Visions of Zarua


Book Description

Two wizards, 350 years apart. Together they must save the realm of Paltria from Zarua's dark past. An ancient darkness haunts the realm of Paltria. Apprentice wizard Paddren is plagued by visions of a city on the brink of annihilation. When his master Kalesh dies in mysterious circumstances, the Royal Order of Wizards refuses to investigate. Helped by his childhood friend, the skilled tracker Varnia, and her lover Leyoch, Paddren vows to find the killer. The investigation leads Paddren down a sinister path of assassins, secret sects and creatures conjured by blood magic. But he is guided by a connection with a wizard from centuries ago - a wizard whose history holds the key to the horror at the heart of the abandoned city of Zarua. Can Paddren decipher his visions in time to save the Paltrian people from the dark menace of Zarua's past?




Prince of the Press


Book Description

David Oppenheim (1664-1736), chief rabbi of Prague in the early eighteenth century, built an unparalleled collection of Jewish books and manuscripts, all of which have survived and are housed in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. His remarkable collection testifies to the myriad connections Jews maintained with each other across political borders, and the contacts between Christians and Jews that books facilitated. From contact with the great courts of European nobility to the poor of Jerusalem, his family ties brought him into networks of power, prestige, and opportunity that extended across Europe and the Mediterranean basin. Containing works of law and literature alongside prayer and poetry, his library served rabbinic scholars and communal leaders, introduced old books to new readers, and functioned as a unique source of personal authority that gained him fame throughout Jewish society and beyond. The story of his life and library brings together culture, commerce, and politics, all filtered through this extraordinary collection. Based on the careful reconstruction of an archive that is still visited by scholars today, Joshua Teplitsky's book offers a window into the social life of Jewish books in early modern Europe.--Publisher's website.




Omens Bite


Book Description

Something wicked this way comes... Twin sisters, Mercy and Hunter are witches, direct descendants of the Goode family, the founders of their town. After the murder of their mother at the hands of a foul demon, they have become the protectors of the Gates to different underworlds--ancient portals between their world and realms where mythology rules and the darkest of creatures exist. Grief has taken a terrible toll on the twins. Rather than bringing them together, their sadness has torn them apart, driving Mercy to attempt to save the crumbling Gates without her twin and Hunter into the arms of a dangerous goddess. While Mercy looks for aid from Khenti, Guardian of the Egyptian Underworld, Hunter begins to realize the goddess she’s allied with is more monster than deity. She needs her sister’s help, but Mercy is beyond her reach on an adventure that could cost them everything, including their world.




The Jewish Encyclopedia


Book Description

V.I:Aach-Apocalyptic lit.--V.2: Apocrypha-Benash--V.3:Bencemero-Chazanuth--V.4:Chazars-Dreyfus--V.5: Dreyfus-Brisac-Goat--V.6: God-Istria--V.7:Italy-Leon--V.8:Leon-Moravia--V.9:Morawczyk-Philippson--V.10:Philippson-Samoscz--V.11:Samson-Talmid--V.12: Talmud-Zweifel.




Stargazing in the Atomic Age


Book Description

A Kirkus Best Book of the Year During World War II, with apocalypse imminent, a group of well-known Jewish scientists and artists sidestepped despair by challenging themselves to solve some of the most difficult questions posed by our age. Many had just fled Europe. Others were born in the United States to immigrants who had escaped Russia’s pogroms. Alternately celebrated as mavericks and dismissed as eccentrics, they trespassed the boundaries of their own disciplines as the entrance to nations slammed shut behind them. In Stargazing in the Atomic Age, Anne Goldman interweaves personal and intellectual history in exuberant essays that cast new light on these figures and their virtuosic thinking. In lyric, lucent sentences that dance between biography and memoir as they connect innovation in science with achievement in the arts, Goldman yokes the central dramas of the modern age with the brilliant thinking of earlier eras. Here, Einstein plays Mozart to align mathematical principle with the music of the spheres and Rothko paints canvases whose tonalities echo the stark prose of Genesis. Nearby, Bellow evokes the dirt and dazzle of the Chicago streets, while upon the heels of World War II, Chagall illuminates stained glass no less buoyant than the effervescent notes of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. In these essays, Goldman reminds readers that Jewish history offers as many illustrations of accomplishment as of affliction. At the same time, she gestures toward the ways in which experiments in science and art that defy partisanship can offer us inspiration during a newly divisive era.




