A kaleidoscopic tale inspired by a legend from the medieval Persian epic "Book of Kings" follows the coming-of-age of a feral Middle Eastern youth in New York City on the eve of the September 11 attacks. By the award-winning author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects. 25,000 first printing.

The Shadow infiltrates the sanctum of The Society of United Magicians, an esoteric enclave of illusionists who are hellbent on escaping the ultimate trap: death itself! Learning the secret of the so-called "Last Illusion" from the spirit of escape artist Harry Houdini himself, The Shadow becomes the next target of their murderous scheme. To thwart their plans, he must evade twisted traps and solve spellbinding puzzles, while simultaneously evading the deadly skills of Sandman, the magician assassin. A good (or evil) magician never reveals his secrets... but the Shadow knows!

Once a novella bundled in 'Books of Blood' and 'Cabal,' Clive Barker's 'The Last Illusion' appears as a self-contained novel in this annotated edition.

We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.

The Iranian-American author’s award-winning debut examines an immigrant’s coming of age with “punchy conversation, vivid detail [and] sharp humor” (The New York Times Book Review). Growing up in the United States, Xerxes Adam’s understanding of his Iranian heritage vacillates from typical teenage embarrassment to something so tragic it can barely be spoken. His father, Darius, is obsessed with his own exile, and fantasizes about a nonexistent daughter he can relate to better than his living son. His mother changes her name and tries to make friends. But neither of them helps Xerxes make sense of the terrifying, violent last moments in a homeland he barely remembers. As Xerxes grows up and moves to New York City, his major goal in life is to completely separate from his parents. But after the attacks of September 11th change New York forever, and Xerxes meets a beautiful half-Iranian girl on the roof of his building, he begins to realize that his heritage will never let him go. Winner of the California Book Award Silver Medal in First Fiction, Sons and Other Flammable Objects is a sweeping, lyrical tale of suffering, redemption, and the role of memory in making peace with our worlds. A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice

With sparkling wit, charming characters, and historic detail, multiple award winner Rhys Bowen brings early-twentieth-century New York City and the fantastic performers of the time vividly to life in The Last Illusion. Irish immigrant and PI Molly Murphy is thrilled to have a ticket to the theater to see a trio of illusionists that are all the rage. Indeed, headlining is Harry Houdini, the most sensational of them all; he has just returned from entertaining European kings and queens for a brief run on Broadway. But before Houdini can even take the stage, the opening act goes horribly wrong and to the crowd's shock the illusionist saws into his assistant. In the aftermath, the stunned performer accuses Houdini of tampering with the equipment he keeps under lock and key. And he's not the only one critical of "The King of Handcuffs." Risking his life every night, Houdini has raised the stakes to such a perilous level that he's putting lesser acts out of business. With everyone on edge, Houdini's wife hires Molly to be part investigator/part bodyguard, but how can she protect a man who literally risks his life every night? And how is she going to uncover whether these masters of illusion are simply up to their tricks or if there truly is something much more treacherous going on.

A novel contribution to the age-old debate about free will versus determinism. Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will—those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.