Western Christianity is moving towards a religious realignment of epic proportions. How will your church navigate these changes? This is a book for those who will lead congregations in challenging times. Paradoxy helps you understand and explain what's happening, gives everyone a chance to speak and be heard, and moves you into the future as one body, together. Paradoxy resonates with my own experience. When the intention of people on opposite sides is to connect, not to win, they can bring forward the bes tof themselves. Deep human connection takes place in the presence of profound disagreement. It is a holy mystery.

Can Nick Harmon do something right for a change as PR man at Mutagen Laboratories? Can Nick's dead father Harry get Johnny Quog elected president? Can sex with a Roolik be fun? And who is killing the Lifestylers? Lex Largesse and Sir Etherium have already gone. Can Nick solve the mystery in time to save his job and the universe?

THE STORY: Drenched in the magic and mystery of the Kabbala, THE GOLEM retells the legend of a sixteenth-century Rabbi in Prague who defies God when he molds and animates a huge clay figure to defend the Jewish community from attack. Written in Yid

"An extravaganza . . . fertile invention and forceful style . . . Mr. Kersh's many admirers will undoubtedly devour this highly flavoured hotch-potch with avidity." - Julian Maclaren-Ross, Sunday Times "[F]irst-rate Kersh, richly peopled with the odd bit roles he sketches so well and written with style and individuality." - Anthony Boucher, New York Herald Tribune "Sometimes funny, sometimes nightmarish, always first-class entertainment." - Basil Davenport, New York Times Journalist George Oaks and his friend Albert Kemp, a mystery novelist, are on their way to meet their friend, the celebrated philosopher Dr. Monacelli. But when a clerical mix-up leads to their meeting the American gangster Monty Cello instead, Oaks and Kemp quickly find themselves caught up in a bizarre and dangerous plot involving a murdered reporter, a missing scientist, and a group of powerful madmen with a plan to destroy the world as we know it. It's a race against time as Oaks and Kemp must infiltrate the villains' stronghold and save humanity before it's too late! Equal parts hard-boiled crime novel and apocalyptic science fiction tale, The Great Wash (1953) is one of the most exciting novels by Gerald Kersh (1911-1968), who is best known for his classics Night and the City (1938) and Fowlers End (1957). Fowlers End and four volumes of Kersh's strange and brilliant short fiction are also available from Valancourt.

The Philosophy of Existence, among the first translations into English of the Catholic existentialist Gabriel Marcel, is composed of four distinct essays--"On the Ontological Mystery"; "Existence and Human Freedom"; "Testimony and Existentialism"; and "An Essay in Biography." Together, the essays articulate the integral elements, constitutive terminology, and characteristic anthropology of Marcel's philosophy of existence, and describe its marked differences with the atheist existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, and its subtle--yet crucial--departures from the existentialism of Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. Provocative and penetrating, The Philosophy of Existence provides an analysis of enduring relevance on modern man and the modern condition, worthy of repeated readings.

The publication of this translation of Gabriel Marcel's autobiography, En chemin, vers quel éveil? is timely because of the renewed relevance and importance of his life and work to the post-modern situation. The relation of his autobiography to his productive projects is clearly tied to the unifying thread of creativity, which, as the primary dimension of the mystery of being, gives rise to his music, drama, and philosophical reflection. This autobiography fosters the retrieval of the sense of the mystery of being, thus re-orienting philosophy as an awakening of the creativity at the heart of this sense of being. His narrative is a serious and creative interpretation of the unified sense of his life and work.

"Else Lasker-Schüler's poems are small red fires of passion in a time of total darkness. At great cost, she rescued her innocence from the brutality of the Nazi age and tested the resilience of her Jewish soul. In these translations, Janine Canan renders into English both the lyrical intensity of that endeavor, and the palpable danger and mystery that made it possible. This is travel at root-level."-Andrei Codrescu Night Secret I have chosen you among all these stars. Am awake, a listening flower in the buzzing bush. Our lips long to make honey, our shimmering nights are in full bloom. From your body's holy spark my heart lights its heaven. All my dreams hang from your gold. I have chosen you among all these stars.

