The Anatomy Shelf Issue #15 (July 2022)
Thank you for subscribing to The Anatomy shelf, a monthly newsletter exploring the body in literature and history, dedicated in bringing you the latest news! The text (blurbs, bios, events etc) have all been copied from the original source.
If you wish to submit to The Anatomy Shelf, please read the submission guidelines & contact information via the link below:
I am looking for written pieces, reviews, articles, short fiction, images, photography, art, and more, all related to the body in history, literature, and art, so please get in touch theanatomyshelf@gmail.com
Social media links: TWITTER INSTAGRAM [@theanatomyshelf]
CONTENTS:
CURRENT NEWS
UPDATES
NEW BOOK RELEASES:
Short Life in a Strange World: Birth to Death in 42 Panels by Toby Ferris
All the Ways Our Dead Still Speak: A Funeral Director on Life, Death, and the Hereafter by Caleb Wilde
Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It by Janina Ramirez
UPCOMING BOOKS:
A History of the World Through Body Parts by Kathy Petras & Ross Petras
A Haunted History Of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts by LEANNA RENEE HIEBER, Andrea Janes, & Elizabeth Kerri Mahon
Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang
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CURRENT NEWS
UPDATES
Some exciting news! This issue is slightly smaller than usual because I will be travelling to Dublin next week so expect a special themed issue in August including a piece on the St. Michan’s mummies, ‘Author Haunts,’ and more!
I also launched The Anatomy Shelf on social media! For more updates please follow: TWITTER INSTAGRAM [@theanatomyshelf]
AND… expect to hear some very exciting news soon too!
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NEW BOOK RELEASES
Short Life in a Strange World: Birth to Death in 42 Panels by Toby Ferris (HarperCollins Publishers) ISBN: 9780008340995, 336 pages, Paperback, £10.99
Historic bodies - Memoir - Bodies in Art - Philosophical
Sure to be hailed alongside H is for Hawk and The Hare with Amber Eyes, an exceptional work that is at once an astonishing journey across countries and continents, an immersive examination of a great artist's work, and a moving and intimate memoir.
At the age of 42, his father not long dead and his young sons growing fast, Toby Ferris set off on a seemingly quixotic mission to track down each of the 42 surviving paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who, at the age of 42, had been approaching the end of his own short life.
Over the next five years Ferris would travel to 22 galleries in 19 cities in 12 countries across 2 continents: Budapest to San Diego, Detroit to Naples, Berlin to Madrid, ticking off his Bruegels as he went.
The results of his journeying are a revelation: Bruegel's panels, their landscapes teeming with robust life, become a lens through which Ferris takes stock of the world, informing everything from mortality, fatherhood, and contemporary life, to the bombing of Rotterdam, the extinction of North American megafauna, and how to ward off bears in the forest.
Short Life in a Strange World is a dazzlingly original hybrid of art criticism, philosophical reflection and poignant memoir, a book about one man's obsession with Bruegel's short life in a strange if familiar world, and the precisely-detailed yet cosmos-encompassing works in ink and oil which sprang from it.
And it begins with the story of a boy who fell from the sky.
More information: https://www.waterstones.com/book/short-life-in-a-strange-world/toby-ferris/9780008340995
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All the Ways Our Dead Still Speak: A Funeral Director on Life, Death, and the Hereafter by Caleb Wilde (1517 Media) ISBN: 9781506471617, 208 pages, Hardback, £17.99
Death Studies - Historical - Philosophy - General Interest
What if our dead remain with us? What if closure is not the goal? No matter what you believe about the afterlife, what if the hereafter intersects with the here and now?
Caleb Wilde, author of the acclaimed memoir Confessions of a Funeral Director, was a skeptic. The baffling stories people told him--deathbed visions of long-dead parents, visits from the other side--must be hallucinations or wishful thinking, he thought. But the more stories he heard, and the more he learned about non-Western understandings of body and spirit, the less sure he was.
All the Ways Our Dead Still Speak takes readers on a lyrical and tender quest to encounter the hereafter. As Wilde picks up bodies, organizes funerals, and meets with grieving families in a small town in Pennsylvania, those who remain share with him--and us--what they experience in the thin places between life and death. Entwining these stories with his own as a sixth-generation funeral director, and with the findings of neuroscience and the solace of faith, Wilde creates a searching, reverent inquiry into all the ways our dead remain with us. In the process, he takes on prevailing dogmas about death: from a narrow Christian view of heaven and hell, to secular assumptions that death is the end, to pop-psychology maxims that say we all need "closure" after our loved ones die.
The dead don't have to be buried twice, once in the ground and again in our hearts. In the pages of this unforgettable book, learn how love and memory and mystery fuse this world to the next.
More information: https://www.waterstones.com/book/all-the-ways-our-dead-still-speak/caleb-wilde/9781506471617
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Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It by Janina Ramirez (Ebury Publishing), ISBN: 9780753558256 464 pages, Hardback, £19.88
Historical - Non-Fiction - Women in history - Middle Ages
Giving voice to the influential women of the Middle Ages who have been silenced by male gatekeepers, Ramirez's sweeping account not only highlights unjustly forgotten pioneers but also demonstrates how easily historical narratives can be manipulated.
Extraordinary women have held positions of power throughout history. But, aside from the select few, why do we not hear about them?
