This Week's Acquisitions
- Nalo Hopkinson, The Salt Roads (Warner, 2004). Combination fantasy & historical novel, tracing the multiple incarnations of the spirit of a slave's dead child.
- Peter Charles Hoffer, Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Frauds - American History From Bancroft And Parkman To Ambrose, Bellisles, Ellis, And Goodwin (PublicAffairs, 2004). Chronicle of misdeeds among academic historians.
- John J. Delaney, Dictionary of Saints, rev. ed. (Doubleday, 1980). Exactly what it sounds like. No help when it comes to explaining why every other character in Victorian religious fiction is named "Eustace," though.
- David Dobbs, Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral (Pantheon, 2005). Debate over coral reefs.
- Bernard McGinn, John J. Collins, and Stephen J. Stein, eds., The Continuum History of Apocalypticism (Continuum, 2003). Abridged version of the original three-volume encyclopedia, with some new entries.
- Augustus Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, trans. Joseph Torrey, 5th American ed., 4 vols. (Crocker & Brewster/Wiley & Putnam, 1855). Exceptionally popular ecclesiastical history, often plundered by popularizers and novelists (along with D'Aubigne, Milman, and Mosheim). A rather dilapidated set, I've got to say, but pretty editions go for ugly prices...