Mary Celeste is an iconic mystery - a perfectly seaworthy ship found wandering aimlessly at sea, her crew strangely and inexplicably missing. Paul Begg tells the story of the discovery of Mary Celeste and the people who vanished, and investigates over a century's worth of speculation and survivors' tales, searching for the facts behind one of the world's great mysteries.

The manger or Macy's? Americans might well wonder which is the real shrine of Christmas, as they take part each year in a mix of churchgoing, shopping, and family togetherness. But the history of Christmas cannot be summed up so easily as the commercialization of a sacred day. As Penne Restad reveals in this marvelous new book, it has always been an ambiguous meld of sacred thoughts and worldly actions-- as well as a fascinating reflection of our changing society.
In Christmas in America, Restad brilliantly captures the rise and transformation of our most universal national holiday. In colonial times, it was celebrated either as an utterly solemn or a wildly social event--if it was celebrated at all. Virginians hunted, danced, and feasted. City dwellers flooded the streets in raucous demonstrations. Puritan New Englanders denounced the whole affair. Restad shows that as times changed, Christmas changed--and grew in popularity. In the early 1800s, New York served as an epicenter of the newly emerging holiday, drawing on its roots as a Dutch colony (St. Nicholas was particularly popular in the Netherlands, even after the Reformation), and aided by such men as Washington Irving. In 1822, another New Yorker named Clement Clarke Moore penned a poem now known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," virtually inventing the modern Santa Claus. Well-to-do townspeople displayed a German novelty, the decorated fir tree, in their parlors; an enterprising printer discovered the money to be made from Christmas cards; and a hodgepodge of year-end celebrations began to coalesce around December 25 and the figure of Santa. The homecoming significance of the holiday increased with the Civil War, and by the end of the nineteenth century a full- fledged national holiday had materialized, forged out of borrowed and invented custom alike, and driven by a passion for gift-giving. In the twentieth century, Christmas seeped into every niche of our conscious and unconscious lives to become a festival of epic proportions. Indeed, Restad carries the story through to our own time, unwrapping the messages hidden inside countless movies, books, and television shows, revealing the inescapable presence--and ambiguous meaning--of Christmas in contemporary culture.
Filled with colorful detail and shining insight, Christmas in America reveals not only much about the emergence of the holiday, but also what our celebrations tell us about ourselves. From drunken revelry along colonial curbstones to family rituals around the tree, from Thomas Nast drawing the semiofficial portrait of St. Nick to the making of the film Home Alone, Restad's sparkling account offers much to amuse and ponder.

The ritual of rainmaking is one of half a dozen Japanese folk practices and festivals described in this book. The story of rainmaking ceremonies begins with personal experience and then draws on the work of Japanese folklorists to record significant local variations and to construct a general account of the history and purpose of the ceremony. Field research was conducted during study visits to Kyoto, to Tenri in Nara Prefecture and to Shiga Prefecture. The chapter order follows the year cycle, from New Year via early summer purificatory festivals and rainmaking ceremonial to the feast of Bon, which with New Year ceremonies divides the year. Alongside these community or public rites are described private or family rituals concerned with birth, marriage and death. The introductory chapter relates aspects of Japanese culture, myth and language to the constant features of folk practice recorded or extant in 1950s Japan. Originally published in 1963.

