Jessa Farrell inherits an unusual mud figure of the smiling Buddha from her father. Researching its past, she emails a photo of it to her friend Johnnie, who works at a Chicago art museum. Strange events conspire to make Jessa feel that she is being watched. When Johnnie does not return her phone calls, Jessa engages the services of Gainesville, Florida private investigator, John T. Raven. To uncover the statue’s history, they go underground when the body of a missing art historian appears on Jessa’s lawn. In a race against time, they pursue the cold trail of a thirty year old mystery. As the little Buddha’s past is unraveled, a surprising connection between detective and client emerges.

Sacred Love in the Sacred Isles... Who would have thought the Masters/Adepts had such a sense of humour? Poetic, funny, heart breaking, and totally relevant to today's world, Denise McDermott-King skilfully introduces you to the Masters of Wisdom as she travels into Scotland and down through England, revealing the final twist in the sacred caves of Northern India. Magically woven and compelling till the end.

The basis for the upcoming HBO miniseries and the "definitive account of the Jonestown massacre" (Rolling Stone) -- now available for the first time in paperback. Tim Reiterman’s Raven provides the seminal history of the Rev. Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the murderous ordeal at Jonestown in 1978. This PEN Award–winning work explores the ideals-gone-wrong, the intrigue, and the grim realities behind the Peoples Temple and its implosion in the jungle of South America. Reiterman’s reportage clarifies enduring misperceptions of the character and motives of Jim Jones, the reasons why people followed him, and the important truth that many of those who perished at Jonestown were victims of mass murder rather than suicide. This widely sought work is restored to print after many years with a new preface by the author, as well as the more than sixty-five rare photographs from the original volume.

Gothiniad of Surazeus - Oracle of Gotha presents 150,792 lines of verse in 1,948 poems, lyrics, ballads, sonnets, dramatic monologues, eulogies, hymns, and epigrams written by Surazeus 1993 to 2000.

John S. Strong unravels the storm of influences shaping the received narratives of two iconic sacred objects. Bodily relics such as hairs, teeth, fingernails, pieces of bone—supposedly from the Buddha himself—have long served as objects of veneration for many Buddhists. Unsurprisingly, when Western colonial powers subjugated populations in South Asia, they used, manipulated, redefined, and even destroyed these objects to exert control. In The Buddha’s Tooth, John S. Strong examines Western stories, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, surrounding two significant Sri Lankan sacred objects to illuminate and concretize colonial attitudes toward Asian religions. First, he analyzes a tale about the Portuguese capture and public destruction, in the mid-sixteenth century, of a tooth later identified as a relic of the Buddha. Second, he switches gears to look at the nineteenth-century saga of British dealings with another tooth relic of the Buddha—the famous Daḷadā enshrined in a temple in Kandy—from 1815, when it was taken over by English forces, to 1954, when it was visited by Queen Elizabeth II. As Strong reveals, the stories of both the Portuguese tooth and the Kandyan tooth reflect nascent and developing Western understandings of Buddhism, realizations of the cosmopolitan nature of the tooth, and tensions between secular and religious interests.

When Gary Snyder’s long poem Mountains and Rivers Without End was published in 1996, it was hailed as a masterpiece of American poetry. Anthony Hunt offers a detailed historical and explicative analysis of this complex work using, among his many sources, Snyder’s personal papers, letters, and interviews. Hunt traces the work’s origins, as well as some of the sources of its themes and structure, including Nō drama; East Asian landscape painting; the rhythms of storytelling, chant, and song; Jungian archetypal psychology; world mythology; Buddhist philosophy and ritual; Native American traditions; and planetary geology, hydrology, and ecology. His analysis addresses the poem not merely by its content, but through the structure of individual lines and the arrangement of the parts, examining the personal and cultural influences on Snyder’s work. Hunt’s benchmark study will be rewarding reading for anyone who enjoys the contemplation of Snyder’s artistry and ideas and, more generally, for those who are intrigued by the cultural and intellectual workings of artistic composition.

Viveka Janssen isn't a dragonslayer. She's a practical Midwestern girl brought to San Francisco by the prospect of an entry-level PR job, and her greatest ambitions involve finding an apartment and making a good impression at work. But Viv's sensible nature is shaken when she comes into possession of the legendary sword Excalibur, and finds herself thrust into the front lines of a shadow war against the immortal armies of Morgan le Fay. Ancient and malevolent creatures hunt the streets by night. Monsters out of fairy tales lurk in subway tunnels. Only Excalibur—and Viv—stand between human civilization and the forces of wild magic. And the dragons are hungry... Winner of the 2014 IndieReader Discovery Award in the Fantasy category. Fans of Seanan McGuire and Patricia Briggs will enjoy this blend of adventure, romance, and magic.