Lengthening The Day

People have always wanted light, and until the nineteenth century the only useful source of light was flame. Electricity brought clean light without flame, and sometimes even without much heat. This book is about the ways in which people have made light to lengthen their day. It explains howoil lamps, candles, and gas lights work and, drawing on writings of the time, shows how the available lights affected daily life. The principles of all the main types of electric lights now available are described. Alongside this technical history, quotations from Aristophanes to Jane Austen, fromJames Boswell to Kenneth Grahame, illustrate the social importance of lighting.

This “superb history” of artificial light traces the evolution of society—“invariably fascinating and often original . . . [it] amply lives up to its title” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In Brilliant, Jane Brox explores humankind’s ever-changing relationship to artificial light, from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. More than a survey of technological development, this sweeping history reveals how artificial light changed our world, and how those social and cultural changes in turn led to the pursuit of more ways of spreading, maintaining, and controlling light. Brox plumbs the class implications of light—who had it, who didn’t—through the centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking hours. She identifies the pursuit of whale oil as the first time the need for light thrust us toward an environmental tipping point. Only decades later, gas street lights opened up the evening hours to leisure, which changed the ways we live and sleep and the world’s ecosystems. Edison’s bulbs produced a light that seemed to its users all but divorced from human effort or cost. And yet, as Brox’s informative portrait of our current grid system shows, the cost is ever with us. Brilliant is infused with human voices, startling insights, and timely questions about how our future lives will be shaped by light

A further development of Tye's theory of phenomenal consciousness along with replies to common objections.

A Season-by-Season Guide to an Enchanted Natural Life The world is filled with magic, reflected back to us through the cycles of nature, if we can just slow down and learn how to channel it. This book is a journey through the year, exploring its tides, seasons, and festivals. It provides practical advice for celebrating the whole cycle—not just the eight sabbats—with rituals, meditations, projects, and invocations to help you discover the magical rhythms of the natural world. Join Anna Franklin, bestselling author of The Hearth Witch's Compendium, as she shares more than one hundred spells, recipes, remedies, and crafts designed to bring enchantment, healing, and joy into your life. Within these pages you will also discover natural cleaners and time-honored projects for the hearth and home to help you celebrate the cycles of the seasons, honor the Gods, and manifest your deepest spirituality.