In his critically acclaimed debut thriller, Thief of Light, former high-stakes art dealer David Ramus gave us a harrowing glimpse inside New York City's ruthlessly competitive art world. Now, in an electrifying return, Ramus casts his unflinching eye on the exclusive old-money world of Palm Beach to create a haunting tale of unfathomable wealth, merciless greed and page-turning suspense. Set behind the gates of a sprawling ocean-front mansion, The Gravity of Shadows weaves a layered account of a priceless Palm Beach art collection, an eager New York art dealer and a smoldering political secret whose powerful keeper will protect it at any cost. Wil Sumner, a self-made New York City art dealer, was entranced by the lure of fine art from an early age. Raised in the shadow of Palm Beach's spectacular wealth, he was determined to succeed in a world that had always existed just beyond his reach. Now, after making it in New York, Wil finds his business about to come crashing down in a heap of bank debt and broken dreams. An unexpected proposition -- to return to Palm Beach to appraise the private collection of Andrew Stevenson, a wealthy recluse -- may be his only chance to get back in the game.

Lissie Lockheart thought the city of Ruine would be another pin point on the map of a dozen ordinary places she had already called home. She couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s the start of her junior year in high school and Lissie has more to worry about than being the new kid. When she runs into the enigmatic and rebellious vampire, Connor Kingsley, her life takes a sudden and dangerous turn. Aside from Connor’s unorthodox vampire family, her new town seems to be home to a host of other problems: a crazy professor who dabbles in ancient magic, rampant and unexplained murders, political conspiracies, human disappearances, and a mob of zombies. Now Lissie has to dig deep within herself, and confront all the things that go bump in the night. Her heart isn’t the only thing at stake. If she can make it out alive, she may find more in this sleepy little town than she ever could have imagined. It's in the darkness that her dreams become reality... and once they pull her in, they will never let go.

Lissie Lockheart knows that monsters and magic are real. And she has the scars to prove it. After surviving a battle in a new war between the undead, Lissie tries to return to a normal life. With suspicions hanging in the air and secrets weighing on her heart, she struggles to balance the two halves of her now very complicated life. And she soon realizes that history tests, or even stubborn vampire boyfriends are the least of her concerns.A mysterious shadow is descending upon Ruine and threatening not only the living but the dead as well. Lissie fears that the Kingsleys are on the wrong path. But with talk of a traitor amongst them, the Kingsleys' mistrust of Lissie grows and so do Connor's reservations. The list of people she can trust is growing smaller by the day. Now Lissie must have courage, follow her instincts and seek alliances from the most unlikely of places to prevent her home and her heart from falling into shadow. Lissie's life is now bound by the light and the dark... but can she save them both? In the end, she has always known that it will come down to a choice, and that no matter how hard she fights it, that choice will change her forever.

This book is a study of the phenomena of shadows, meant in a broader sense as “symbolic forms”. The shadow is a less real, “surface” replica of some more real form. From the Platonic point of view, empirical objects are “shadows of ideas”, while from the modern “natural” point of view, shadows are seen and conceived primarily as “weaker” replicas of bodies, which give evidence of their material reality. In the first three essays here, several topics from the Ancient Egypt and Greece to modern arts and sciences are considered, while in the fourth essay, the contemporary virtual reality, cyber-technology and the internet as our parallel “shadow world” are discussed from the philosophical point of view. The main and innovative point of this book is the connection between the meaning of shadows in philosophy and art on the one hand, and their role in modern science and technology on the other. The book will appeal to a wide span of readers, from academic circles, students, and artists, to the general reader interested in the humanities, especially in philosophy and art.

Presents the author's thesis that consciousness, in its manifestation in the human quality of understanding, is doing something that mere computation cannot; and attempts to understand how such non-computational action might arise within scientifically comprehensive physical laws.

While working on a project translating letters from sixteenth-century Prague, high school senior Nora Kane discovers her best friend murdered with her boyfriend the apparent killer and is caught up in a dangerous web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all searching for a mysterious ancient device purported to allow direct communication with God.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Exciting and provocative . . . A tour de force of a book that begs to be seen as well as to be read.”—The Washington Post Book World World renowned scientist Carl Sagan and acclaimed author Ann Druyan have written a Roots for the human species, a lucid and riveting account of how humans got to be the way we are. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a thrilling saga that starts with the origin of the Earth. It shows with humor and drama that many of our key traits—self-awareness, technology, family ties, submission to authority, hatred for those a little different from ourselves, reason, and ethics—are rooted in the deep past, and illuminated by our kinship with other animals. Sagan and Druyan conduct a breathtaking journey through space and time, zeroing in on critical turning points in evolutionary history, and tracing the origins of sex, altruism, violence, rape, and dominance. Their book culminates in a stunningly original examination of the connection between primate and human traits. Astonishing in its scope, brilliant in its insights, and an absolutely compelling read, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a triumph of popular science.