Galveston, Texas, is under mandatory evacuation today as massive Hurricane Ike barrels toward it. According to the Associated Press, “the National Weather Service warned residents of smaller structures on Galveston they could ‘face certain death’ if they ignored an order to evacuate.”

This has all happened before, on September 8, 1900, as detailed by newspaper journalist Nathan C. Green in his book Story of the Galveston Flood: Complete, Graphic, Authentic, available from Cosimo Books. In Chapter 1 he writes:

One of the most awful tragedies of modern times has visited Galveston. The city is in ruins, and the dead will number possibly 6,000. The wreck of Galveston was brought about by a tempest so terrible that no words can adequately describe its intensity, and by a flood which turned the city into a raging sea.

This compilation of news coverage and survivor stories was published almost immediately after the disaster, the turn-of-the-20th-century equivalent of current-events documentary. With a dispassionate eye but with a flair for finding the dramatic in the eyewitness accounts he relays, journalist Green gathers startling accounts of the death and ruin of the city, the national relief efforts that sprung up in the aftermath, and scientific assessment of the storm, and more. In the wake of the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and now the current threat to Galveston, this is a historical story with a fresh new relevance.

Story of the Galveston Flood: Complete, Graphic, Authentic is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

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This past week New York Times columnist and Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman wrote a column called “The Great Illusion,” about the illusion that economic rationality could prevent war. He’s discussing the ongoing conflict between Russia and Georgia and how it might signal an end to globalization as a force for peace. In the column Krugman reminds us that this has happened before:

Shortly before World War I another British author, Norman Angell, published a famous book titled “The Great Illusion,” in which he argued that war had become obsolete, that in the modern industrial era even military victors lose far more than they gain. He was right — but wars kept happening anyway.

As it happens, the only U.S. edition of Angell’s book is available from Cosimo: buy it at Amazon and watch history repeat itself.

(Technorati tags: Great Illusion, Norman Angell, Paul Krugman)

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If you’ve already finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and are desperately seeking a new magic fix, why not read up on the historical roots of the mythology of magic?

Start with Aradia: Gospel of the Witches, by Charles Godfrey Leland, the 1899 classic that has become a foundational document of modern Wicca and neopaganism. Leland, an American journalist, claimed that a “witch informant,” a fortune-teller named Maddalena, supplied him with the secret writings that he translated and combined with his research on Italian pagan tradition to create a gospel of pagan belief and practice. Here, in the story of the goddess Aradia, who came to Earth to champion oppressed peasants in their fight against their feudal overlords and the Catholic Church, are the chants, prayers, spells, and rituals that have become the centerpieces of contemporary pagan faiths.

Also from Leland is Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling, in which he explores the origins of witchcraft, vindictive and mischievous magic, charms and conjurations, love potions, fortune telling, gypsy amulets, and much more. Cosimo’s edition is a replica of the original 1891 book, complete with Leland’s beautifully evocative drawings and diagrams.

Modern wizards will want to add the 1911 book The Book of Ceremonial Magic, by Arthur Edward Waite, to their magical libraries. Culled from the rare and often inaccessible actual manuscripts of magical grimoires from the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, this classic work on magic and its secrets reveals all you need to know in order to begin communing with the supernatural and appropriating its power. Waite, a preeminent 19th-century expert in esoterica and a cocreator of the famous 1910 Rider-Waite Tarot deck, discusses the difference between white and black magic, the rituals of transcendental magic, the rituals of black magic, the names and offices of evil spirits, the mysteries of “infernal evocation,” and much more. But be warned: Dabbling in the paranormal arts is an adventure undertaken at your own risk.

What happened to medieval magicians caught casting spells? Fifteen-century Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger reveal all in The Malleus Maleficarum, also known as “The Witch Hammer.” A handbook for hunting and punishing witches, this is mostly a compilation of superstition and folklore, but it was taken very seriously at the time it was written and became a kind of spiritual law book used by judges to determine the guilt of the accused. Cosimo’s is a replica edition of the 1928 translation by Montague Summers.

Did you know that Albus Dumbledore’s old pal Nicholas Flamel was a real alchemist of historical lore? Learn about Flamel — and more than fifty other alchemists — in Alchemists Through the Ages, another work by Arthur Edward Waite. The word alchemy conjures up images of charlatans mixing potions and concocting remedies during the Middle Ages in a futile quest to transform lead into gold, but the roots of alchemy can be traced back more than 2,500 years to locales as disparate as Egypt, India, and China, and it was considered serious science until as recently as the 16th century. In this highly regarded volume first published in 1888, Waite examines the lives and works of alchemists from the year 850 through the end of the 18th century. Was alchemy the true precursor to modern chemistry or a pseudo-science populated by quacks? Decide for yourself.

