Confronting the disheveled figure of a South Asian male carrying a backpack, the banker recognizes a long-lost college friend, a mathematics prodigy who disappeared many years earlier under mysterious circumstances. The friend has resurfaced with a confession of unsettling power.Zia Haider Rahman takes us on a journey of exhilarating scope, ranging over Kabul, London, New York, Islamabad, Oxford, and Princeton and dealing with love, belonging, finance, science, and war. Its framework is an age-old story: the friendship of two men and the betrayal of one by the other, both of them desperate in their different ways to climb clear of their wrong beginnings. Set against the breaking of nations and beneath the clouds of economic recession, the novel chronicles the lives of people carrying unshakable legacies of class, culture, and faith as they struggle to tame their futures. In the Light of What We Know is by turns tender, intimate, and panoramic, telescoping the great upheavals of our young century into a first novel of rare ambition and profundity.

    A dying businessman is cured of cancer. Undeniable miracles are following a rusty station wagon on its journey west. But the person behind them is no charismatic religious figure. He’s the six-year-old son of a poor single mother and the possessor of a gift he can’t explain. To multitudes, however, Toby Matthews is about to become a New Age messiah--and to unscrupulous opportunists, a ticket to undreamed-of wealth. But one person besides his young mother will see Toby for who he really is. Thomas York, a gifted but searching divinity student, finds in Toby a kindred spirit--brilliant, intuitive, hungry for truth. And as an evil beyond their comprehension unfolds, Truth will become their only weapon against a terrifying enemy unseen by all except Toby.A taut supernatural thriller, The Prodigy probes the influence of the invisible realm on the world around us and the indomitable power of the Light that shines in the darkness.

    In one afterlife, you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your existence. In another version, you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that God is a married couple, or that the universe is running backward, or that you are forced to live out your afterlife with annoying versions of who you could have been. With a probing imagination and deep understanding of the human condition, acclaimed neuroscientist David Eagleman offers wonderfully imagined tales that shine a brilliant light on the here and now.

    Having left her previous job under less than ideal circumstances, she finds it almost impossible to secure new employment without a professional reference.Luckily, after discovering an ad placed in the wrong category online, she fudges her way into a night manager role at Coco Bay Island Resort at the edge of the Great Barrier Reef.However, on arriving at the island, she discovers the resort is still recovering from a cyclone two years prior, and no one competent seems to be in charge.It’s not all bad, though, with cute ferry driver Noah willing to show her around, and receptionist Sasha adopting her as a new bestie.But between Noah’s girlfriend sensing a threat, and the resort’s manager acting increasingly erratic, it might not be long before Emily’s world falls apart again.Emily originally left Australia to get away from an unacceptable situation, and found herself in another in Canada. Will Coco Bay be the long-term home Emily has been searching for? Or will her past finally catch up with her?

    She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She might be a witch, or an alien from another planet. Together with her cousin Yuu, Natsuki spends her summers in the wild mountains of Nagano, dreaming of other worlds. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the two children forever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what. Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?

    Set against a surreal backdrop of intricate ink illustrations, you will find nine metaphysical lessons with dreamlike instructions that require you to open your heart to unexplored inner landscapes. From setting fire to your anxieties to sharing a cup of tea with your inner demons, you will learn how to let go and truly connect with the world around you.Whether you need a little inspiration or a completely new life direction, Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe provides you with the necessary push to find your true path--and a whimsical adventure to enjoy on the way there.

    On his arrival in Ireland, he is sold as a slave to the cruel underking of the Dalriada tribe in the north. Six years later, Patricius manages to escape. His journey takes him through France to Ravenna in Italy. His subsequent plans to return to Britannia are side-tracked when he finds himself accompanying several monks to the island monastery on Lerinus. His devotion to his faith, honed during his captivity, grows as he studies with the monks.Haunted by visions of the Gaels begging him to return to Ireland and share the word of God with them, Patricius gains support from Rome and his friends to return to the land of his captivity. His arrival is bitterly opposed by the druids, who have held power over the Irish kings for many years, and he and his companions must combat the druids to succeed in their God-given mission.

    Driven to investigate his grandfather's account of the four Mackenzie children and their monstrous family history, Ezra embarks on a horrific voyage of discovery, deception and revelation.

