Here are 100 books that The Cannibal Hymn fans have personally recommended if you like
The Cannibal Hymn.
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My interest in life after death and consciousness began early. I was raised in a family that practiced Spiritualist communications via seances and homemade Ouija boards. As a child, I sat under the dining room table while my relatives talked. I heard stories of Aunt Arzelia, who was a medium. She trained at Camp Chesterfield in Indiana. My great-grandfather created a homemade Ouija board on an oilcloth. I have always loved talking with folks across the veil, finding out about the mansions in the other life, and sending messages to loved ones and guides. From an early age, I began to study Dion Fortune, the Golden Dawn, and other topics.
It is a pivotal book, and I have used it for nearly everything I’ve written. It is very well thought out, researched, translated, and contains a lot of material that other early researchers of Egyptian spirituality overlooked. When I was downsizing my library, I found I had two copies of this book and I kept them both. One I had heavily underlined, and the other pristine version I kept as clean as possible.
Many of the myths that were told in other tomes were told here in clear, concise language. In every class I teach, I recommend this book to those who ask, “Where can I find more about what the Egyptians actually thought about God… the afterlife…, and the role of man in the sciences?” Here it is.
Osiris, Horus, Isis, Thoth, Anubis - the many strange and compelling figures of the Egyptian gods and goddesses seem to possess endless fascination. The renowned Egyptologist Erik Hornung here studies the ancient Egyptians' conceptions of god, basing his account on a thorough reappraisal of the primary sources. His book, now available in English for the first time, is the most extensive exploration yet undertaken of the nature of Egyptian religion.
Hornung examines the characteristics, spheres of action, and significance of Egyptian gods and goddesses, analyzing the complex and changing iconography used to represent them, and disentangling the many seemingly contradictory…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
We are Egyptologists with over six decades of combined experience translating hieroglyphic and hieratic texts and exploring the deserts of Egypt. We are passionate about bringing ancient Egypt and its incredible religious beliefs to life, from translating the funerary compositions in the royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings to writing a new biography of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, often branded the "heretics” of their time. One of our most exciting recent discoveries was the earliest monumental hieroglyphic inscription, a five thousand two hundred and fifty-year-old billboard! We share our adventures on our Instagram @vintage_egyptologist—enjoy the vintage fashion and be enlightened by the Egyptological captions.
Weaving together passages from key primary sources within a rich web of analysis, Assmann’s wide-ranging study tackles both the principles of Egyptian polytheism and its historical developments. Assmann’s important and influential work (translated by David Lorton) does not shy away from intense vocabulary, but a close read repays the effort. By the end of the dense text, the reader will be familiar with both the diversity and beauty of ancient Egyptian religious texts. Assmann’s years of work with ancient Egyptian texts, and especially his encyclopedic knowledge of ancient Egyptian solar hymns, ensures that the reader is firmly grounded in primary sources, even in the most esoteric of discussions.
First English-language edition, with revisions and additions by the author.This classic work by one of the world's most distinguished Egyptologists was first published in German in 1984. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt offers a distillation of Jan Assmann's views on ancient Egyptian religion, with special emphasis on theology and piety. Deeply rooted in the texts of ancient Egypt and thoroughly informed by comparative religion, theology, anthropology, and semiotic analysis, Assmann's interpretations reveal the complexity of Egyptian thought in a new way.Assmann takes special care to distinguish between the "implicit" theology of Egyptian polytheism and the "explicit" theology that…
I love zombie movies. I am also an Egyptologist. The dead affect us in profound ways every day, even without being semi-animated corpses searching for brains. I have always been keenly interested in the relationships we have with our dead, be it Halloween, Día de los Muertos, or an urn on a mantle. The dead are with us and inform our lives. The same was true in ancient Egypt. And to me, this made the ancient Egyptians feel very familiar and accessible. They, too, were anxious about death. They, too, grieved when loved ones were gone and developed practices and beliefs that kept the dead ‘alive’.
Dr. Harrington offers an accessible yet meticulous overview of the role of the dead in ancient Egyptian society, with a general, but not exclusive, focus on the New Kingdom. Her book was published while I was just starting my dissertation and it was inspiring to see a project that dealt with similar themes being published. I admit, I also love this book because it was the first time someone ever made reference to me and my research in a footnote. It made me feel like my work was worthwhile and for that, I am eternally grateful to Dr. Harrington.
Living with the Dead presents a detailed analysis of ancestor worship in Egypt, using a diverse range of material, both archaeological and anthropological, to examine the relationship between the living and the dead. Iconography and terminology associated with the deceased reveal indistinct differences between the blessedness and malevolence and that the potent spirit of the dead required constant propitiation in the form of worship and offerings. A range of evidence is presented for mortuary cults that were in operation throughout Egyptian history and for the various places, such as the house, shrines, chapels and tomb doorways, where the living could…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
We are Egyptologists with over six decades of combined experience translating hieroglyphic and hieratic texts and exploring the deserts of Egypt. We are passionate about bringing ancient Egypt and its incredible religious beliefs to life, from translating the funerary compositions in the royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings to writing a new biography of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, often branded the "heretics” of their time. One of our most exciting recent discoveries was the earliest monumental hieroglyphic inscription, a five thousand two hundred and fifty-year-old billboard! We share our adventures on our Instagram @vintage_egyptologist—enjoy the vintage fashion and be enlightened by the Egyptological captions.
