Alone in the world, Jerri Delaney, twenty-something professional stage magician, leaves Tennessee in "Baby" -- her treasured, dilapidated British import. Heading for Key West and the booking of a lifetime, Delaney runs into a lavender "steamroller," Miss Marty Sebastian, an encounter which threatens to shatter all of her professional dreams. The accident proves fortuitous by bringing the lonely magician into the lives of the elderly eccentric billionaire's gaggle of adopted misfits. In the end, Delaney discovers the family she's always dreamed of as well as heart-pounding danger, vivid coral-filled scuba diving, Jimmy Buffett's Parrothead wisdom, forever friendships, magical illusions, Mermaids and Mermen and love -- cherished and eternal -- all within that wondrous live thing that *IS* Key West.
From Snapchat sensation, business mogul, and recording artist DJ Khaled, the book They don't want you to read reveals his major keys to success. - Stay away from They - Don’t ever play yourself - Secure the bag - Respect the code - Glorify your success - Don’t deny the heat - Keep two rooms cooking at the same time - Win, win, win no matter what
A kaleidoscopic tale inspired by a legend from the medieval Persian epic "Book of Kings" follows the coming-of-age of a feral Middle Eastern youth in New York City on the eve of the September 11 attacks. By the award-winning author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects. 25,000 first printing.
A new collection of stories by the master of humorous science fiction adventure, including: The full-length novel, The Day the Machines Stopped¾and what happens, not just to civilization, but to humanity and its chances of survival when all the machines stop working at once? A man is captured by aliens who are investigating the Earth as a possible target for colonization. The aliens have science and technology far in advance of humans¾but, unfortunately for them, they have never developed the human art of bluffing. For the first time in book form, Anvil's stories of Richard Verner, who is called in to solve apparently insoluble problems, such as explaining why experimental missiles keep failing for no apparent reason, or locating a kidnapped judge, or even solving an inexplicable murder that's interrupting his vacation. And much more, in a generous volume of sardonically humorous science fiction. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.
Lev Grossman’s new novel THE BRIGHT SWORD will be on sale July 2024 The New York Times bestselling novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world, now an original series on SYFY “The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this.” —George R.R. Martin “Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about modern fantasy.” —Joe Hill “A very knowing and wonderful take on the wizard school genre.” —John Green “The Magicians may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I’ve read this century.” —Cory Doctorow “This gripping novel draws on the conventions of contemporary and classic fantasy novels in order to upend them . . . an unexpectedly moving coming-of-age story.” —The New Yorker “The best urban fantasy in years.” —A.V. Club Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined. . . . The prequel to the New York Times bestselling book The Magician King and the #1 bestseller The Magician's Land, The Magicians is one of the most daring and inventive works of literary fantasy in years. No one who has escaped into the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter should miss this breathtaking return to the landscape of the imagination.
What is helpful about reading these types of quotes is that the more you can realize that everything is an illusion the better you can ignore everything and turn inward. One of the most significant aspects to this collection of quotes by the Sages is that in addition to pointing out that everything is a dreamlike illusion, the also point out in many of their quotes that upon Self Realization everything disappears. They also state that realizing that the world, etc. is an illusion is essential for Self Realization. The type is Palatino 15 for crisp clear easy reading. This book contains all of the quotes in Chapter (Step) Two from the book The Seven Steps to Awakening. Everything is an Illusion is Book Five in the Self Realization Series. One purpose of the Self Realization Series is to put just one category of quotes into a small book that has the advantage of making it easier to focus, meditate on, grasp and have insight into just one subject at a time. That makes the approach simple, easier and less complicated. The idea is to stay focused on just one subject until you have received everything you need to receive from that one subject. Most people go on to the next subject without ever having learned to apply to their lives the subject they are studying now. The Self Realization series of books are portable practice manuals aimed at helping sincere seekers of Self Realization master one Key to Self Realization at a time. The six titles in the Self Realization Series are: 1.Self Awareness Practice Instructions. 2.The Desire for Liberation. 3.The False self. 4.Inspiration and Encouragement on the Path to Self Realization. 5.Everything is an Illusion. 6.How Not to Get Lost in Concepts.
