The story of Artemisia, formidable queen of the Greek city-state of Halicarnassus, that counters longstanding misconceptions about women’s roles in antiquityHerodotus’s listeners never doubted that Artemisia I of Caria had commanded a fleet in the naval Battle of Salamis. After all, she was the queen of the Greek city-state of Halicarnassus and a military ally of Persia, despite her Greek origins. But for later historians, Artemisia’s exploits are almost inconceiva...

From celebrated Belgian author Geneviève Damas, a modern fable about friendship, self-determination, and the power of words.Illiterate, isolated, and held at arm's length by a bitter father, François Sorrente has spent his seventeen years within narrow confines. By day he tends the family farm's pigs; by night he manages the household chores. Still, François can't help but wonder about the wider world and his place in it. Who was his mother, who he remembers not at all? And why is t...

Small Lives (Vies minuscules), Pierre Michon’s first novel, won the Prix France Culture. Michon explains that he wrote it "to save my own skin. I felt in my body that my life was turning around. This book born in an aura of inexpressible joy and catharsis rescued me more effectively than my aborted analysis." Le Monde calls it "his chef d’oeuvre. A bolt of lightening." In Small Lives, Michon paints portraits of eight individuals, whose stories span two c...

Philosophical discussions on the ways that death makes life meaningful and sacred• Reveals how being conscious of death gives our fate its full meaning, inviting the reader to contemplate life in the light of their own death• Examines the author’s experience of ancestor worship in his native China and the beliefs that underlie it• Explains how death is a transition in a longer living process not visible from the modern “black and white” view of life and death

Covering almost 8 percent of the earth's terrain, lichens are living beings which are familiar to everyone, known to no one. They are one of those organisms that seem to offer nothing to hold our gaze. But the more time we spend with lichens, the more they reveal their beauty, their mysteries and their strange power of attraction. Part-algae and part-fungus, lichens call into question our customary ways of classifying forms of life, and allow us to conceive of an ecology that is no longer ...

Informed by a provocative exhibition at the Louvre curated by the author, The Severed Head unpacks artistic representations of severed heads from the Paleolithic period to the present. Surveying paintings, sculptures, and drawings, Julia Kristeva turns her famed critical eye to a study of the head as symbol and metaphor, as religious object and physical fact, further developing a critical theme in her work—the power of horror—and the potential for the face to provide an experience...

From the acclaimed author of Blue, a beautifully illustrated history of yellow from antiquity to the presentIn this richly illustrated book, Michel Pastoureau—a renowned authority on the history of color and the author of celebrated volumes on blue, black, green, and red—now traces the visual, social, and cultural history of yellow. Focusing on European societies, with comparisons from East Asia, India, Africa, and South America, Yellow tells the ...

A #1 bestseller in France, Second Star is an inspiring series of lyrical meditations on life's smallest moments, from peeling a clementine, drinking a cold mojito, to washing your windowsA still life in motion, Second Star "consumes the present" with a patient curiosity, asking us to "put off tomorrow" and join Philippe Delerm in tasting, touching, listening, and noticing.Whether biting into a bitter turnip or savoring a summer evening in ...

Marcel Proust once wrote, “There is no longer anybody, not even myself, since I cannot leave my bed, who will go along the Rue du Repos to visit the little Jewish cemetery where my grandfather, following a custom that he never understood, went for so many years to lay a stone on his parents’ grave.” Investigating the origin and significance of this statement, Antoine Compagnon offers new insight into the great author’s underappreciated Jewish side.Compagnon traces Proust’s ties to ...

The story of Artemisia, formidable queen of the Greek city-state of Halicarnassus, that counters longstanding misconceptions about women's roles in antiquityHerodotus's listeners never doubted that Artemisia I of Caria had commanded a fleet in the naval Battle of Salamis. After all, she was the queen of the Greek city-state of Halicarnassus and a military ally of Persia, despite her Greek origins. But for later historians, Artemisia's exploits are almost inconceiva...

Mayonnaise "takes" when a series of liquids form a semisolid consistency. Eggs, a liquid, become solid as they are heated, whereas, under the same conditions, solids melt. When meat is roasted, its surface browns and it acquires taste and texture. What accounts for these extraordinary transformations?The answer: chemistry and physics. With his trademark eloquence and wit, Hervé This launches a wry investigation into the chemical art of cooking. Unraveling the science behind common ...

From the acclaimed author of Blue and other color histories, the beautifully illustrated story of pink, from the first ancient pigments to BarbiePink has such powerful associations today that it’s hard to imagine the color could ever have meant anything different. But it’s only since the introduction of the Barbie doll in 1959 that pink has become decisively feminized. Indeed, in the eighteenth century, pink was frequently masculine, and the color has sign...