Sacred Guardian

WINNER OF THE HUTCH CROSSWORD BOOK AWARD 2006 FOR BEST WORK IN ENGLISH FICTION Seven years in the making, Sacred Games is an epic of exceptional richness and power. Vikram Chandra's novel draws the reader deep into the life of Inspector Sartaj Singh, and into the criminal underworld of Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India. This is a sprawling, magnificent story of friendship and betrayal, of terrible violence, of an astonishing modern city and its dark side. Drawing on the best of Victorian fiction, mystery novels, Bollywood movies and Chandra's years of first-hand research on the streets of Mumbai, Sacred Games reads like a potboiling page-turner but resonates with the intelligence and emotional depth of the best of literature.

Oxford professor, best-selling author, preeminent literary critic, playwright, screenwriter, and novelist, Terry Eagleton knows all about the claims of competing worlds. One of his earliest roles growing up Catholic in Protestant England was as "the gatekeeper"-the altar boy who at reverend mother's nod literally closed the door on young women taking the veil, separating the sanctity of the convent from earthly temptations and family obligations. Often scathingly funny, frequently tender, and always completely engaging, The Gatekeeper is Eagleton's memoirs, his deep-etched portraits of those who influenced him, either by example or by contrast: his father, headmasters, priests, and Cambridge dons. He was a shy, bookish, asthmatic boy keenly aware of social inferiority yet determined to make his intellectual way. "Our aim in life," he writes of his working-class, Irish-immigrant-descended family, "was to have the words 'We Were No Trouble' inscribed on our tombstones." But Eagleton knew trouble was the point of it all. Opening doors sometimes meant rattling the knobs. At both Cambridge and Oxford, he gravitated toward dialectics and mavericks, countering braying effeteness with withering if dogmatic dissections of the class system. The Gatekeeper mixes the soberly serious with the downright hilarious, skewer-sharp satire with unashamed fondness, the personal with the political. Most of it all it reveals a young man learning to reconcile differences and oppositions: a double-edged portrait of the intellectual as a young man.

Winner of the Booker Prize A historical novel set in the eighteenth century, Sacred Hunger is a stunning, engrossing exploration of power, domination, and greed in the British Empire as it entered fully into the slave trade and spread it throughout its colonies. Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny. Joining together, the sailors and the slaves set up a secret, utopian society in the wilderness of Florida, only to await the vengeance of the single-minded, young Kemp.

“Atran explores the way terrorists think of themselves and teaches us, at last, intelligent ways to think about terrorists.” —Christopher Dickey, Newsweek Middle East Editor and author of Securing the City Talking to the Enemy by Scott Atran is an eye-opening and important book that offers readers a startling look deep inside terror groups. Based on the author’s unprecedented access to and in-depth interviews with terrorists and jihadis—including Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Taliban extremists, as well as members of other radical Islamic terror organizations—Talking to the Enemy provides fresh insight and unexpected answers to why there are people in this world willing to kill and die for a cause. A riveting, compelling work in the tradition of The Looming Tower and Terror in the Name of God, Talking to the Enemy is required reading for anyone interested in making the world a safer, more secure place for everyone.

A sudden invasion by a powerful demon threatens ancient Southeast Asia and the whole world. Dev, a mythical and immortal being from the island of Tumasik, must now race against time to gather the five chosen by the Sacred Guardian Spirits in order to fight this terrifying threat. Follow Dev on his epic quest to different areas of the region as he attempts to gather the Sacred Guardians, who would become the last hope of mankind.

Sacred Knowledge is the first well-documented, sophisticated account of the effect of psychedelics on biological processes, human consciousness, and revelatory religious experiences. Based on nearly three decades of legal research with volunteers, William A. Richards argues that, if used responsibly and legally, psychedelics have the potential to assuage suffering and constructively affect the quality of human life. Richards's analysis contributes to social and political debates over the responsible integration of psychedelic substances into modern society. His book serves as an invaluable resource for readers who, whether spontaneously or with the facilitation of psychedelics, have encountered meaningful, inspiring, or even disturbing states of consciousness and seek clarity about their experiences. Testing the limits of language and conceptual frameworks, Richards makes the most of experiential phenomena that stretch our understanding of reality, advancing new frontiers in the study of belief, spiritual awakening, psychiatric treatment, and social well-being. His findings enrich humanities and scientific scholarship, expanding work in philosophy, anthropology, theology, and religious studies and bringing depth to research in mental health, psychotherapy, and psychopharmacology.

A full-colour guide to the data that shapes our lives, looking behind the headlines and the soundbites to what's really going on. What are the real effects of the austerity measures? What is the true human cost of the war in Afghanistan?

The twentieth anniversary edition of a transformative blueprint for ancestral healing—featuring new material and gateways, from the renowned herbalist, natural health expert, and healer of women’s bodies and souls “This book was one of the first that helped me start practices as a young woman that focused on my body and spirit as one.”—Jada Pinkett Smith Through extraordinary meditations, affirmations, holistic healing plant-based medicine, KMT temple teachings, and The Rites of Passage guidance, Queen Afua teaches us how to love and rejoice in our bodies by spiritualizing the words we speak, the foods we eat, the relationships we attract, the spaces we live and work in, and the transcendent woman spirit we manifest. With love, wisdom, and passion, Queen Afua guides us to accept our mission and our mantle as Sacred Women—to heal ourselves, the generations of women in our families, our communities, and our world.