Search results for ""Author Simon""

Beautiful, haunting photographs of abandoned cinemas around the world. The ultimate visual reference from a skilled photographer. The packed audiences of darkened cinema rooms are no more. People are gradually drifting back home to lounge in front of a multitude of online platforms, far less expensive than a trip to the picture palace. Habits have changed… the cinema is no longer a world of magic. Movie theatres have lost their splendour, often pushed into the suburbs and choked left and right by fast-food chains as if they were ashamed to exist at all. However, some of this fabulous heritage dedicated to the stuff of dreams which cinemas once were still exists, especially in France. This is one of the few countries left where theatres are still being built, sometimes with audacious architecture. Also, France is a place where their demise is fervently denied. Sometimes, on a street corner, a forgotten but flamboyant façade recalls past glories. It’s there to remind everyone that cinema is immortal. Simon Edelstein, whether in search of decaying or completely abandoned historic cinemas, or exploring lovingly restored or spectacular contemporary buildings, has scoured the roads of France for over 10 years, in ci:es and countryside, to seek out this exceptional heritage.

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During the post-war years the North of England saw the building of some of the most aspirational, enlightened and successful modernist architecture in the world. For the first time, a single photographic book captures those buildings, in all their power and progressive ambition. Over the last few years acclaimed photographer Simon Phipps has travelled and sought out the publicly commissioned architecture of the post-war North. From Newcastle's Byker Wall Estate, voted the best neighbourhood in the UK, to the extraordinary Park Hill Estate in Sheffield, from Preston's sweeping bus station and Liverpool's Royal Insurance Building, these structures have seen off threats to their survival and are rightly celebrated for the imprint they leave upon the skyline and the cultural life of their cities.This inspiring invitation to explore northern modernism includes maps and detailed information about all the architecture photographed.

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For fans of Historical Fiction. Are you looking to escape back to a time when many people thought they knew exactly what God wanted them to do? Enjoy some satisfying research and a transformation of an historical turning-point to lively effect. In this brilliantly atmospheric novel called ' The Soldier, the Gaoler, the Spy and her Lover', Simon Parke explores one of the most gripping tales in English history. He weaves together the four coinciding stories of Charles, including his extraordinary year-long imprisonment on the Isle of Wight. Robert Hammond, the poor man who found himself the king’s gaoler , Charles’ remarkable mistress (written out of the records), the super-spy Jane Whorwood and of course, the brilliant and depressed Oliver Cromwell, who is working through his own demons of religion, politics, love and death. January 30th 1649. England is not a country that wishes to execute its divinely-appointed king. Yet Charles 1 finds himself shivering on a scaffold in Whitehall, with the axe man by his side . . .

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After 30 years of being a disciple, Simon Ponsonby began to reflect on whether he was amazed by Jesus, or whether he had lost his first love, having a relationship with Jesus that was predictable and dutiful. Did Jesus still amaze him or just employ him? ISBN 978-1-910012-18-5 As he reflected on this question, Jesus drew near to him, and Simon began to write a poem about Jesus, marvelling again at who he was and what he had done. Amazing is a touching and inspiring poem about just how amazing Jesus is - the perfect devotional for mediating and reflecting on Jesus, to help meet with him right where you are. Illustrated with the author's photographs, which position amazing truths in a stark and contemporary setting, and drive their message home all the more, this simple, honest and moving poem is a wonderful gift to help others to encounter the amazing person of Jesus too.

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Authoritative account of villages on the edge of the Cotswolds. Until its partial clearance in the 1850s Wychwood forest, set in an undulating landscape on the edge of the Cotswolds, was one of the great royal forests of England, comparable with Savernake, Rockingham, or Whittlewood. This volume explores the history of the forest itself and of a dozen surrounding villages, of which Shipton-under-Wychwood was the centre of a large Anglo-Saxon royal estate and minster parish stretching across the area. Several villages were shaped by early woodland clearance, and most depended on the forest to varying degrees, supplementing traditional sheep-corn farming and small-scale industries such as pottery-making and quarrying. Neighbouring Cornbury park is well known for its nationally important 17th-century mansion house, and a slightly later country house survives at Bruern near the Gloucestershire border, on the site of a Cistercian abbey founded in 1147. Ascott-under-Wychwoodacquired national notoriety in 1873 as home of the so-called "Ascott Martyrs", reflecting local agrarian difficulties.

