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Geologists are among that group of scientists who must factor the passage of time into their investigations and they thus have a perspective on time that sets them apart from many other researchers. The proposition that geological time is vast, encompassing thousands of millions of years, is relatively recent. It is a concept that remains controversial and unacceptable to many people today who still consider the Earth to have been made to a timetable covering no more than ten thousand years.Paul Lyle examines how our fascination with time has developed from our earliest ancestors' recognition of the cycles of the sun and the moon. It considers the passage of time as a series of non-repeatable events, Time's Arrow, in contrast to time as a series of repeated processes, Time's Cycle, both of which can be used to explain geological features on the Earth's surface.The author argues for a greater understanding of geological or ‘deep time’ as society becomes more aware of the vulnerability of the Earth's resources to over-exploitation by an expanding consumer society. This debate and the controversy surrounding global warming emphasises the importance of geological time to the process of economic and political decision-making. It is a book for those interested in the intellectual challenge presented by the extent of geological time. It is written for environmentalists and policy-makers who wish to better place their concerns and decisions in proper context but, above all, it is a book that offers to share a geologist’s appreciation of time with the widest possible audience.

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In recent years Brendan's voyage has become increasingly popular as a topic of interest, not only in medieval studies, but also within the history of travel literature in general. One of the legend's charms is that it can be read in a number of ways: as a thinly disguised account of Irish travels and discoveries in the Atlantic, as a seafaring story in the fashion of the Irish immrama (literally 'rowings out'), or as an allegorical tale of Man's journey through life. It also has links with the monastic culture of its day, and contains echoes of the Odyssey and the Aeneid, Sinbad the Sailor and the quest for the Holy Grail.Barron and Burgess's volume collects the most important versions of the voyage from a wide variety of cultures, and presents them in modern English translations together with a general introduction to Brendan, explanatory commentaries and an extensive bibliography.This new paperback edition also includes a comprehensive index of story-elements specially devised with the Brendan student in mind to allow easy comparison of the different versions.

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The Book of Marvels, a compilation of marvellous events of a grotesque, bizarre or sensational nature, was composed in the second century A.D. by Phlegon of Tralles, a Greek freedman of the Roman emperor Hadrian. This remarkable text is the earliest surviving work of pure sensationalism in Western literature. The Book is arranged thematically: Ghosts; Sex-Changers and Hermaphrodites; Finds of Giant Bones; Monstrous Births; Births from Males; Amazing Multiple Births; Abnormally Rapid Development of Human Beings; Discoveries of Live Centaurs. This volume also contains and Introduction and commentary on the texts, as well as translations of fragments of two other works and a translation of Goethe's well-known vampire poem, The Bride of Corinth, which was inspired by Phlegon's Book of Marvels.

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This new research in English on the work of the Mozambican writer Mia Couto provides a comprehensive introduction to the critical terrain of Couto's literary thought. Already well-established in the Lusophone world, Mia Couto is increasingly acknowledged as a major voice in World literature. Winner of the Camões Prize for Literature in 2013, the most prestigious literary prize honouring Lusophone writers, he was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2014, and in 2015 was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. Yet, despite this high profile there are very few full-length critical studiesin English about his writing. Mia Couto is known for his imaginative re-working of Portuguese, making it distinctively Mozambican in character. This book brings together some of the key scholars of his work such as Phillip Rothwell, Luís Madureira, and his long-time English translator David Brookshaw. Contributors examine not only his early works, which were written in the context of the 16-year post-independence civil war in Mozambique, but alsothe wide span of Couto's contemporary writing as a novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist. There are contributions on his work in ecology, theatre and journalism, as well as on translation and Mozambican nationalist politics. Most importantly the contributors engage with the significance of Couto's writing to contemporary discussions of African literature, Lusophone studies and World literature. Grant Hamilton is Associate Professor of English literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the editor of Reading Marechera (James Currey, 2013). David Huddart is Associate Professor of English literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kongand is author of Involuntary Associations: World Englishes and Postcolonial Studies (Liverpool University Press, 2014]

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