Or, how to beat the Street with a broomstick... Since that first tulip was traded on that madly speculative exchange in 17th-century Amsterdam, some very special individuals - plungers not in the Merrill Lynch tradition - have been picking winners and harvesting huge profits with uncanny success. How? They play the market in ways that seem weird to the rest of us - but they win! There are those who feel vibrations, play by the stars, read tarot cards, rely on extrasensory perception, dream dreams, play by numbers. Crazy? Maybe. Yet every single one of them is rich. You'll meet them all in this peek at the occult side of the street. If you want to play the game their way, there's an appendix to teach you their specialised techniques; with astrology, tarot cards, witchcraft, magic squares, and other uncanny devices. Each method is carefully explained by the author, a veteran writer of unimpeachable reputation who researched this book with the objectivity of a scientist and who vouches for the accuracy of the results described in it.

Since that first tulip was traded on that madly speculative exchange in 17th-century Amsterdam, some very special individuals - plungers not in the Merrill Lynch tradition - have been picking winners and harvesting huge profits with uncanny success. How? They play the market in ways that seem weird to the rest of us - but they win! There are those who feel vibrations, play by the stars, read tarot cards, rely on extrasensory perception, dream dreams, play by numbers. Crazy? Maybe. Yet every single one of them is rich. You'll meet them all in this peek at the occult side of the street. If you want to play the game their way, there's an appendix to teach you their specialised techniques; with astrology, tarot cards, witchcraft, magic squares and other uncanny devices. Each method is carefully explained by the author, a veteran writer of unimpeachable reputation who researched this book with the objectivity of a scientist and who vouches for the accuracy of the results described in it.

Drawing on real historical documents but infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humor, and intellectual fire for which award-winning author Rivka Galchen’s writing is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch is a tale for our time—the story of how a community becomes implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear. The year is 1619, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the small town of Leonberg, Katherina Kepler is accused of being a witch. An illiterate widow, Katherina is known by her neighbors for her herbal remedies and the success of her children, including her eldest, Johannes, who is the Imperial Mathematician and renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It’s enough to make anyone jealous, and Katherina has done herself no favors by being out and about and in everyone’s business. So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold (or as Katherina calls her, the Werewolf) accuses Katherina of offering her a bitter, witchy drink that has made her ill, Katherina is in trouble. Her scientist son must turn his attention from the music of the spheres to the job of defending his mother. Facing the threat of financial ruin, torture, and even execution, Katherina tells her side of the story to her friend and next-door neighbor Simon, a reclusive widower imperiled by his own secrets. Provocative and entertaining, Galchen’s bold new novel touchingly illuminates a society, and a family, undone by superstition, the state, and the mortal convulsions of history.

"Enthralling ... A great read."—Philippe de Montebello, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art October 16, 1943, inside the Vatican as darkness descends upon Rome. Having been alerted to the Nazi plan to round up the city’s Jewish population the next day, Monsignor F. dispatches an envoy to a nearby palazzo to bring Ludwig Pollak and his family to safety within the papal premises. But Pollak shows himself in no hurry to leave his home and accept the eleventh-hour offer of refuge. Pollak’s visitor is obliged to take a seat and listen as he recounts his life story: how he studied archaeology in Prague, his passion for Italy and Goethe, how he became a renowned antiquities dealer and advisor to great collectors like J. P. Morgan and the Austro-Hungarian emperor after his own Jewishness barred him from an academic career, and finally his spectacular discovery of the missing arm from the majestic ancient sculpture of Laocoön and his sons. Torn between hearing Pollak’s spellbinding tale and the urgent mission to save the archaeologist from certain annihilation, the Vatican’s anxious messenger presses him to make haste and depart. This stunning novel illuminates the chasm between civilization and barbarism by spotlighting a now little-known figure devoted to knowledge and the power of artistic creation.

In this book you will meet three dozen impatient people. They weren't satisfied with the slow, plodding, money-saving route to financial security, the safe route that most of us feel stuck with. They wanted instant wealth - and they got it. As Max Gunther points out, our folklore frowns on the idea of quick money. As in the fable about the race between a tortoise and a hare. "In the fable, the hare loses. The stories in this book are not fables. They are true. In these stories, the hares win." They are a richly varied lot, these happy hares. Gunther opens with a few dazzling millionaire legends, such as the man who invented Monopoly. You'll then meet fascinating characters such as: Harvey Shuster, who beat the stock market; Howard Brown, who decided to be rich and became a multi-millionaire within three years; and a group of men who made fast fortunes on fads such as the Hula Hoop and the Frisbee. These stores illustrate that the dream of quick money isn't such a ridiculous dream after all. Read these tales about hares who have won and when you have, maybe you'll decide to run with them.

A Telegraph Book of the Year A remarkable, unprecedented account of the role of magic in cultures both ancient and modern -- from the first known horoscope to the power of tattoos. 'Fascinating, original, excellent' Simon Sebag Montefiore ______________________ Three great strands of practice and belief run through human history: science, religion and magic. But magic - the idea that we have a connection with the universe - has developed a bad reputation. It has been with us for millennia - from the curses and charms of ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish magic, to the shamanistic traditions of Eurasia, indigenous America and Africa, and even today in the West when snapping wishbones or buying lottery tickets. Drawing on his decades of research, Professor Chris Gosden provides a history of human thought and how magic may help us rethink our understanding of the world. ______________________ 'This is an extraordinary work of learning, written with an exhilarating lightness of touch . . . It is essential reading.' Francis Pryor, author of Britain BC, Britain AD and The Fens 'Without an unfascinating page' Scotsman 'Chris Gosden shows how magic explores the connections between human beings and the universe in ways different from religion or science, yet deserving of respect' Professor John Barton, author of A History of The Bible