Ed Simon

Ineffable, invisible, inscrutable—angels are enduring creatures across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and human experiences of the divine as mediated by spiritual emissaries are an aspect of almost every religious tradition. In popular culture, angels are often reduced to the most gauzy, sentimental, and saccharine of images: fat babies with wings and guardians with robes, halos, and harps. By contrast, in...

A poet who crafted the greatest character in literary history with his engaging anti-hero of Satan, John Milton connected personal experience with the breadth of cosmic epic. His Paradise Lost is a touchstone of English literature. In the latest entry in Ig's celebrated Bookmarked series, author Ed Simon considers Paradise Lost within the scope of his own alcoholism and recovery,...

Pandemonium: An Illustrated History of Demonology presents for the first time Satan's family tree, providing a history and analysis of his fellow fallen angels from Asmodeus to Ziminiar. Throughout, there are short entries on individual demons, but Pandemonium is more than just a visual encyclopedia. It also focuses on the influence of figures like Beelzebub, Azazel, Lilith, and Moloch on...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Every culture, every religion, every era has enshrined otherwise regular objects with a significance which stretches beyond their literal importance. Whether the bone of a Catholic martyr, the tooth of a Buddhist lama, or the cloak of a Sufi saint, relics are material...

A captivating artistic and philosophic exploration of humankind’s complex moral codes A companion piece to Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology and Elysium: A Visual History of Angelology, The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues will complete this moral trilogy and finally consider God’s most enigmatic of creations: none of the conundrums of metaphysics are as baroque as the...

Lively . . . excoriating, eloquent . . . We are all Faustians now. - James Wood, The New Yorker A devilishly fascinating tour of the Faustian bargain through the ages, from brimstone to blues and beyond, now in paperback... From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain—the exchange of one's soul in return for...

All of American literature is a tragedy. What we’re living through now isn’t a tragedy, however – it’s a horror novel. Why bother writing when the world’s on fire? Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly seems like our current anxieties aren’t ill placed. And yet, art...