Crooked Talk

The language of crime has a long and venerable history - in fact, the first collection of words specifically used by criminals, Hye-Way to the Spittel House, dates from as early as 1531. Jonathon Green is our national expert on slang, and in Crooked Talk he looks at five hundred years of crooks and conmen - from the hedge-creepers and counterfeit cranks of the sixteenth century to the blaggers and burners of the twenty-first - as well as the swag, the hideouts, the getaway vehicles and the 'tools of the trade'. Not to mention a substantial detour into the world of prisons that faced those unlucky enough to be caught by the boys in blue. If you have ever wondered when the police were first referred to as pigs, why prison guards became known as redraws, or what precisely the subtle art of dipology involves, then this book has all the answers.

This book examines the varieties of self-exchange and factors that can influence it. It takes a much-needed step toward linking the concerns of the academic self-researcher and the consumer of research pertaining to changing the self. Throughout the book, understanding and accounting for change in the self emerges as a vitally important concern across a wide range of human experience.

In a new approach to philosophical anthropology, Bruno Latour offers answers to questions raised in We Have Never Been Modern: If not modern, what have we been, and what values should we inherit? An Inquiry into Modes of Existence offers a new basis for diplomatic encounters with other societies at a time of ecological crisis.

Based on the Old Testament wisdom and its many human experiences, Self-Examination and the Old Testament recreates the mindset of the main personalities dealing with self-examination. It is widely accepted that self-examination is fundamental for sustaining a healthy individual life and for peace in society. For the believer, the words and thoughts of the OT are divinely inspired, providing a spiritual foundation, and the many instances of self-examination in the Old Testament show us how to deal with delving into our own hearts and looking closely at what we find there.

Shunryu Suzuki is known to countless readers as the author of the modern spiritual classic Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. This most influential teacher comes vividly to life in Crooked Cucumber, the first full biography of any Zen master to be published in the West. To make up his intimate and engrossing narrative, David Chadwick draws on Suzuki's own words and the memories of his students, friends, and family. Interspersed with previously unpublished passages from Suzuki's talks, Crooked Cucumber evokes a down-to-earth life of the spirit. Along with Suzuki we can find a way to "practice with mountains, trees, and stones and to find ourselves in this big world."

Using the work of Bruno Latour, this book reimagines ayahuasca as liquid divinity, asking fundamental ontological questions that shift the focus from ayahuasca experiences to ayahuasca-based ritual practices that aim at cultivating relationships with more-than-human powers, described by Latour as "beings of transformation and religion."