Library Loot ~ January 23-29

The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People ~ by Neil Shubin, 2012, science

Shubin takes on the question of why we look the way we do.  Starting with fossils, he turns his gaze skyward, showing us how the entirety of the universe's fourteen-billion-year history can be seen in our bodies.  As he moves from our very molecular composition (a result of stellar events at the origin of our solar system) through the workings of our eyes, Shubin makes clear how the evolution of the cosmos has profoundly marked our own bodies.

Forgotten ~ by Catherine McKenzie, 2012, fiction

Emma Tupper is a dedicated lawyer with a bright future.  But when she takes a month-long leave of absence to go on an African vacation, she ends up facing unexpected consequences.  After she falls ill and spends six months trapped in a remote village thanks to a devastating earthquake, Emma returns home to discover that her friends, boyfriend, and colleagues thought she was dead — and that her life has moved on without her.  As she struggles to re-create her old life, throwing herself into solving a big case for a client and trying to reclaim her beloved apartment from the handsome photographer who assumed her lease, everyone around her thinks she should take the opportunity to change.  But is she willing to sacrifice her job, her relationships, and everything else she worked so hard to build?

The Gnostic Bible ~ ed. by Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer, 2003 , religion

Gnosticism was a wide-ranging religious movement of the first millennium CE — with earlier antecedents and later flourishings — whose adherents sought salvation through knowledge and personal religious experience.  Gnostic writings offer striking perspectives on both early Christian and non-Christian thought.  For example, some gnostic texts suggest that god should be celebrated as both mother and father, and that self-knowledge is the supreme path to the divine.  Only in the past fifty years has it become clear how far the gnostic influence spread in ancient and medieval religions — and what a marvelous body of scriptures it produced.  This is the first time that such a rich and diverse collection of gnostic texts have been brought together in a single volume, in translations that allow the spirit of the original texts to shine.  The selections gathered here — in poetic, readable translation — represent Jewish, Christian, Hermetic, Mandaean, Manichaean, Islamic, and Cathar expressions of gnostic spirituality.  Their regions of origin include Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, the Middle East, Syria, Iraq, China, and France.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire @ The Captive Reader and Marg @ The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages us to share titles of books we’ve checked out of the library.  Add your link any time during the week, and see what others got this week.