All that was left of Doctor Linda Hazzard's sanitorium was the foundation and the masonry incinerator that swelled from the ground like a huge grave marker. A perfect row of old firs and pines lined up like sentinels along the road. Every one of the trees marked the spot where the doctor had buried each of her victims. In 1911 two wealthy British heiresses, Claire, and Dora Williamson, arrived at an unfinished sanitorium in the forests of Olalla, Washington to undergo the revolutionary "fasting treatment" of Doctor Linda Burfield Hazzard. It was supposed to be a holiday for the two sisters, but within a month of arriving at what the locals called 'Starvation Heights', the women underwent brutal, evasive procedures and became emaciated shadows of their former selves. How did Hazzard persuade the sisters to undergo such monstrous treatments? And why, on Claire's deathbed, did Dora, near to death herself, still hold such an extreme belief in Hazzard's methods? In this chilling true story of deception and murder, Gregg Olsen brings us inside the disturbing world of Hazzard who would stop at nothing to achieve her dream of creating the most renowned sanatorium in the world - but ended up a convicted serial killer. A gripping and fascinating account of the most unusual and disturbing criminal cases in American history that will hook fans of The Five and The Devil in the White City. What readers are saying about Starvation Heights: "A fascinating turn-of-the-century story of medical malpractice and murder. If you liked The Alienist, you'll find Starvation Heights all the more gripping because this story is true." Michael Connelly "An engrossing and compelling look at a shocking crime in another era. Olsen's deft touch takes us back to the early 1900s so cleverly that reading Starvation Heights is akin to stepping into a time machine." Ann Rule "Even the most devoted true-crime reader will be shocked by the maddening and mind-boggling acts of horror that Gregg Olsen chronicles in this book. Olsen has done it again, giving readers a glimpse into a murderous duo that's so chilling, it will have your head spinning. I could not put this book down!" Aphrodite Jones, New York Times bestselling author "One of today's true-crime masters." Caitlin Rother, New York Times bestselling author "An account of real-life villainy that outdoes anything a novelist might concoct." Les Standiford, author of Meet You in Hell

They insist they are just a group of friends, yet they funnel millions of dollars through tax-free corporations. They claim to disdain politics, but congressmen of both parties describe them as the most influential religious organization in Washington. They say they are not Christians, but simply believers.

Behind the scenes at every National Prayer Breakfast since 1953 has been the Family, an elite network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. Their goal is "Jesus plus nothing." Their method is backroom diplomacy. The Family is the startling story of how their faith--part free-market fundamentalism, part imperial ambition--has come to be interwoven with the affairs of nations around the world.

People disappear without a trace. Captain Briggs, his crew, and his family vanished from the Canadian built Mary Celeste. Ben Bathurst walked around the horses harnessed to his coach - and was never seen again. People appear without explanation Kaspar Hauser arrived in Nuremberg as inexplicably as if he'd materialised from some unknown dimension. Researchers of the paranormal have investigated cases where thought-forms seem to have acquired quasi-physical properties. Madame Blavatsky claimed to have done it. There were times when Nikola Tesla, the brilliant electrical experimenter, seems to have lived in an alternative reality where mental images of his machines became solid to him. Tesla expert, Oliver Nichelson, put forward a theory connecting Tesla's awesomely strange apparatus at Wardenclyffe, Long Island, with the Tunguska explosion of 1908. Were similar strange forces responsible for moving the Barbados coffins around in their sealed vault?

Where do poltergeists, like the one that haunted Esther Cox in Amherst, Nova Scotia, get their inexplicable energy? When scores of reliable witnesses continue to report their sightings of UFOs, ghosts, crop circles, lake monsters, enormous cat-like beasts, Yeti, and Sasquatch, how can their observations be explained?

We live in an immeasurably strange universe, miraculously suspended in space and time: a universe that has room for the mysteries of the ancient British King Arthur, Merlin, and the Holy Grail; the Oak Island Money Pit in Canada; the undeciphered Glozel Alphabet, and the Priest's Treasure at Rennes-le-Chateau in France; Mermaids and Sea Monsters; the Kingdom of Prester John; the Riddle of the Pictish Stones at Meigle in Scotland; the Vampire of Croglin Grange; Zombies and Wer-beasts; the Devil's Footprints in Devonshire; the Green Children of Woolpit; Lost Cities and Sunken Islands; Pyramids and Stone Circles; Telepathy, Telekinesis, Teleportation, and Prophecy. The list is endless. The investigations fascinating.

The World's Greatest Unsolved Mysteries invites the reader to accompany Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe on their many intriguing investigations in Canada and worldwide and their years of research into the unexplained.

