A middle-aged couple takes in a prurient young woman picked up from the side of the road; a single mother struggles against the hostile feelings she harbors towards her precocious son; a man has alternative fantasies of domination and submission involving a fellow commuter; a hotel room is booked by an elderly woman in search of a place to end her life. In the fourteen stories that make up A Perfect Disharmony, Sébastien Brebel explores the experiences of isolated women and sexually obsessed men while weaving together digression, daydreams, and an accumulation of detail to create a wholly unique approach to the short story form.

In Perfection and Disharmony in the Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jonathan Marks offers an interpretation of the philosopher's thought and its place in the contemporary debate between liberals and communitarians. Against prevailing views, he argues that Rousseau's thought revolves around the natural perfection of a naturally disharmonious being. At the foundation of Rousseau's thought he finds a natural teleology that takes account of and seeks to harmonize conflicting ends. The Rousseau who emerges from this interpretation is a radical critic of liberalism who is nonetheless more cautious about protecting individual freedom than his milder communitarian successors. Marks elaborates on the challenge that Rousseau poses to liberals and communitarians alike by setting up a dialogue between him and Charles Taylor, one of the most distinguished ethical and political theorists at work today.

The next novel in the Typhon Pact adventure set in the universe of Star Trek: The Next Generation. On a diplomatic mission to the planet Andor, Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E bear witness to the rank devastation resulting from the Borg invasion. With the reproductive issues that have long plagued the Andorian people reaching crisis level, avenues of research that at first held great promise have proven largely unhelpful, and may well indeed be worsening the problem. Despite the Federation's seeming inability to provide assistance and growing doubt over its commitment to a staunch, longtime ally, Andorian scientists now offer renewed hope for a solution. However, many segments of Andorian society are protesting this controversial new approach, and more radical sects are beginning to make their displeasure known by any means available. In response, President Nanietta Bacco has sent the Enterprise crew and a team of diplomats and scientists to Andor to convene a summit, in the hope of demonstrating that the Federation's pledge to helping Andor is sincere. But the Typhon Pact is watching, and their interests may very well lead the Andorian people down an even more treacherous path...

NOW A USA TODAY AND LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER From the award-winning author of The Memory Painter comes a sweeping and suspenseful tale of romance, fate, and fortune. Semele Cavnow appraises antiquities for an exclusive Manhattan auction house, deciphering ancient texts—and when she discovers a manuscript written in the time of Cleopatra, she knows it will be the find of her career. Its author tells the story of a priceless tarot deck, now lost to history, but as Semele delves further, she realizes the manuscript is more than it seems. Both a memoir and a prophecy, it appears to be the work of a powerful seer, describing devastating wars and natural disasters in detail thousands of years before they occurred. The more she reads, the more the manuscript begins to affect Semele’s life. But what happened to the tarot deck? As the mystery of her connection to its story deepens, Semele can’t shake the feeling that she’s being followed. Only one person can help her make sense of it all: her client, Theo Bossard. Yet Theo is arrogant and elusive, concealing secrets of his own, and there’s more to Semele’s desire to speak with him than she would like to admit. Can Semele even trust him? The auction date is swiftly approaching, and someone wants to interfere—someone who knows the cards exist, and that the Bossard manuscript is tied to her. Semele realizes it’s up to her to stop them: the manuscript holds the key to a two-thousand-year-old secret, a secret someone will do anything to possess.

