Most Popular Books by David Adams

Hercules, Zeus, Thor, Gilgamesh--these are the figures that leap to mind when we think of myth. But to David Leeming, myths are more than stories of deities and fantastic beings from non-Christian cultures. Myth is at once the most particular and the most universal feature of civilization, representing common concerns that each society voices in its own idiom. Whether an Egyptian story of creation or the big-bang theory of modern physics, myth is metaphor, mirroring our deepest sense of ourselves in relation to existence itself. Now, in The World of Myth, Leeming provides a sweeping anthology of myths, ranging from ancient Egypt and Greece to the Polynesian islands and modern science. We read stories of great floods from the ancient Babylonians, Hebrews, Chinese, and Mayans; tales of apocalypse from India, the Norse, Christianity, and modern science; myths of the mother goddess from Native American Hopi culture and James Lovelock''s Gaia. Leeming has culled myths from Aztec, Greek, African, Australian Aboriginal, Japanese, Moslem, Hittite, Celtic, Chinese, and Persian cultures, offering one of the most wide-ranging collections of what he calls the collective dreams of humanity. More important, he has organized these myths according to a number of themes, comparing and contrasting how various societies have addressed similar concerns, or have told similar stories. In the section on dying gods, for example, both Odin and Jesus sacrifice themselves to renew the world, each dying on a tree. Such traditions, he proposes, may have their roots in societies of the distant past, which would ritually sacrifice their kings to renew the tribe. In The World of Myth, David Leeming takes us on a journey "not through a maze of falsehood but through a marvellous world of metaphor," metaphor for "the story of the relationship between the known and the unknown, both around us and within us." Fantastic, tragic, bizarre, sometimes funny, the myths he presents speak of the most fundamental human experience, a part of what Joseph Campbell called "the wonderful song of the soul''s high adventure."

Works such as Joseph Conrad''s Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, Virginia Woolf''s The Voyage Out, E. M. Forster''s A Passage to India, and Evelyn Waugh''s A Handful of Dust explore the relationship between Britain and its colonies when the British Empire was at its height. David Adams observes that, because of their structure and specific literary allusions, they also demand to be read in relation to the epic tradition. The elegantly written and powerfully argued Colonial Odysseys focuses on narratives published in English between 1890 and 1940 in which protagonists journey from the familiar world of Europe to alien colonial worlds. The underlying concerns of these narratives, Adams discovers, are often less political or literary than metaphysical: in each of these fictions a major character dies as a result of the journey, inviting reflection on the negation of existence. Repeatedly, imaginative encounters with distant, uncanny colonies produce familiar, insular presentations of life as an odyssey, with death as the home port. Expanding postcolonial and Marxist theories by drawing on the philosophy of Hans Blumenberg, Adams finds in this preoccupation with mortality a symptom of the failure of secular culture to give meaning to death. This concern, in his view, shapes the ways modernist narratives reinforce or critique imperial culture—the authors project onto British imperial experience their anxieties about the individual''s relation to the absolute.

A major life of one of the most influential black writers of our time, James Baldwin (Go Tell It on the Mountain, The Fire Next Time). Leeming, Baldwin''s friend for 25 years, accessed all of Baldwin''s private papers to bring readers closer than ever to the complex man who struggled out of Harlem to become a legend of American literature. Photos.

Leeming illustrates the various rites of passage of the mythic universal hero, from birth to childhood, through trial and quest, death, descent, rebirth, and ascension. The arrangement of texts by themes such as "The Descent to the Underworld" and "Resurrection and Rebirth" strip mythic characters of their national and cultural "masks" to reveal their archetypal aspects. Real figures, including Jesus and Mohammed, are also included to underline the theory that myths are real and can be applied to real life. This updated edition includes additional myths, as well as Navajo, Indonesian, Indian, Chinese, and African tales.

This study of domestic homicide in America examines the lives and moitvation of men who kill their intimate partners.

Annotation - A fascinating account of Britain''s mythic traditions.

Two sellswords, now pariahs, split up to escape injustice. But the ghosts of the past come back to haunt Brea the half-elf, while Kozog the half-orc finds peril lurking much closer to his chest than he could ever imagine. A novella set in Drathari, the world of Ren of Atikala. Part two of the The Pariahs series.