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Authoritative account of the history of Henley-on-Thames and its neighbouring parishes. Focused on the south-west Chilterns, this volume looks at the riverside market town of Henley-on-Thames, now famous for its annual Royal Regatta, and at the four neighbouring parishes of Bix, Harpsden, Rotherfield Greys and Rotherfield Peppard. Henley began as a planned town, probably in the late twelfth century, and became a major inland port, funnelling grain, wood and (later) malt into London. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it developed as a coaching centre, and from the nineteenth flourished as a fashionable resort and commuting area, following the belated arrival of the railway and the self-conscious promotion of the Regatta. The adjoining parishes stretch from the river to the Chilterns uplands, comprising a mixed landscape of wood pasture, small hedged closes, and (in the Middle Ages) small open fields. Settlement is characteristically dispersed, and as elsewhere in the Chilterns the balance between crops, grazing and wood exploitation varied over time. The area contains deserted or shrunken settlements, including Bolney and the newly-discovered site of Bix Gibwyn church; its important buildings include Greys Court, established probably in the eleventh century, while Henley itself contains a richness of eighteenth-century brick-built houses alongside medieval timber-framing, several examples of which have recently been dated by dendrochronology.

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Behind every typeface is a story – who designed it, and why? What are its distinctive characteristics, and what cultural baggage does it carry? This book explores fifty of the most remarkable typefaces, dating from the birth of European printing in the fifteenth century (and the type used in the Gutenberg Bible – the first significant book to be printed in Europe) to the present day. It features key examples in the aesthetic development of typography (Caslon, Baskerville, Bodoni) and those fonts which have made a significant impact on the wider world. Many fonts have added style to something culturally important (such as Johnston Sans on the London Underground), or assumed a cultural significance of their own, sometimes by accident. The designer of Comic Sans, for example, created the typeface for use in speech bubbles for a Microsoft programme, never expecting it to become one of the world’s favourite – and also most maligned – fonts. Through the fonts this book also examines the often colourful lives of the key designers in the evolution of typography: Johannes Gutenberg, William Caslon, Nicolas Jenson, Stanley Morison and William Morris, among others – including one who threw his unique set of metal type into the Thames to prevent others from misusing it – and the enduring influence they have had on print culture. Of equal appeal to general readers, designers and typographers, this book is a vibrant cultural guide to the aesthetic choices we make in order to spread the word.

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The Apostates is the first major study of apostasy from Islam in the western secular context. Drawing on life-history interviews with ex-Muslims from the UK and Canada, Simon Cottee explores how and with what consequences Muslims leave Islam and become irreligious. Apostasy in Islam is a deeply controversial issue and features prominently in current debates over the expansion of Islam in the West and what this means. Yet it remains poorly understood, in large part because it has become so politicised - with protagonists on either side of the debate selectively invoking Islamic theology to make claims about the 'true' face of Islam. The Apostates charts a different course by examining the social situation and experiences of ex- Muslims. Cottee suggests that Islamic apostasy in the West is best understood not as a legal or political problem, but as a moral issue within Muslim families and communities. Outside of Muslim-majority societies, ex-Muslims are not living in fear for their lives. But they face and must manage the stigma attached to leaving the faith from among their own families and the wider Muslim community.

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Celebrate the 15th anniversary of the creation of Bob, Man on the Moon, with this special edition. Enjoy the stunning artwork Simon Bartram has become famous for. Bob is everyone's favourite man on the moon, follow him on his crazy adventures. Bob knows everything there is to know about the moon and space, but the new tree that has started growing on the moon has him baffled. Where could it have come from? What type of tree is it?

