Or How I Found Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her
Particularly when the Goddess in question is the playful goddess of chaos in classical mythology, Eris or Discordia,
(9) DAISETZ SUZUKI - ZEN & JAPANESE CULTURE (1959)
Zen's influence on Japanese traditional arts - art, haiku, tea ceremonies, the Japanese love of nature and above all swordsmanship. I've always found swords to have a metaphorical resonance to life and how one lives it.
(8) PETER DICKINSON - THE FLIGHT OF DRAGONS (1979)
Here be dragons!
And how! "Speculative natural history", which addresses perhaps the most awesome question of fantasy - what if dragons really existed
(7) WESTON LA BARRE - THE GHOST DANCE: ORIGINS OF RELIGION (1970)
"Psychoanalytic account of the birth of religion through the lens of his treatment of the ghost dance religion of native America"
(6) JOSEPH CAMPBELL - THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES (1949)
Behold the monomyth! (And the hero's journey)
(5) PENGUIN DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLS (1969)
"This is a remarkable dictionary, exploring the vast and various symbols which abound in literature, religion, national identity and are found at the very heart of our dreams and sub-conscious"
(4) KATHARINE BRIGGS - A DICTIONARY OF FAIRIES (1972)
A classic book, alternatively titled An Encyclopedia of Fairies, which now seems sadly out of print, by a classic British folklorist - indeed THE classic British folklorist
Honorable mention: Alan Froud & Brian Lee - Faeries
(3) BARBARA WALKER - WOMEN'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MYTHS & SECRETS (1983)
She is the goddess and this is her body!
(2) BULFINCH'S MYTHOLOGY (1867)
Bulfinch's Mythology still remains a classic reference (and handily in the public domain) - as indeed it was for me as my introduction as a child to the world of classical mythology
(1) BIBLE
The Hebrew dreaming and the great messianic ghost dance
Of course, in a literal sense the Bible is both OT and NT - but for me, if the Bible is my Old Testament of mythology books, then Bulfinch's Mythology and Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets are my New Testament
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"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!"
Ladies and gentleman - I am that man! And yes I know that soliloquy goes on to undercut that sentiment
Re-publishing my Top 10 Mythology Books, as I originally published them together with my Top 10 Mythologies and the combined feature was a little too long. (Also shuffled some entries) @Paracelsus1092 @ViciousRicardan @ReginaldODonog1 @Rad_Sherwoodism (if only for Hutton!)
The flip side of the fall of the western Roman Empire - from whose perspective it was a period of barbarian invasion
Exactly what it says on the tin - a period of large-scale migration, mostly Germanic migration, invasion and settlement of various tribes within Europe, establishing post-Roman European kingdoms
It is often classified into two waves, although it is most associated with the first wave (or Volkerwanderung) of big-named Germanic tribes - Visigoths, Vandals, Franks and Ostrogoths, as well as Angles and Saxons in Britain
The Bronze Age Collapse - or Late Bronze Age Collapse - was the widespread collapse of Mediterranean Bronze Age civilization in the 12th century BC, argued to be worse than the collapse of the western Roman Empire or even the worst case of societal collapse in human history
Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece - the Greeks of the Trojan War - were among the most famous casualties, ushering in the Greek Dark Ages for a few centuries
That's right - I'm swapping in three new entries which I prefer for my Top 10 Wars (Special Mentions)
(8) KOREAN WAR (1950-1953)
Often labelled the forgotten war, at least in the United States
Or compared to WW1 as a conventional stalemate for most of its duration as well as its inconclusive ceasefire, with a tendency to overlook both for WW2, or the Korean War for the Vietnam War (with even the M*A*S*H* series set in the former being more a commentary on the latter)
Here in my special mentions for my Top 10 Wars of History, I've decided that this will not do – with the Korean War not only worthy of special mention along with the similarly overlooked First World War, but with both in god tier to boot
Also the last empire in Africa, subsequent to the fall of the Ethiopian Empire
Indeed the penultimate country in the world to have a head of state with the title of Emperor, leaving Japan as the last country standing with an Emperor
The Central African Empire was achieved by the simple expedient of President Bokassa, military dictator of the Central African Republic, declaring himself Emperor and the republic an empire from 4 December 1976 to 21 September 1979