Lawrence Weschler

Robert Irwin

'On its more radical fringes, modern art merges with modern philosophy, and this excellent, provocative profile...points up the extent to which the act of percepton, rather than any specific objects, has become the subject of the avant-garde California artist's work....Weschler has a knack for clarifying avstruse artistic and philosophical concepts.

A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin

Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees

Ursula Lyons

"When the beautiful Shahrazad gives herself to the bloody-handed King Shahriyar, she is not expected to survive beyond dawn. But using all her wit and guile, she begins a sequence of stories that will last 1001 nights: stories of ìfrits and money-changers, princes and slave girls, fishermen and queens, and magical gardens of paradise. This volume also includes the well-known tale of Àli Baba and the Forty Thieves'." "Along with this landmark new translation, Robert Irwin's introduction discusses the many cultures The Arabian Nights has drawn on and the elaborate structure of the story-within-a-story that defines the collection, as well as the importance to the Nights of locked doors, sex and the recurring themes of money, merchants and debts. This edition also contains suggestions for further reading, a glossary, maps and a chronology."--BOOK JACKET.

The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights

The English pilgrim Balian of Norwich comes to medieval Cairo on a spy mission and becomes caught up in a series of bizarre intrigues and erotic adventures. Reprint.

The Arabian Nightmare

A collection of ancient tales from Arabia, India, and Persia. The tales - often stories within stories - are told by the sultana Scheherazade, who relates them as entertainments for her jealous and murderous husband, hoping to keep him amused and herself alive.

Ibn Jubayr

Ronald Broadhurst

A Medieval Journey from Cordoba to Jerusalem

Travels of Ibn Jubayr

The definitive account of the life and thought of the medieval Arab genius who wrote the Muqaddima Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) is generally regarded as the greatest intellectual ever to have appeared in the Arab world—a genius who ranks as one of the world's great minds. Yet the author of the Muqaddima, the most important study of history ever produced in the Islamic world, is not as well known as he should be, and his ideas are widely misunderstood. In this groundbreaking intellectual biography, Robert Irwin provides an engaging and authoritative account of Ibn Khaldun's extraordinary life, times, writings, and ideas.

An Intellectual Biography

Ibn Khaldun

Jack Wells

Lachlan Creagh

Dinosaur Cove

In a story set against a backdrop of 1930s and 1940s Europe, surrealist painter Caspar embarks on a bizarre and obsessive odyssey through opium dens, orgies, drunken sprees in Soho, and madhouses in search of the woman he loves. Reprint.

Exquisite Corpse

The Limits of Vision (Contemporary English Language Fiction)

For Lust of Knowing

Robert Irwin's fascinating journey between London and Algeria into the spirit and adventure of the 1960's

Sufis, Mystics and the Sixties

Memoirs of a Dervish

A first English-language translation of a definitive collection of medieval Arab fantasy tales is comprised of works that survived in a single manuscript library from Istanbul and is presented to reflect the interests of original audiences.

Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange

Maxime Rodinson

Anne Carter

Maxime Rodinson, both a maverick Marxist and a distinguished professor at the Sorbonne, first published his biography of Muhammad in 1960. The book, a classic in its field, has been widely read ever since. Rodinson, though deeply versed in scholarly studies of the Prophet, does not seek to add to it here but to introduce Muhammad, first of all, as “a man of flesh and blood” who led a life of extraordinary drama and shaped history as few others have. Equally, he seeks to lay out an understanding of Muhammad’s legacy and Islam as what he called an ideological movement, similar to the universalist religions of Christianity and Buddhism as well as the secular movement of Marxism, but possessing a singular commitment to “the deeply ingrained idea that Islam offers not only a path to salvation but (for many, above all) the ideal of a just society to be realized on earth.”

Rodinson’s book begins by introducing the specific land and the larger world into which Muhammad was born and the development of his prophetic calling. It then follows the steps of his career and the way his leadership gave birth to a religion and a state. A final chapter considers the world as Islam has transformed it.

