"Does the ghost of Cyrus Thornheart exist? Or does he live in Olivia's imagination? Set in present-day Savannah, GA, in this ghost story for non-believers, only the reader knows for sure"--Provided by publisher.

It’s 1965 and US State Department Officer Josh Ross has been sent to Turkey to settle a dispute between Turkey and Greece. While there his old friend Gabe Smith hands him a letter sent from Russia that starts him on an adventure that takes him around the world. While being pursued by both the Russians and Bulgarians (and helped by Israel’s Mossad) can Josh uncover a family secret that goes all the way back to Czar Peter the Great?

It should have been a cushy job: Vern, the dragon detective, and his partner, the mage Sister Grace, are given an all-expense paid trip to Florida to chaperone a group of Magicals at a Mensa convention. Then the pixies start pranking, the Valkyrie starts vamping and a dwarf goes to Billy Beaver's Fantasyland hoping to be "discovered." Environmentalists protest Vern's "disrupting the ecosystem," while clueless tourists think he's animatronic. When the elves get high on artificial flavorings and declare war on Florida, it turns into the toughest case they aren't getting paid for. Based loosely on the award-winning serial mystery, Magic, Mensa and Mayhem will keep you laughing wherever you rank on the IQ scale. ...."Wisdom of the Ages, Knowledge of Eternity, and I end up a babysitter at the Smart Humans' Convention."-Vern

An intimate glimpse into the musical world of New Orleans. There is no dispute that New Orleans is a city defined by its musicians. These revealing portraits of musicians are taken in the places that define them when not on stage. Each portrait is accompanied by a profile compiled from private conversations with the artist, eloquently demonstrating how entwined their lives and talents have become. Included are such well known personalities as Jeremy Davenport, Charmaine Neville, and Clarence "Frogman" Henry.

The 14th Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and spiritual leader of the Tibetans in exile, is well known in the West, but the 600-year tradition to which he is heir is less familiar. In this book, Glenn Mullin offers the life stories of all 14 Dalai Lamas in one volume for the first time. He has also included excerpts from their teachings, poetry, and other writings that illuminate the principles of Tibetan Buddhism. From the birth of the first Dalai Lama in 1391, each subsequent Dalai Lama has been the reincarnation of his predecessor, choosing to take up the burdens of a human life for the benefit of the Tibetan people. For almost six centuries, the Dalai Lamas have served as the Tibetans' spiritual leader and have held secular power for nearly half that time. The Dalai Lamas are revered as incarnations of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddhist embodiment of compassion, but each has been a unique individual with different abilities and temperament.

?Insouciant? and ?irreverent? are the sort of words that come up in reviews of Dinty W. Moore?s books?and, invariably, ?hilarious.? Between Panic and Desire, named after two towns in Pennsylvania, finds Moore at the top of his astutely funny form. A book that could be named after one of its chapters, ?A Post-Nixon, Post-panic, Post-modern, Post-mortem,? this collection is an unconventional memoir of one man and his culture, which also happens to be our own. ø Blending narrative and quizzes, memory and numerology, and imagined interviews and conversations with dead presidents on TV, the book dizzily documents the disorienting experience of growing up in a postmodern world. Here we see how the major events in the author?s early life?the Kennedy assassination, Nixon?s resignation, watching Father Knows Best, and dropping acid atop the World Trade Center, to name a few?shaped the way he sees events both global and personal today. More to the point, we see how these events shaped, and possibly even distorted, today?s world for all of us who spent our formative years in the ?50s, ?60s, and ?70s. A curious meditation on family and bereavement, longing and fear, self-loathing and desire, Between Panic and Desire unfolds in kaleidoscopic forms?a coroner?s report, a TV movie script, a Zen koan?aptly reflecting the emergence of a fractured virtual America.