The middle ages are seen as a bloodthirsty time of Vikings, Saints and Kings: a patriarchal society that oppressed and excluded women. But by digging a little deeper into the truth, drawing on evidence from all disciplines, we can see that the 'dark' ages were anything but. BBC historian Janina Ramirez has uncovered countless influential women's names struck out of historical records, with the word 'Femina' annotated beside them. Male gatekeepers of the past ordered books to be burnt, artworks to be destroyed, and new versions of myths, legends and historical documents to be produced, which has manipulated our view of history.
By weaving a vivid and evocative picture of the lives of the women who influenced their society, we discover not just why these remarkable individuals were removed from our collective memories, but also how many other misconceptions underpin our historical narratives, altering the course of history, upholding the oppressive masculine structures of their present, and affecting our contemporary view of the past.
More information: https://www.waterstones.com/book/femina/janina-ramirez/9780753558256
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UPCOMING RELEASES
A History of the World Through Body Parts by Kathy Petras & Ross Petras (Chronicle Books) ISBN: 9781797202846, 256 pages, Hardback, £19.99
Release date: 01/09/2022
Historical Bodies - Body Parts - Cultural History - Non-Fiction
A grab bag of historic spleens, chins, and more, this is your ultimate literary dissection of body parts throughout history!
From famous craniums to prominent breasts, ancient spleens and bound feet, this book will bring history to life in a whole new way. With their inimitable wit and probing intelligence, authors Kathy and Ross Petras look at the role the human body has played throughout history as each individual part becomes a jumping-off point for a wider look at the times. In far-ranging, quirky-yet-interrelated stories, learn about Charles II of Spain's jaw and the repercussions of inbreeding, what Anne Boleyn's heart says about the Crusades and the trend of dispersed burials, and what can be learned about Lady Xoc's pierced tongue. A History of the World Through Body Parts is packed with fascinating little-known historical facts and anecdotes that will entertain, enlighten, and delight even the most well-read history buff.
More information: https://www.waterstones.com/book/a-history-of-the-world-through-body-parts/kathy-petras/ross-petras/9781797202846
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A Haunted History Of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts by LEANNA RENEE HIEBER, Andrea Janes, & Elizabeth Kerri Mahon (Citadel Press Inc.,U.S.) ISBN: 9780806541587, 320 pages, Paperback, £14.99
Release date: 29/09/2022
Women in History - Historical 0 True Crime - Supernatural
From the notorious Lizzie Borden to the innumerable, haunted rooms of Sarah Winchester's mysterious mansion this offbeat, insightful, first-ever book of its kind explores the history behind America’s female ghosts, the stereotypes, myths, and paranormal tales that swirl around them, what their stories reveal about us—and why they haunt us . . .
Sorrowful widows, vengeful jezebels, innocent maidens, wronged lovers, former slaves, even the occasional axe-murderess—America’s female ghosts differ widely in background, class, and circumstance. Yet one thing unites them: their ability to instill fascination and fear, long after their deaths. Here are the full stories behind some of the best-known among them, as well as the lesser-known—though no less powerful . . .
Tales whispered in darkness often divulge more about the teller than the subject. America’s most famous female ghosts, like New Orleans voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, and Bridget Bishop, the first person executed during the Salem witchcraft trials, mirror each era’s fears and prejudices. Yet through urban legends and campfire stories, even ghosts like the nameless hard-working women lost in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire —achieve a measure of power and agency in death, in ways unavailable to them as living women.
Riveting for skeptics and believers alike, with humor, curiosity, and expertise, A Haunted History of Invisible Women offers a unique lens on the significant role these ghostly legends play both within the spook-seeking corners of our minds and in the consciousness of a nation.
More information: https://www.waterstones.com/book/a-haunted-history-of-invisible-women/leanna-renee-hieber/andrea-janes/9780806541587
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Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang (HarperCollins Publishers), ISBN: 2928377088453, 650 pages, Hardback, £16.99
Release date: 01/09/2022
Historical - Fantasy Bodies - Dark Academia - Fiction
One of the leading lights in the visceral grimdark fantasy genre, Kuang's stunningly wrought novel is a compulsive dystopia about the power of language and the evils of authoritarianism, represented by the looming titular tower of translation.
A new dark academic fantasy by the New York Times bestselling author of The Poppy War.
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
Oxford, 1836. The city of dreaming spires. It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world. And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows.
Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Babel seemed like paradise to Robin Swift. Until it became a prison... but can a student stand against an empire?
An incendiary new novel from award-winning author R.F. Kuang about the power of language, the violence of colonialism, and the sacrifices of resistance.
More information: https://www.waterstones.com/book/babel/r-f-kuang/2928377088453
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Thank you for reading this month’s issue of The Anatomy Shelf.
If you have anything you would like me to include in the next issue, please DM me on social media, email theanatomyshelf.gmail.com or message me on Substack by Monday 15th August to guarantee its inclusion.
Please also send me your submissions! If you wish to submit to The Anatomy Shelf, please read the submission guidelines & contact information via the link below:
I am looking for written pieces, reviews, articles, short fiction, images, photography, art, and more, all related to the body in history, literature, and art, so please get in touch theanatomyshelf@gmail.com
For more updates, please visit my social media:
Twitter: @gothicbookworm @theanatomyshelf
Instagram: @gothicbookworm @theanatomyshelf
Best wishes,
Lauren, The Gothic Bookworm