Much as an ancient hymnist carries a familiar subject into new directions of song, the contributors to "A Californian Hymn to Homer" draw upon Homeric scholarship as inspiration for pursuing new ways of looking at texts, both within the Homeric tradition and outside it. This set of seven original essays, accompanied by a new translation of the Homeric "Hymn to Apollo," considers topics that transcend traditional generic distinctions between epic and lyric, choral and individual, performed and literary. Treating subjects ranging from Aeschylus' reception of Homeric anger to the representation of mantic performance within Early Islamic texts, the collection presents a selection of imaginative critical work done on the West Coast by scholars of antiquity.

This book is on the Inquisition, particularly the Spanish Inquisition as opposed to the Roman Inquisition in the years following the Spanish Reconquista. Walsh delves into the Inquisition, its practice, purpose, history and personalities. The Inquisition was not a bloodthirsty BDSM fest gone wild. It was a reasoned response to infiltration of the Catholic Church by enemies of the Christian Faith who pretended to be Christians in order to pervert worship, doctrine and weaken Christendom. Anyone wishing to understand the Inquisition would to well to read Characters and learn of the heroes of the Faith, Cardinal Ximenes, Torquemada, and others who fought the good fight for Jesus Christ and his Church, After reading Characters, you will never look at the Inquisition in the same way.