Even after the priests and temples of ancient Egypt ceased to function, Egyptian religion lived on through the mysterious figure of Hermes Trismegistus (literally, Hermes “thrice great”). Originally a form of the ancient Egyptian god Thoth, late Egyptian religious texts, Greek philosophy, Roman theology, and later Christian and Islamic authors would make of Hermes Trismegistus a magically potent entity. At first a god, by the late Middle Ages he had become an ancient sage, pagan counterpart to Moses as dispenser of wisdom and guide to the transcendental world. Ebeling unravels the mysteries and history of this fascinating literary figure, and how writings attributed to him continued to exert influence on authors during the Renaissance, the birth of Freemasonry, and German Romanticism.
"Perhaps Hermeticism has fascinated so many people precisely because it has made it possible to produce many analogies and relationships to various traditions: to Platonism in its many varieties, to Stoicism, to Gnostic ideas, and even to certain Aristotelian doctrines. The Gnostic, the esoteric, the Platonist, or the deist has each been able to find something familiar in the writings. One just had to have a penchant for remote antiquity, for the idea of a Golden Age, in order for Hermeticism, with its aura of an ancient Egyptian revelation, to have enjoyed such outstanding success."-from the Introduction
I grew up in a family of beautiful, accomplished women at a time when most women stayed home. But the spectacular women in my mother's family also suffered spectacularly, and I was determined to understand family life at its very roots. I studied anthropology and, over a 15-year period, lived in a remote part of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea among a group of Gimi women who spent most of their time apart from men. I shared women's difficult daily lives, participated in their separate rites, learned their myths, and, through my writing, have devoted myself to giving them voices of their own.
A fascinating in-depth look at why ideas of Dead White Men of the late 19th and early 20th Century—Émile Durkheim, Arnold van Gennep, Robert Hertz—still matter and are, indeed, indispensable for understanding funerals and death rituals in places like Borneo, Bali, Thailand, early Egypt, Africa, and America.
By examining mortuary rites cross-culturally, the authors expose elements of a 'deep structure' in ritual that may be universal, thus offering the 'thrill of recognition' of ourselves in others.
This revised edition of a cross-cultural study of rituals surrounding death has become a standard text in anthropology, sociology and religion. Part of its fascination is that in understanding other people's death rituals we are able to gain a better understanding of our own. The authors refer to a wide variety of examples, from different continents and epochs. They compare the great tombs of the Berawan of Borneo and the pyramids of Egypt, as well as the dramas of medieval French royal funerals and the burial alive of the Dinka 'masters of the spear' in the Sudan, and other rituals…
Each summer when I was small, I visited my gram. During the day we would go off on one adventure or another—and at night, she enticed me to sleep with the promise of a story. Most often, she read Grimm’s fairytales to me. Full of darkness and also hope (!), they were, and still are, some of my very favorites. And they inspire what I most enjoy writing and reading.
In this fantastical story, which is a companion to Furthermore, a lonesome girl scrubs the skin of the dead to ready souls for the afterlife. (Sounds properly spooky, doesn’t it? I love when books give me chills!) And when things are especially dark, as they are for Laylee, friendship shines all the brighter once it is found.
Our story begins on a frosty night . . . Laylee can barely remember the happier times before her beloved mother died. Before her father, driven by grief, lost his wits (and his way) and she was left as the sole remaining mordeshoor in the village of Whichwood, destined…
Big Ideas... For Small Businesses
by
John Lamerton,
Big Ideas… for Small Businesses is a straight-talking, no-nonsense guide to growing a small business without sacrificing your lifestyle. Written by a former civil servant turned entrepreneur, the book challenges hustle culture and instead champions the idea of an "ambitious lifestyle business" - one that provides freedom and financial stability,…
My name is Cecilia Ruiz and I am a Mexican author and illustrator living in Brooklyn. Apart from desperately trying to make more books, I teach design and illustration at Queens College and the School of Visual Arts. I’m fascinated by visual storytelling and its evocative power. One of my idols, the French filmmaker Robert Bresson, says that art lies in suggestion. Bresson believed that things should be shown from one single angle that evokes all the other angles without showing them.All the books in this list do that—they show us death but they make us think about the mysterious and poetic ways in which life operates.
This is a book I would have loved to write and illustrate. “The bird was dead when the children found it.” says its opening line.
