A golfer disappearing into thin air from a sand trap is more than new police chief Dan Shepard bargained for when he left the big city for the supposedly quiet resort town of Carmel, California. "Let me get this straight," Shepard said. "Not only does the victim vanish from the scene of the crime, and wind up someplace he really can't be, but somewhere along the way he changed his socks?" As if that problem wasn't enough, Shepard also has to contend with the constant interference of an irascible amateur sleuth, Herman de Portola Bliss. Bliss is an artist with no talent for painting, but an unerring eye for clues, and an even greater talent for getting into trouble. As the case twists and turns its way along the shores of scenic Monterey Bay, the mismatched pair finds themselves drawn into an edgy partnership confronted with more than one dead body. Even Bliss may not be good enough for this one.

Sometimes compared to the Saint-Tropez of Brigitte Bardot in the 1950s, Comporta, with its relaxed pace and artistic community, is the ideal destination for those looking to wander off course. It’s the newfound favorite of personalities such as Jacques Grange, Farida Khelfa, François Dumas, the Espírito Santo family, and Madonna, who shares photographs of taking her kids to the beach and horseback riding in the dunes of nearby Carvalhal on weekends. This fishing village boasts swaths of beaches, patchworks of rice paddies, and an ecosystem filled with storks and frogs, all a serene backdrop for the striking homes found there: rustic cabanas and thatched-roof huts reflecting the carefree lifestyle that has become Comporta’s hallmark. This distinctive setting challenges the minds of architects and designers, yielding unique spaces that delightfully blur the line between interior and exterior. Within these pages, the region’s characteristic cobalt blue is reflected from the sky and sea to the walls, shutters, and design pieces that adorn its homes, both picturesque and bold. Discover the beauty and joy of simplicity with Comporta Bliss

When a man searching for his brother uncovers a secret that could destroy a powerful nobleman’s life, he is offered the man’s daughter in exchange for his silence—but could their marriage of convenience turn into a love more powerful than the secrets keeping them apart? When Gideon Harwood returns to his home in Regency-era England after a trip to India makes him an immensely rich man, he is driven by two unrelenting quests: to raise his station in life for the sake of his young sisters and to find his missing brother. What he uncovers is a damning secret about Lord Stanwell, one of London’s most powerful noblemen. Desperate to avoid a ruinous scandal, Lord Stanwell buys Gideon’s silence by offering the one thing that will guarantee Gideon’s entry into the beau monde’s inner sanctum: his daughter, Julia. Now in her third insufferable social season, beautiful Lady Julia Barham has yet to meet a man deserving of her devotion. Rumors swirl about the towering, immensely wealthy Gideon Harwood, but he is a commoner, beneath her consideration—and yet, as she learns, he is to be her husband. Julia comes to find that Gideon awakens passion in her that she didn’t know she had. But dangerous secrets lie between them. Can they overcome the sins of the past and surrender to a once-in-a-lifetime love?

Bliss Against the World critically analyzes and systematically reconstructs the work of German Idealist and Romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling (1775--1854). In Schelling's concept of bliss (Seligkeit), the idea of salvation from the world mutates into a burning concern with the negativity of the modern world and with the way modernity inherits the Christian promise of a non-alienated future that never arrives. Schelling emerges from this account as a key thinker of modernity and of the Christian modern trajectory as a path to salvation in the shadow of whose failure we continue to live.

Life and Death brings together philosophical and literary works representing the many ways--metaphysical, scientific, analytic, phenomenological, literary--in which philosophers and others have reflected on questions about life and death.