Muhammad

"Beginning with the Palm Sunday Battle of Towton, the bloodiest ever fought on English soil, this relates the fabulous adventures of one man and his noble family amid the chaos and political intrigue that beset England during the War of the Roses, when two great houses battled for control of the throne. The young Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales and brother to the future queen, Elizabeth Woodville, seems to die during that battle and be resurrected. While dead, he witnesses the Grail ceremony last seen during the age of King Arthur, before England was cursed by war and Hell so filled with bodies that the dead now walk the land. What he wakes to and witnesses for the rest of his life as he defends his king is a ceaseless stream of wonders: a family rumored to be descended from the fairy Melusine and imbued with her dragon's blood, a talking head that predicts the future, a miraculous cauldron, a museum of skulls, alchemists and wizards, the Swordsman's Pentacle, and plenty of battles, sieges, swordplay, jousts, treachery, murder, beheadings, and horrific torture. And all the while, stories--some so porous that their characters enter history and threaten their maker"--

a novel

Wonders will never cease

A Companion

The Arabian Nights

Palm Sunday 1461: the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil is about to take place outside Towton. The world when younger was more brightly coloured and its ecstasies and tortures more fiercely endured. Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, having been killed at Towton, is vouchsafed the first of many strange visions before being resurrected. From then on adventures come running after him like hungry dogs and he will encounter the Swordsman's Pentacle, the Draug, the Miraculous Cauldron, the Curse of the Roasted Goose, the Talking Head and the Museum of Skulls.

Wonders Will Never Cease

Abrams, Harry N., Staff

Robert Irwin delves deep into the cultures of the Islamic world to survey the exquisite arts of painting, architecture, porcelain, enamel, manuscript illumination, metalwork, calligraphy, textiles, and more. Including 217 illustrations, 148 in full color, the book covers the earliest foundations of Islam through the brilliant high point of the 17th century.

Art, Architecture, and the Literary World

Islamic Art in Context

Ranging from the fifth to sixteenth centuries, a comprehensive survey of Arabic poetry and literature covers the broad sweep of Arabic writing, from Afghanistan to Spain, including readings from the Koran, The Thousand and One Nights, and more with accompanying notes on genres and history. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature

Night and Horses and the Desert

Malcolm Lyons

Once upon a time, the name Baghdad conjured up visions of the most magical, romantic city on earth, where flying carpets carried noble thieves off on wonderful adventures, and vicious viziers and beautiful princesses mingled with wily peasants and powerful genies. This is the world of the Arabian Nights, a magnificent collection of ancient tales from Arabia, India, and Persia. The tales - often stories within stories - are told by the sultana Scheherazade, who relates them as entertainments for her jealous and murderous husband, hoping to keep him amused and herself alive. Three fantastic tales have been chosen from our new translation to introduce readers to the delights of the Arabian Nights: 'Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves Killed by a Slave Girl' is a well-known and well-loved classic, placed alongside the equally enchanting 'Judar and His Brothers' and 'Ma'rus the Cobbler'.

Three Tales from the Arabian Nights

"For Fans of Game of Thrones" (Michael Dirda, Washington Post), An Exhilarating, Magical Blend of History and Fantasy Set during the Original Game of Thrones Beginning with the Palm Sunday battle of Towton, the bloodiest ever fought on English soil, Wonders Will Never Cease relates the fabulous adventures of one man and his noble family amid the chaos and political intrigue that beset England during the War of the Roses, when two great houses battled for control of the throne. Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales and brother to the future queen, Elizabeth Woodville, seems to die during that battle and be resurrected. While dead, he witnesses the Grail ceremony last seen during the age of King Arthur, before England was cursed by war and Hell so filled with bodies that the dead now walk the land. What he wakes to and witnesses for the rest of his life as he defends his king is a ceaseless stream of wonders: a talking head that predicts the future, a miraculous cauldron, a museum of skulls, the Swordsman's Pentacle, alchemists and wizards, and plenty of battles, sieges, swordplay, jousts, treachery, murder, beheadings, and horrific torture. His own family is rumored to be descended from the fairy Melusine and imbued with her dragon’s blood. And there are lots of other stories too—some so porous that their characters enter history and threaten their maker.

Robert Irwin

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