Maggie

by John Sanford

2013 · Bloomsbury Publishing

'She was small, she was slight, with limber hands and fingers and white and consonant teeth; hazel was the colour of her eyes, and she wore size three shoes on her high-arched feet. There was more, though, more than pigmentation, more than fineness of form and feature: she was the repository of winning ways, as if all the graces had devolved on her...' Thus did John Sanford write of Marguerite Roberts, the 'Maggie' of this lyrical and moving memoir. His wife for more than half a century, she was a screen-writer of much distinction and one of the highest-paid in Hollywood. With uncommon generosity and with an unflagging belief in Sanford's ability, she supported him through the writing of his twenty books, all of them acclaimed by the critics but overlooked by the public. He has been called 'the undiscovered treasure of American literature'.

Cultic Prophecy in the Psalms

by John W. Hilber

2012 · Walter de Gruyter

Doubts about the contribution of cult-prophetic speech to psalmody remain in debate. Psalms containing first-person divine speech exhibit numerous features and suggest life settings that conform to actual prophetic speech. Alternative explanations lack comparable examples external to psalms. On the other hand, Assyrian cultic prophecies parallel the characteristics of prophetic speech found in psalms. The Assyrian sources support possible composition and performance scenarios that overcome objections raised against the compatibility of genuine prophecy with psalmody. A model of cultic prophecy remains the best explanation for the origin of psalms containing first-person divine speech.