"Matthew Fox might well be the most creative, the most comprehensive, surely the most challenging religious-spiritual teacher in America."--Thomas Berry

"Rupert Sheldrake continues to chart a new course in our understanding of the non-local mind that connects all of us."--Deepak Chopra

Many people believe in angels, but few can define these enigmatic spirits. Now visionary theologian Matthew Fox and acclaimed biologist Rupert Sheldrake--pioneers in modern religious thinking and scientific theory--launch a groundbreaking exploration into the ancient concept of the angel and restore dignity, meaning, and joy to our time-honored belief in these heavenly beings.

Over the years, startling evidence has been uncovered, challenging established notions of the origins of life on Earth--evidence that suggests the existence of an advanced group of extraterrestrials who once inhabited our world. The first book of the revolutionary Earth Chronicles series offers indisputable documentary evidence of the existence of the mysterious planet Nibiru and tells why its astronauts came to Earth eons ago to fashion mankind in their image. The product of more than thirty years of meticulous research, The 12th Planet treats as fact, not myth, the tales of Creation, the Deluge, the Tower of Babel, and the Nefilim who married the daughters of man. By weaving together the biblical narrative with Sumerian and Babylonian clay-tablet texts, it challenges the established notions of the origins of Earth and mankind, and offers a compelling alternative history and prehistory of both.

How to Find Awe, Meaning, and Wonder in Everyday Life"One of the best spiritual books of 2020." -Spirituality&Practice.com Bestselling author and TEDx presenter Allen Klein returns to find and define awe. In his latest book, he shows readers how to escape the everyday ruts of life by opening their eyes to the awe and wonder around them. Exploring the human ability to be in awe. What does it mean to be awestruck? Or more simply, what is awe? Backed by the latest scientific research, Klein sets out to define awe and its effects on health and happiness. For example, over the past dozen years, or so, scientists have found, among other things, that awe: Connects us to others Lowers our stress levels Enhances positive emotions Increases our compassion Increases our creativity Plenty of reasons to be in awe. With a sprinkling of the spiritual and scientific, The Awe Factor takes readers on an exploration of a human phenomenon. From research to first-hand awe-inspiring stories, Klein reflects on feelings of awe, meaning and purpose. And with bonus awe-awakening tools, tips, and techniques, he helps readers become more aware of, and increase, the awe and wonder in their life. If you enjoyed books like Awe, In Awe, The Book of Delights, or The Book of Awesome, then you'll love The Awe Factor.

'A hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases.' BARACK OBAMA 'One of the most important books I've ever read - an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.' BILL GATES *#1 Sunday Times bestseller * New York Times bestseller * Observer 'best brainy book of the decade' * Irish Times bestseller * Guardian bestseller * audiobook bestseller * Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends - why the world's population is increasing; how many young women go to school; how many of us live in poverty - we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess journalists, Nobel laureates and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and a man who can make data sing, Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens, and reveals the ten instincts that distort our perspective. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world.

Discovering Quacks, Utopias, and Cemeteries: Modern Lessons from Historical Themes explores two enduring issues - our age-old pursuit of better lives and how the media impacts our choices. In this unique approach to social history, each chapter opens with essential questions asking the reader to consider these issues in historical and modern life. The histories of fake cures, imaginary and real utopias, cemeteries, tombstones, and scrapbooks are explored from ancient times through the transformations caused by the Industrial Revolution into the twentieth century. Historical images, excerpts from primary source documents, and activities adaptable to learners of all ages are included to illustrate the role of historical media. Quacks, Utopias, and Cemeteries, the third in the daily life series by Cynthia Resor, is an ideal book for history enthusiasts, especially social studies teachers, education or humanities professors, museum educators, and anyone wanting to know about the lives of average people in the past.