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The island has always seemed such a safe place, such a friendly community. Now the possibility of a killer on Bancree is dangerously close to home. Nobody moves to the remote Scottish island of Bancree, and few leave - but leaving is exactly what seventeen-year-old Flora intends to do. So when a mysterious man and his daughter move into isolated Dog Cottage, Flo is curious. What could have brought these strangers to the island? The man is seductively handsome but radiates menace; and there's something about his daughter Ailsa that Flo can't help but feel drawn towards. People aren't only arriving on Bancree - they are disappearing too. Reports of missing islanders fill the press and unnerve the community. When a body washes ashore, suspicion turns to the strange newcomers on Dog Rock. Convinced of their innocence, Flo is fiercely determined to protect her friend Ailsa. Could the answer to the disappearances, and to the pull of her own heart, lie out there, beyond the waves?

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What kind of dirty tricks are being played at the local theatre? Why would someone take the blame for a crime they couldn't have committed? And how do the top team in the school quiz seem to know the answers before they hear the questions? Solve three more mind-mangling mysteries, brought to you by Saxby Smart, schoolboy private detective. Saxby reveals the clues that solve the cases, but are you smart enough to work out them out for yourself?

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The first book in English to examine one of the most important and influential texts from a literary perspective. Le Devisement du Monde (1298), better though inaccurately known in English as Marco Polo's Travels, is one of only a handful of medieval texts that remain iconic today for European cultural history, and Marco Polo is one of only a handful of medieval writers who still enjoys instant name-recognition. Yet there is little awareness of the Devisement's complex history and development. This book examines the text from a fresh, literary viewpoint, drawing upon a range of different disciplines and approaches: philology, manuscript studies, narratology, cultural history, postcolonial studies and theory. It contains comparative readings of multiple versions of the text in French, Italian and Latin, Rather than offering a Eurocentric vision of the world grounded in a sense of the absolute alterity of the non-Christian world as is often asserted, the author shows how the Devisement expounds a sense of the relative nature of difference, crucially positioning Marco uncannily between two worlds (East and West), just as he is positioned awkwardly between two languages, French and Italian, and (in modern reception at least) awkwardly between two literary histories. The author also calls into question traditional accounts of the use of French outside France in the Middle Ages and offers a re-assessment of Marco Polo's position in the evolution of European travel writing. SIMON GAUNT was Professor of French Language and Literature at King's College London.

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Covering a period from the Ancient World to the present day, the book suggests that until very recently, falsettists and counter-tenors have been distinct vocal genres. `The use of high male voices in the past has long been one of the most seriously misunderstood areas of musical scholarship and practice. In opening up this rich subject (to readers of all sorts) with refreshingly clear perspectives and plenty of new material, Simon Ravens' well-researched book goes a very long way to rectifying matters. Ravens writes damnably well, and if the story that emerges is necessarily a complex one, his treatment of it is always engagingly comprehensible.' ANDREW PARROTT Tracing the origins, influences and development of falsetto singing in Western music, Simon Ravens offers a revisionist history of high male singing from the Ancient Greeks to Michael Jackson. This history embraces not just singers of counter-tenor and alto parts up to and including our own time but the castrati of the Ancient world, the male sopranists of late Medieval and Renaissance Europe, and the dual-register tenors of the Baroque and Classical periods. Musical aesthetics aside, to understand the changing ways men have sung high, it is also vital to address extra-musical factors - which are themselves in a state of flux. Tothis end, Ravens illuminates his chronological survey by exploring topics as diverse as human physiology, the stereotyping of national characters, gender identity, and the changing of boys' voices. The result is a complex and fascinating history sure to appeal not only to music scholars but to performers and all those with an interest particularly in early music. Simon Ravens is a performer, writer, and director of Musica Contexta, with whom hehas performed in Britain and Europe, regularly broadcast, and made numerous acclaimed recordings. Ravens had previously founded and directed Australasia's foremost early music choir, the Tudor Consort. Between 2002 and 2007 his regular monthly column Ravens View appeared in the Early Music Review, to which he still regularly contributes.

