Being chosen as the new Hermes is a big honour but it comes with a catch... nobody can know. Life is finally on track for journalist Hermione when she gets a dreaded email that names her as the next Hermes, dooming her to two years of secretly reporting on all the people she works with. That includes Cassandra, the colleague she has a massive crush on. After months of office flirting, Cassandra is excited when her relationship with Hermione finally shows progress but something seems to be amiss. When she discovers Hermione's secret, Cassandra has to choose between their relationship and what could be the article of a lifetime. Can their romance survive this secret or will they discover it's impossible to love a god? - Secrets Of Hermes takes inspiration from classic Greek mythology and puts a twist on the stories about Hermes. This sapphic workplace romance can be read as a standalone and is part of the Queens of Olympus series.

"Presenting, interpreting, and celebrating the world-renowned and the lesser-known California artists who have uniquely defined and redefined the still life, this volume offers an exploration of the sensual pleasures, the aesthetic challenges, and the intellectual and perceptual associations of a century of art through the prism of a single genre."--BOOK JACKET.

"Perhaps Hermeticism has fascinated so many people precisely because it has made it possible to produce many analogies and relationships to various traditions: to Platonism in its many varieties, to Stoicism, to Gnostic ideas, and even to certain Aristotelian doctrines. The Gnostic, the esoteric, the Platonist, or the deist has each been able to find something familiar in the writings. One just had to have a penchant for remote antiquity, for the idea of a Golden Age, in order for Hermeticism, with its aura of an ancient Egyptian revelation, to have enjoyed such outstanding success."—from the Introduction Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes," emerged from the amalgamation of the wisdom gods Hermes and Thoth and is one of the most enigmatic figures of intellectual history. Since antiquity, the legendary "wise Egyptian" has been considered the creator of several mystical and magical writings on such topics as alchemy, astrology, medicine, and the transcendence of God. Philosophers of the Renaissance celebrated Hermes Trismegistus as the founder of philosophy, Freemasons called him their forefather, and Enlightenment thinkers championed religious tolerance in his name. To this day, Hermes Trismegistus is one of the central figures of the occult—his name is synonymous with the esoteric. In this scholarly yet accessible introduction to the history of Hermeticism and its mythical founder, Florian Ebeling provides a concise overview of the Corpus Hermeticum and other writings attributed to Hermes. He traces the impact of Christian and Muslim versions of the figure in medieval Europe, the power of Hermeticism and Paracelsian belief in Renaissance thought, the relationship to Pietism and to Freemasonry in early modern Europe, and the relationship to esotericism and semiotics in the modern world.

Secret Exhibition chronicles a vital California art movement, focusing on six artists – Wallace Bergman, Jess, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, Wally Hendrick, and George Herms – who broke new ground with provocative work, especially in assemblage and...

''I had a friend who was a spy.'' So begins this story of espionage, set just before the terrible events of September 11th. Ask the Fire features a brilliant, almost enlightened, but emotionally jaded and politically cynical secret agent, a man who has seduced secrets out of Araby for decades for American intelligence agencies. Now, this agent struggles on his own to prevent the start of the Terrorist Wars. This is a story with a vast sweep that places spying and spiritual vision within the larger history of heresy and homosexuality in Western culture from the Crusades to our contemporary clash with Islamic fundamentalism. What events tie together the political activism of 1960's Texas with the legends of courtly love, the secrets of the Knights Templar and mysteries of Freemasonry in the architecture of the D.C. streets? The gay Mata Hari of Ask the Fire learns the truth. Dennis Paddie has penned a remarkable thriller, a book that transcends its story of spies and terrorists to reach for a deeply spiritual vision of human life in the charged world of the 21st century.

The Rat Bastard ProtectiveÊAssociation was an inflammatory, close-knit community of artists who livedÊand worked in aÊbuilding they dubbed Painterland in the Fillmore neighborhood of midcentury San Francisco. The artists who counted themselves among the RatÊBastardsÑwhich included Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo,ÊWallyÊHedrick, Michael McClure, and Manuel NeriÑexhibited a unique fusion of radicalism,Êprovocation, and community. Geographically isolated from a viable art market and refusingÊto conform to institutional expectations, theyÊanimated broader social andÊartistic discussions through their work and became aÊtransformative part of American culture over time. Anastasia Aukeman presents new and little-known archival material in this authorized account of these artists and their circle, a colorful cultural milieu that intersected with the broader Beat scene.

The great philosopher and his student face pirates, political intrigue, and more in this dark, suspenseful mystery set in ancient Athens. Tensions between the Athenians and the Makedonians—whose leader, Alexander the Great, is one of Aristotle’s former students—draw the philosopher across the Aegean Sea, accompanied by the devoted Stephanos. Both will have much to learn about survival as they find themselves beset by pirates, uncovering conspiracy, and facing the horrors of war. It will be up to Aristotle to try to shed light on the darkness they are about to encounter—in this novel in the historical series praised as “unusually authentic” (Kirkus Reviews) and “eminently enjoyable” (Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse Mysteries). Also published as Aristotle and the Mystery of Life

'Art of Engagement' focuses on the key role of California's art and artists in politics and culture since 1945. The book showcases many types of media, including photographs, found objects, drawings and prints, murals, painting, sculpture, ceramics, installations, performance art, and collage.