The Process Church is one of the most controversial cults of modern times. Its apocalyptic ideas and powerful literature brought on extreme allegiances and shocking accusations. Here, the secretive group's history is finally revealed for the first time. Through its various incarnations, the Process Church has kept its history sealed for decades. Though the church was not as horrifying as some made it out to be, its actual history is truly unexpected and sensational.

The Process Church of the Final Judgment was the apocalyptic shadow side of the flower-powered ’60s and perhaps the most notorious cult of modern times. Hundreds of black-cloaked devotees, often wearing a satanic “Goat of Mendes” and a swastika-like mandala, swept the streets of London, New York, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, and Toronto, selling magazines and books with titles like Fear and Humanity is the Devil. And within the group’s “Chapters,” members would participate in “Midnight Meditations” beneath photographs of the Christ-like leader. Celebrities like Marianne Faithful, James Coburn, and Mick Jagger participated in Process publications, and Funkadelic, in its Maggot Brain album, reprinted Process’ “Fear Issue.” Process’ “Death Issue” interviewed the freshly-imprisoned Charles Manson leading to conspiracy hysteria in such books as Ed Sanders’ The Family and Maury Terry’s The Ultimate Evil. A lawsuit against Sanders’ Manson book led to the removal of its Process-themed chapter by Dutton. Love, Sex, Fear, Death is the shocking, surprising, and secretive inside story of The Process Church, which was later transformed into Foundation Faith of the Millennium, and most recently as the Utah-based animal sanctuary, Best Friends. Included will be text by Timothy Wyllie, a formative member of the Process and Foundation Faith organizations; interviews with other former Processeans; rare reproductions of Process magazines; never-before-seen photographs; and fascinating transcripts from holy books and legal actions. The special limited edition will be hardcover, signed, numbered, and slipcased, and it will include a facsimile edition of the notorious “Death Issue.”

Fear of Dying is a hilarious, heart wrenching, and beautifully told story about what happens when one woman steps reluctantly into the afternoon of life. Vanessa Wonderman is a gorgeous former actress in her 60's who finds herself balancing between her dying parents, her aging husband and her beloved, pregnant daughter. Although Vanessa considers herself "a happily married woman," the lack of sex in her life makes her feel as if she's losing something too valuable to ignore. So she places an ad for sex on a site called Zipless.com and the life she knew begins to unravel. With the help and counsel of her best friend, Isadora Wing, Vanessa navigates the phishers and pishers, and starts to question if what she's looking for might be close at hand after all. Fear of Dying is a daring and delightful look at what it really takes to be human and female in the 21st century. Wildly funny and searingly honest, this is a book for everyone who has ever been shaken and changed by love.

As a pandemic swept across fourteenth-century Europe, the Decameron offered the ill and grieving a symphony of life and love. For Florentines, the world seemed to be coming to an end. In 1348 the first wave of the Black Death swept across the Italian city, reducing its population from more than 100,000 to less than 40,000. The disease would eventually kill at least half of the population of Europe. Amid the devastation, Giovanni BoccaccioÕs Decameron was born. One of the masterpieces of world literature, the Decameron has captivated centuries of readers with its vivid tales of love, loyalty, betrayal, and sex. Despite the death that overwhelmed Florence, BoccaccioÕs collection of novelle was, in Guido RuggieroÕs words, a Òsymphony of life.Ó Love and Sex in the Time of Plague guides twenty-first-century readers back to BoccaccioÕs world to recapture how his work sounded to fourteenth-century ears. Through insightful discussions of the DecameronÕs cherished stories and deep portraits of Florentine culture, Ruggiero explores love and sexual relations in a society undergoing convulsive change. In the century before the plague arrived, Florence had become one of the richest and most powerful cities in Europe. With the medieval nobility in decline, a new polity was emerging, driven by Il PopoloÑthe people, fractious and enterprising. BoccaccioÕs stories had a special resonance in this age of upheaval, as Florentines sought new notions of truth and virtue to meet both the despair and the possibility of the moment.

Winner, 2020 Body and Embodiment Best Publication Award, given by the American Sociological Association Honorable Mention, 2020 Sociology of Sex and Gender Distinguished Book Award, given by the American Sociological Association How the female body has been racialized for over two hundred years There is an obesity epidemic in this country and poor black women are particularly stigmatized as “diseased” and a burden on the public health care system. This is only the most recent incarnation of the fear of fat black women, which Sabrina Strings shows took root more than two hundred years ago. Strings weaves together an eye-opening historical narrative ranging from the Renaissance to the current moment, analyzing important works of art, newspaper and magazine articles, and scientific literature and medical journals—where fat bodies were once praised—showing that fat phobia, as it relates to black women, did not originate with medical findings, but with the Enlightenment era belief that fatness was evidence of “savagery” and racial inferiority. The author argues that the contemporary ideal of slenderness is, at its very core, racialized and racist. Indeed, it was not until the early twentieth century, when racialized attitudes against fatness were already entrenched in the culture, that the medical establishment began its crusade against obesity. An important and original work, Fearing the Black Body argues convincingly that fat phobia isn’t about health at all, but rather a means of using the body to validate race, class, and gender prejudice.