Martin Šilar Livres

"In the traditions of every culture, plants have been highly valued for their nourishing, healing, and transformative properties. The most powerful of those plants, which are known to transport the human mind into other dimensions of consciousness, have always been regarded as sacred. In this book, the world's most renowned authorities on psychoactive flora provide a fascinating and moving testimony of these "plants of the gods," tracing their use throughout the world and their significance in shaping history and culture. Of the ninety-one hallucinogenic plants beautifully illustrated and characterized in their lexicon, the authors elaborate in vivid detail on fourteen that have had profound significance for human beings. Drawing on fourteen years of field work, Dr. Richard Evans Schultes describes pilgrimages made to gather the sacred plants as well as the rites, prayers, songs, and dances associated with their use. His accounts are augmented by Dr. Albert Hofmann's lucid explanations of the biochemistry of these psychotropic substances. The text is accompanied by numerous illustrations, more than on hundred of which are in full color. Included are rare photographs - many published here for the first time - of plants and the people who have used them as well as ceremonies, sculpture, paintings, pottery, and weavings related to the ritual use of these sacred hallucinogens" -- Back cover

Get ready for “the ride of your life” (Entertainment Weekly) with this blazingly original novel from the New York Times bestselling author hailed by Financial Times as “one of the wildest and most entertaining novelists in the world.” “Tom Robbins has proved he is the emperor of description, the master of metaphor, the sultan of simile—the man is like Jackson Pollock with a word processor.”—San Antonio Current When the stock market crashes on the Thursday before Easter, you—an ambitious, although ineffectual and not entirely ethical young broker—are convinced that you’re facing the Weekend from Hell. Before the market reopens on Monday, you’re going to have to scramble and scheme to cover your butt, but there’s no way you can anticipate the baffling disappearance of a 300-pound psychic, the fall from grace of a born-again monkey, or the intrusion in your life of a tattooed stranger intent on blowing your mind and most of your fuses. Over these fateful three days, you will be forced to confront everything from mysterious African rituals to legendary amphibians, from tarot-card bombshells to street violence, from your own sexuality to outer space.

Soubor povídek s velmi nekonvenčním námětem i formou, obsahuje science-fiction, drobné horory, halucinační a filosofické texty.

Spisovatel, skladatel a malíř Richard Pachman (*1966) v jeho jedenácté knize, dokončené na prahu životního jubilea, reflektuje ve třiatřiceti povídkách současný svět i lidské osudy jasným, pozitivním pohledem na život a s pevnou vírou ve splnění osobních snů. Významnou součástí knihy jsou silné osobní příběhy známých osobností (Marika Gombitová, Celine Dion, Kylie Minogue) i lidí s mimořádným životním osudem, které spojuje motiv vnitřní síly a schopnosti překonávat obtížné životní situace. Texty se zároveň dotýkají historické paměti, vztahu k místu a odpovědnosti vůči mladé generaci. Zcela zásadní je kapitola věnovaná městu Olomouc (přirozenému centru Olomouckého kraje), která formou citlivé literární procházky propojuje historické reálie města (orloj, kostely, morové sloupy, kaple a městské domy) s autorovými osobními vzpomínkami na dětství prožité ve Ztracené ulici. „Na splnění některých snů se vyplatí počkat,i když to může trvat i čtyřicet let...“