methodist Episcopal Church to Zen, with stopovers in between for Halloween and the Qabbalah. You will find the dietary restrictions of the Jains and the Sermon on the Mount, Joan of Arc and the apocryphal Pope Joan, the concept of Limbo and a biography of spiritualist Madame Blavatsky. Whether you seek information on the Twelve Tribes of Israel or the Five Pillars of Islam, on Odin or Billy Graham, this impressive, exhaustive work will provide the answer.

For pilgrims and seekers Over the centuries Christians have considered Rome almost as sacred as Jerusalem. Nothing proves this better than a stunning new book entitled Pilgrimage: A Chronicle of Christianity Through the Churches of Rome. The book unites a respectful but nicely gossipy text…

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Ironic, isn’t it, that bookstores and libraries, where books and readers most often meet, are rarely the subjects of books themselves? One can find a few works of fiction in which bookstores play a role (try 84 Charing Cross Road), or others set in or around libraries (Dewey Death and Dewey Decimated are two of my favorite titles, and Deborah Adams’s All the Crazy Winters is set in a small public library in Tennessee). But books about bookstores and libraries are all too rare, especially books written for the general reading public.

Here’s one book on libraries that fills the bill: Fred Lerner’s The Story of Libraries, which chronicles the development of libraries from ancient Mesopotamia and Assyria to modern Europe and North America, from the sacred library of Ramses II to the computerized libraries of today and the digital libraries of tomorrow. The author, a librarian for over 30 years, holds degrees in history and library science from Columbia University.

True to its title, this is a book of stories: of the founding, the glory, and the slow death of the Alexandrian Library (four thousand bath houses of Alexandria were said to have been heated for six months with the papyrus scrolls of that great library); of how the Rule of St. Benedict helped keep libraries alive during the Dark Ages; of a Chinese bibliophile of the 15th century who wrote eloquently of the love of books; of how Lorenzo the Magnificent, the uncrowned prince of Florence, set up a lending library for Florentine humanists; of the library careers of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Casanova (yes, the Casanova), and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; of why Lenin and his wife were such strong believers in the value of libraries; of how a young man named Melvil Dewey organized all knowledge by counting to ten.

In all cultures and all ages libraries have played a vital role, albeit in widely different ways. The tablet and scroll libraries of the ancient worlds, East and West, were often monuments to royalty and, like Shelley’s Ozymandias, king of kings, followed their leaders into dust and sand. Some, like the libraries of Alexandria and Pergamon, were repositories of culture and centers of learning. After the fall of Rome, and with it the libraries of the Caesars, monastic libraries, chains and all, became the lanterns of the Dark Ages. Private libraries sprang up across China centuries before Gutenberg; Chinese woodblock printing could produce a thousand copies of a book in a day. With the mass production of books in Europe, the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance and to libraries to which the general public, stirred by heady democratic notions, demanded access. Public libraries as we know them, libraries for the people, had to wait until the 20th century before coming to fruition, mainly in our own country.

If the past is prologue, then the library of the future will be an extension of the library of the late 20th century that has seen more changes than in the previous 40 centuries. In an electronic age, will the public library have a future at all? To survive, the author believes, the library will need to hold on to traditional functions such as cataloging and reading guidance both badly needed in a world awash in raw information while continuing to expand access to information in its manifold formats. This shift may parallel that experienced by libraries that made the change from papyrus and parchment to the product of movable type. The Story of Libraries provides a greater appreciation of that long journey of the world’s libraries over the centuries.

Edwin S. Gleaves is the State Librarian and Archivist of Tennessee.

Ironic, isn't it, that bookstores and libraries, where books and readers most often meet, are rarely the subjects of books themselves? One can find a few works of fiction in which bookstores play a role (try 84 Charing Cross Road), or others set in or…

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