Visionary Fiction

After losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he sees a clip from a lost film by the silent comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to study the works of this mysterious figure who vanished from sight in 1929.

Also sprach Zarathustra was conceived and written by Friedrich Nietzsche during the years 1881-1885; the first three Parts were published in 1883 and 1884. The book formed part of his "campaign against morality", in which Nietzsche explored the ethical consequences of the "death of God".

The author of Breakfast with Buddha brings his characteristic whimsy to a new novel about New York book editor Otto Ringling and Mongolian monk Volya Rinpoche, who embark on a road trip from Rinpoche's meditation center in North Dakota to the glitter and glitz of the Las Vegas strip.

What if we all woke one day to discover that every act of generosity was followed, soon after, by an unexpected windfall? If theft or betrayal led to rapid calamity? Within minutes, the effects of instant karma would be felt by each one of us. Within hours it wouldn’t just be ordinary folks trying to figure out the new order—it would be everyone from the President down. Instant Karma is the story of that day. An extraordinary vision, and early adopters are quick to capitalise on the new dynamics while karma change deniers vehemently dig in their heels.

Set in Denmark in the here and now, The Quiet Girl centers around Kaspar Krone, a world-renowned circus clown with a deep love for the music of Johan Sebastian Bach, and an even deeper gambling debt. Wanted for tax evasion and on the verge of extradition, Krone is drafted into the service of a mysterious order of nuns who promise him reprieve from the international authorities in return for his help safeguarding a group of children with mystical abilities - abilities that Krone also shares.

In a remote, Himalayan monastery, Matt Lester has devoted five years of spiritual preparation for this moment: it is his destiny to open an ancient, sealed scroll containing prophetic wisdom the world urgently needs. But when his time comes, violent assailants steal the scroll. Matt is caught up in a dangerous, high-stakes hunt to recover it, turning him from the pursuer to the pursued. On the other side of the world, the results of scientist Alice Weisenstein’s mind-body healing research are about to be revealed.

In 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea, Lee Woo-cheol was a running prodigy and a contender for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. But he would have had to run under the Japanese flag. Nearly a century later, his granddaughter is living in Japan and training to run a marathon herself. She summons Korean shamans to hold an intense, transcendent ritual to connect with Lee Woo-cheol.

A study of the spiritual provocations to be found in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson, High Weirdness charts the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality that arose from the American counterculture of the 1970s. These three authors changed the way millions of readers thought, dreamed, and experienced reality - but how did their writings reflect, as well as shape, the seismic cultural shifts taking place in America?

In 2074, all Alex Sheppard wanted was to explore the cosmos. But instead, he got Disgardium—a game realm more dangerous than space's darkest corners.

Shortly after Clare arrives in Havana, Cuba, to attend the annual Festival of New Latin American Cinema, she finds her husband, Richard, standing outside a museum. He’s wearing a white linen suit she’s never seen before, and he’s supposed to be dead. Grief-stricken and baffled, Clare tails Richard, a horror film scholar, through the newly tourist-filled streets of Havana, clocking his every move. As the distinction between reality and fantasy blurs, Clare finds grounding in memories of her childhood in Florida and of her marriage to Richard.

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional recreation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.

Don Alvaro, a young but wise man, invokes Satan in a goetic-style magical ritual. Upon seeing the young Alvaro, Beelzebub falls in love with him and assumes the appearance of a beautiful young woman. In the journey that unfolds, Satan, disguised as a woman, tries to seduce Alvaro who rejects his advances lest he lose his precious virginity.

For decades, the singular and provocative paintings by Cree artist Kent Monkman have featured a recurring character—an alter ego of sorts, a shape-shifting, time-travelling elemental being named Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Though we have glimpsed her across the years, and on countless canvases, it is finally time to hear her story, in her own words. And, in doing so, to hear the whole history of Turtle Island anew.

Julian Barnes pens a kind of detective story, relating a cranky amateur scholar’s search for the truth about Gustave Flaubert and the obsession of this detective, whose life seems to oddly mirror those of Flaubert’s characters.

Author and philosopher Sydney Banks once again brings to life his wise and simple gardener as a voice through which Banks presents more implications of the Three Principles that create human reality, calling on us to realize that to fully understand the Principles is to liberate one's spirit. In this sequel to Sydney Banks’ book The Enlightened Gardener, two colleagues return to England to meet once again with the remarkable gardener whose simple yet profound philosophy made such a difference to their lives.

When Olivia Kavanagh finds an old manuscript in her late grandfather's bookshop, she becomes fascinated by the story it tells of two young girls who mystified the world. But it is the discovery of an old photograph that leads her to realize how the fairy girls' lives intertwine with hers, connecting past to present and blurring her understanding of what is real and what is imagined. As she begins to understand why a nation once believed in fairies, can Olivia find a way to believe in herself?

The Magic Mala (pronounced mah-lah) is the story of Robby Robertson, a down-on-his-luck writer who realizes that he doesn't know as much about life as he once believed. His desperate financial circumstances lead him to open his mind to new ways of living. After finding some mala beads, Robby is taken on a magical journey that teaches him the secrets to personal manifestation and happiness.

Jesus is a fresh and inspirational re-imagining of a young man's transformational journey from carpenter's son to revolutionary leader to the man many believe to be the savior of the world. Very little is known or recorded about Jesus in his formative years. In the Gospel stories, we witness the birth of Jesus and then see him as a young boy of 12 intensely questioning the Rabbis in the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

Here is the exciting culmination of Ali Smith's celebrated Seasonal Quartet, a series of stand-alone novels, separate but interconnected (as the seasons are), wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories.

In Vita Nostra, Sasha Samokhina, a third-year student at the Institute of Special Technologies, was in the middle of taking the final exam that would transform her into a part of the Great Speech. After defying her teachers’ expectations, Sasha emerges from the exam as Password, a unique and powerful part of speech. Accomplished and ready to embrace her new role, she soon learns her powers threaten the old world, and despite her hard work, Sasha is set to fail.