Set in 1970s and '80s Pakistan, a young math whiz called Noman writes pseudoscience for his father's cohort of religious extremists while secretly gravitating toward a diehard evolutionist and his adventurous granddaughter, Amal. Amal's blind younger sister, Mehwish, tries to decipher a world she cannot see but understands better than most.

New York Times Best Seller! 1500 5-Star Reviews! From the author that brought you NEW YORK TIMES best selling books The Harbinger, The Mystery of the Shemitah, and The Paradigm selling over 3 MILLION copies Imagine if you discovered a treasure chest in which were hidden ancient mysteries, revelations from heaven, secrets of the ages, the answers to man’s most enduring, age-old questions, and the hidden keys that can transform your life to joy, success, and blessing…This is The Book of Mysteries.

Why God and Geometry? This particular combination can be surprising for the unacquainted with the history of philosophy, yet everyone who has learnt anything of Plato knows that "God geometrises continually." Then, if the entire history of philosophy boils down to a handful of footnotes to Plato, as Alfred North Whitehead believed, one or some of them must refer to the relationship between geometry and God. As both philosophy and geometry have long been among the areas of my interest, I simply could not have failed to investigate what it means that "God practices mathematics." There are a plethora of works on the history of geometry, both comprehensive and focused on individual periods. There are also plenty of course books in the history of philosophy, and no fewer course books and monographic works on the history of the Christian dogma. The author is keen to see what you can find out studying works of both the types, something that has never been tackled straightforwardly in any of them. Making no claim on completeness, the book succeeds in paving the way and grasping a handful of ideas that are hidden from the view while the reader examines one side of this conjunction.

Bestselling author and astrophysicist Mario Livio examines the lives and theories of history’s greatest mathematicians to ask how—if mathematics is an abstract construction of the human mind—it can so perfectly explain the physical world. Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner once wondered about “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” in the formulation of the laws of nature. Is God a Mathematician? investigates why mathematics is as powerful as it is. From ancient times to the present, scientists and philosophers have marveled at how such a seemingly abstract discipline could so perfectly explain the natural world. More than that—mathematics has often made predictions, for example, about subatomic particles or cosmic phenomena that were unknown at the time, but later were proven to be true. Is mathematics ultimately invented or discovered? If, as Einstein insisted, mathematics is “a product of human thought that is independent of experience,” how can it so accurately describe and even predict the world around us? Physicist and author Mario Livio brilliantly explores mathematical ideas from Pythagoras to the present day as he shows us how intriguing questions and ingenious answers have led to ever deeper insights into our world. This fascinating book will interest anyone curious about the human mind, the scientific world, and the relationship between them.

A fascinating and inspirational look at the vital link between the hidden geometrical order of the universe, geometry in nature, and the geometry of the man-made world. The Da Vinci Code has awakened the public to the powerful and very ancient idea that religious truths and mathematical principles are intimately intertwined. Sacred Geometry offers an accessible way of understanding how that connection is revealed in nature and the arts. Over the centuries, temple builders have relied on magic numbers to shape sacred spaces, astronomers have used geometry to calculate holy seasons, and philosophers have observed the harmony of the universe in the numerical properties of music. By showing how the discoveries of mathematics are manifested over and over again in biology and physics, and how they have inspired the greatest works of art, this illuminating study reveals the universal principles that link us to the infinite.

This work examines the unique way in which Benedict de Spinoza (1632–77) combines two significant philosophical principles: that real existence requires causal power and that geometrical objects display exceptionally clearly how things have properties in virtue of their essences. Valtteri Viljanen argues that underlying Spinoza's psychology and ethics is a compelling metaphysical theory according to which each and every genuine thing is an entity of power endowed with an internal structure akin to that of geometrical objects. This allows Spinoza to offer a theory of existence and of action - human and non-human alike - as dynamic striving that takes place with the same kind of necessity and intelligibility that pertain to geometry. Viljanen's fresh and original study will interest a wide range of readers in Spinoza studies and early modern philosophy more generally.

A dazzling first novel of two lovers' struggle for freedom and passion in a city riven by turmoil Back in Karachi for his father's funeral, Daanish, a Pakistani student changed by his years at an American university, is entranced by the gazelle-eyed girl in the traditional dupatta who appears one day at the house of mourning. But the dupatta is deceptive: Dia is the modern daughter of a mother who, as the owner of a silk farm and factory, has achieved a degree of freedom rare among Pakistani women. It will take a handful of silkworms, fattened on mulberry leaves, to bring Daanish and Dia together. But their union will forever rupture the peace of two households and three families, destroying a stable present built on the repression of a bloody past. In this sweeping novel of modern Pakistan, Uzma Aslam Khan takes us deep into a world of radical contrasts, from the stifling demands of tradition and family to the daily oppression of routine political violence, from the gorgeous sensual vistas of the silk farms to the teeming streets of Karachi-stinking, crumbling, and corrupt. At once delicate and passionate, Trespassing introduces a new and powerful voice from a land we know too little about.