Kirjahaku

Traditionally, John the Baptist is seen as little more than an opening act the voice crying in the wilderness in the great Christian drama. In presenting the epic of John s life, novelist Brooks Hansen draws on an extraordinary array of inspirations, from the works of Caravaggio, Bach, and Oscar Wilde to the histories of Josephus, the canonical gospels, the Gnostic gospels, and the sacred texts of those followers of John who never accepted Jesus as Messiah: the Mandeans.Gripping as literary historical fiction, and fascinating as a diligent exploration of ancient and modern sources, this book brings to eye-opening life the richly textured world populated by the magnificently sordid, calculating, and reckless Herods, their families, and their courts into which both John and Jesus were born. John the Baptizer is a captivating tapestry of power and dissent, ambition and self-sacrifice, worldly and otherworldly desire, faith, and doubt."

...Here again, his natural figure crouched beside her in the dank darkness of the cave, watching her in silence as she slept, struggling with cravings which were new to him, both tender and violent, and which he could only really compare to hunger... (from ASMODEUS) On the cusp of the Great War, an even more pitched battle is waged in the furthest corner of the Nordic highlands, the final chapter of a centuries-old rivalry, pitting a troubled bloodline of thieves, journeyman, and politicians against the last and greatest dragon of the hemisphere, Asmodeus. Until now, the source of this antagonism has been a single gemstone, the fabled shamir, whose history traces to the coffers of King Solomon. The present clash, however, has been sparked by the emergence of an even more desirable, more defiant, and more powerful force than that. Inspired by the golden legend of St. Margaret, Brooks Hansen's Asmodeus is a masterfully woven tapestry of history, myth, and fantasy, in the tradition of J.R.R.Tolkien, Bram Stoker, and C.S. Lewis. By turns a romance, an adventure, and the darkest imaginable Gothic, his tale is also, as seen through the eyes of the maiden Margr t, an unflinching exploration of our divided nature - what makes us beasts, what makes us human, and what makes us divine. "Hansen writes with a poet's eye for image, building a novel as one might build a cathedral, stone by stone, sentence by sentence...comparisons to Nabokov and Calvino are doubtless in order - The New York Times Book Review "...the most imaginative and talented novelist of his generation." -Hugh Nissenson, author of The Days of Awe "Like Garcia Marquez, Borges, even Poe, Hansen creates a dangerous, enlightening new world...He is a true inventor of fiction, and a protean, generous one at that." -Village Voice Literary Supplement

There is a beast that lives in Central Park. The Castle is his home. The park is his domain, and he has been ruling there, in his way, for longer than anyone can remember. The reason so few know of him is because he only comes out at night, and it is said that while he makes his moonlit rounds, the statues of the park all come to life, to stretch their legs, to congregate, and "drink the evening air." But the reason so few people know this is because (as the poem says) the only one that they let seem them is the only one who lets them see... "They're not alone. There's flesh and bone. There's pointy ears, and fingernails, and teeth." Though I grew up not far from the park, I myself was unaware of the Beastie's existence until the spring of my tenth year, when for one week my parents left me and my sister in the care of our next door neighbor, Mrs Guildenweiser. This is the story of that week, and of my first encounter with our other, wilder neighbor, he of the moonward howl... ...the stomach's growl, the gnaw, the paw, the grunt the scratch, the cheer. Come along and meet the Beastie, shaggy Beastie, Lord of the Lamp Post

In the late autumn of 1889, the body of an unknown woman appeared on the banks of the Seine River in Paris. It was taken to the city morgue behind Notre Dame and put on display for a month, according to protocol. The eerie beauty of the young woman’s expression attracted crowds but no claimant, and so, before the body was dispatched, a mold was taken of the face, yielding a mask which was to become one of the most celebrated cult objects of the 20th century. Set during the final days of the Paris expo of 1889, Brooks Hansen’s captivating The Unknown Woman of the Seine sets out to solve the mystery of who the woman was behind the mask. In charge of that investigation is a former Gendarme and recent prisoner of war just returned from Tonkin, China. Emile Brassard is on his way to Paris, determined to reclaim his place in La Force when he crosses paths with an enigmatic and unnamed young maiden and her gypsy wagon. Detecting villainy, and bent on proving himself to his former superiors, Brassard tracks her into the city and observes from the shadows as, with clear but mysterious purpose, she wends her way into the orbit of several savory and unsavory characters—an Artist, an Impresario, a Madame, a Countess, and one Disciple even—each of whom sees in her some opportunity for profit or redemption; any one of whom may therefore be responsible for her sudden and unexplained disappearance. Brassard’s chase will lead him on a grand tour of the city’s lushest and seamiest venues, from its highest spires down into its darkest catacombs, and past a gallery of equally diverse crimes—the moral, the political, the maniacal. By the end of this enchanting and ominous journey, he will learn the stunning truth of the unknown woman’s true identity, her past and present, but not before unearthing the equally disturbing truth about himself, who he has been, and who he must become.