Nicola should never have stepped out to buy that pack of cigarettes because the man she discovers in her living room when she returns is not the adorable, straightforward, devoted Jonathan with whom she has been sharing her life and flat for the past six years. That Jonathan would never have simply, unilaterally, decided that she should, as he abruptly put it, 'move out.' So a shocked, grief-stricken Nicola packs her bags and sets out bravely on the bumpy course that will take her fro the hellish end of an affair to the essence of the thing. With her comic timing and tender vision the brilliant Madeleine St John, author of The Women in Black, takes us into the changing nature of the human heart.

A renowned writer and translator presents an anthology of essential quotations from the masters of spiritual wisdom, including The Buddha, Lao-tzu, Heraclitus, the Zen and Sufi masters, Spinoza, Blake, Emerson, Rilke, and other timeless sages.

In Aquinas on Being and Essence: A Translation and Interpretation, Joseph Bobik interprets the doctrines put forth by St. Thomas Aquinas in his treatise On Being and Essence. He foregrounds the meaning of the important distinction between first and second intentions, the differing uses of the term “matter,” and the Thomistic conception of metaphysics.

Capturing the Essence is a step-by-step personal guide – by one of Australia's greatest living bird artists – to observing, retaining the essential information and then painting birds from field notes and sketches, photographs and other field observations. The author takes the reader through the processes involved in oil painting, watercolour and acrylic techniques, and a piece of art is built up in stages to demonstrate the skills required in each of these media. While the book covers some of the general basics relevant to various kinds of painting of natural history subjects, the concentration is very much on birds. Painting or drawing any subject well, gives great satisfaction. In this book the author hopes to help the reader become competent at drawing and painting birds, or at least to enjoy trying!

Taoism is codified in the Tao Te Ching, which was written in the sixth century B.C. by the ancient sage Lao Tzu. Despite being historys second-most translated book after the Bible, its eighty-one poems have often been interpreted with confusing, contradictory, and sometimes blatantly incorrect explanations. The Essence of Tao removes the mystery surrounding this important philosophy and religion by reordering the core poems of the Tao Te Ching into a logical framework based on Taoisms nine core principles and then explaining these principles in easy-to-understand language. Grand Master Anatole uses ancient and formerly secret keys to help unlock Lao Tzus mysteries, including Taoisms famous paradoxes. The Essence of Tao will help the reader get a clear view of reality in order to create a content existence. Additional information about Grand Master Anatole and The Temple of Original Simplicity can be found at www.tao.org.

Gaven Kerr provides the first book-length study of St. Thomas Aquinas's much neglected proof for the existence of God in De Ente et Essentia Chapter 4. He offers a contemporary presentation, interpretation, and defense of this proof, beginning with an account of the metaphysical principles used by Aquinas and then describing how they are employed within the proof to establish the existence of God. Along the way, Kerr engages contemporary authors who have addressed Aquinas's or similar reasoning. The proof developed in the De Ente is, on Kerr's reading, independent of many of the other proofs in Aquinas's corpus and resistant to the traditional classificatory schemes of proofs of God. By applying a historical and hermeneutical awareness of the philosophical issues presented by Aquinas's thought and evaluating such philosophical issues with analytical precision, Kerr is able to move through the proof and evaluate what Aquinas is saying, and whether what he is saying is true. By means of an analysis of one of Aquinas's earliest proofs, Kerr highlights a foundational argument that is present throughout the much more commonly studied Thomistic writings, and brings it to bear within the context of analytical philosophy, showing its relevance to the contemporary reader.

Emma's parents think she is dead. The forest greeted Emma with startling force. The voices came in a dream at first, commanding her against her will deeper into the forest. It took only one moment to lose her human life forever. Now she is nothing more than an Essence, watching as her life unfolds without her.