The Endless Banquet (Volume Two) is the second part of Shaykh Hamzah Abdul Malik's reading guide to help the average person understand the broader meanings of the Qur'an. This book picks up where The Endless Banquet (Volume I) left off, and explains each Surah of the middle third of the Qur'an by grouping its ayat together according to shared themes, to help you study its fundamental meanings and their connections with one another. It is followed by The Endless Banquet (Volume III), which covers Juz 21-30. All three volumes are available together as The Endless Banquet Series (3-book bundle). The Endless Banquet will help you discover: The benefits of the Qur'an's repetition of certain phrases, & stories, albeit with different variations & details The wisdom of ayat shift from discussions of law to stories, to theological arguments, to descriptions of heaven and hell Connections between each Surah The wisdom & significance in the order of the Surahs How each Juz is divided upon overarching themes The context in which certain ayat were revealed & why these verses are still relevant today The Endless Banquet is designed to help you develop a deeper appreciation for the Qur'an - especially the parts which most people don't ordinarily read. This will increase your sense of wonder and awe at the Qur'an, so that you may seek to learn more, and be inspired to ask new questions about Allah's final revelation. As you become more familiar with its subtleties, your personal relationship with the Qur'an will naturally grow stronger, if Allah wills. Each chapter of The Endless Banquet covers one Juz. Written in easy-to-understand language, this book aims to inspire a new generation of readers of the Qur'an, among Muslims who are comfortable reading and speaking English. The Endless Banquet was written in the hope that the Qur'an may open the hearts of all who read it, and to help you become inspired by its meanings, its relevance to the present day, and its connections to the human condition and to your own life. The Endless Banquet will help you to rekindle your love for the Qur'an, if Allah wills.

A history of cooking and fine dining in Western Europe from 1520 to 1660

"When factory worker Dan Dong accidentally discovers how easy it is to infiltrate state- and corporate-sponsored banquets by posing as a journalist, he quickly becomes addicted to the insane luxury of these meals. For the first time, he tastes crab-claw tips, exotic fungi, and a dish made from thousands of pigeon tongues arranged in the shape of a chrysanthemum. But when Dan's disguise enables him to become privy to a deep-rooted scandal, his conscience compels him to cross the line between subterfuge and reality by actually writing an expose. With the help of the witty, jaded reporter Happy Gao, Dan embarks on a journey that will take him from the highest rungs of society to its most sordid depths." "Throughout the book, food - from the spicy, oily fare Dan orders for a high-class prostitute at a restaurant called Pink Chamber, to the humble noodle dishes prepared by his long-suffering wife, Little Plum - is present on almost every page, described so vividly that you can almost smell and taste it. But by the final page of The Banquet Bug, it has become clear that the perils of consumption run parallel to its pleasures."--BOOK JACKET.

For years Kazu has run her fashionable restaurant with a combination of charm and shrewdness. But when the she falls in love with one of her clients, an aristocratic retired politician, she renounces her business in order to become his wife. But it is not so easy to renounce her independent spirit, and eventually Kazu must choose between her marriage and the demands of her irrepressible vitality. After the Banquet is a magnificent portrait of political and domestic warfare.

All the forest animals enjoy eating the fruit from a wild blackberry bush, until a bear arrives to join them.

What is the basic point of this book? Theology makes a difference. The basic theology for addictions is that the root problem goes deeper than our genetic makeup. Addictions are ultimately a disorder of worship. Will we worship ourselves and our own desires or will we worship the true God?

Few believed Professor Coldwell could communicate with spirits. But in Scotland's oldest university town something has passed from darkness into light. Now, the young are being haunted by night terrors and those who are visited disappear. This is certainly not a place for outsiders, especially at night. So what chance do a rootless musician and burned-out explorer have of surviving their entanglement with an ageless supernatural evil and the ruthless cult that worships it? A chilling occult thriller from award-winning author Adam Nevill, Banquet for the Damned is both a homage to the great age of British ghost stories and a pacey modern tale of Devil worship and witchcraft.

“A witty, scientifically accurate, and often intensely creepy exploration of sanguivorous creatures.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Bill Schutt turns whatever fear and disgust you may feel towards nature’s vampires into a healthy respect for evolution’s power to fill every conceivable niche.”—Carl Zimmer, author of Parasite Rex and Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life For centuries, blood feeders have inhabited our nightmares and horror stories, as well as the shadowy realms of scientific knowledge. In Dark Banquet, zoologist Bill Schutt takes us on a fascinating voyage into the world of some of nature’s strangest creatures—the sanguivores. Using a sharp eye and mordant wit, Schutt makes a remarkably persuasive case that blood feeders, from bats to bedbugs, are as deserving of our curiosity as warmer and fuzzier species are—and that many of them are even worthy of conservation. Examining the substance that sustains nature’s vampires, Schutt reveals just how little we actually knew about blood until well into the twentieth century. We revisit George Washington on his deathbed to learn how ideas about blood and the supposedly therapeutic value of bloodletting, first devised by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, survived into relatively modern times. Dark Banquet details our dangerous and sometimes deadly encounters with ticks, chiggers, and mites (the ­latter implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder—currently devastating honey bees worldwide). Then there are the truly weird—vampire finches. And if you thought piranha were scary, some people believe that the candiru (or willy fish) is the best reason to avoid swimming in the Amazon. Enlightening and alarming, Dark Banquet peers into a part of the natural world to which we are, through our blood, inextricably linked.

In such novels as The Poison Master, Empire of Bones, and Nine Layers of Sky, Liz Williams sparked readers' imaginations by creating worlds at once strange and familiar. Now this bold new writer brings her best short fiction together in one stunning collection. The stories featured in The Banquet of the Lords of Night have appeared in Asimov's, Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, and The Third Alternative, among others. The stories within the covers of The Banquet of the Lords of Night are varied in style and subject matter, but they are all powerfully written. From the breathtaking title story, "Banquet of the Lords of Night" about an Earth plunged into a world of darkness where light is against the law to the stunning "The Man from the Ministry" in which we learn the how far a mother will go where her family is concerned; Williams displays an astonishing breadth and variety of writing styles. Williams is equally at home writing galaxy-spanning science fiction like "Quantum Anthropology" as she is weaving a tale like "Adventures in the Ghost Trade" which incorporates demons, magic, the afterlife, and private detectives. "Williams's unique cross-genre voice is a reinvigorating one for SF, fantasy and horror." Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.