Illuminata

Collection of prayers and ceremonies for the for times of need, spiritual growth, and change.

Princeton University's unique collection of medieval manuscripts, stretching from Ottonian to the late Gothic-early Renaissance periods, forms the nucleus of this collection of essays. Written by some of the most celebrated scholars in the field, the studies make every effort to help us understand the power of the written and illuminated word.

All Beatrice Shakespeare Smith has ever wanted is a true family of her own. And she's close to reuniting her parents when her father disappears. Now Bertie must deal with a vengeful sea goddess and a mysterious queen as she tries to keep her family – and the Theatre Illuminata – from crumbling. To complicate it all, Bertie is torn between her two loves, Ariel and Nate.

The fantastic first novel in Lisa Mantchev's Theatre Illuminata trilogy Welcome to the Théâtre Illuminata, where the characters of every play ever written can be found behind the curtain. The actors are bound to the Théâtre by The Book, an ancient and magical tome of scripts. Bertie is not one of the actors, but they are her family. And she is about to lose them all because The Book has been threatened, and along with it the Théâtre. It's the only home Bertie has ever known, and she has to find a way to save it. But first, there's the small problem of two handsome men, both vying for her attention. Nate, a dashing pirate who will do anything to protect Bertie, and Ariel, a seductive air spirit. The course of true love never did run smooth. . . . With Eyes LIke Stars, Lisa Mantchev has written a debut novel that is dramatic, romantic, and witty, with an irresistible and irreverent cast of characters who are sure to enchant the audience.

From the critically acclaimed author of Eyes Like Stars We are such stuff as dreams are made on. Act Two, Scene One Growing up in the enchanted Thèâtre Illuminata, Beatrice Shakespeare Smith learned everything about every play ever written. She knew the Players and their parts, but she didn't know that she, too, had magic. Now, she is the Mistress of Revels, the Teller of Tales, and determined to follow her stars. She is ready for the outside world. Enter BERTIE AND COMPANY But the outside world soon proves more topsy-turvy than any stage production. Bertie can make things happen by writing them, but outside the protective walls of the Thèâtre, nothing goes as planned. And her magic cannot help her make a decision between— Nate: Her suave and swashbuckling pirate, now in mortal peril. Ariel: A brooding, yet seductive, air spirit whose true motives remain unclear. When Nate is kidnapped and taken prisoner by the Sea Goddess, only Bertie can free him. She and her fairy sidekicks embark on a journey aboard the Thèâtre's caravan, using Bertie's word magic to guide them. Along the way, they collect a sneak-thief, who has in his possession something most valuable, and meet The Mysterious Stranger, Bertie's father—and the creator of the scrimshaw medallion. Bertie's dreams are haunted by Nate, whose love for Bertie is keeping him alive, but in the daytime, it's Ariel who is tantalizingly close, and the one she is falling for. Who does Bertie love the most? And will her magic be powerful enough to save her once she enters the Sea Goddess's lair? Once again, LISA MANTCHEV has spun a tale like no other—full of romance, magic, adventure, and fairies, too—that readers won't want to put down, even after the curtain has closed.

Three of Marianne Williamson's previous bestsellers -- A Return to Love, A Woman's Worth, and Illuminata -- explored the issue of relationships. Now, in this deeply personal collection of essays, prayers, and self-reflection, she turns to romantic love. In Illuminata, Williamson wrote that "we experience God to the extent to which we love, forgive, and focus on the good in others and ourselves." Now, in Enchanted Love, she writes that "enchanted partnership begins with the conscious understanding, on the part of two people, that the purpose of their relationship is not so much material as spiritual, and the internal skills demanded by it are prodigious." High romance, she says, "is not about past or future. It is not about practicality. It is not about society or worldly routines. It is an audacious ride to the center of what is, at the heart of every person. It is a bold and masterful inquiry into what two people really are and how we might become, while still on earth, the angels who reside within us."

A magnificent new novel from one of America’s finest writers—a powerfully affecting story spanning the twentieth century of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve their Irish-American community in Brooklyn. On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens a gas tap in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove—to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his pregnant wife—that “the hours of his life . . . belonged to himself alone.” In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Saviour, an aging nun, a Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child. In Catholic Brooklyn in the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence, and yet his suicide, though never spoken of, reverberates through many lives—testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations. Rendered with remarkable delicacy, heart, and intelligence, Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.

Renaud de Bar (d. 1316) was the sixty-ninth bishop of Metz, and the fourth son of the powerful count of Bar. The house of Bar had a distinguished lineage intertwined with most of the important European houses, and Renaud's eldest brother married the eldest daughter of the king of England. In the last century, as manuscripts were identified and attributed, realisation has gradually dawned that he commissioned six de luxe manuscripts for his particular use in the course of his rapid rise to the episcopacy. The heraldry of his Breviary in two volumes is unique, astonishing in a church book, as it contains about 180 non-Bar shields of arms in two-line initials, in addition to about 225 shields of Bar and Toucy, belonging to his immediate family, and his own personal shield which in the course of the book is scrupulously modified to reflect his elevation to the chair at Metz. This detailed study gives a novel overview of the man and his books, paying special attention to the heraldry, the calendars, and the marginalia in three appendices.