Portable Magic

A history of one of humankind’s most resilient and influential technologies over the past millennium—the book. Revelatory and entertaining in equal measure, Portable Magic will charm and challenge literature lovers of all kinds as it illuminates the transformative power and eternal appeal of the written word. Stephen King once said that books are “a uniquely portable magic.” Here, Emma Smith takes readers on a literary adventure that spans centuries and circles the globe to uncover the reasons behind our obsession with this captivating object. From disrupting the Western myth that the Gutenberg Press was the original printing project, to the decorative gift books that radicalized women to join the anti-slavery movement, to paperbacks being weaponized during World War II, to a book made entirely of plastic-wrapped slices of American cheese, Portable Magic explores how, when, and why books became so iconic. It’s not just the content within a book that compels; it’s the physical material itself, what Smith calls “bookhood”: the smell, the feel of the pages, the margins to scribble in, the illustrations on the jacket, its solid heft. Every book is designed to influence our reading experience—to enchant, enrage, delight, and disturb us—and our longstanding love affair with books in turn has had direct, momentous consequences across time.

"Dragon is hard to overcome, yet one shall try." – Nowe Ateny, Polish Encyclopedia, 1745 Diane Morris is part of the thin line separating a happy, mundane world from all of the horrors of the anomalous. Her federal agency is underfunded, understaffed, and misunderstood, and she'd rather transfer to the boring safety of Logistics than remain a field agent. When a troupe of international thieves make off with a pair of dragon eggs, Diane has no choice but to ally with a demon against the forces looking to leave her city a smoldering crater. Facing down rogue wizards, fiery elementals, and crazed gunmen, it's a race against time to get the precious cargo back before the dragon wakes up and unleashes hell.

Say goodbye to ceremonial robes, incense, candles, and oils. Donald Tyson presents a new, easy way to perform ritual magic with only one tool: tarot. From manipulating elemental forces of nature to making potent charms, all ceremonial rituals can be performed with a standard 78-card deck. Tyson's efficient system of tarot magic is based on the Golden Dawn tradition, which corresponds with tarot imagery. He teaches how to work magic on the astral level by projecting one's awareness into the ritual tarot layout. Learn how to set up an astral temple, build an altar, cast a magic circle, and create a triangle through which to actualize your purpose. This innovative guide to tarot magic also includes rituals related to unions, business, banishing, and evoking elementals.

“A beautifully rendered epic journey . . . . The novel works on many levels and excels at them all.” —New York Journal of Books In this captivating and surprising novel of spiritual discovery—a No. 1 bestseller in India—a young American travels to India and finds himself tested physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Max Pzoras is the poster child for the American Dream. The child of Greek immigrants who grew up in a dangerous New York housing project, he triumphed over his upbringing and became a successful Wall Street analyst. Yet on the frigid December night he’s involved in a violent street scuffle, Max begins to confront questions about suffering and mortality that have dogged him since his mother’s death. His search takes him to the farthest reaches of India, where he encounters a mysterious night market, almost freezes to death on a hike up the Himalayas, and finds himself in an ashram in a drought-stricken village in South India. As Max seeks answers to questions that have bedeviled him—can yogis walk on water and live for 200 years without aging? Can a flesh-and-blood man ever achieve nirvana?—he struggles to overcome his skepticism and the pull of family tugging him home. In an ultimate bid for answers, he embarks on a dangerous solitary meditation in a freezing Himalayan cave, where his physical and spiritual endurance is put to its most extreme test. By turns a gripping adventure story and a journey of tremendous inner transformation, The Yoga of Max's Discontent is a contemporary take on man's classic quest for transcendence.

THE PORTABLE DOOR is the first novel set in the magical offices of J. W. Wells. Now a majorly fantastical movie starring Sam Neill, Christoph Waltz, and Miranda Otto. “Tom Holt may be the most imaginative satirist to land on our shores since Douglas Adams.” — Christopher Moore, New York Times bestselling author Starting a new job is always stressful (especially when you don't want one), but when Paul Carpenter arrives at the office of J. W. Wells he has no idea what trouble lies in store. He is about to discover that the apparently respectable establishment now paying his salary is a front for a deeply sinister organization. It seems that half the time his bosses are away with the fairies. But they're not, of course. They're away with the goblins. The J.W. Wells & Co. Series: The Portable Door In Your Dreams Earth, Air, Fire and Custard You Don't Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps The Better Mousetrap May Contain Traces of Magic Other titles from Tom Holt: Doughnut When It's A Jar The Outsorcerer's Apprentice The Good, the Bad and the Smug The Management Style of the Supreme Beings An Orc on the Wild Side Holt Writing as K. J. Parker: Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City How To Rule An Empire and Get Away With It A Practical Guide to Conquering the World

Thirteen points of entry. Locked gateways to magical realms of immense power—and danger, for the uninitiated. Within these pages are thirteen keys. Enter the Necronomicon and be forever changed. In this authentic sourcebook for magicians, occult scholar Donald Tyson uses H.P. Lovecraft's story elements and characters—alien races, ancient sorceries, the Dreamlands, deities, witches, and ghouls—as the foundation for a workable and coherent system of modern ritual magic based on the thirteen true zodical constellations. This authoritative guide presents the essential elements of the Necronomicon mythos for use in esoteric practices such as dream scrying, astral projection, magical rites, and invocations.

The Special Black Edition includes a new Foreword by noted occultist David Cherubim as well as new material by S. Jason Black and Lon Milo DuQuette and Dr. Jack Willis and Christopher Andrew Fleites of the OTO. Every book is unique and one of a kind each containing a different Hebrew Letter. This is the master compilation of the magical teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn of which Israel Regardie was an initiated Adept. The material in this book is a highly improved version of the ground breaking material in the four-volume set by Dr. Regardie that revolutionized the Occult world in the late 1930s. It includes the Order's instructions in Ritual Magic, Invocation, Tarot, Qabalah, Enochian, Astrology, Esoteric Doctrine and more, along with the Order's Initiation Rituals.This new edition includes a Foreword by the great David Cherubim. It also includes a complete Index and detailed Table of Contents, compiled by James Strain, to assist readers in their Golden Dawn studies as well as new material by Chic and Tabatha Cicero.This is a massive and beautiful hardcover book and includes copious illustrations with several in full color, each book contains a different Hebrew letter. Limited to only 22 copies.

"Most of what we say about books is really about the words inside them: the rosy nostalgic glow for childhood reading, the lifetime companionship of a much-loved novel. But books are things as well as words, objects in our lives as well as worlds in our heads. And just as we crack their spines, loosen their leaves and write in their margins, so they disrupt and disorder us in turn. All books are, as Stephen King put it, 'a uniquely portable magic'. Here, Emma Smith shows us why"--