At the heart of the Universe opens up God's great purpose for us and our world, focusing on the End towards which God has been working throughout history and is still working today. In doing so, Peter Jensen sheds light on the main aspects of Christian belief, showing how they fit together as one dynamic whole, and how they relate to us and our culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. This is the bold and intriguing assertion of the Heart Sutra, a text of seminal importance to the Buddhist tradition made even more fascinating by its deep resonance with the cutting edges of quantum physics and cognitive science. In spare and approachable language, The Heart of the Universe deftly explores this gem of world religious literature from a variety of perspectives--historical, spiritual, linguistic, and scientific--each serving to interdependently illuminate the other.

The story of two mothers and a father in love with the same daughter, Samuel Shem's At the Heart of the Universe is an epic novel set deep in rural China against the backdrop of an ancient mountain monastery during the time of the one-child-per-family policy. Inspired by the author's experiences as parent of an adopted child, it describes the drama of adoption and the journey of loss and rebirth that can happen when a daughter brings together her adopted mother and father with her birth mother high on a mountaintop. Set in 1991 in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, as a Chinese woman abandons her one-month-old daughter in a pile of celery in a busy market, and then shifting to Changsha ten years later as the daughter returns with her adopted American parents, the story moves across southern China until, high atop Emei San, one of China's "sacred mountains" with a Buddhist temple, the four are brought together in the wilderness—a perilous and explosive time that unleashes their heartbreak and suffering and, remarkably, transcends it to shared compassion, and new beginnings.

Though "The Heart Sutra" is an ancient Buddhist scripture, scholars are now discovering how it offers insight into the nature of an ultimate reality perceived through intuitive wisdom. Fascinatingly, quantum physicists are increasingly discovering interesting parallels between science and the basic insights of "The Heart Sutra." In this important offering, Mu Soeng shows how the intellectual and the intuitive can begin to meet. In offering a commentary on this important piece of the world's great religious literature, "The Heart of the Universe" establishes a broad context to encounter "The Heart Sutra" on many levels -- historical, spiritual, and empirical -- each serving to interdependently illuminate the other.

*INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARD * *AWARD WINNING FINALIST* Based on a lifetime of research into shamanism, visionary states, the evolution of written communication and the roots of storytelling, award-winning author, editor, and shamanic explorer Matthew J. Pallamary takes those with open minds courageous enough to question the illusions that most of us think of as real on an expansive journey that pierces the veil of reality itself. Pallamary's in-depth analysis of human perception, shamanism, visionary states, cognitive neuroscience, plant and animal consciousness, and sacred geometry, as well as the prehistoric roots of our deepest cultural myths not only lay bare the illusory roots of what we have built our failing society on, it provides a detailed map that points the way through the non-sense hall of mirrors that we currently find ourselves trapped in. The Center Of The Universe Is Right Between Your Eyes, But Home Is Where the Heart Is, is Pallamary's thirteenth book, and in it he weaves a convincing tapestry that alternates threads of ancient philosophies and preserved indigenous wisdom with recent discoveries in quantum physics, psychology, and the timeless, persistent archetypes of our subconscious.

In the midst of the Vietnam War, a young girl struggles to embrace change in this tender family story for fans of Cynthia Lord and Wendy Maas Lucy is a practical, orderly person--just like her dad. He taught her to appreciate reason and good sense, instilling in her the same values he learned at medical school. But when he's sent to Vietnam to serve as an Army doctor, Lucy and her mother are forced to move to San Jose, California, to be near their relatives--the Rossis--people known for their superstitions and all around quirky ways. Lucy can't wait for life to go back to normal, so she's over the moon when she learns her father is coming home early. It doesn't even matter that he's coming back "different." That she can't ask too many questions or use the word "amputation." It just matters that he'll be home. But Lucy quickly realizes there's something very wrong when her mother sends her to spend the summer with the Rossis to give her father some space. Lucy's beside herself, but what's a twelve-year-old to do? It's a curious boy named Milo, a mysterious packet of photographs and an eye-opening mission that makes Lucy see there's more to life than schedules and plans, and helps to heal her broken family. The latest from critically-acclaimed author Tracy Holczer is a pitch-perfect middle grade tale of family and friendship that's sure to delight fans of One for the Murphys and Rules.

Offering a sweeping tour of fantastic physics and cosmic history, a view of the most fearsome places in the universe that finally asks what it will take to see the event horizon of a black hole.