This gorgeous picture book biography, according to Kirkus Reviews in a starred review, is "a cheerful introduction not only to Wu Daozi, but to the power of inspiration." Who wants to learn calligraphy when your brush is meant for so much more? Wu Daozi (689-758), known as China's greatest painter and alive during the T'ang Dynasty, is the subject of this stunning picture book. When an old monk attempts to teach young Daozi about the ancient art of calligraphy, his brush doesn't want to cooperate. Instead of characters, Daozi's brush drips dancing peonies and flying Buddhas! Soon others are admiring his unbelievable creations on walls around the city, and one day his art comes to life! Little has been written about Daozi, but Look and So masterfully introduce the artist to children.

Few religious innovations have shaped Chinese history like the emergence of spirit-writing during the Song dynasty. From a divinatory technique it evolved into a complex ritual practice used to transmit messages and revelations from the Gods. This resulted in the production of countless religious scriptures that now form an essential corpus, widely venerated and recited to this day, that is still largely untapped by research. Using historical and ethnographic approaches, this volume for the first time offers a comprehensive overview of the history of spirit-writing, examining its evolution over a millennium, the practices and technologies used, and the communities involved.

Greek and Roman tales are more popular and influential than ever and can be seen in all aspects of our modern culture. "Brush up Your Mythology! takes an irreverent look at those gods and spirits whose myths and legends have become commonplace today. Chaos, Mother Earth, and Cupid appear, along with the origins of the days of the week and an alphabetical listing of all the important gods and goddesses. Black-and-white illustrations further enliven this terrific reference book.

During a dire battle against the fearsome Skinners, Daine and her mage teacher Numair are swept into the Divine Realms. Though happy to be alive, they are not where they want to be. They are desperately needed back home, where their old enemy, Ozorne, and his army of strange creatures are waging war against Tortall. Trapped in the mystical realms Daine discovers her mysterious parentage. And as these secrets of her past are revealed so is the treacherous way back to Tortall. So they embark on an extraordinary journey home, where the fate of all Tortall rests with Daine and her wild magic.

"Leave nothing on earth; bring nothing back but memories." These were Sirah's instructions when she left Nimbus to explore Earth; now her Earth body yearns for the love she found with Wynn. Their child must live on Earth; the wind will carry her whispers to him...

For two millennia, Chinese society has been producing divine revelations on an unparalleled scale, in multifarious genres and formats. This book is the first comprehensive attempt at accounting for the processes of such production. It builds a typology of the various ritual techniques used to make gods present and allow them to speak or write, and it follows the historical development of these types and the revealed teachings they made possible. Within the large array of visionary, mediumistic, and mystical techniques, Vincent Goossaert devotes the bulk of his analysis to spirit-writing, a family of rites that appeared around the eleventh century and gradually came to account for the largest numbers of books and tracts ascribed to the gods. In doing so, he shows that the practice of spirit-writing must be placed within the framework of techniques used by ritual specialists to control human communications with gods and spirits for healing, divining, and self-divinization, among other purposes. Making the Gods Speak thus offers a ritual-centered framework to study revelation in Chinese cultural history and comparatively with the revelatory practices of other religious traditions.

A handful of humans and a multitude of robots create a new society on an abandoned Earth in this novel by the Nebula Award–winning author of Way Station. What if you woke up one morning on Earth . . . and no one else was there? That is the reality that greeted a handful of humans, including Jason Whitney, his wife Martha, and the remnants of a tribe of Native Americans in the year 2135. Their inexplicable abandonment had unexpected benefits: the eventual development of mental telepathy and other extrasensory powers, inner peace, and best of all, near-immortality. Now, five thousand years later, most of the remaining humans live a tranquil, pastoral life, leaving technological and religious exploration to the masses of robot servants who no longer have humans to serve. But the unexpected reappearance of Jason’s brother, who had teleported to the stars many years before, threatens to change everything yet again—for John Whitney is the bearer of startling information about where Earth’s population went and why—and the most disturbing news of all: They may finally be coming home again. Nominated for the Hugo Award when it first appeared in print more than forty years ago, Clifford D. Simak’s brilliant and thought-provoking A Choice of Gods has lost nothing of its power to astonish and intrigue. A masterwork of speculative fiction, intelligent and ingenious, it is classic Simak, standing tall among the very best science fiction that has ever been written.