"In His Introduction to A Course in Miracles Jesus says: 'This ia Course in Miracles, It is a required Course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you may elect what you want to take at a given time." There is a purpose to our lives! we are here to learn something about Miracles, and we cannot avoid learning it. The only choice we have is to procrastinate the inevitable. It should be noted, however, the Miracle in A Course in Miracles has a very unique and definition and function. Dr. Bonnie Nack is a long time student/teacher of A Course in Miracles who has taken the time to go deeply into her study of the Course and bring forth some of the its most remarkable gems putting them on display. The Course is not easy, but it is oh, so very rewarding once the student begins to apply its principles. By applying these principles, a new way of Thinking and Being is manifest, the light at the end of tunnel is seen, and you know that by following this guide you will indeed find you way Home. Jon Mundy, Ph.D. author of Living A Course in Miracles.
Completed just weeks before his death, these lectures mark a critical juncture in the career of Roland Barthes, declaring the intention, deeply felt, to compose a novel through an entirely untested method of writing. Unfolding over the course of two years, Barthes engaged in a unique pedagogical experiment: he would combine teaching and writing to "simulate" the creation of a novel, exploring every step of the collaborative process along the way. Barthes's lectures move from the inception of an idea and the need to write something to the actual decision making, planning, and material act of producing a book. He meets the difficulty of transitioning from short, concise expressions (exemplified by his favorite literary form, haiku) to longer, uninterrupted flows of narrative, and he encounters a number of trials and setbacks. Barthes takes solace in a diverse group of writers, including Dante, whose own opus was similarly inspired by the death of a loved one. He also turns to classical philosophy and Taoism and the works of Chateaubriand, Flaubert, Kafka, and Proust. This volume includes eight elliptical plans for Barthes's unwritten novel, which he titled Vita Nova, and notes that shed light on the critic's view of photography. Along with Columbia University Press's The Neutral: Lecture Course at the College de France (1977-1978) and a third forthcoming collection of Barthes lectures, this volume completes a profound exploration into the labor and love of writing.
'A spectacular treasury of treats. Page after page of utter joy: I can't tear my eyes away' - Derren Brown In The Spectacle of Illusion, professional magician-turned experimental psychologist Dr. Matthew L. Tompkins investigates the arts of deception as practised and popularised by mesmerists, magicians and psychics since the early 18th century. Organised thematically within a broadly chronological trajectory, this compelling book explores how illusions perpetuated by magicians and fraudulent mystics can not only deceive our senses but also teach us about the inner workings of our minds. Indeed, modern scientists are increasingly turning to magic tricks to develop new techniques to examine human perception, memory and belief. Beginning by discussing mesmerism and spiritualism, the book moves on to consider how professional magicians such as John Nevil Maskelyne and Harry Houdini engaged with these movements - particularly how they set out to challenge and debunk paranormal claims. It also relates the interactions between magicians, mystics and scientists over the past 200 years, and reveals how the researchers who attempted to investigate magical and paranormal phenomena were themselves deceived, and what this can teach us about deception. Highly illustrated throughout with entertaining and bizarre drawings, double-exposure spirit photographs and photographs of spoon-bending from hitherto inaccessible and un-mined archives, including the Wellcome Collection, the Harry Price Library, the Society for Physical Research, and last but not least, the Magic Circle's closely guarded collection, the book also features newly commissioned photography of planchettes, rapping boards, tilting tables, ectoplasm, automata and illusion boxes. Concluding with a modern-day analysis of the science of magic and illusion, analysing surprisingly weird phenomena such as ideomotor action, sleep paralysis, choice blindness and the psychology of misdirection, this unnerving volume highlights how unreliable our minds can be, and how complicit they can be in the perpetuation of illusions.
