Form The Silent Language concerns the creative application of the Dynamic Symmetry principle to all sorts of art forms in ways that most people may never suspect could be either possible or artistically practical. In a sense, it opens a door to a kind of “under-world” that lies quite outside the realm of conventional academicians. This is a contro-versial subject that invariably engenders enthusiastic agreement or violent rejection. Except for some scattered articles in magazines of limited distribution, the publication of Form The Silent Language makes generally available for the first time Dr. Norden’s unique and original insights of both musical and verbal communicative forms. That this volume will prove to be stimulating and enlightening to creative artist is to be expected; that it will be controversial is inevitable.

Form The Silent Language

Arts & Photography

Norden, Hugo

Music

Branden Books

Lisl Beer adapted this famous play from the Townley Manuscript of Old English. As observed in FaceBook, “The play is actually two separate stories presented sequentially; the first is a non-biblical story about a thief, Mak, who steals a sheep from three shepherds. He and his wife, Gill, attempt to deceive the shepherds by pretending the sheep is their son. The shepherds are fooled at first. However, they later discover Mak's deception and toss him on a blanket as a punishment.” In her Production Notes, Lisl makes the following observation: “I have tried not to make too many cuts and changes in this very ancient English Play which has come down to us through hundreds of years with all its rich language of rhyme and alli¬teration. Care must be taken not to lose the music and pattern of the verses. The play itself is a fusion of the rough peasant humor of the period, and simple religious faith, and should be handled so as not to lose either quality. Although originally performed by human actors, the play can be done with hand puppets and perhaps even with marionettes. Some fine scenic effects are possible here - the snow falling, the stars coming out, the angel, or several angels, behind a gauze or translucent backdrop. A cut-out of the village of Bethlehem behind gauze, in the early scenes, and a Nativity tableau at the end, will be very effective. Christmas music on records or tape recorder can be faded in and out between scenes. This can be a very beautiful production if the director can manage to hold the mood and fuse the humor with the poetry in a delicate balance.”

Second Shepherd's Play

Literature & Fiction

Beer, Lisl

Dramas & Plays

Swami Akhilananda has written a unique handbook for spiritual practices to guide serious followers of all religions -- all seekers after truth -- in their inner lives. Richly illustrated with details from his personal experiences and from the lives of his spiritual teachers, its appeal is universal and its approach is intensely practical.

Spiritual practices

Akhilananda, Swami

An American family goes to England to live and to learn how the British live. Moving into a haunted house, despite being told it was haunted, Oscar Wilde begins to have fun not only with the Americans’ way of life but with the British as well, injecting humor at every moment and satire especially of the Americans. In the end, the ghost becomes significant. Through him, young Virginia learns about life and death and that love transcends it all. The short story continues to be popular. It became a movie in 1944 with Charles Laughton, and several other movies have been released as recently as 1997; it has also had many television renditions.

Canterville Ghost

Wilde, Óscar

Contemporary

This play in three acts is one of the most noted by the great Norwegian dramatist, and the translation by Edith and Warner Oland is generally considered the best. Warner Oland is remembered by millions of movie fans as the famous Charlie Chan, but he was also a dis-tinguished linguist and translator of Scandinavian literature, especially of works by Au-gust Strindberg. The powerful cover was designed by Karl Eldh after a statue of Strindberg himself. The Father is another classic of world literature which Mr. Edmund Brown put together in his famous series known as IPL, International Pocket Library.

The Father

STRINDBERG, AUGUST

Swami Akhilananda shows us how to reach mental health by applying the classic techniques of his ancient tradition.The author explains how a stable and healthy mind is the starting point for our spiritual quest. He combines psychology and religion in a most universal manner, showing that personality development and the search for ultimate values are one and the same dis-cipline.The book's approach is hard-hitting and practical, using case histories from the Swami's thirty-five years' counseling experience in the United States. The reader, whatever his own beliefs, will be enriched by this new perspective on solving the concrete problems of daily life.Psychologist O. Hobart Mowrer writes in the introduction: "The author is an accomplished scholar, not only in the field of classical religion, but also in respect to the theories and theoretical dilemmas of contemporary psychiatry, psychology, and sociology. Most of all, Swami Akhilananda is a refined, sensitive, tolerant human being whose wisdom and kindliness have already touched the lives of innumerable persons and will, in the present volume, bring new understanding and a surer perspective to many more."

Mental Health and Hindu Psychology

Poetry

Francis Thompson is considered the greatest modern Catholic poet, and the Hound of Heaven his greatest inspiration writing; but readers of all faiths find it a spiritual beauty and lyric quality of universal appeal. This collection also contains a large number of Thompson’s other poems—verses about children, religious sonnets, and ecclesiastical ballads. Among them is the beautiful lyric, An Arab Love Song. Thompson's poem inspired, among many others, American painter, R. H. Ives Gammell.

Hound of Heaven, The: And other poems

Francis Thompson

Oscar Wilde’s famous play has been appropriately called “the wittiest comedy in the English language.” With a perfectly constructed plot, the very essence of farce, and with characters who assume a typically English posture, The Importance of Being Earnest is a classic. But it differs from most stage classics in that it is constantly being produced in amateur and professional theaters, as well as in motion pictures and television.

Importance of Being Earnest

Kramer, Lester

"Here with a loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse – and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness – And Wilderness is Paradise enow." The beautiful quatrains of Omar, the tent-maker, are being read more today than ever before. Lines, from the Rubaiyat such as the ones above, are immortal. But behind the simple beauty of Omar’s verses is a wisdom and a controversial philosophy and code of ethics that have contributed to the lasting quality of these immortal lines. This volume, now as its first Branden Books E-Book edition, contains the standard Edward Fitzgerald’s translation together with his Introduction and extensive footnotes, plus decorative art work by Elihu Vedder, a poet in his own right, and one of America’s great artist and book illustrator.

Rubaiyat

Khayyām, Omar

Probably no poetry in modern times has had as much influence on the literary world as A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad. As the New York Times said, "Housman has miniatured man's fate to the last twist of the knife and still he has made it bearable with the demonstration that truth and beauty go with it." This edition contains commissioned art works by Randolph Brown, famous Boston artist at the turn of the century; it also includes an Introduction by William Stanley Braithwaite.

A Shropshire Lad

Alfred Edward Housman

William S. Braithwaite

Randolph Brown

Braithwaite, William S.

Brown, Randolph

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Branden Books publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Branden Books