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Build 11 of the biggest, toughest monster trucks and 11 of the coolest cars on the planet in this high-octane sticker book. Children will have hours of fun adding wheels, bodywork, and awesome accessories such as rocket boosters and grappling hooks to complete each spectacular vehicle. Then read the descriptions, compare the stats, and use them to decide who wins...

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“A truly inspiring journey that celebrates the healing power of adventure. A must-read.” – Levison Wood “Wonderfully relatable on so many levels. Simon’s wanderlust, mental roller coaster and reactions to a fast-changing world had me enthralled in his journey, but very much reflecting on my own over the past few years. A brilliantly crafted book which holds a mirror up to the world we live in.” - Mark Beaumont "Simon’s cycle ride around his own country is a fine demonstration that adventure and transformation begins on your own doorstep.” - Alastair Humphreys The remarkable and inspirational true story of how one man battled grief and anxiety, one pedal stroke at a time, on a 3,500-mile adventure around Britain In March 2020, as Britain entered its first lockdown, Simon Parker’s life fell apart; his travel journalism career vanished overnight and shortly afterwards he received the tragic news that a close friend had died. With a long-suppressed anxiety disorder starting to rear its head, he turned to the only therapies he knew and trusted: travel and exercise. Setting off on his bike from the northernmost point of Shetland with only a sleeping bag and a camping stove, Simon would end up cycling 3,427 miles around Britain. En route, he would meet hundreds of resilient Britons, who were all, in their own way, riding out the storm just like he was. Even in his gloomiest moments he began to see that a chink of light was never too far away. Riding Out is a story of optimism and hope, and a ground-level portrait of Britain as it transforms from a country in crisis to a nation on the mend. From Shetland to the Scillies, Dover to Durness, Simon learns that life’s sharpest corners are best navigated at the gentle pace of a bicycle.

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FOREWORD BY NEDUM ONUOHAThe year is 2012. Manchester City have failed in an audacious attempt to appoint Pep Guardiola, the most sought-after manager in world football. They watch as he wins consecutive league titles with Bayern Munich instead.The year is 2016. Guardiola has finally been courted by City. But his first season at the Etihad will be his first ever without a trophy. After drawing the first home game of his second season, he will shut himself away in the dressing room, inconsolable.The year is 2018. Manchester City followed that fateful draw with eighteen wins in a row. They will win the Premier League with a record, rampant 100 points - a now legendary 'Centurion' season.The year is 2023. Manchester City have just sealed an historic Treble by winning the Champions League in Istanbul, enhancing their legacy and Guardiola's. The world's most ambitious sporting project has come full c

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Before 2019's four-time Oscar®-winning Parasite came Bong Joon Ho's iconic English-language debut, Snowpiercer. The dystopian sci-fi thriller is set seventeen years after the world has frozen over and what's left of humanity lives on a train that travels the globe on a continuous loop. The story follows one man, played by Chris Evans, as he risks everything to lead a revolt to defy his preordained place in society and take control of the engine. Snowpiercer: The Art and the Making of the Film takes readers behind the scenes of this critically acclaimed film in exhaustive and exclusive detail. The book is full to the brim with exclusive, unseen on-set photography, stunning artworks, costume and set designs, and more, and is accompanied by brand-new interviews with the cast and crew, including Bong Joon Ho himself.

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A lavish hardback containing Orson Welles' Portfolio, much of which has never been seen before. Orson Welles, famous as an accomplished actor, writer, producer and visionary director, had originally aspired to become a musician or artist. Having studied at the Art Institute of Chicago for one summer, he continued to draw and paint throughout his life. The majority of his artwork, including costume and set designs and caricatures, has been unavailable to the public. Until now.

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From the invaders of the dark ages to the aftermath of the coalition, one of Britain's most respected journalists, Simon Jenkins, weaves together a strong narrative with all the most important and interesting dates in a book that characteristically is as stylish as it is authoritative. A Short History of England sheds light on all the key individuals and events, bringing them together in an enlightening and engaging account of the country's birth, rise to global prominence and then partial eclipse.There have been long synoptic histories of England but until now there has been no standard short work covering all significant events, themes and individuals. Now updated to take in the rapid progress of recent events and beautifully illustrated, this magisterial history will be the standard work for years to come.