There are many children’s books that deal with grief and loss but The Dead Bird is one of a kind. The kids in the story didn’t know the bird when it was alive. They only meet the bird after it has died and yet, they have a funeral for it. They sing for a bird that once flew and no longer will. They cry for a life that was, but no longer is.
With child-like simplicity and directness, Robinson’s illustrations capture the human need for ritual and closure in the presence of death.
A New York Times Best Illustrated Book of 2016! This heartwarming classic picture book by beloved children's book author Margaret Wise Brown is beautifully reillustrated for a contemporary audience by the critically acclaimed, award-winning illustrator Christian Robinson. One day, the children find a bird lying on its side with its eyes closed and no heartbeat. They are very sorry, so they decide to say good-bye. In the park, they dig a hole for the bird and cover it with warm sweet-ferns and flowers. Finally, they sing sweet songs to send the little bird on its way.
Raised alongside three feral younger brothers in the rash-inducing, subtropical climate of Cairo, Georgia, I am a lifelong resident of the South. A circumstance, no doubt, leaving an indelible mark on my voice as a writer. At this point in my writing career, I write what I know. As a reader, I enjoy exploring the rich stories woven by Southern authors, capturing other places, people, and experiences beyond my own frame of reference. Ultimately, as a Southerner, I endeavor to reconcile the South’s troubled past of racial and social oppression with the romanticized notion others have of this place I call home.
This gothic fairytale is a favorite. Exploring the universal themes of good and evil, William Gay’s prose poetically weaves a sinister tale of Fenton Breece, an undertaker who abuses the dead.
This novel takes the reader on an eerie backwoods odyssey lush with peril and a grotesque cast of characters. I am inspired in my writing by Gay’s assignment of myth to place as he has done with the wilderness he calls the Harrikin.
Suspecting that something is amiss with their father's burial, teenager Kenneth Tyler and his sister Corrie venture to his gravesite and make a horrific discovery: their father, a whiskey bootlegger, was not actually buried in the casket they bought for him. Worse, they learn that the undertaker, Fenton Breece, has been grotesquely manipulating the dead. Armed with incriminating photographs, Tyler becomes obsessed with bringing the perverse undertaker to justice. But first he must outrun Granville Sutter, a local strongman and convicted murderer hired by Fenton to destroy the evidence. What follows is an adventure through the Harrikin, an eerie backwoods…
I am a presidential historian with a particular focus on their deaths, public mourning, and the places we commemorate them. My interest in what I like to think of as “the final chapter of each president’s amazing story” grew out of frustration with traditional biographies that end abruptly when the president dies, and I believe my books pick up where others leave off. More than a moribund topic, I find the presidential deaths and public reaction to be both fascinating and critical to understanding their humanity and place in history at the time of their passing and how each of their legacies evolved over time.
Robert Klara provides so much detail and insight that it’s like he was on Franklin Roosevelt’s funeral train, crouched down in the seat behind the new president, Harry S. Truman!
I was super impressed by Klara’s research and ability to capture the conversations and historical nuances of one of the most important train rides of the twentieth century.
In April 1945, the funeral train carrying the body of Franklin D. Roosevelt embarked on a three-day, thousand-mile odyssey through nine states before reaching the president's home where he was buried. Many who would recall the journey later would agree it was a foolhardy idea to start with - putting every important elected figure in Washington on a single train during the biggest war in history. For the American people, of course, the funeral train was just that - the train bearing the body of deceased FDR. It passed with darkened windows; few gave thought to what might be happening…
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
Before I turned twenty-five, I lost my father to illness, my brother to a car accident, and a cousin to murder. Experiencing this string of tragedies so young profoundly changed me. As a writer, I’ve often worried that my naked grief on the page would come across as soft, cloyingly sentimental, and wholly without bite. Over the years, I have looked to examples of books that deal with death, grief, and mourning with a kind of brutal honesty. I sought out writing that conveyed the reality of loss in all its messiness. Reading these beautiful, honest accounts of grief have always made me feel less alone in mine.
This book is a classic for a reason. It’s a sobering (and deeply entertaining) look at the industry of death.
With so few universal truths, one would imagine that humanity’s shared capacity to understand our own mortality would be a source of connection. Instead, it feels like the mechanics of death and everything surrounding it, get shoved under the carpet in our desperation to avoid the topic.
As Mitford lifts the veil on the funeral industry, it becomes apparent how important it is to shine a light on the things we’re most afraid of.
Only the scathing wit and searching intelligence of Jessica Mitford could turn an exposé of the American funeral industry into a book that is at once deadly serious and side-splittingly funny. When first published in 1963, this landmark of investigative journalism became a runaway bestseller and resulted in legislation to protect grieving families from the unscrupulous sales practices of those in "the dismal trade."
Just before her death in 1996, Mitford thoroughly revised and updated her classic study. The American Way of Death Revisited confronts new trends, including the success of the profession's lobbyists in Washington, inflated cremation costs, the…