In a love story framed by the vivid realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Edeet Ravel tenderly explores the complicated ways people connect when violence touches every aspect of their lives Dana Hillman is a young Israeli woman whose humanity and passion for justice are obvious to all who meet her. On peace missions, she and other activists act as human shields in situations where the Israeli army tries to displace Palestinians. A gifted photographer, she documents the protests, and the faces of women and children caught in the seemingly endless struggle. To make a living, though, she churns out junky historical romances, well aware of the irony of her situation. Her own love story has turned into a heartbreaking mystery: why did her husband, Daniel, suddenly disappear and where has he been for the last eleven years? Every year Dana publishes a full-page ad addressed to her lost husband that says, “I will never ever ever ever . . . stop waiting for you,” with that “ever” multiplied to fill the whole page. Dana’s hope and constancy fill the novel in the way that her “ever” fills up the page, as she holds fast to trust, love and a vision for the future that seems magical in this fractured place. From the Hardcover edition.

Cam Jansen's photographic memory is put to the test when Annie's tooth falls out? and disappears! Cam has a picture in her head of everything she sees. But does she have the picture she needs to solve the mystery of the lost tooth?

"Once upon a time there were three men who exemplified, without knowing it, my ideal in life. All of them became famous as writers, influential thinkers, and public figures. Their names are Clifton Fadiman, Lionel Trilling, and Jacques Barzun. They met in college, they remained aware of one another as friends or, if less than friends, companions and fellow crusaders on behalf of similar ideals. Although one of them never knew of my existence, the second ignored it, and the third treated me with formal kindness, without them I would have had no concrete model in my youth of what I wanted to become. Theirs was the universe in which I wished to have my being." With these words, Carolyn Heilbrun begins a personal, pointed, and surprisingly moving account of how a woman, destined to become one of the leading feminist critics of her day as well as one of our most popular mystery novelists, found the models for the life she aspired to in men who neither imagined nor countenanced women as their equals or colleagues. Remembering these three figures as they were when she hung upon their printed words and professorial presences, reappraising them now half a century later, Heilbrun vividly evokes what these remarkable individuals had to offer to an admiring young woman who could not acknowledge—and later would not accept—the impossibility of following in their paths. In the admired anthologies, magazine articles, and introductions through which Fadiman transmitted the world of high culture to an educated general public, he indicated no devotion to questions of female destiny; yet long before Heilbrun could imagine the life in the academy that was denied to Fadiman but would eventually be hers, his was the career to which she privately aspired. Later, in her days as a graduate student at Columbia, it was Trilling who would have the most powerful intellectual effect upon her, formulating as he did the tensions inherent in the desire to salvage what was of worth from a sad, almost moribund culture, even if he frankly admitted to no interest in teaching women or in considering their destinies beyond the domestic sphere. Only the courtly Barzun, also a mentor at Columbia, seemed capable of respecting female accomplishment and eschewing stereotyped views of women. Yet together, all three men unconsciously made Heilbrun's life as a feminist possible, by representing both what she wished to join and what she needed to struggle against. When Men Were the Only Models We Had is a loving, admiring, but stringent account of youthful enthusiasms, of the romance of ideas, of the intellectual brilliance of three unwitting mentors, and of the hopelessness of female ambition in the years before the feminist movement of the last three decades of the last century. And it is, in the end, a book that offers splendid proof that the models we once had are no longer the only ones before us.

