A medieval mystery featuring disgraced knight Crispin Guest London, 1388. When the mythical Stone of Destiny disappears from the throne of England during mass in Westminster Abbey, the populace takes it as a sign to side with King Richard II’s rebellious barons. The last thing the king needs is for his authority to be put in question, especially after his army suffers a crushing defeat against a Scottish uprising. Desperate, Richard calls in Crispin Guest to find the missing stone. And to ensure that he will do the deed, the king imprisons Jack Tucker and orders Crispin to find the stone before Parliament convenes in three days' time - or Jack will hang for treason.

"Finding silence amidst restlessness is what makes creative life possible-and death comprehensible. But how do we find-more importantly, how do we "understand"-silence while immersed in the chattering of the digital age? Have we forgotten how to listen? Are we less prepared than ever for the ultimate silence that awaits us all? Mark C. Taylor's new book is a philosophy of silence for our nervous, buzzing present, a timely work for a world where noise is a means of distraction, domination, and control. Here Taylor asks the reader to pause long enough to hear what is not said, and to attend to what remains unsayable. But in his account, our way to "hearing" silence is to "see" it: Taylor explores variations of silence by considering the work of leading modem and postmodern visual artists, from Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt to James Turrell and Anish Kapoor. Drawing also on the insights of philosophers, theologians, writers, and composers, he weaves a rich narrative modeled on the Stations of the Cross. "We come from and return to silence; in between, silence is the gap, hesitation, interval that allows thoughts to form and words to emerge," he writes. His chapter titles suggest our positions toward silence--or rather, our pre-positions: Without. Before. From. Beyond. Against. Within. Around. Between. Toward. With. In. Recasting Hegel's phenomenology of spirit and Kierkegaard's stages on life's way, Taylor translates the traditional "Via Dolorosa" into a Nietzschean "Via Jubilosa" that affirms silence in the midst of noise, light in the midst of darkness"--

The volume offers new insights into the intricate theme of silence in Greek literature, especially drama. Even though the topic has received respectable attention in recent years, it still lends itself to further inquiry, which embraces silence's very essence and boundaries; its applications and effects in particular texts or genres; and some of its technical features and qualities. The particular topics discussed extend to all these three areas of inquiry, by looking into: silence's possible role in the performance of epic and lyric; its impact on the workings of praise-poetry; its distinct deployments in our five complete ancient novels; Aristophanic, comic and otherwise, silences; the vocabulary of the unspeakable in tragedy; the connections of tragic silence to power, authority, resistance, and motivation; female tragic silences and their transcendence, against the background of male oppression or domination; famous tragic silences as expressions of the ritualized isolation of the individual from both human and divine society. The emerging insights are valuable for the broader interpretation of the relevant texts, as well as for the fuller understanding of central values and practices of the society that created them.

Sitting alone in her Dublin nursing home, Harriet Campbell reflects on a life that has become tainted by bitterness and regret. From a strictly Presbyterian community along the Irish border, at sixteen young Harriet is married off to Thomas, a respected church Elder but a cold, sober man twice her age. The birth of her son James, a bright boy destined for great things, brings joy and light to her life. But when he falls in love with a beautiful girl from the wrong faith, their relationship is torn apart. Written in startlingly beautiful prose, Norma MacMaster’s Silence Under a Stone is an intimate, deeply moving story of love, faith and the pain of an irreconcilable heart.

God's silence during the passion is certainly a silence towards man, but in particular God was silent towards Christ in his perfect and complete humanity. It is also the silence of the Father towards the Son . . . At first sight this silence is troubling and perhaps shocking, suggesting that God is in fact absent. However, the author invites us to go beyond this first impression--and the silence turns out to be of tremendous richness, overwhelming depth, and surprising beauty. We are invited to refocus our attention and discover what the Father is saying in a completely new way. These pages sing with love for God, and our meditation of the passion narratives draws us into deep contemplation of the One they celebrate, the Crucified.

Stone Talks brings together poems and four talks/essays by noted poet Alyson Hallett on the subject of stones, rocks, somatics and our relationship with our environment.