Publisher description

This volume contains all three books of theoretical and practical use by Franz Bardon. Franz Bardon needs no introduction in the field of Magic, Evocation, occultism, practical use of the first three tarot cards, use of magical words and letters. A Course of Instruction of Theory & Practice of Magic+ Magical Evocation + Magical Words Anyone who should believe to find in this work nothing else but a collection of recipes, with the aid of which he can easily and without any effort attain to honor and glory, riches and power and aim at the annihilation of his enemies, might be told from the very inception, that he will put aside this book, being very disappointed. Numerous sects and religions do not understand the expression of “magic” otherwise than black art, witchcraft or conspiracy with evil powers. It is therefore not astonishing that many people are frightened by a certain horror, whenever the word “magic” is pronounced. Jugglers, conjurers, and charlatans have discredited this term and, considering this circumstance, there is no surprise that magic knowledge has always been looked upon with a slight disregard. Even in the remotest times the MAGUS has been regarded as one of the highest adepts and it might be of interest to learn that, as a matter of fact, the word “magic” is derived from this word. The so called “sorcerers” are by no means initiates but only imitators o the mysteries, who counting partly on the ignorance and partly on the credulity of the individuality or a whole nation in order to reach their selfish aims by, lies and fraud. The true magician will always despise such practices. In reality, magic is a sacred science, it is, in the very true sense the sum of all knowledge because it teaches how to know and utilize the sovereign rules. There is no difference between magic and mystic or any other conception of the name. Wherever authentic initiation is at stake, one has to proceed on the same basis, according to the same rules, irrespective of the name given by this or that creed. Considering the universal polarity rules of good and evil, active and passive, light and shadow, each science can serve good as well as bad purposes. Let us take the example of a knife, an object that virtually ought to be used for cutting bread only, which, however, can become a dangerous weapon in the hands of a murderer. All depends on the character of the individual. This principle goes just as well for all the spheres of the occult sciences. In my book I have chosen the term of “magician” for all of my disciples, it being a symbol of the deepest initiation and the highest wisdom. Many of the readers will know, of course, that the word “tarot” does not mean a game of cards, serving mantical purposes, but a symbolic book of initiation which contains the greatest secrets in a symbolic form. The first tablet of this book introduces the magician representing him as the master of the elements and offering the key to the first Arcanum, the secret of the ineffable name of Tetragrammaton*, the quabbalistic Yod-He-Vau-He. Here we will, therefore, find the gate to the magician’s initiation. The reader will easily realize, how significant and how manifold the application of this tablet is. Not one of the books published up to date does describe the true sense of the first Tarot card so distinctly as I have done in my book. It is – let it be noted – born from the own practice and destined for the practical use of a lot of other people, and all my disciples have found it to be the best and most serviceable system. *Tetragrammaton literally means “the four-letter word”. It was a subterfuge to avoid the sin of uttering the sacred name YHVH (Yahveh) or Jehova as it later became when the vowels of another word were combined with the consonants of YHVH. But I would never dare to say that my book describes or deals with all the magic or mystic problems. If anyone should like to write all about this sublime wisdom, he ought to fill folio volumes. It can, however, be affirmed positively that this work is indeed the gate to the true initiation, the first key to using the universal rules. I am not going to deny the fact of fragments being able to be found in many an author’s publications, but not in a single book will the reader find so exact a description of the first Tarot card. I have taken pains to be as plain as possible in the course of the lectures to make the sublime Truth accessible to everybody, although it has been a hard task sometimes to find such simple words as are necessary for the understanding of all the readers. I must leave it to the judgment of all of you, whether or not my efforts have been successful. At certain points I have been forced to repeat myself deliberately to emphasize some important sentences and to spare the reader any going back to a particular page. There have been many complaints of people interested in the occult sciences that they had never got any chance at all to be initiated by a personal master or leader (guru). Therefore only people endowed with exceptional faculties, a poor preferred minority seemed to be able to gain this sublime knowledge. Thus a great many of serious seekers of the truth had to go through piles of books just to catch one pearl of it now and again. The one, however, who is earnestly interested in his progress and does not pursue this sacred wisdom from sheer curiosity or else is yearning to satisfy his own lust, will find the right leader to initiate him in this book. No incarnate adept, however high his rank may be, can give the disciple more for his start than the present book does. If both the honest trainee and the attentive reader will find in this book all they have been searching for in vain all the years, then the book has fulfilled its purpose completely. The Author.