"There is a huge amount of academic 19th century literature relating to sacred sexuality. However, there are not many books which cover this subject matter for the general reader: this book is one of the few. Goldberg approaches the culturally sensitive issue of the intersection of religion and sex frankly and in some depth. That said, this work has a few problems which need to be kept in mind while reading it. There is not much in the way of apparatus aside from a bibliography: not even the Bible quotes are attributed. Goldberg also invents a number of descriptive passages, particularly in the second section. While these go a long way towards dimensionalizing this material, they include a number of purely speculative details which are not identified as such. Perhaps the best part of this book is the discussion of the evolution of the attitude towards sexuality in Christianity. Goldberg also describes a number of little-known curious cults such as the Russian Skopzi, the mediaeval flagellants, and others. Long out of print, but available used, this book serves as a useful introduction to the subject and sheds light on some little known corners of the subject of sacred sexuality." (Quote from sacred-texts.com) Table of Contents Publisher's Preface; The Erotic Motive In Primitive Religion; Far Away And Long Ago; Primitive Man In Love And Faith; In The Foundry Of The Gods; The Spirit Of Love In God And Man; Love's Hidden Ways; In The Temple Of The Gods; A Day With Baal; A Night With Aphrodite; At A Dionysian Mystery; Twilight With Moloch; The Dance Of The Saktas; In The House Of The Lord; Prologue; Love In The Synagogue; Romance In The Church; Marriage In The Mosque; Longing In The Dark; The Spirit Of Revolt In Religion; Rebels In The Faith; Love The Force Of Rebellion; The Revolt Against Religion; The Revolt Against God; The Revolt A

Critically acclaimed for his international bestseller, A Case of Curiosities, Allen Kurzweil has been called one of today's most gifted new voices in fiction. Now he returns with The Grand Complication -- a modern-day tale of literary intrigue, deviant passions, and delicious secrets. Behind the majestic walls of a Manhattan town house, a stylish young reference librarian of arcane interests unravels an 18th-century mystery -- who stole Marie Antoinette's watch The book is a grand and complicated "timepiece," told with a devilish sense of fun.

Erotic entanglements, startling revelations, a furtive intruder, even a possible murder? Not at all what the students of Mind Control class envisioned when they gathered on a ranch outside Buenos Aires for a relaxing weekend. But here nothing is quite what it seems, least of all Magdalena herself, who while recounting the weekend's events, changes her name as often as she changes her mind. Within the taut framework of a murder mystery, Alicia Steimberg weaves a tale far more concerned with who-is-it than with whodunit. In what is probably the celebrated author's most interesting and complex novel, Magdalena conducts us through her tortuous childhood as an Argentine Jew and through her doubts about morality and mortality, the existence of God, and the amorphous nature of identity. Animated by Steimberg's lively dialogue and wit, this eccentric tour of some of the more pressing questions about gender, identity, and existence itself is finally as intriguing and suspenseful as the mysteries large and small, otherworldly and mundane, that it invites us to contemplate.

"We live in a time of great peril. The spectre of the human race overcome by disease, starvation and an unrelenting assault by other life forms is beyond our ability to entertain. What is to be done? Alan A. D. Cohen has seen the vision and offers us hope; hope that by changing our life styles radically, humankind can be spared the suffering for which it seems destined. His message is that we must live every moment as part of a unity we have not begun to appreciate. The need for such a change in human consciousness is great. I hope many people will read this book." Reverend Richard Leonard, Minister Emeritus, All Souls Church, New York. Both quantum mechanics and digital logic theory prove that no atomic particle can exist separately from the rest of creation; therefore only unity exists. But unity is not material. It can only be spiritual. Once this is accepted, new horizons of mystery unfold. We see mind as an ocean of consciousness in which we swim like fishes in a universal sea. We are divine. New, scientifically valid spiritual laws appear. Only if we obey these laws will we survive. Examples are given of an office worker, a builder and a waitress, who, by their belief in unity, spread healing influences throughout the world.

For a writer, voice is the problem that never lets you go. For a reader, voice is a profound mystery. What is it? How does it develop and why should it even matter? How does the reader hear and respond to an authentic voice, and what happens when the cult of personality threatens to subvert it? These are some of the slippery questions The Writer's Voice addresses with confidence and clarity. Aspiring young writers often confuse voice with stylishness, but the voice that matters has the whole weight of a life, however young, behind it. In this compelling book, renowned poet, author, and critic A. Alvarez defines "voice" as the vehicle by which a writer expresses his aliveness, hooks his readers, and keeps them listening. These powerful reflections from a lifetime's experience belong alongside John Gardner's The Art of Fiction, E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel, and William Zinsser's On Writing Well.

