The King Of Cards

Ward once again explores the alchemy of stubborn yearnings and unrealized dreams amidst the well-tended rowhouses of his native city. There’s a mounting fury in Tommy Fallon’s heart in the fall of 1965. He’s finally found his life’s calling – thanks to the inspiration of Professor Extraordinaire Sylvester Spaulding. Young Tom wants to be lifted on the wings of genius, to ascend to a clean, well-lighted place where cultured people talk about deep things. But how can this college boy learn anything about life or art while living in his family’s house of pain? Pop Fallon’s youthful dreams of becoming a painter were dashed by the Depression and his own internal demons; he rarely comes out of the inner sanctum of His Holy Toilet, where he’s long been lost to the rituals of obsessive/compulsive behavior. Mom Fallon – beaten down by the vast resentment her husband harbors against her and all the other “Baltimorons” – is so starved for love that she enters the Miss Kissable Lips contest at the local radio station. Tom realizes he needs a refuge: a quiet, modest room of his own. There he won’t have to see the defeat in his parents’ eyes. There he’ll follow Dr. Spaulding’s lead by living inside the books that seem to be keeping his spirit alive. The King of Cards is the story of how Tom is saved from becoming a myopic, dispassionate snob when he answers an ad for off-campus housing. In the remarkable person of Jeremy Raines – World-Class Confidence Man with a Streak of Idealism, and Pied Piper to a ragtag band of followers – Tom finds a sense of adventure that is positively euphoric.

With a deck of cards, 80 illustrations, and the help of best-selling author Jonathan Dee, you can unlock the mysteries of the future. While Tarot decks are the best-known cards for divination, ordinary playing cards have been used successfully for hundreds of years to tell fortunes.

Newly elected Prime Minister Francis Urquhart takes on the new King, in the controversial No 1 bestselling second volume in the Francis Urquhart trilogy – now reissued in a new cover.

Will luck be a lady tonight? Or must we play the hand we're dealt? There is no need to use tarot cards to learn what the future holds: a regular deck of playing cards will do the trick - as long as you know how to read them. Fortune Telling Using Playing Cards teaches readers how to translate the four suits of the tarot into the more familiar hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs found in the common playing card deck. Readers will learn the meaning of the cards, their individual symbolism, keywords, astrological associations, and the significance of their numbers. There are even suggestions on how to do a quick reading when you're short on time - so you will always know what's in the cards.

This short book on fortune telling, is an essential read if you want to learn about cartomancy. Within it’s pages it covers a diverse amount of methods for classic styles of reading. There is a short two-chapter section at the end about the Tarot. Described are several different spreads, including the 32-card method, the French and Italian methods, the Grand Star, and Etteilla's Tarot spread. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing many of these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Told with candor and a poignant sense of lost innocence, The King of Cards is the story of Thomas Fallon, a successful novelist, who is treated to a homecoming that presents him with the pungent memories of his youth. The award winning author of Red Baker delivers up a touching and comic romp.

Reproduction of the original.