For more on alchemy, check out Alchemy Rediscovered and Restored, by Archibald Cockren. According to practitioners and students of alchemy, the body’s Vital Energy, or Quintessence, is best obtained from minerals and metals. Using everyday language and an accessible style, Cockren — considered the greatest British alchemist of the 20th century — explores the different uses and manifestations of this ancient science, from the physical to the medicinal and even the spiritual. Along the way, he provides engaging sketches of alchemy’s early pioneers, including St. Germain, Basil Valentine, and the legendary Paracelsus, providing a solid foundation to his belief that within the world’s metals “can be found elements to cure all discords in the human body.”

(Technorati tags: Harry Potter, magic, alchemy)

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All this news about the supposed new video of the Loch Ness Monster and the accompanying frenzy has me bursting to tell you about the new edition of the 1892 cryptozoology classic The Great Sea-Serpent by A. C. Oudemans that Cosimo will be publishing soon. This comprehensive treatise on the history of sea-monster sightings — at least through the end of the 19th century — describes 150 sightings back to the 16th century, including hoaxes, and theorizes on what, exactly, sailors and other witnesses were really seeing. This new edition is part of a new cryptozoology series we’re presenting with renowned cryptozoologist Loren Coleman.

We know geeks are psyched for this book, and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s available for sale.

(Technorati tags: Loch Ness Monster, Great Sea-Serpent, AC Oudemans, Loren Coleman)

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Sad news for astronomy buffs: The famous radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico — the largest of its kind on planet Earth, it was featured in the film Contact — is in danger of being shut down. Oh, it still works just fine, but the National Science Foundation, a U.S. federal agency, is considering cutting its funding. As Wired notes, the Arecibo facility “recorded the first planets beyond the solar system and helped detect lakes of hydrocarbons on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.”

Arecibo has contributed tremendously to our understanding of the univserse, but for a look at what our knowledge of the stars was like before radio astromy came along, check out A History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler, by Danish astronomer and a historian of astronomy J.D.E. Dreyer. More than a century after its first publication in English, this remains a helpful and readable introduction to historical astronomy. Beginning with humanity’s first attempts to understand our place in the universe and continuing through the age of Isaac Newton, Dreyer connects modern astronomers to those who laid the groundwork before them.

(Also check out The Story of the Stars, George Frederick Chambers’ 1895 primer on skywatching; its Victorian charm and poetical bent will remind you of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, and it’s a treat for fans of the night sky.)

(Technorati tags: Arecibo, A History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler, JDE Dreyer)

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It’s Science Day here at Cosimo. (We’ll do religion another day.) Of course, we are bemused and aghast — as all thinking folk are — at the warm welcome the new Creation Museum in Kentucky is receiving. (We’re all for diversity of opinion, of course, but diversity of “fact” is another matter entirely.) We like what Media Bistro had to say about the museum: it’s “a great place to visit if you wanted to take a look at $27 million dollars worth of crazy.” But of course, we at Cosimo are overeducated Eastern liberals just like the wags at Media Bistro.

But we are book people. So we counter things like the Creation Museum with books. Like Island Life, by Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace, an English naturalist, developed a theory of natural selection independent of his contemporary Charles Darwin, and in this 1880 classic of scientific literature, he examines a variety of biospheres to determine whether species are immutable (as was long thought), regardless of changing conditions in their surroundings, or are in fact capable of adapting in order to survive. Based on his years of global travel observing fauna and flora and his ponderings on whether the environment in which they lived affected their development, Wallace offer case studies from islands as diverse as the Galapagos, Great Britain, and Madagascar to support his argument.

In the book, Wallace says:

Not only does the marvelous structure of each organized being involve the whole past history of the earth, but such apparently unimportant facts as the presence of certain types of plants and animals in one island rather than in another are… dependent on the long series of past geological changes; on those marvelous astronomical revolutions which cause a periodic variation of terrestrial climates; on the apparently fortuitous action of storms and currents in the conveyance of germs; and on the endlessly varied actions and reactions of organized beings on each other.

Funny how 127 years later, there are still some people who cannot accept this simple reality.

(Also check out The Wonderful Century, Wallace’s history of the marvelous scientific advances of the 19th century.)