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Every day we hear that the rise of populism threatens democracy around the world, but is this really true? Did populism cause the current crisis, or is it the other way around? To understand the state of our politics right now, we must get to grips with this contested concept. Simon Tormey breaks down the defining aspects of populism, what sets it apart from other styles of politics, and what – if anything – we ought to do about it.

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Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created with Alien: Covenant, a new chapter in the groundbreaking Alien franchise.The crew of the colony ship Covenant discover what they think is an uncharted paradise, but it is actually a dark, dangerous world, whose sole inhabitant is the synthetic David, survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.Alien: Covenant - The Art of the Film reveals how the visual style of the film evolved, with breathtaking concept art accompanied by insight and interviews with key cast and crew.This official companion book explores all the major environments, creatures and technology that feature in this exciting new movie. It explores the intricate technology of the eponymous colony ship and its auxiliary vehicles, designs of the crew's uniforms and weaponry, artwork of key locations and breathtaking alien art imagery in amazing detail.Packed with fascinating sketches, blueprints, diagrams, full-color artwork, final film frames and behind-the-scenes shots from the set, Alien: Covenant - The Art of the Film is the ultimate literary companion to this highly anticipated movie event.TM & (c) 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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If Only: An Alternative History of the Beautiful Game is a fiercely original counterfactual history of football. It is often tempting to believe in the grand sweep of history; to conclude that the triumphs of football's greatest teams were simply inevitable. The truth, however, is that history can turn on what appear, at first glance, to be infinitesimally small events. Behind all those triumphs lie the countless disappointments of teams that were denied glory by a cruel bounce, the width of a crossbar or a dubious refereeing decision. Challenging the perception that the outcome of great clashes could never have been any different to what they were, If Only reflects on what our football history could have been, what it might have been and, in some cases, what it probably should have been. Boldly turning football history on its head, If Only imagines a world in which Scotland win the first-ever World Cup, Derby County are champions of Europe and 1966 isn't the only year that England win anything.

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Uncover the mysteries, wonders and natural history of Mars: as close as you'll get to an eye-witness perspective of the incredible 'Red Planet'. ‘Impassioned and thought-provoking, it’s a highly readable work of popular science’ The Observer ‘A book of titanic clashing elements, stupendous impacts, cataclysmic eruptions, devastating forces, planet-wrenching seisms... You’ll never look at that red dot in the sky the same way again.’ Ian McDonald, author of Luna: Moon Rising The history of Mars is drawn not just on its surface, but also down into its broken bedrock and up into its frigid air. Most of all, it stretches back into deep time, where the trackways of the past have been obliterated and there is no discernible trace of where they started from or how they travelled, only where they ended up. From the planet’s formation 4.5 billion years ago, through eras that featured cataclysmic meteor strikes, explosive volcanoes and a vast ocean that spanned the entire upper hemisphere, to the long, frozen ages that saw its atmosphere steadily thinning and leaking away into space, planetary geologist Dr Simon Morden presents a tantalising vision of our nearest neighbour, its dramatic history and astonishing present. ‘Full of intrigue, like a beautifully narrated adventure detective story – which left a satisfying thirst of wanting to know more.’ Professor Lucy Rogers, author of It's Only Rocket Science ‘fascinating’ Alexis Conran, Times Radio ‘step aside dry textbooks and jargon-stuffed research papers […] The Red Planet is a benchmark in digestible space education for the masses’ How it Works

