Visionary Fiction

There were plans for an official welcome. It was to take place the following Sunday. But those who came to the rectory on Father Pennant's second day were the ones who could not resist seeing him sooner. Here was the man to whom they would confess the darkest things. It was important to feel him out. Mrs. Young, for instance, after she had watched him eat a piece of her macaroni pie, quietly asked what he thought of adultery. André Alexis brings a modern sensibility and a new liveliness to an age-old genre, the pastoral.

Aria Abbott has never had a home. Drifting through the foster system for most of her life, she finally finds herself in a situation so unbearable that she has no choice but to run away. Sleeping on the streets pushes Aria beyond any suffering she has felt before; the only thing worse than seeing no escape is the knowledge that no one in the world cares enough to try and find her. Enter Taylor, a homeless young man with a charismatic smile and a dream of fame, fortune, and the sunshine of LA. Swept up in his energy, Aria and Taylor board a greyhound bus and never look back.

In this simple but profound tale, four colleagues meet a remarkable gardener whose unique philosophy will forever change their lives. That philosophy is equally powerful for the listener. The wisdom within this book comes in the form of a straightforward message that is accessible to all who will open their hearts to it.

After living in the city of Orphalese for 12 years, a prophet is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a seeress and the people of the city, who ask him for his insights into life. The book is divided into chapters dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

It's a normal night in August. Literature professor Arne and artist Tove are with their children at the resort in Sørlandet. Their friend, Egil, a driver by day, is staying in a cabin nearby. Kathrine, a priest, is on her way home from a seminar; the journalist Jostein is out on the town; and his wife, Turid, who is an assistant nurse, has a night shift. Above them all, a huge star suddenly appears in the sky. No one, not even the astronomers, knows for sure what kind of phenomenon it is.

Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China - dubbed the true Shangri-La - and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers.

“At one point they tried to calculate when time began, when exactly the earth had been created,” begins Time Shelter’s enigmatic narrator, who goes unnamed. “In the mid-seventeenth century, the Irish bishop Ussher calculated not only the exact year, but also a starting date: October 22, 4,004 years before Christ.” But for our narrator, time as he knows it begins when he meets Gaustine, a “vagrant in time” who has distanced his life from contemporary reality by reading old news, wearing tattered old clothes, and haunting the lost avenues of the twentieth century.

Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy, and the color hit of Pop Art, Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture and a meditation, in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, what harvest means.

Imaginez... Vous êtes en vacances à Bali et, peu de temps avant votre retour, vous consultez un vieux guérisseur. Sans raison particulière, juste parce que sa grande réputation vous a donné envie de le rencontrer, au cas où... Son diagnostic est formel : vous êtes en bonne santé, mais vous n'êtes pas heureux. Porteur d'une sagesse infinie, ce vieil homme semble vous connaître mieux que vous-même. L'éclairage très particulier qu'il apporte à votre vécu va nous entraîner dans l'aventure la plus captivante qui soit : celle de la découverte de soi. Les expériences dans lesquelles il vous conduit vont bouleverser votre vie, en vous donnant les clés d'une existence à la hauteur de vos rêves.

David, Aunt Gen and Terence are in a race to find Jessica as they discover her life is in danger. Alicia is attacked whilst she astral projects and is furious until she discovers who has attacked her. The Glasgow Dream Dancers are in more danger than they know.

For Dr. Siena Dupont and her ambitious team, the Alpenglow glacier expedition is a career-defining opportunity. But 30 miles into the desolate Deadswitch Wilderness, they discover a missing hiker dangling from a tree, and their satellite phone fails to call out.

This is one of the defining novels of English writer Julian Barnes. An entertaining melange of stories starting with a contemporary account of the launch of Noah's Ark takes us into unexpected areas of human foibles, activities, and tendencies.

It is 1483, and Sir Thomas Lemuel Hawke, a Cornish knight, is about to ride into battle. On the eve of his departure, he composes a letter to his four young children, consisting of 20 virtues that provide instruction on how to live a noble life and on all the lessons, large and small, that he might have imparted to them himself were he not expecting to die on the battlefield.

Pull up a stool and have a drink with the vacationing Father of Lies while he provides his unbiased take on topics like the truth, free will, and the seduction of the damned. It'll have you laughing, reflecting, and wondering about Karma as the stories unfold and you see yourself within them.

Henry is a middle-aged, happily married man in the 20th century. After suffering a sudden heart attack, Henry finds himself in the unknown realm of the afterlife. Lost, alone, and confused, he meets Croton. As they embark on their journey together, Croton opens Henry’s eyes to all the beauty of his new reality and all the exploring that awaits him. But not everything is sunshine and rainbows. Henry eventually learns who Croton really is—and that’s when their adventure truly begins.

In this story, a wealthy Indian Brahmin casts off a life of privilege to seek spiritual fulfillment. Hesse synthesizes disparate philosophies—Eastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualism—into a unique vision of life as expressed through one man's search for meaning. Herman Hesse's classic novel has delighted, inspired, and influenced generations of listeners, writers, and thinkers.

The Dalai Lama's cat is back - older, a bit wiser and as curious as ever. In this audiobook, the Dalai Lama sets for his lovable feline companion the task of investigating the art of purring. Whether it's the humorous insights gained from a visiting Ivy League Psychology Professor, the extraordinary research of a world-famous biologist, or the life-changing revelations of a mystical yogi, His Holiness's cat encounters a wealth of wisdom about happiness.

The good people of Battle Hill are getting ready to put on a play by the renowned playwright, Peter Stanhope. As the rehearsals continue and the date of the premier draws closer, many things that are hidden are revealed.

Alan Moore channels both the ecstatic visions of William Blake and the theoretical physics of Albert Einstein through the hardscrabble streets and alleys of his hometown of Northampton, UK. In the half a square mile of decay and demolition that was England's Saxon capital, eternity is loitering between the firetrap housing projects. Embedded in the grubby amber of the district's narrative, among its saints, kings, prostitutes, and derelicts, a different kind of human time is happening.

Evan Michaels struggles with being different, with having the complete memories of two other people who lived sequentially before him. He fights loneliness and believes he is unique until he meets Poppy. She recognizes his struggle because she is like him, except that she is much older, remembering seven consecutive lives. But there is something else she must share with Evan - she is a member of the secretive Cognomina. They are, in effect, immortals - compiling experiences and skills over lifetimes into near superhuman abilities that they have used to drive history over centuries.