"Mario Valentini was born in Collemare, a tiny stone hilltop village in the rugged mountains of the Abruzzo, in the heart of Italy. With money short at home and his father working in a foreign land, at four years old he was sent to live with his uncle, a traveling priest. Thus began a life of unexpected freedoms and marvelous adventures. For the mischievous boy, who loved nothing so much as swordplay, tales of Romans and Crusaders, and American chewing gum, every new town meant new friends, and getting into trouble was as easy as shooting his slingshot.

A warm, tender, and richly nostalgic look at growing up in a remote village in a postwar Italy on the brink of modernity.

In the tradition of Cinema Paradiso, comes a warm, tender, and richly nostalgic look at growing up in a remote village in a postwar Italy on the brink of modernity. Mario Valentini was born in the rugged Abruzzo mountains in the heart of Italy, but, with money short at home and his father working in a foreign land, at four years old he was sent to live with his uncle, a traveling priest. Thus began a life of unexpected freedoms and marvelous adventures. For the mischievous boy, who loved nothing so much as swordplay and American chewing gum, every new town meant new friends, and getting into trouble was as easy as shooting his slingshot. From confronting a hungry wolf at dusk to drinking in the fumes in an empty wine barrel, every anecdote sparkles with his exuberance for life. As he grows, he gleans lessons from unexpected sources: a curmudgeonly painter, a communist reputed to eat priests for dinner, even the caustic spinster aunt who keeps house for his uncle.

Occasionally in the world of science, unexpected results that appear to violate accepted laws of nature can herald revolutionary advances in human knowledge. Many of these 'revolutionary' discoveries do, however, turn out to be wrong, and eminent scientists must carry the burden of a tarnished reputation for mistakenly thinking they have made a great discovery. In this entertaining text, Robert Park examines the social, economic, and political forces that elicit or support flawed or fake science and then go on to sustain it in the face of often overwhelming contrary evidence. Readers are made aware of the fine line that exists between foolishness and fraud and are warned against irrational beliefs dressed up as scientific garb.

Since early Christianity, wood, earth, water and stone were taken from loca sancta to signify them elsewhere. Unlike textual or visual representations, natural materials not only represent the Holy Land; they are part of it. This book examines the processes of their sanctification and how, although inherently abstract, they become charged with meaning.