Mythologies by Yves Bonnefoy (Editor) & Wendy Doniger (Translator)

The University of Chicago Press is having a huge sale for the holidays. Alas, their wonderful folklore collections from years back are out of print and not in the sale. There isn't much folklore with the press, but I saw one title--Mythologies by Yves Bonnefoy (Editor) & Wendy Doniger (Translator) (Amazon link and U of CP link)--that may be of interest to a few of you. Some of these links are to Amazon where you can read more about it and because it is easiest for me to feed images from them. You have to use the U of CP sale brochure and link to get the special $99 price. Yes, that is expensive, but the two volume set is usually $300-$400 and this sale price for a new copy is less than the used ones--and it is a two-volume set so that's two books for $99. This is a small interest niche, but some SurLaLune readers fit in it.

About the book:

"The appearance of this monumental work in a beautifully produced and richly illustrated English edition is a publishing event of considerable significance."—Mark C. Taylor, New York Times Book Review

"The almost 100 contributors combine, with characteristic precision and elan, the arts of science and poetry, of analysis and translation. The result is a treasury of information, brilliant guesswork, witty asides, and revealing digressions. This is a work of genuine and enduring excitement."—Thomas D'Evelyn, Christian Science Monitor

From Library Journal:

This collection of 395 articles was compiled by Bonnefoy (comparative poetics, College de France). Although it looks like an encyclopedia, it is not. Instead, as translator Doniger says in the introduction, it is "a collection of essays on some aspects of some mythologies written by a group of brilliant and philosophically complex French scholars and is highly opinionated and original." It is also highly inconsistent in coverage, having little to say about Judaism or Islam and offering only two essays on Buddhism. It often seems to be more about methodology than mythology. These criticisms, however, should not obscure the fact that this is a fascinatingly original if somewhat quirky and idiosyncratic collection of essays. As a reference book it leaves much to be desired. As a unique contribution to the study of mythology, it should be in every library with special interest in the field.