Just as geographies of race, gender, class and sexuality have drawn attention to how complex power relations in society are spatialised, so geographies of illness and impairment offer a deeper understanding of the world. In recent years geographers have increasingly engaged with both the theoretical debates surrounding ill or impaired bodies, and also the lived realities of ill/impaired experience.
Mind and Body Spaces highlights new international research (from Britain, USA, Canada, Australia) on bodily impairment, mental health and disabling social worlds. Its fusion of geographical analyses provide a commentary on a range of different spatial 'settings', including the nation, urban and rural spaces, work spaces, the 'caring' institution, the street and the home, in which different minds and bodies are always located.
The contributors discuss varied issues concerning physical impairment and mental health, ranging from historical conceptions of the body and behaviour to contemporary political activism. This range of concerns also includes matters of identity and employment, accessible housing, parenthood and child carers, psychiatric medication use, masculinity, sexuality, autobiography, social exclusion and inclusion. in a deliberate attempt to extend conventional geographical research concerning disability, these chapters build into a collection which clearly illustrates the complex interconnections between mind/body states and wider socio-cultural, economic, political and medical environments. The bringing together of mind and body, and of illness and impairment, signals an attempt to destabilise academic traditions which have kept these entities apart, and also to invigorate debate about diverse geographies of ableism.

Mind and Body Spaces highlights new international research from Britain, USA, Canada and Australia, on bodily impairment, mental health and disabled peoples social worlds. The contributors discuss a variety of current issues including:
* historical conceptions of the body and behaviour
* contemporary political activism
* matters of identity and employment
* accessible housing
* parenthood and child carers
* psychiatric medication use
* masculinity and sexuality
* autobiography
* social exclusion and inclusion.
The contributors are: Hester Parr, Ruth Butler, Rob Imrie, Michael L. Dorn, Deborah Carter Park, John Radford, Brendan Gleeson, Isabel Dyck, Edward Hall, Pamela Moss, Gill Valentine, Christine Milligan, Flora Gathorne-Hardy, Jane Stables, Fiona Smith and Vera Chouinard.

The National Gallery's collection of nineteenth-century sculpture is dominated by thirty-seven works by Auguste Rodin, among them "The Kiss," and Honore Daumier's celebrated portrait busts. These works, as well as sculptures by Antoine-Louis Barye, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Paul Gauguin, and Theodore Gericault, are examined in unprecedented depth, shedding new light on many issues of scholarship. An essay about Rodin and Mrs. John W. Simpson, the artist's most important American patron, and a selection of letters between the Simpsons and Rodin chronicle this artist-patron relationship. Works by American sculptors of the period--Bela Lyon Pratt, William Rimmer, Augustus Saint- Gaudens, and Henry Merwin Shrady--are also included here.

Echoes from the Hills of Idaho describes humorous, tragic and folksy memories of Ruth, a girl who lived the first few years of her life on a thousand acre dry farm. The farm was near the Grand Teton Range of the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone Park was only a few miles away. Grandeur, beauty and love surrounded her and were implanted in her soul. Ruth also lived in several other western states as a child where experiencing different cultures, lifestyles and new adventures gave her a variety of things to write about. Her heartfelt stories are memoirs of growing up during the twenties and thirties. Ruth is an excellent storyteller and her unique style captivates readers of all ages.