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This study of the monument of Godfrey of Bouillon offers new insights to the political uses of public monuments devoted to figures from the past, modern uses and appropriations of the Middle Ages, and the role of historical culture in the creation of national identity. On 15 August 1848, a bronze equestrian statue of the crusading hero Godfrey of Bouillon (d.1100) was unveiled in the Place Royale in Brussels, Belgium's capital. Conceived and largely funded by the national government, its creation was a major element in a programme of political and cultural consolidation put into place after the Belgian Revolution (1830-1831) and the consequent establishment of the nation's independence. From the outset, the monument was designed to transmit ideas about history and nationhood, and functioned as a focal point in discussions of politics, language, religion and identity. This book sheds new light on a range of dynamics in nineteenth-century Belgium, using the statue as a prism; it investigates responses to it both home and abroad, and traces broader national interest in the commemoration of Godfrey, adopted as a national hero despite being born almost 800 years before the emergence of the state. Above all, it reveals that Belgian politics and culture in this period were profoundly shaped by a sustained interest in the Middle Ages, and by efforts to shape a historical narrative that traced Belgian nationhood back to that era, and beyond.

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The immediate post-VJ-Day period of RAF history is often consigned to be little more than a footnote in most published accounts. In this first detailed look at the RAF in the Middle and Far East regions in the three years following the end of the war, the RAF's role in stemming the flow of immigrants into Palestine and flying whilst under terrorist attack in Palestine is examined. Further chapters highlight the RAF's roles in Iraq, Cyprus and flying strike missions over Aden, and then look at the RAF's operations over India including some of the first humanitarian airdrops for which the RAF became famous. Attention is then turned to the RAF's return to the Malayan peninsular and how the RAF became embroiled in the beginnings of the Malayan Emergency. Finally, Rapid Rundown: RAF Operations East of Suez 1945-1948 looks at the RAF's involvement beyond the boundaries of the Empire with Spitfires flying over Siam, French Indo-China and Japan, and how it flew combat operations in the Dutch East Indies. The book is copiously illustrated with many unpublished images and is enlivened by many RAF veterans' first-hand and eyewitness accounts.

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Mr. & Mrs. Smith meets political thriller in this heart-pounding series debut about two undercover flames whose new mission risks exposing their true identities to the world…and, worse, each other.Caspian Anderson is a translator for the United Nations—or so he’s led everyone to believe. No one suspects that mild-mannered Caspian, with his baggy clothes and sensible car, is actually an elite assassin for the US government. And that’s just how he wants it.For ten years, Caspian has worked under the code name Elias for Onyx, a black program deep within the Department of Homeland Security. His latest mission takes him to Switzerland to kill a target tied to a human trafficking ring. There, Caspian stumbles onto a web of conspiracies involving high-level political figures.Meanwhile, Caspian’s girlfriend is starting to pull away, and he wonders whether she may have secrets of her own. The truth is, Liesel Bergmann’s a

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The people of ancient India understood that most humans are incomplete without an intimate partner, a soul mate to share life''s journey. Drawing upon astrology, Ayurveda, and dharma type--your personality and spiritual purpose archetype--they developed detailed systems to analyse physical, emotional, and spiritual compatibility between people. This analysis encouraged joyous relationships by revealing the sexual compatibility of a couple, the innate relationship conflicts they face, and their potential for financial success together. In this way, couples were able to distinguish biological attraction from long-term compatibility, lust from love, and soul mates from playmates. Sharing ancient Vedic secrets of sex, love, health, and dharma, Simon Chokoisky explains how to prepare your mind, body, and spirit for the right partner and how to determine if a potential mate is a good match for your unique chemistry. He provides self-tests to determine your dharma type and outlines un

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The beloved Eisner-Nominated Series’ returns! Go back to the post-apocalyptic fantasy world for a brand new adventure!In the long-awaited return to the Eisner Award-nominated apocalyptic fantasy world of Coda, the disheartened bard Hum finds a slice of tranquility with his wife, Serka, in an ever-darkening, magic-less apocalypse - or so it seems. Prophecies of paradise and the return of magic? Hum is skeptical, while Serka faces her own difficult moral decisions on the road, with winter quickly approaching… For every hero’s weakness, there’s a companion with an equal degree of strength, and that’s exactly how Hum and company will get through the fateful, magical mayhem. But there are some unexpectedly unthinkable things that only Hum is capable of… New and returning fans alike shouldn’t miss this collection of the return of Coda from GLAAD Media Award-winning writer Simon Spurrier (Damn Them All, The Flash) and EW’s 2019

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