Product Description: In the early 1800s, on a Hebridean beach in Scotland, the sea exposed an ancient treasure cache: 93 chessmen carved from walrus ivory. Norse netsuke, each face individual, each full of quirks, the Lewis Chessmen are probably the most famous chess pieces in the world...read more

Much like Greek and Roman mythology, Norse myths are still with us. Famous storytellers from JRR Tolkien to Neil Gaiman have drawn their inspiration from the long-haired, mead-drinking, marauding and pillaging Vikings. Their creator is a thirteenth-century Icelandic chieftain by the name of Snorri Sturluson. Like Homer, Snorri was a bard, writing down and embellishing the folklore and pagan legends of medieval Scandinavia. Unlike Homer, Snorri was a man of the world—a wily political power player, one of the richest men in Iceland who  came close to ruling it, and even closer to betraying it… In Song of the Vikings, award-winning author Nancy Marie Brown brings Snorri Sturluson’s story to life in a richly textured narrative that draws on newly available sources.

Product Description: A good horse can make its rider "king for a while," according to Icelandic poetry. But finding a good horse requires a keen and practiced eye. One must see beyond the obvious attributes--appearance, color, and size--to discern a horse's true personality and temperament...read more

Product Description: The medieval Catholic Church, widely considered a source of intolerance and inquisitorial fervor, was not anti-science during the Dark Ages—in fact, the pope in the year 1000 was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day...read more

Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed past the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, few believed that the details of Gudrid's story were true. Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman's last house, buried under a hay field in Iceland, just where the sagas suggested it could be. Joining scientists with cutting-edge technology and the latest archaeological techniques, and tracing Gudrid's steps on land and in the sagas, author Brown reconstructs a life that spanned--and expanded--the bounds of the then-known world.--From publisher description.Reconstructs the life of Gudrid, a Viking woman who, according to Icelandic sagas, arrived in the New World some five hundred years before Columbus, spent three years there, and gave birth to a baby, before sailing home.

Describes the controversies surrounding the production of genetically modified foods.