Madame Clairevoyant's Guide to the Stars


Book Description

"A fresh, profound, and fun way to look at all things astro while also making spot-on observations about your pop culture faves." —Cosmopolitan A soulful exploration of the twelve astrological signs embodied by our living “stars”—from divas to philosophers, poets to punks—and the ways they can help us better understand ourselves and each other, from the wildly popular astrology columnist for New York magazine’s The Cut. Whether you believe in it or not, astrology’s job has never been to give us a preordained vision of the future, nor to sort us into twelve neat personality types, but to provide the tools and language for delving into our weirdest, best, most thorny contradictions, and for understanding ourselves and each other in our full complexity. The stars and the planets then are more like mirrors that show us who we are, that give us an understanding of how to be and how to move through the world; how certain people do it differently, and what we can learn by studying them. In Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars, Claire Comstock-Gay brings the sky down to Earth and points to our popular “stars”—from Aretha Franklin to Mr. Rogers, from poets in Cancer to punk singers in Scorpio—to reveal what the sky has to teach us about being human. In this wise, lyrically written guide, she examines the twelve astrological signs, illuminating the ways each one is more complicated, beautiful, and surprising than you might have been told. Claire suggests that actually it’s okay, and even important, to be a seeker, to hunger for self-knowledge, and if astrology is the vehicle for that inquiry, so be it. Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars offers a clear introduction to the basics and an innovative new framework for creatively using astrology to illuminate our lives on earth. It’s a road map to our internal world, yes, but Claire also reminds us that it’s still our job to navigate it. Combining both heavenly insights and the earthly wisdom of writers like Cheryl Strayed and Heather Havrilesky and the poetry of Patricia Lockwood and Mary Oliver, Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars offers a fresh, profound, and fun way to look at ourselves and others, and perhaps see each more clearly. And in that way, this book is not just beautiful, but transformative.




Llewellyn's 2014 Daily Planetary Guide


Book Description

Timing is everything. Llewellyn’s Daily Planetary Guide, the most trusted and detailed astrological planner available, makes it easy to take advantage of planetary energies. Choose the best time to do anything on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis—and even down to the minute. Before setting up a job interview, signing a contract, planning a vacation, or scheduling anything important, consult the weekly forecasts and Opportunity Periods—times when the positive flow of energy is at its peak. Plan your year wisely according to aspects, ephemerides, retrograde planets, eclipses for 2014, and more astrological information. Even beginners can use this powerful planner, which explains the planets, signs, houses, and how to use this guide.




The Essential Guide to Practical Astrology


Book Description

A down-to-earth guide about the message of the stars. For astrology to be useful there's no need to have a crystal ball, incense, meditation, or faith. Learn the practical language of astrology in this clear, easy-to-understand exploration that goes way beyond daily horoscopes and zodiac. With it, the reader will be able to calculate and read their own and others' birth charts; tell signs and planets from houses; create daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly planners- even make predictions for the future. With a glossary and further resources, this guide explores: ? Why horoscopes and descriptions of "sun signs" are usually wrong. ? Why many astrologers use the "wrong" zodiac. ? The several different houses system. ? All the planetary aspects that go beyond the sun and moon. ? The many cycles that determine an astrological forecast.




Jupiter Meets Uranus


Book Description

Jupiter and Uranus meet every 14 years. When they do, revolution and innovation join forces with restless exploration and the quest for knowledge.The result is always exciting, educational and unpredictable. Or is it? Anne Whitaker, never one to take anything at its face value, decided late in 1996 that she would observe the effects of this approaching planetary event and investigate whether it lived up to its reputation according to the textbooks. Her method was straightforward: watch world events around the time of the conjunction, and during the rest of 1997; find some volunteers with the 5 Aquarius 55 Hot Spot highlighted by in their natal horoscope; collect their stories during the year of the conjunction; and determine whether the "Jupiter-Uranus effect" could be detected in their lives. As Ken Gillman writes in the foreword, "This is a study of real-life astrology." Nine of the original 17 volunteers stayed with the study throughout. Their disrupted, exciting, turbulent life stories form the core of this vivid exploration of the interface between planetary activity and human life, during a period in which the startling announcement of the birth of Dolly the Sheep in February 1997 indicated that advances in cloning and genetic engineering were taking us on a voyage never before undertaken by humanity. This highly original book, written in a pacy and accessible style, will be of particular interest to research- minded students. It will also appeal to astrologers looking for specific evidence that the personal and collective lives of humankind respond in the same core way to the great music of the spheres, played throughout space and time by the planets in their cycles.