Charles Hapgood's classic 1966 book on ancient maps is back in print after 20 years. Hapgood produces concrete evidence of an advanced worldwide civilisation existing many thousands of years before ancient Egypt. He has found the evidence in many beautiful maps long known to scholars. Hapgood concluded that these ancient mapmakers were in some ways much more advanced in mapmaking than any people prior to the 18th century. It appears they mapped all the continents. The Americas were mapped thousands of years before Columbus. Antarctica was mapped when its coasts were free of ice. There is evidence that these people must have lived when the Ice Age had not yet ended in the Northern Hemisphere and when Alaska was still connected with Siberia by the Pleistocene, Ice Age 'land bridge'.

In Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America, the author of The Atlantis Encyclopedia turns his sextant towards this hemisphere. Here is a collection of the most controversial articles selected from seventy issues of the infamous Ancient American magazine. They range from the discovery of Roman relics in Arizona and California's Chinese treasure, to Viking rune-stones in Minnesota and Oklahoma and the mysterious religions of ancient Americans.

A UNIQUE INSIGHT INTO THE WORLD'S most mysterious manuscript. Since its creation in the first half of the 15th century, the Voynich Manuscript has fascinated and obsessed students of the esoteric, of magic and of alchemy, yet to date no one has managed to crack its code. It truly is one of a kind: the only book in existence that has been written in its particular language and alphabet - a language that no one can read. This magnificent edition presents stunning full-colour reproductions of every page of the Voynich Manuscript, along with helpful diagrams that show exactly how the folios are bound into this complex codex. Two introductory essays invite readers to interpret for themselves the clues found in the manuscript's strange and beautiful illustrations of plants, star constellations, enigmatic bathing women and cosmological diagrams. Dr Rafal T Prinke and Dr Rene Zandbergen also draw on the manuscript collections of eastern Europe, not normally accessible to English-speaking scholars, to offer the fullest explanation so far of the Voynich's incredible journey through history, while Dr Stephen Skinner explores the parallels to the Voynich Manuscript in the cryptography of Leonardo da Vinci and the Enochian angel language of John Dee.

How is public morality understood in the twenty-first century, and what effect does this have on legislation and social policy? Public Morality and the Culture Wars is a strictly non-polemical analysis of the intellectual and ideological conflicts at the heart of the 'culture wars'. Taking debates on human nature, sexuality, gender identity, abortion, censorship, and free speech, Bryan Fanning offers an accessible analysis of modern public morality, identifying a 'triple divide' between conservative, liberal and progressive viewpoints. A nuanced analysis of 'culture wars' now dividing Anglophone democracies is badly needed. Public Morality and the Culture Wars makes a vibrant and invigorating contribution to the debate, essential reading for scholars and students in the fields of social policy, law, politics, philosophy, sociology and social justice.

Great Wines and Great Writers are a Wonderful Blend"Guides to the wide world of wine are many but this is the first book on the market to pair books with wine by an author who is a preeminent expert on both." -Thriftbooks.com #1 Best Seller in Wine & Spirits Buying Guides A fact-filled, jargon free guide to wine, bursting with entertaining anecdotes, literary quotes and compelling humor that teaches you everything you always wanted to learn about wine but were too scared to ask. The pleasures of great wine and great writers. Under the careful guidance of his father, Patrick Alexander began drinking wine with his meals at the age of five. At the same age, encouraged by his mother, he began a lifelong love-affair with books. The twin pleasures of wine and writing remained his passion up to this day. He has raised his own children in many of the world's great wine growing regions, from Bordeaux and Piedmont in Europe to the Santa Cruz mountains of California while researching and writing his definitive guide to the novels of Marcel Proust. History of wine and some of the best wines. For several years, Patrick has been teaching a sold-out wine appreciation class at the nation's No.1 independent bookstore, Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida. The Booklovers' Guide to Wine is based on this very successful class and blends Patrick's passion for the culture and history of wine and his love of literature for the world's great writers. A literary twist on traditional food and wine pairings, this book explores how great wines and great writers can be combined to enhance the enjoyment of both. The book describes the history of wine from the time of Noah to the birth of two-buck Chuck. If you are a fan of wine books such as Cork Dork, Wine Folly, Wine Simple, or The Wine Bible, and appreciate great literature, you will love The Booklovers' Guide to Wine.

