Featured Titles at Mills Memorial Library
Starry Night: Astronomers and Poets Read the Sky
Over the centuries the starry night sky has inspired poets and scientists alike, and though the fruits of these inspirations take very different forms, they often enrich each other. Acclaimed science writer David Levy, the codiscoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, has written this wonderful jewel of a book to celebrate the complementary visions of human wonder and curiosity that are expressed in the separate disciplines of poetry and astronomy. Levy, known for his infectious enthusiasm, traces the works of the greatest poets-Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, Shelley, and others-to show how they were influenced not only by the beauty of the heavens but by their times, celestial events, and moreover by the discoveries of such great scientists as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton.
I May Be Big but I Didn't Cause That Solar Eclipse
I May Be Big But I Didn't Cause That Solar Eclipse is award-winning Canadian humorist Gordon Kirkland's fifth book. In this book, Kirkland once again takes on subjects ranging from marriage to dealing with a canine companion. He looks at the odd events of daily life, and even finds humor in the experiences of moving and having a serious illness.
Reading Dante's Stars
"For Dante, Alison Cornish says, the stars offer optical representations of invisible realities, from divine providence to the workings of the human soul. Dante's often puzzling celestial figures call attention to the physical world as a scene of reading in which visible phenomena are subject to more than one explanation, Cornish contends. The poetry of Dante's astronomy, as well as its difficulty, rests on this imperative of interpretation. Reading the stars, like reading literature is an ethical undertaking fraught with risk, not just an exercise in technical understanding. Cornish's book is the first guide to the astronomy of Dante's masterpiece to encompass both ways of reading his work."--BOOK JACKET.
Skywatching in the Ancient World: New Perspectives in Cultural Astronomy
Compiled in honour of Anthony F. Aveni, America's leading archaeoastronomer, Skywatching in the Ancient World offers state-of-the-art work in cultural astronomy by well-known experts in Mayan glyphic studies, cultural history, ethnohistory, and the history of science and of religions... The diverse topics addressed by the contributors include the correlation between Colonial Northern Zapotec and Gregorian calendars, the Dresden Codex Venus table, new interpretations of the Lunar Almanacs in the Dresden Codex, the Tukapu and Inca calendars, temple and church orientations in ancient Hawai'i and Medieval England, and the connection in cultural imagery between astronomers (science) and wizards (magic).
The Soft Eclipse
A poignant evocation of a small Saskatchewan town in the 60s, The Soft Eclipse follows six women, aged 16 to 76, through a day both strangely unique and satisfyingly "everyday" as they anticipate the coming eclipse of the sun.
Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars
"This investigation yields new data and a new synthesis of information about the specific astronomical events and cycles recorded in Maya art and architecture. The first major study to focus on the relationship between art and astronomy in ancient Maya culture, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Precolumbian art history and anthropology, archaeoastronomy, ethnography, and comparative mythology."--BOOK JACKET.