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Zero at the Bone: Rewriting Life after a Snakebite
Late one evening in the summer of 2003, Erec Toso arrived home to his wife and children after an ordinary day at his university office. In the darkness of his yard, a rattlesnake lay along the path, basking in the post-monsoon coolness. Toso, lost in thought, never saw the snake, which struck him on the foot and injected a huge dose of venom.Zero at the Bone is a deeply personal narrative about Toso’s physical recovery and emotional transformation following this near-death experience. In elegant prose that inspires as much as it unsettles, Toso takes the reader along with him on his expedition into the uncharted territory of cellular damage, hallucination, and ultimately profound spiritual awakening. On all levels, it is a book about pain. Toso spares no detail in his accounts of agonizing hospital procedures, in his revelations about rattlesnake lore, or in his descriptions of the wide-ranging effects of snake venom. But quickly the reader realizes that the physical pain of the snakebite is only the more tangible marker of the psychological pain and turmoil that Toso endures in the emotional journey that ensues. In the months that follow his terrifying attack, priorities, daily habits, family relations, and definitions of self all come into question. What is predictable becomes problematic; what is comfortable becomes disconcerting. In a story that hinges on a common fear about an unlikely event—that of a snakebite—Toso uncovers a more widespread reality that many of us do not fear enough—complacency..
Price: $11.31
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An Anthology of Snakebites: On Women, Love and Philosophy
Like eavesdropping on an intimate conversation between two very different women, Reydams-Schils brilliantly constructs these thirty-six vignettes to evoke imagined discussion of two women about motherhood, intellectual aspirations, philosophy, and emotional and spiritual life. Often humorous, each passage is deliberately fragmented to contain portions of texts from antiquity to the present day, dialogue between the two women, their reflections, or their diary entries. The classical philosophical tradition typically portrays women as choosing between personal, intimate relationships and intellectual, spiritual aspirations. Antiquity has bequeathed us more images of virgins and widows joining wise men, than of spouses and mothers. Reydams-Schils' goal is to explore the question of whether we want to continue to attach these dichotomies to our idea of the intellectual. Struggling for a positive understanding of marriage and parenthood that can overcome the oppression of women, the book ultimately moves toward reconciliation between women and men..
Price: $4.78
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Snakebite
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Circle of Cats
Lillian is an orphan who lives with her aunt on a homestead miles from anyone, surrounded by uncharted forest. She wanders the woods, chasing squirrels and rabbits and climbing trees. Free-spirited and independent Lillian is a kindred spirit to the many wild cats who gather around the ancient beech tree. One day, while she is under the beech, Lillian is bitten by a poisonous snake. The cats refuse to let her die, and use their magic to turn her into one of their own. How she becomes a girl again is a lyrical, original folktale. Set in the countryside north of de Lint's fictional Newford, with some of the same characters as the duo's recent, acclaimed Seven Wild Sisters, A Circle of Cats is the long-awaited first picture book by long-time friends Charles de Lint and Charles Vess, whose masterful art is as magical as the story. Illustrations by Charles Vess..
Price: $39.99
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The Snakebite Survivors' Club: Travels Among Serpents
Snakes are Jeremy Seal's fascination, and his greatest fear. In an attempt to overcome his phobia, he decides to journey into America, Australia, Africa and India in search of the most notorious and deadly snakes, and to meet the people who live among them. His travels take him to Kenya's snake man, whose entire life seems like a preparation for a bite from the terrible black mamba, and to witch doctors, who use snakes as instruments of vengeance. He recalls the stories of Australian convicts condemned to prison in the land of the world's deadliest snake, and the story of a Southern preacher who tries to murder his wife with his church's rattlesnakes. Mixed in with all these bizarre tales are fascinating scientific facts, snake lore and ancient legends. An erudite but highly entertaining travel narrative, The Snakebite Survivors' Club taps into our general fear of snakes to tell a funny and somewhat gruesome account of the world of snakes and the people they repel, mesmerize, and sometimes kill. .
Price: $5.50
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