    A university professor studying racism by conducting a secret social experiment on his own son. A single mother desperate to buy her first home even as the world hurtles toward catastrophe. Each fighting to survive in America.Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, “My Monticello,” tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation.In “Control Negro,” hailed by Roxane Gay as “one hell of story,” a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to “painstakingly mark the route of this Black child too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there.” Johnson’s characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse.”United by these characters’ relentless struggles against reality and fate, My Monticello is a formidable book that bears witness to this country’s legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction.

    The Annunciation follows the desires of Amanda McCarney: an unwed mother on a Mississippi Delta plantation at age fourteen, a wealthy New Orleans matron into her early forties, and now a divorced poetry student living in a university community in the Ozarks.

    Her character is similar to that of many women we see in our lives. But what is different is the dramatic twist in the tale, which you won’t see coming. The protagonist Gauri is patient and persistent, with an undying love and affection for her husband, much like many women in the country. Indeed, Gauri’s story is the tale of many women in India, who sacrifice their needs, desires and dreams for the sake of people dear to them. This work of fiction is a tribute to every unsung woman in every household. A big salute to these strong women, without whom society will perish.

    However, some fundamental problems - such as the pulsational mode and the mass-loss mechanism - remain a mystery.

    Drawing inspiration from the shells on the shore, Lindbergh’s musings on the shape of a woman’s life bring new understanding to both men and women at any stage of life. A mother of five, an acclaimed writer and a pioneering aviator, Lindbergh casts an unsentimental eye on the trappings of modernity that threaten to overwhelm us: the time-saving gadgets that complicate rather than simplify, the multiple commitments that take us from our families. And by recording her thoughts during a brief escape from everyday demands, she helps readers find a space for contemplation and creativity within their own lives.With great wisdom and insight Lindbergh describes the shifting shapes of relationships and marriage, presenting a vision of life as it is lived in an enduring and evolving partnership. A groundbreaking, best-selling work when it was originally published in 1955, Gift from the Sea continues to be discovered by new generations of readers. With a new introduction by Lindbergh’s daughter Reeve, this fiftieth-anniversary edition will give those who are revisiting the book and those who are coming upon it for the first time fresh insight into the life of this remarkable woman.The sea and the beach are elements that have been woven throughout Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s life. She spent her childhood summers with her family on a Maine island. After her marriage to Charles Lindbergh in 1929, she accompanied him on his survey flights around the North Atlantic to launch the first transoceanic airlines. The Lindberghs eventually established a permanent home on the Connecticut coast, where they lived quietly, wrote books and raised their family.After the children left home for lives of their own, the Lindberghs traveled extensively to Africa and the Pacific for environmental research.

    How do we train ourselves to indulge only in "right thought"? Orison Swett Marden-the preeminent self-help expert of the early 20th century and a forerunner of Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale, Stephen R. Covey and Anthony Robbins-had the answer almost a century ago, and his words still ring true today. In this companion volume to his Peace, Power, and Plenty (also available from Cosimo) and first published in 1910, Marden discusses why success and happiness are your destiny, how to expect great things of yourself, how to encourage yourself through self-suggestion, why wallowing in "the blues" is a "crime," how fear paralyzes us, and avoiding the kind of thinking that mentally poisons us. If you're looking for success-however you define it-you owe yourself the advice of this classic book. American writer and editor ORISON SWETT MARDEN (1850-1924) was born in New England and studied at Boston University and Andover Theological Seminary. In 1897, he founded Success Magazine.

    Funny, moving and inspirational, it is just as delightful as Canfor-Dumas’ first novel, ‘The Buddha, Geoff and Me’. When we catch up with our hero Ed, he’s abandoned his Buddhist practice and is stuck in a rut – no career, no love life and no cash.Plunged unwittingly into a world of street crime and dodgy property deals, Ed finds himself dusting down his beads and reluctantly picking up his Nichiren Buddhist practice to guide him through a series of dramas, dilemmas and big decisions. Spiritual insights then emerge from the grit, grime and SNAFUs of Ed’s everyday life. By turns unsettling and uplifting, this is a book that will also get you thinking about complex issues of our time such as depression, racism, bereavement, suicide and youth crime.And it gives possibly the best ever explanation of the wisdom that comes from chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo: “Like sending a truffle hound to root around in the leaf-litter of my subconscious and dig up what’s bothering me.” The description by the publisher is spot on – this absolutely is a book “for everyone who's ever wondered whether enlightenment really is compatible with the daily commute.” Welcome back Ed, lovin' yer truffles…