The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 2, The Hellenistic Age


Book Description

Vol. 4 covers the late Roman period to the rise of Islam. Focuses especially on the growth and development of rabbinic Judaism and of the major classical rabbinic sources such as the Mishnah, Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud and various Midrashic collections.




Roman Mask


Book Description

It is Rome AD 9 and Augustus Caesar rules Imperial Rome at the height of its power, as the Roman Empire stretches across the known world. Cassius, son of one of her most powerful families, is the personification of Rome's imperial strength: wealthy, popular, a war hero with a decorated military career - none of Rome's fashionable parties are complete without him - except, he hides a secret. After his nerve is broken in Germany, the thought of genuine armed combat is enough to send him into a cold sweat of fear and shame. But this doesn't dissuade him from living off a false reputation so he can continue a life of casual affairs, wine, and parties, as he is seduced by the many vices of Rome. However his scandalous life is soon upset by a summons from the Emperor's wife. It ends his happy decadent life and returns him to Germany to assist the Roman legions in their greatest ever trial, and the events that will resound down in history, in the dark forests of the Teutoburg... "The classical world is brought vividly to life" Daily Mail - UK National Newspaper




Death in Jewish Life


Book Description

Jewish customs and traditions about death, burial and mourning are numerous, diverse and intriguing. They are considered by many to have a respectable pedigree that goes back to the earliest rabbinic period. In order to examine the accurate historical origins of many of them, an international conference was held at Tel Aviv University in 2010 and experts dealt with many aspects of the topic. This volume includes most of the papers given then, as well as a few added later. What emerges are a wealth of fresh material and perspectives, as well as the realization that the high Middle Ages saw a set of exceptional innovations, some of which later became central to traditional Judaism while others were gradually abandoned. Were these innovations influenced by Christian practice? Which prayers and poems reflect these innovations? What do the sources tell us about changing attitudes to death and life-after death? Are tombstones an important guide to historical developments? Answers to these questions are to be found in this unusual, illuminating and readable collection of essays that have been well documented, carefully edited and well indexed.




Flesh and Spirit


Book Description

In the first volume of a proposed duology, Valen, the rebellious scion of a dynasty of pureblood cartographers and diviners, has spent years denying his heritage, until he nearly ends up dead, addicted to a spell that converts pain to pleasure and possessing only a stolen book of maps, a mystical volume that could hide the secret to the doom of the entire world. Original.




Breath and Bone


Book Description

A rebellious sorcerer risks it all to save his protégé, deliver justice, and protect his kingdom in this finale of the epic fantasy adventure duology. As civil war and winter lay waste to Navronne, Valen finds himself in high demand. The young monk is currently bound in service to a prince who steals dead soldiers’ eyes and souls. There’s also a fanatical Harrower priestess hellbent on destroying the world. The fairylike Danae guardians are after him as well. And he must also worry about the Pureblood Registry, always eager to maintain their control of every pureblood sorcerer. Torn between evil forces and fighting his addiction, Valen must risk body and soul to rescue one child, seek justice for another, and restore the rightful king to the dying land. With few he can trust, Valen ventures from monasteries to dungeons to the very heart of the world. In the twilight of a legend, he discovers some hard truths about his world . . . and about his past. The two books of the Lighthouse Duet—Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone—jointly received the 2009 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award “The narrative crackles with intensity against a vivid backdrop of real depth and conviction, with characters to match. Altogether superior.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “The sequel to Flesh and Spirit builds upon the first book’s events and illuminates the complex intrigues that mark the land of Navronne. Berg’s lush, evocative storytelling and fully developed characters add up to a first-rate purchase for most fantasy collections.” —Library Journal “Berg has once again given us a fantasy that is full of wonder, intrigue and marvelous characters. Valen is a beautifully flawed hero.” —SFRevu




Recent Books