Seeing Like a State


Book Description

“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University




The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind


Book Description

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry




The Luminaries


Book Description

The winner of the Man Booker Prize, this "expertly written, perfectly constructed" bestseller (The Guardian) is now a Starz miniseries. It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to stake his claim in New Zealand's booming gold rush. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of 12 local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: a wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous cache of gold has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is at once a fiendishly clever ghost story, a gripping page-turner, and a thrilling novelistic achievement. It richly confirms that Eleanor Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international literary firmament.




The Cosmic Calendar


Book Description

Go from astrology-curious to cosmically empowered with this expert guide to decoding the stars for everyday life Timing is everything--and astrology is a personalized calendar designed just for you. Go beyond the memes and clichés to discover how to use this ancient system to get in sync with the stars--to become the fully empowered, energized, and happy human you are uniquely meant to be. With fascinating, funny, and spot-on insights--and without jargon or technical details--popular astrologer and columnist Christopher Renstrom illuminates the "time stamp" the stars gave you when you were born, giving you actionable insights to help you work with the stars, not against them, to live your best life every day. You'll discover: How the signs and seasons of the year work together to tell us when to take action What the planets and the four elements reveal about our personalities and preferences The best time to start a new relationship, quit your job, and finally get your finances in order--based on your unique astrological profile If you're ready to go beyond the basics--but not into the weeds--level up with The Cosmic Calendar.




Celestial Mirror


Book Description

Explore the eighteenth-century Indian astronomical observatories called the Jantar Mantars, massive, stunning structures built to observe and understand the heavens Between 1724 and 1730, Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II of Jaipur constructed five astronomical observatories, called Jantar Mantars, in northern India. The four remaining observatories are an extraordinary fusion of architecture and science, combining elements of astronomy, astrology, and geometry into forms of remarkable beauty. The observatories’ large scale and striking geometric forms have captivated the attention of architects, artists, scientists, and historians worldwide, yet their purpose and use remain largely unknown to the public. In this book, Barry Perlus’s visually driven exploration brings readers to the Jantar Mantars and creates an immersive experience. Panoramas plunge the viewer into a breathtaking 360-degree space, while pages of explanatory illustrations describe the observatories and the workings of their many instruments. The book provides the experience of visiting the sites, the historical context of the Jantar Mantars, and an understanding of their scientific and architectural innovations.




The Pessimists


Book Description

From Center for Fiction First Novel Prize finalist Bethany Ball comes a biting and darkly funny new novel that follows a set of privileged, jaded Connecticut suburbanites whose cozy, seemingly picture-perfect, lives begin to unravel amid shocking turns of fate and revelations of long-held secrets. Welcome to small-town Connecticut, a place whose inhabitants seem to have it all — the status, the homes, the money, and the ennui. There’s Tripp and Virginia, beloved hosts whom the community idolizes, whose basement hides among other things a secret stash of guns and a drastic plan to survive the end times. There’s Gunter and Rachel, recent transplants who left New York City to raise their children, only to feel both imprisoned by the banality of suburbia. And Richard and Margot, community veterans whose extramarital affairs and battles with mental health are disguised by their enviably polished veneers and perfect children. At the center of it all is the Petra School, the most coveted of all the private schools in the state, a supposed utopia of mindfulness and creativity, with a history as murky and suspect as our character’s inner worlds. With deep wit and delicious incisiveness, in The Pessimists, Bethany Ball peels back the veneer of upper-class white suburbia to expose the destructive consequences of unchecked privilege and moral apathy in a world that is rapidly evolving without them. This is a superbly drawn portrait of a community, and its couples, torn apart by unmet desires, duplicity, hypocrisy, and dangerous levels of discontent.