Uncorrected proof.

Reef follows the transformation of a girl of humble origins, born to a courtesan, into a fabulously talented, wealthy, and beloved icon. Sarah Bernhardt is still considered to be one of the greatest performers of all time. Boldly unconventional, extravagantly eccentric and unapologetically promiscuous, Bernhardt-- the divine Sarah-- was the global superstar of the 1800s-- and perhaps one of the greatest performers of all time. -- adapted from jacket

Two priests-to-be in Quebec City are are ordered to deliver a letter to actress Sarah Bernhardt, forbidding her from performing.

Everything about Sarah Bernhardt is fascinating, from her obscure birth to her glorious career--redefining the very nature of her art--to her amazing (and highly public) romantic life, to her indomitable spirit. Well into her seventies, after the amputation of her leg, she was performing under bombardment for soldiers during World War I and toured America for the ninth time. Though the Bernhardt literature is vast, this is the first English-language biography to appear in decades, tracking the trajectory through which an illegitimate--and scandalous--daughter of a Jewish courtesan transformed herself into the most famous actress who ever lived, and into a national icon, a symbol of France.--From publisher description.

One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels Named after the "divine" Sarah Bernhardt, red-haired Sarah Nour El-Din is "wonderful, irresistibly unique, funny, and amazing," raves Amy Tan. Determined to make of her life a work of art, she tries to tell her story, sometimes casting it as a memoir, sometimes a novel, always fascinatingly incomplete. "Alameddine's new novel unfolds like a secret... creating a tale...humorous and heartbreaking and always real" (Los Angeles Times). "[W]ith each new approach, [Sarah] sheds another layer of her pretension, revealing another truth about her humanity" (San Francisco Weekly). Raised in a hybrid family shaped by divorce and remarriage, and by Beirut in wartime, Sarah finds a fragile peace in self-imposed exile in the United States. Her extraordinary dignity is supported by a best friend, a grown-up son, occasional sensual pleasures, and her determination to tell her own story. "Like her narrative, [Sarah's] life is broken and fragmented. [But] the bright, strange, often startling pieces...are moving and memorable" (Boston Globe). Reading group guide included.

Challenges theological models of divine action that locate God's activity in human mind. Emphasizes God's relationship with all of nature.

Divine Conception: The Art of the Annunciation asks the questions: How to evoke the invisible in the visible? How to convey the divine in the human?Focussing on twelve specific aspects of the Annunciation (for instance, where Mary is reading, or where Joseph is present at the event), the book explores images (paintings, illuminated manuscripts, ivories, mosaics, sculpture, wall paintings, metal work) in the context of the period when they were made. Each chapter reflects on contemporaneous treatises, sermons, patron's requirements, devotional practices, artistic conventions, theological concerns, that informed the artist and his audience.The works of art discussed relate to the Latin West from the earliest times, with a cut-off date towards the middle of the 16th century.