(Technorati tags: Creation Museum, Evolution, Alfred Russel Wallace , Island Life)

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One of the things I love about working at Cosimo is that I’m constantly discovering wonderful (and sometimes wonderfully weird!) old books that I’ve never even heard of before, as well as getting regular reminders of great classics that I either haven’t read since school or have never read at all (and should). But even more surprising is that the more I look through books published 50, 100, 150, even 200 years ago, the more I see that the topics that fascinate readers today are, in many instances, the same ones that booklovers were gobbling up decades and centuries ago.

Every week, I take a look at the current New York Times best-seller lists and point out a few Cosimo Classics that connect to today’s hottest books. Cuz all true readers know that too much of a good thing is never enough.

Frank McCourt of Angela’s Ashes fame is back on the Times paperback nonfiction list with his Teacher Man: A Memoir, at No. 8. His concerns seems a bit less philosophical than what legendary and influential educator Maria Montessori was dealing with when she developed her groundbreaking The Montessori Method, but her ideas continue to be urgently necessary today as “traditional” methods of early-childhood schooling seem to be failing us. Published in Italian in 1909 and first translated into English in 1912, these revolutionary theories focus on the individuality of the child and on nurturing her inherent joy of learning to create schools and other learning environments that are oriented on the child. Eschewing rote memorization and drilling, Montessori’s method helps to foster abstract thinking and to fulfill a child’s highest potential, emotionally, physically and intellectually, and parents and teachers today still find the ideas herein immensely valuable.

Over on the Times paperback fiction list this week at No. 16 is The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream, by Paulo Coelho, which features a journey to mystical Egypt. That fabled land has long inspired travelers and seekers after wisdom, as in Pierre Loti’s mesmerizing Egypt. Called one of the finest descriptive writers of his day, and certainly one of the most original, Loti, a French writer and sailor, traveled the world in the late 19th century and painted what he saw in prose acclaimed as extraordinarily rhythmic and lyrical. This 1909 novel is a dreamlike reverie of travels through Egypt just before it became overrun by Western tourists. For readers today, it serves as a window into a world forever lost.

(Technorati tags: Frank McCourt, Teacher Man, Maria Montessori, Montessori Method, Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, Egypt, Pierre Loti)

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One of the things I love about working at Cosimo is that I’m constantly discovering wonderful (and sometimes wonderfully weird!) old books that I’ve never even heard of before, as well as getting regular reminders of great classics that I either haven’t read since school or have never read at all (and should). But even more surprising is that the more I look through books published 50, 100, 150, even 200 years ago, the more I see that the topics that fascinate readers today are, in many instances, the same ones that booklovers were gobbling up decades and centuries ago.

Every Monday, I take a look at the current New York Times best-seller lists and point out a few Cosimo Classics that connect to today’s hottest books. Cuz all true readers know that too much of a good thing is never enough.

Travel to strange and distant lands — by fictional characters and real people alike — has always been an adventure to expand the heart, soul, and mind. The queen of escapist soap opera, Danielle Steel, puts the plot to good use in her new book H.R.H., at No. 11 on the Times hardcover fiction list, about a spoiled European princess who journeys to Africa to work with the Red Cross. Evangelist and teacher Emma Hillmon Haviland wrote of her real-life experiences as a missionary in late-19th-century Zulu country in Under the Southern Cross: Or, A Woman’s Life Work for Africa… though her travels seem to have done little to widen her horizons. Privately published, this is one woman’s account of her Christian work in Africa, from her childhood on farms in Iowa and Kansas, where she had a youthful brush with death that led to her conversion to an active Christianity, to her return home after long years doing the Lord’s work. The time in between is fraught with culture shock: her difficulties in learning the Zulu language, her disdain for Zulu tradition and mythology, even a particular scorn for the food she found unpalatable. Stolid and unbending, this is a curious document of a less enlightened time, a firsthand look at the mindset of a bygone time.

Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck sits at No. 9 on the Times hardcover nonfiction list. A tale of intrigue fueled by modern science, it’s about the attempts, at the turn of the 20th century, to bridge the Atlantic with wireless communication… and how it took a sensational murder to bring the success of the endeavor to public prominence. One of the first great business and technology journalists, Herbert N. Casson, covered the development of a wired communication device in his 1910 book, The History of the Telephone. This charming and highly readable overview of the impact of the telephone in its first quarter-century discusses not only the scientific innovators and business pioneers involved in its creation, but also the social impact of the new technology. Writes Casson:

With the use of the telephone has come a new habit of mind. The slow and sluggish mood has been sloughed off. The old to-morrow habit has been superseded by “Do It To-day”; and life has become more tense, alert, vivid.

