Originally published in 1939, this book contains an assessment of the historical evidence provided by ancient Babylonian cuneiform tablets. The text is accompanied by a number of photographs of the tablets, as well as of important archaeological sites and Babylonian artefacts. Chiera's enthusiasm for his subject is clear, as the text is accessibly written and contains many Babylonian legends and assesses their relationship to biblical texts. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Assyriology and the ancient Middle East.

Edward Chiera was that most remarkable of men, a competent and respected scholar possessed of an ardent desire to make his research readily and entertainingly available to laymen. More remarkable, Chiera had extraordinary gifts to equal to his desire. They Wrote on Clay combines fascinatingly the fruits of sound and painstaking archeology with the natural-born storyteller's art. As transmitted by Chiera, the message of the recently discovered Babylonian clay tablets becomes an absorbing exrusion into the common life of a vanished civilization. Few will read They Wrote on Clay without becoming infected with something of Chiera's love for the rich archeological lore of the ancient Near East. "The book presents, briefly and clearly, a vivid picture of a long-dead people who in numerous ways were very like ourselves."—L. M. Field, New York Times "No mystery story can be as exciting."—Harper's "Plainly and fetchingly written."—New Republic

3,800 years ago, in the city of Sippar, on the banks of the Euphrates, lltani dreams of becoming a female scribe, a profession dominated by men. In order to fulfill her destiny, she enters the gagu to become a nadītu, an elite class of monastic women. But life is not so simple and misfortunes threaten her goal. On the verge of despair, it takes all her strength to continue the difficult journey.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York’s Golden Age of comics, now with special bonus material by the author “It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal—smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read.”—The Washington Post Book World One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Decade • Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize A “towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book” (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon’s “magnum opus” (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939. A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink. Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America’s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age. Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award