The author calls attention to the importance of the Vedic domestic ritual codes in the creation of what has come to be known as "classical Hinduism."

Jesus tells his followers to feed the hungry, heal the sick, raise the dead, but often we’ve tamed this calling. Sara Miles, a passionate, funny, undomesticated Christian, tells what happened when she decided to follow Jesus into the messy diversity of human life and do exactly what he asked.

Imagine if J.D. Salinger had a sense of humour ... this intelligent, off-beat novel is fast-paced, wicked, dark and extremely funny. My publishers are trying to convince me that books are like albums and sell better when they are released posthumously. Seeing the point, I ask if I can at least fake my own death, but it seems that is fundamentally dishonest and they flatly refuse to be involved in any such fraud. So just in case I've croaked by the time you read this (and everyone but me is filthy rich), here is my story: one day I'm trying to get into the pants of the most beautiful girl in the world, Nina Pennington, and the next day I'm in the back of a limo on the road to rock'n'roll superstardom opening up for Bowie. But we hit a bump or two -- a few dead Mafia hitmen here, a nyphomaniac next door there, not to mention a few dying Latin teachers, narcoleptic nuns, inept policemen, unscupulous laywers, buffoon reporters, huckster televangelists and greedy relatives -- and now for some unknown reason a lot of people don't want to talk to me anymore. When sixteen-year-old Ric Thibault's story opens with his mother's attempted suicide note: While I'm dead... feed the dog and h

These stories of vampire legends and gruesome nineteenth-century practices is “a major contribution to the study of New England folk beliefs” (The Boston Globe). For nineteenth-century New Englanders, “vampires” lurked behind tuberculosis. To try to rid their houses and communities from the scourge of the wasting disease, families sometimes relied on folk practices, including exhuming and consuming the bodies of the deceased. Folklorist Michael E. Bell spent twenty years pursuing stories of the vampire in New England. While writers like H.P. Lovecraft, Henry David Thoreau, and Amy Lowell drew on portions of these stories in their writings, Bell brings the actual practices to light for the first time. He shows that the belief in vampires was widespread, and, for some families, lasted well into the twentieth century. With humor, insight, and sympathy, he uncovers story upon story of dying men, women, and children who believed they were food for the dead. “A marvelous book.” —Providence Journal Includes an updated preface covering newly discovered cases.

Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

The complete history of one of the most long-lived and legendary bands in rock history, written by its official historian and publicist—a must-have chronicle for all Dead Heads, and for students of rock and the 1960s’ counterculture. From 1965 to 1995, the Grateful Dead flourished as one of the most beloved, unusual, and accomplished musical entities to ever grace American culture. The creative synchronicity among Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan exploded out of the artistic ferment of the early sixties’ roots and folk scene, providing the soundtrack for the Dionysian revels of the counterculture. To those in the know, the Dead was an ongoing tour de force: a band whose constant commitment to exploring new realms lay at the center of a thirty-year journey through an ever-shifting array of musical, cultural, and mental landscapes. Dennis McNally, the band’s historian and publicist for more than twenty years, takes readers back through the Dead’s history in A Long Strange Trip. In a kaleidoscopic narrative, McNally not only chronicles their experiences in a fascinatingly detailed fashion, but veers off into side trips on the band’s intricate stage setup, the magic of the Grateful Dead concert experience, or metaphysical musings excerpted from a conversation among band members. He brings to vivid life the Dead’s early days in late-sixties San Francisco—an era of astounding creativity and change that reverberates to this day. Here we see the group at its most raw and powerful, playing as the house band at Ken Kesey’s acid tests, mingling with such legendary psychonauts as Neal Cassady and Owsley “Bear” Stanley, and performing the alchemical experiments, both live and in the studio, that produced some of their most searing and evocative music. But McNally carries the Dead’s saga through the seventies and into the more recent years of constant touring and incessant musical exploration, which have cemented a unique bond between performers and audience, and created the business enterprise that is much more a family than a corporation. Written with the same zeal and spirit that the Grateful Dead brought to its music for more than thirty years, the book takes readers on a personal tour through the band’s inner circle, highlighting its frenetic and very human faces. A Long Strange Trip is not only a wide-ranging cultural history, it is a definitive musical biography.