(Technorati tags: H R H, Danielle Steel, Under the Southern Cross, Emma Hillmon Haviland, Thunderstruck, Erik Larson, Herbert Casson, History of the Telephone)

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One of the things I love about working at Cosimo is that I’m constantly discovering wonderful (and sometimes wonderfully weird!) old books that I’ve never even heard of before, as well as getting regular reminders of great classics that I either haven’t read since school or have never read at all (and should). But even more surprising is that the more I look through books published 50, 100, 150, even 200 years ago, the more I see that the topics that fascinate readers today are, in many instances, the same ones that booklovers were gobbling up decades and centuries ago.

Every Monday, I take a look at the current New York Times best-seller lists and point out a few Cosimo Classics that connect to today’s hottest books. Cuz all true readers know that too much of a good thing is never enough.

It’s way too early to be thinking about Christmas as far as I’m concerned, but it seems that many other readers don’t feel that way: the Times hardcover fiction list this week features two sentimental holiday selections: Christmas Letters, by Debbie Macomber, at No. 13, and at No. 15, Finding Noel, by Richard Paul Evans. Washington Irving might be best remembered for a story revolving around another holiday, but his Old Christmas, first published in 1896, deserves to be a holiday tradition alongside Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in the celebrations of the winter solstice. Warmly convivial and delightfully festive, this charming and long forgotten holiday classic was inspired in part by Dickens and other celebrations of oldtime Yule. Splendid suppers and rural churches, cheerful dances and hearty spirits imbue this short novel with the magic of the season. If you’re one of those insufferable shoppers who has her Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving (the rest of us are secretly terribly jealous of you), consider this for an unusual stocking stuffer for the bookworm on your list.

Over on the Times hardcover nonfiction list, it’s much more serious business with two books about the selling of the American war in Iraq: Bob Woodward’s State of Denial is at No. 3, and The Greatest Story Ever Sold, by Frank Rich, is at No. 12. Philosopher Bertrand Russell was pondering how leaders coerce men to war back in 1916 in Why Men Fight, which grew out of the devastation of World War I. Russell explores ideas of war, pacifism, reason, impulse, and personal liberty and argues that when individuals live passionately, they will have no desire for war or killing. Eminently relevant to our modern world, Russell provides critiques of war and social institutions such as marriage and the state, and offers his thoughts on what we can do to rid our world of violence.

(Technorati tags: Christmas Letters, Finding Noel, Washington Irving, Old Christmas, State of Denial, Bob Woodward, Greatest Story Ever Sold, Frank Rick, Why Men Fight, Bertrand Russell)

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One of the things I love about working at Cosimo is that I’m constantly discovering wonderful (and sometimes wonderfully weird!) old books that I’ve never even heard of before, as well as getting regular reminders of great classics that I either haven’t read since school or have never read at all (and should). But even more surprising is that the more I look through books published 50, 100, 150, even 200 years ago, the more I see that the topics that fascinate readers today are, in many instances, the same ones that booklovers were gobbling up decades and centuries ago.

Every Monday, I take a look at the current New York Times best-seller lists and point out a few Cosimo Classics that connect to today’s hottest books. Cuz all true readers know that too much of a good thing is never enough.

Nora Roberts has two supernatural thrillers on the Times paperback fiction list: Morrigan’s Cross, at No. 6, and its sequel, Dance of the Gods, at No. 1. The series is about a magical war waged against a powerful demon by a team that includes a wizard, a witch, a shapeshifter, a demon hunter, and a vampire… beings that have fascinated us since the dawn of time. In his 1932 book Wild Talents, maven of the paranormal Charles Fort regales us with accounts of vampires, werewolves, talking dogs, poltergeist activity, teleportation, witchcraft, vanishing people, spontaneous human combustion, and the escapades of the “mad bats of Trinidad,” and more. Fort is at his wittiest and most provocative here, in this early work of research into the mysteries of the world.

No. 6 on the Times paperback advice list this week is The South Beach Diet, just one of a long string of popular books in recent years advocating low-carbohydrate diets for weight loss and overall health. But low-carb is hardly the modern “fad” it has been derided as. In fact, William Banting’s Letter on Corpulence was first published in 1864, with this advice:

Bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer, and potatoes, which had been the main (and, I thought, innocent) elements of my subsistence, or at all events they had for many years been adopted freely.

These, said my excellent adviser, contain starch and saccharine matter, tending to create fat, and should be avoided altogether.

Banting’s book was so popular in the late 19th century that “banting” became slang for that era’s version of low-carb dieting. The more things change…

(Technorati tags: Nora Roberts, Charles Fort, vampires, South Beach Diet, Letter on Corpulence, William Banting)

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