Well-being, happiness and quality of life are now established objects of social and medical research. Does this science produce knowledge that is properly about well-being? What sort of well-being? The definition and measurement of these objects rest on assumptions that are partly normative, partly empirical and partly pragmatic, producing a great diversity of definitions depending on the project and the discipline. This book, written from the perspective of philosophy of science, formulates principles for the responsible production and interpretation of this diverse knowledge. Traditionally, philosophers' goal has been a single concept of well-being and a single theory about what it consists in. But for science this goal is both unlikely and unnecessary. Instead the promise and authority of the science depends on it focusing on the well-being of specific kinds of people in specific contexts. Skeptical arguments notwithstanding, this contexual well-being can be measured in a valid and credible way - but only if scientists broaden their methods to make room for normative considerations and address publicly and inclusively the value-based conflicts that inevitably arise when a measure of well-being is adopted. The science of well-being can be normative, empirical and objective all at once, provided that we line up values to science and science to values.

In recent decades, as women entered the US workforce in increasing numbers, they faced the conundrum of how to maintain breastfeeding and hold down full-time jobs. In 2010, the Lactation at Work Law (an amendment to the US Fair Labor Standards Act) mandated accommodations for lactating women. This book examines the federal law and its state-level equivalent in Indiana, drawing on two waves of interviews with human resource personnel, supervising managers, and lactating workers. In many ways, this simple law - requiring break time and privacy for pumping - is a success story. Through advocacy by allies, education of managers, and employee initiative, many organizations created compliant accommodations. This book shows legal scholars how a successful civil rights law creates effective change; helps labor activists and management personnel understand how to approach new accommodations; and enables workers to understand the possibilities for amelioration of workplace problems through internal negotiations and legal reforms.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities promotes ability equality, but this is not experienced in national laws. Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK and the US all have one thing in common: regulatory frameworks which treat workers with psychosocial disabilities less favorably than workers with either physical or sensory disabilities. Ableism at Work is a comprehensive and comparative legal, practical and theoretical analysis of workplace inequalities experienced by workers with psychosocial disabilities. Whether it be denying anti-discrimination protection to people with episodic disabilities, addictions or other psychological impairments, failing to make reasonable accommodations/adjustments for workers with psychosocial disabilities, or denying them workers' compensation or occupational health and safety protections, regulatory interventions imbed inequalities. Ableism, sanism and prejudice are expressly stated in laws, reflected in judgments, and perpetuated by workplace practices and this book enables advocates, policy makers and lawmakers to understand the wider context in which systems discriminate workers with psychosocial disabilities.

Why does one smoker die of lung cancer but another live to 100? The answer is 'The Hidden Half' - those random, unknowable variables that mess up our attempts to comprehend the world. We humans are very clever creatures - but we're idiots about how clever we really are. In this entertaining and ingenious book, Blastland reveals how in our quest to make the world more understandable, we lose sight of how unexplainable it often is. The result - from GDP figures to medicine - is that experts know a lot less than they think. Filled with compelling stories from economics, genetics, business, and science, The Hidden Half is a warning that an explanation which works in one arena may not work in another. Entertaining and provocative, it will change how you view the world.

In this astonishing book, celebrated reporter and New York Times — bestselling author Jim Marrs painstakingly explores the world's most closely guarded secrets, exposing clandestine cabals and the power they have wielded throughout time.  Defiantly rooting out the truth, he unearths starting evidence that the real movers and shakers covertly collude to start and stop wars, manipulate stock markets and interest rates, maintain class distinctions, and even censor the six o'clock news.  And they do all this under the mindful auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the CIA, and even the Vatican.

Drawing on historical evidence and his own impeccable research, Mars carefully traces the mysteries that connect these modern-day conspiracies to humankind's prehistory.  The eye-opening result is an extraordinary synthesis of historical information — much of it long hidden from the public — that sheds light on the people and organizations that rule our lives.

Disturbing, provocative, and utterly compelling, Rule by Secrecy offers a singular worldview that may explain who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.