Poetry. "PORTABLE PLANET is a marvelous book. I've been following Shaffer's work for years and he is on a definitive upward spiral"-Jim Harrison. "Graced by the best from the past, the poet wanders. His poems will take you to places you need to visit"-Steve Sanfield. "Eric Paul Shaffer's poems carry us ever inward and out, where particular stones sprout wings, where solid ground is shaken by the nimble fingers of small gods, and the normal everyday ways of life stay blessedly themselves. These poems are portable, they're the exact same size as the hip pocket of your mind"-John Kain.

From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Terracotta Army, ancient artifacts have long fascinated the modern world. However, the importance of some discoveries is not always immediately understood. This was the case in 1901 when sponge divers retrieved a lump of corroded bronze from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea near the Greek island of Antikythera. Little did the divers know they had found the oldest known analog computer in the world, an astonishing device that once simulated the motions of the stars and planets as they were understood by ancient Greek astronomers. Its remains now consist of 82 fragments, many of them containing gears and plates engraved with Greek words, that scientists and scholars have pieced back together through painstaking inspection and deduction, aided by radiographic tools and surface imaging. More than a century after its discovery, many of the secrets locked in this mysterious device can now be revealed. In addition to chronicling the unlikely discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism, author Alexander Jones takes readers through a discussion of how the device worked, how and for what purpose it was created, and why it was on a ship that wrecked off the Greek coast around 60 BC. What the Mechanism has uncovered about Greco-Roman astronomy and scientific technology, and their place in Greek society, is truly amazing. The mechanical know-how that it embodied was more advanced than anything the Greeks were previously thought capable of, but the most recent research has revealed that its displays were designed so that an educated layman could understand the behavior of astronomical phenomena, and how intertwined they were with one's natural and social environment. It was at once a masterpiece of machinery as well as one of the first portable teaching devices. Written by a world-renowned expert on the Mechanism, A Portable Cosmos will fascinate all readers interested in ancient history, archaeology, and the history of science.

Poetry. "How wonderful to discover these lost works in the last leavings of the Twentieth Century. May their author continue to sweep the kitchens, the courtyards, the shrine halls of his always surprising mind. May we continue to share such delightful detritus. And may it continue to amount to nothing much at all. Thanks for the broom"--Bill Porter. "In LIVING IN THE MONASTERY, WORKING IN THE KITCHEN, Eric Paul Shaffer employs this discerning curmudgeon's voice with ironic understanding for those who may wish to pursue enlightenment but who must also work to live.... Companion volume to Shaffer's PORTABLE PLANET, this new book reveals Shih-te giving Eastern teachings an irreverent twist even as he disarms us with his struggle to attain a sense of purpose, place, and identity"--Cheri Crenshaw, Small Press Review.