Mythology

The Mahabharata has the privilege of being the longest epic ever written in the world. Jaya by Devdutt Pattanaik is a fascinating retelling of the Mahabharata with beautiful illustrations. But what sets this book apart from the many other versions of the epic is the seamless way the author has woven tales that are well known with little known variants from regional and folk tales. Originally known as Jaya, The Mahabharata has more than 100,000 2-line stanzas. This enthralling retelling by Devdutt Pattanaik draws its readers into the fascinating tale of the Kuru family, the complications and fights that lead up to the famous 18-day Mahabharata War and its impact. He weaves together well-and-lesser-known folk as well as regional versions of the epic including the Pandavani of Chattisgarh, Gondhal of Maharashtra, Terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu and Yakshagana of Karnataka. The book is written in a 108 chapters and abundant with many little known facts like the names of the hundred Kauravas, the stories of Astika, Madhavi, Jaimini, Aravan and Barbareek and the deifying of Draupadi as a goddess in the temples of Tamil Nadu. The author has even tried to date the war with the astronomical data provided in the epic. Devdutt Pattanaik''s Jaya is a book that shows the epic in a new light.

Includes tales such as young women go on long and difficult quests, wicked stepmothers turn children into geese and tsars ask dangerous riddles, with help or hindrance from magical dolls, cannibal witches, talking skulls, stolen wives, and brothers disguised as wise birds.

As well as vividly exploring the tales, the author brings her expertise in the archaeology of the Iron Age and particularly shamanism to bear on the mythical worlds she describes, with evidence as diverse as the Gundestrup Cauldron and the famous bog bodies. She also asks how the myths survived the Christianization of Europe.

Lets you tune into the sacred power and ancient wisdom of trees. From the birch to the willow, this title introduces fifteen revered trees of the Celtic Tree Calendar and describes their unique gifts. It helps you learn from the author's personal stories of revelation.

Every night for three years the vengeful King Shahriyar sleeps with a different virgin, executing her next morning. To end this brutal pattern and to save her own life, the vizier's daughter, Shahrazad, begins to tell the king tales of adventure, love, riches and wonder. The sequence of stories will last 1,001 nights.

Now as sumptuously packaged as they are critically acclaimed-a new deluxe trade paperback edition of the beloved stories.

Odysseus survives a storm and shipwreck, the cave of the Cyclops and the isle of Circe, the lure of the Sirens' song and a trip to the Underworld, only to find his most difficult challenge at home, where treacherous suitors seek to steal his kingdom and his loyal wife, Penelope.

'These legends are the action-packed stories - of ancient heroes, huge battles, attempted invasions, prophecies and spells, clashes between the underworld and the real world, abductions, love affairs and feasts - which have fascinated the Irish mind for more than 2,000 years .

The companion volume to The Earth Chroniclesseries that reveals the identity of mankind's ancient gods.

My Heart My Mother looks at many different aspects of Egyptian religion from the role of Hathor-Sekhmet, the serpent eye goddess, in the cult of Osiris, to the reliefs in the temple at Abydos, and more general discussions of temple life, ancestor ritual, death, rebirth and regeneration. An original piece of work on female divinities and their role in the passage of the pharaohs from death to rebirth that takes us beyond the New Kingdom period and into the Greco-Roman world.

On the shrouded corpse hung a tablet of green topaz with the inscription: ''I am Shaddad the Great. I conquered a thousand cities; a thousand white elephants were collected for me; I lived for a thousand years and my kingdom covered both east and west, but when death came to me nothing of all that I had gathered was of any avail. You who see me take heed: for Time is not to be trusted.'' Dating from at least a millennium ago, these are the earliest known Arabic short stories, surviving in a single, ragged manuscript in a library in Istanbul. Some found their way into The Arabian Nights but most have never been read in English before. Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange has monsters, lost princes, jewels beyond price, a princess turned into a gazelle, sword-wielding statues and shocking reversals of fortune.