Serpent, Siren, Maelstrom, and Myth

Sea Stories and Folktales from Around the World

Gerry Smyth

an entran C ing C olle C tion of myths and legends of the sea o C tober

The sea is beautiful and alluring, but it is also dangerous and deadly. Above all, it is unknowable and untamable. Storytelling offered our ancestors a means to understand and interact with the natural world, and in time these stories coalesced into the mythological systems of the world. And the ocean features in every mythological system in history.

To reflect and explore this phenomenon, Gerry Smyth gathers together myths and folktales from cultures around the world: Native American, Caribbean, Polynesian, Persian, Indian, Scandinavian, and European. Just as these stories have been passed down through generations, he brings his own narrative interpretation with additional discussion on their meaning. Stories are divided into seven sections—Origin Stories; Gods and Humans; Voyages; Lost Places, Imagined Spaces; Weather and Nature; Down to the Sea in Ships; and Fabulous Beasts—and embellished with artworks, paintings, medieval illuminations, maps, and sailor sketches drawn from the wide-ranging collections of the British Library.

Gerry Smyth is a musician, actor, playwright, and professor of Irish cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University. He is author of the best-selling Sailor Song: The Shanties and Ballads of the High Seas.

384 pp., 200 color illus., 6 × 9 in. $29.95 hC / 9780295752310

Literature north ameri C an rights only

The Whale and the Cupcake

Stories of Subsistence, Longing, and Community in Alaska

Julia O’Malley

Foreword by Kim Severson

176 pp., 80 color illus., 1 map, 6.5 × 9 in.

$24.95 P b / 9780295746142

“A thoughtful and enticing culinary text.” Foreword Reviews

“Through this book, [O’Malley] doesn’t merely introduce us to Alaskan foods, she discovers the soul of Alaska itself.”

Anchorage Daily News

Touching on issues of subsistence, climate change, cultural mixing and remixing, innovation, interdependence, and community, The Whale and the Cupcake reveals how Alaskans connect with the land and each other through food. Features interviews, photographs, and recipes by James Beard Award–winning journalist and third-generation Alaskan Julia O’Malley.

The $16 Taco

Contested Geographies of Food, Ethnicity, and Gentrification

Pascale Joassart-Marcelli

288 pp., 7 b&w illus., 10 maps, 2 tables, 6 × 9 in.

$30.00s P b / 9780295749280

“Offers a contextualized and complex account of the making and remaking of urban spaces through food, and avoids romanticizing or dismissing the everyday practices of local residents.”

AAG Review of Books

“Makes a useful contribution to the literature on urban evolution and the processes—demographic, political, and financial— that perpetuate cycles of neighborhood ascension, decline, and gentrification.” Journal of Urban Affairs

White middle-class eaters are increasingly venturing into historically segregated neighborhoods in search of “authentic” eateries run by—and for—immigrants and people of color. Pascale Joassart-Marcelli traces the transformation of three urban San Diego neighborhoods whose foodscapes are shifting from serving the needs of longtime minoritized residents who face limited food access to pleasing the tastes of wealthier and whiter newcomers.