Spout the Dragon Becomes a Firefighter By: David Adams Spout isn’t your ordinary fire breathing dragon, he is a unique water dragon. His water ability sets him apart from the other dragons. He learns being different from his peers isn’t always easy, but being true to yourself is more important. When the forest is on fire, Spout decides to help the firefighters. He realizes that being unique can lead to extraordinary dreams.

I am Ren of Atikala. Kobold. Sorceress. Warrior. I am many things and I have many stories to tell. This one is about my home. Home. The word has a special resonance with us all. Great or humble, rich or poor, everyone cherishes their home and if deprived of it loses a piece of themselves. I remember looking back at Atikala, its ceiling collapsed in, the homes of fifty thousand kobolds crushed under unimaginable tonnes of rock and dirt. I remembering the feeling of horror and denial that immediately set in. I wanted to reject that this had happened to me, to scream to the ceiling until the rock receded, until fate changed its mind and restored everything to the way it was. I thought that life could not be so cruel as to take everything I''d known in an instant. Oh, how I now understand that life can be capricious indeed. This is story of how I came to the surface of Drathari and unwillingly traded a life for a life. The Kobolds series: #1: Ren of Atikala #2: Ren of Atikala: The Scars of Northaven (Now available for preorder!) Other stories set in Drathari, the World of Shattered Dreams: - The Gods are Silent, a short story (Coming early 2015!). Keywords: free, freebie, free download, fantasy, epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, kobold, pathfinder, dungeons and dragons, open gaming content, sorceress

David Leeming and Jake Page gather some seventy-five of the most potent and meaningful of these tales in an extraordinary rich and readable introduction of this divine figure as she has emerged from prehistory to the present.

We have shown you the focus of PEACE, and through that we invite you to look at YOUR DIVINE PLAN, and to work with it through both your energy bodies and your physical bodies, by HARMONIZING the CONSCIOUSNESS and the MIND in a single purpose of PEACEFUL BEINGNESS !! The more you radiate the ESSENCE OF PEACE from within yourself, the greater the PEACE that will be achieved on the Planet itself. From a tiny acorn the oak Tree will grow! And from your INDIVIDUAL LIGHT OF PEACE, the greater Planetary PEACE will grow. This is the message I took to the BLUE PLANET eons of time ago. It is the message that I bring to YOU now. It is for YOU to determine if you run with it or ignore it, individually or collectively. I merely offer an alternative .. PEACE, LOVE AND HARMONY IN ALL HEARTS AND MINDS. From Sananda, January 21, 2001

Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism brings together ten innovative contributions by outstanding scholars working across a wide array of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Interdisciplinary in its methodology and compass, with a strong comparative European dimension, the volume examines discourses ranging from literature, historiography, music and opera to anthropology and political philosophy. It makes an original contribution to the study of 18th-century ideas of universal peace, progress and wealth as the foundation of future debates on cosmopolitanism. At the same time, it analyses examples of counter-reaction to these ideas and discusses the relevance of the Enlightenment for subsequent polemics on cosmopolitanism, including 21st-century debates in sociology, politics and legal theory.

My name is Mike “Magnet” Williams. I''ve come a long way. These days I have my own ship, the Rubens. We stole it from the Toralii Alliance. For the last year the Rubens has been tasked with ‘counter-logistical privateering’ against the Toralii Alliance, attacking their military supply network. We hit them hard, we get out, we do it all over again. Modern day buccaneers given total autonomy. We''re alone, without anothr Human within a thousand light years. If only that were true. Somewhere out in the black, around a remote moon covered in ice that''s kilometres thick, we found something. Something that was not supposed to be there. Something we were not supposed to find. Scarecrow. I can take a lot of pressure. Fighter pilots are supposed to be able to do that. Whatever the universe throws at me, I can handle it. So far I''ve faced aliens, friendly and otherwise, and I''ve seen things that so very few Humans have. I''ve dealt with it all. But not this. Not my own conscience. 15,700-word story in the Lacuna universe, set after the events of Magnet: Marauder and Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity, but suitable for reading as a stand-alone story. Parts of the Lacuna universe: - Magnet - Magnet: Special Mission - Magnet: Marauder - Magnet: Scarecrow (new release!) - Imperfect - Faith The Lacuna series: - Lacuna - Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi - Lacuna: The Spectre of Oblivion - Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity (new release!) - Lacuna: The Prelude to Eternity (coming soon!)