I am impressed …
Former ‘Paranormal State’ star Ryan Buell arrested
I hope that this man gets some help soon.
Former “Paranormal State” star Ryan Buell has been arrested in South Carolina. Buell was arrested on September 18 and is currently being held in the Florence County Jail on a detainer f…
Books are magic
Books are magic … scary magic, but magic.
English Magic Tarot cards
My blog buddy Debby asked me what the English Magic Tarot cards looked like….
In my mailbox: Rumi’s Little Book of Love and Laughter: Teaching Stories and Fables
Rumi’s Little Book of Love and Laughter: Teaching Stories and Fables
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing (October 1, 2016)
ISBN-10: 1571747613
ISBN-13: 978-1571747617
I want to thank the people at Hampton Roads Publishing for sending me a free advance review copy. This book will be available October 1st and I am certain that most Rumi enthusiasts will love it. I’ve already read half of the book and I’m having trouble putting it down.
Rowdy, ecstatic, and sometimes stern, these teaching stories and fables reveal new and very human properties in Rumi’s vision. Included here are the notorious “Latin parts” that Reynold Nicholson felt were too unseemly to appear in English in his 1920s translation. For Rumi, anything that human beings do–however compulsive–affords a glimpse into the inner life.
Here are more than 40 fables or teaching stories that deal with love, laughter, death, betrayal, and the soul. The stories are exuberant, earthy, and bursting with vitality–much like a painting by Hieronymus Bosch or Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The characters are guilty, lecherous, tricky, ribald, and finally possessors of opened souls.
Barks writes: “These teaching stories are a kind of scrimshaw–intricately carved, busy figures, confused and threatening, and weirdly funny.
This is an entertaining collection from one of the greatest spiritual poets of all time, rendered by his most popular translator.
“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”–Rumi
Review: The Apothecary’s Curse by Barbara Barnett
The Mad Scientist reviews The Apothecary’s Curse by Barbara Barnett
This genre-bending urban fantasy mixes alchemy and genetics as a doctor and an apothecary try to prevent a pharmaceutical company from exploiting the book that made them immortal centuries ago.
In Victorian London, the fates of physician Simon Bell and apothecary Gaelan Erceldoune entwine when Simon gives his wife an elixir created by Gaelan from an ancient manuscript. Meant to cure her cancer, it kills her. Suicidal, Simon swallows the remainder—only to find he cannot die.
Five years later, hearing rumors of a Bedlam inmate with regenerative powers like his own, Simon is shocked to discover it’s Gaelan. The two men conceal their immortality, but the only hope of reversing their condition rests with Gaelan’s missing manuscript.
When modern-day pharmaceutical company Transdiff Genomics unearths diaries describing the torture of Bedlam inmates, the company’s scientists suspect a link between Gaelan and an unnamed inmate. Gaelan and Genomics geneticist Anne Shawe are powerfully drawn to each other, and her family connection to his manuscript leads to a stunning revelation. Will it bring ruin or redemption?
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Pyr. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Purpose of Life?
One to see…
source… http://gnosticwarrior.com/
The more I’ve learned the less I am sure of …
Review: The Weiser Book of the Fantastic and Forgotten: Tales of the Supernatural, Strange, and Bizarre
The Weiser Book of the Fantastic and Forgotten: Tales of the Supernatural, Strange, and Bizarre
by Judika Illes
Paperback: 312 pages
Publisher: Weiser Books (October 1, 2016)
ISBN-10: 157863606X
ISBN-13: 978-1578636068
The Weiser Book of the Fantastic and Forgotten features classic stories by masters of occult fiction including Dion Fortune, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, H. P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, Marie Corelli, R. W. Chambers, and more–the very authors and tales that inspired modern masters like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Nic Pizzolatto. Edited and introduced by leading occult author and scholar Judika Illes, this selection of timeless tales will thrill and chill readers down to their bones.
Illes writes, “These collected stories are each powerfully evocative; forgotten in the manner of long-buried treasure. I hope to remedy this situation, transforming the status of these tales from forgotten to favorite. I confess: there is not a single story in this collection that I do not enjoy, even after repeated readings.
While wonderful if read silently, the tales reveal their nuances, humor, and suspense with even more potency, if read aloud. During the dark, eerie hours, when the wind is blowing and the ghosts are roaming outside, the night can be filled with pleasant terror.”
While not all of the stories are forgotten, they are all fantastic. They make us think. They introduce and explore possibilities: things that perhaps could happen.
They encourage our minds to venture beyond the mundane into the realm of the fantastic, to question and redefine reality. Above all, they entertain.