It’s sad, isn’t it, that so many people deny the obvious in so many spheres of life. Just as the beginning of knowledge is the acknowledgment that there is much to learn, so the beginning of personal fulfillment is the knowledge that one must improve, can improve, and that there are ways to do what only seems to be impossible, but isn’t. Even sadder is that many people assume that self-mastery and character development are natural by-products of scholarship and observance, that self-improvement will emerge without effort. The Sages of the Talmud knew better. They said, “Who is strong? He who subdues his personal inclination,” for to master one’s passion is better than to conquer a city. And it is harder, as well. They recognized and preached that one must never rest, lest he lose the battle, just as the conqueror of a city must remain ever vigilant. The battle to elevate and ennoble oneself must be ongoing. And the Sages also taught how to win the victory. How? For that one must understand the mystery of the soul, plumb the teachings of the Sages, and heed the counsel of the masters of Chassidus and Mussar, the great artists of personal refinement. A person who incorporates all that plus a thorough knowledge of modern psychiatry and psychology is a rare and priceless human treasure. Such a person is Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., Torah scholar, psychiatrist and ranking expert in the treatment of substance abuse. In this wise and valuable book, he demolishes the fears and shibboleths that bar the way to mental health for countless good and sincere people. He shows that the principles for today’s most successful techniques for self-improvement are found in the Torah, as expounded by its greatest teachers. Warmly, compassionately, engagingly, he draws us into his world of health, happiness and fulfillment. This is a book for everyone. It is enriching and uplifting. Most of all, it will put its readers on the road to personal success.

Recently discovered and never before published, these two short novels were written in the early 1970s, at the beginning of Kathy Acker's writing career. Rip-off Red reads as a kind of Raymond Chandler for bad girls, as Acker's typical literary playfulness transforms the genre conventions of detective fiction into a book that is simultaneously a mystery and a personal, raunchy, and politically astute account of life in New York City. The Burning Bombing of America is a dystopian vision of the destruction of America, combining crypto-Socialist class critique with the visceral surreality of the Book of Revelation.

Chief of homicide Sam Birge pursues the killer of a young would-be writer found dead in the hallway of an old apartment building which houses a cafe-restaurant and artists' studios

When a girl is murdered in a Mayfair Mews, Superintendent Manners is convinced that the secret of the crime lies in the affluent suburban housing estate called The Dell. Dell-dwellers, like architect Dick and wine and food expert Jack Jellifer, think of themselves as living a civilised life, but there is one explosive element: red-headed roughneck Solomon Grundy. Could Grundy have killed the girl?

"After narrowly escaping with his life at the hands of a murderous Hollywood pimp, detective Happy Doll, bullet-ridden but healing, has landed on a remote Mexican beach. In a humble shack and with his dog for company, Doll settles into a peaceful idyll of Buddhist study. But then trouble, as it always does, comes to paradise. Doll is the witness to a murder for which he is framed, and now, with an expired passport and the Mexican authorities on his tail, he must sneak across the border back to L.A. by any means necessary, with the goal of bringing the true murderer to justice. But it's not just trouble that expels Doll from paradise! His dark past reaches for him, like a hand from the grave, old enemies want him dead, including the Jalisco Cartel, and Doll, a reluctant instrument of mayhem, yearns to end this cycle of violence and tip the karmic scales in his favor. But how can he do this without getting blood on his hands? Karma Doll marks the third installment in a madcap, bloody, and impossibly fun series, bringing us back in the good company of Happy Doll: a beloved, introverted anti-hero who has taken more hits to the head than a linebacker, yet still always manages to come out on top." -- Amazon.