Field Guide to Luck

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—A compact trim size, alphabetical organization, and short entries make this guide appealing and easy to use. Each of the 94 entries includes a general description, origins, variations, practice, and cultural context, as well as one to three related superstitions to send readers on a sort of choose-your-own-adventure experience. Topics range from the familiar (black cat, fortune cookie, wishbone) to the more exotic (evil eye, maneki neko, yantra), and each entry has examples drawn from movies, television, and music, most of which will be known to teens. Seventy of the entries are also illustrated in a center section of color plates; the lurid colors of the computer-generated collage images may appeal to some (or may end up snipped out of the book). Although there are 16 books and articles and 30 Web sites listed in the sources, there are no footnotes or endnotes, so Yablon's assertions are difficult to back up. However, as a starting point or as a bit of fun, casual readers should find this book enjoyable.—Jenny Gasset, Orange County Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

Take Control of Your Destiny!

From the good luck provided by shamrocks, rabbits’s feet, and horseshoes to the misfortune caused by broken mirrors, black cats, and umbrellas opened indoors, our lives are filled with signs and superstitions that guide our destiny and influence our fate.

Fortunately, Field Guide to Luck can help you recognize dozens of influential charms, dates, sayings, and symbols wherever you encounter them. Learn what objects are on your side, which practices are best avoided, and where these curious beliefs come from. This indispensable guide reveals their fascinating origins and offers tips for putting them into practice. With Lady Luck on your side and a lucky penny in your pocket, you’re sure to lead a charmed life!

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Balancing the Chakras

Product Description

The chakras are a series of seven energy fields or centers of consciousness in the body which harbor latent divine energy known as Kundalini energy. The balance or imbalance of these vortices affects a person's health, as well as his or her emotional and spiritual well-being and evolution. The first section begins with a lesson on Kundalini energy and describes the chakras through colors, sounds, foods, and the elements. The second section presents holistic methods used for balancing: herbs, homeopathy, aromatherapy, astrology, polarity, bodywork, color therapy, sound therapy, proper diet and nutrition, yoga, affirmations, flower essences, and pranayama. The third section identifies symptoms of imbalance and techniques for self-healing.

About the Author

Maruti Seidman is on the faculty of Spectrum Center Schools of Massage in Lake Stevens, Washington and has been teaching Polarity Therapy in North and Central America for twenty years. He co-founded Twin Lakes College of Healing Arts in Santa Cruz, California. He is the author of A Guide to Polarity Therapy.

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The Zen of Magic Squares, Circles, and Stars: An Exhibition of Surprising Structures across Dimensions

From Scientific American

"In this book," Pickover writes, "we will go far beyond ordinary magic squares and consider many unusual variations, some in higher dimensions, all with mind-boggling patterns." You do not have to reach the "miniature epiphany" he says you might have while contemplating the intriguing structures he describes, but you should get instruction and pleasure from them. Pickover, a research staff member at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, is the author of many other books on mathematical subjects. Editors of Scientific American --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

A perpetual idea machine, Clifford Pickover is one of the most creative, original thinkers in the world today. -- Journal of Recreational Mathematics

Pickover just seems to exist in more dimensions than the rest of us. -- Ian Stewart, Scientific American

Clifford Pickover is many things--scientist, scholar, author, editor, and visionary. . . . -- Games

It is a safe bet to conjecture that this is the best recreational mathematics book that will be published in this year. . . . Pickover writes with his usual style and straightforward simplicity in this book. The material is presented well and can be understood by anyone with a basic middle school mathematics background. This is a cool book! -- Charles Ashbacker, Journal of Recreational Mathematics

Through accessible and readable prose and through detailed, highquality line illustrations, Pickover ably transports the general reader from culturally embedded traditional topics to a new and surprising frontier. -- Harold Don Allen, Mathematics Teacher

Pickover writes about his subject with contagious enthusiasm and comprehensive erudition. -- Choice

A splendid recreational book. . . . An extremely alluring page-turner. -- Andrew Bremner, Notices of the American Mathematical Society

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