The Netsuke from San Francisco

The stories of Vladimir Torchilin, representing the irrationality and phantasmagorical nature of everyday life both in Russia and in America, reveal the difficult world of the people of our time. The writer's gaze sharply notices the details - sometimes funny, sometimes tragic. Written in a lively, fascinating, and often ironic way, these stories are easy to read and at the same time make you think.

The New Age of Super-Civilization

As we entered the year 2000, America and the world stood at a great crossroads. At the threshold of the third millennium, a new age of Super Civilization was emerging. A contemporary civilization had successfully arrived at the long-awaited gateway of the year 2000, having overcome potential apocalyptic obstacles along the way. The journey ahead into the future, far beyond the Y2K takeoff, seemed bright with promise and hope, yet great challenges lay ahead.

Three roads stretch forth into the future from the past, along routes already ventured upon, but now requiring a renewed sense of direction and destination. Especially important today are: creating global powerhouses in diverse ways, elevating national politics in America and around the world, and enlightening the public mind in spiritual, cosmological, and political contexts. The people of America and the world today can help those of tomorrow ensure the survival and progress of planet Earth and secure its universal destiny.

The Nightmare of Driscoll

Every serial killer has to start somewhere, somehow. Officer Matt Cartwright is a small-town cop who isn’t expecting a serial killer to choose his town to terrorize and kill the residents.

FBI Agent Christina Chrystals has been chasing a serial killer and follows him to Driscoll TX, where things take an unexpected turn. 

Thrown together, these two must do everything in their power to stop him before things get worse.

The Old Man and the Immigrants

This novel relates the life of immigrants in Montréal, Canada. Guided by a patriarch Daniel Sahel, known as the dean of the United Nations, a neighborhood dominated by newcomers. He was their eyes, their ears, their advisor. He defended them, comforted them in difficult moments. But eventually the integration became problematic, with diplomas and careers going unrecognized, and soon rags burn at the United Nations. A novel full of suspense to discover.

The Painter's Dream Machine

This novel of the trilogy finds Claudette Monet, having traveled from New York City to Boston. Boston was known to her as the premier American center for elite institutions of all kinds. It is here in Boston that Claudette invents and proves The Painter’s Dream Machine with her painterly novelesque fantasmagoria and short painterly dreams. Readers can imagine for themselves what all the people in this trilogy looked like. 

The Paisley Jubilee Story

At a mental health program in New Jersey, the colorful Paisley Jubilee brightens even the cloudiest days. A middle-aged gay man battling diabetes and depression, he empathizes deeply with fellow patients struggling to quiet inner demons.

Surrounded by a cast of endearingly quirky characters who speak and act outside the norm, Paisley discovers connection, community, and his own vibrant voice within a system that often overlooks people who think differently.

Through Paisley’s uplifting friendships and hard-won wisdom, The Paisley Jubilee Story delicately explores complex themes of mental illness, identity and stigma. But with humor and heart, these unforgettable personalities illuminate that hope can dawn in even the most broken of places when compassion kindles our shared humanity.

The Player's Brain

This book challenges the very foundation of traditional medicine with a controversial and fascinating idea: using neurosurgical intervention and behavior modification to reintegrate sociopaths into modern society. Written in accessible language, it explores the groundbreaking work of Dr. Antônio De Salles, who pioneers this approach at the intersection of medicine, science, technology, and human interaction.

The book’s thought-provoking content makes it a must-read for students and academics across various disciplines, from the sciences to the humanities. It illuminates the complex medical, technical, and moral implications of this sensitive issue, encouraging readers to grapple with the ethical questions raised by this emerging field of study.

“The field of psychosurgery promises to change how we think about science and mental illness. Already, brain surgery is safe enough, and implants are sophisticated enough, for alteration of the brain to be accepted as mainstream therapy.”

– Hays and Berenbein.

The Premier

Another unpredictable, fast-paced and superbly written present-day story by Simon Benjamin set in Israel and inspired by true events. The Premier chronicles the fascinating highs and lows of the life of Elliot Sterling, the newly elected charismatic Prime Minister of Israel who is thrust into leading a country facing both domestic ideologically motivated political conspiracies and crimes planned against humanity by Iran financed murderous Hamas terrorists.

The Premier is the third novel in Benjamin’s trilogy series which includes his highly acclaimed Scam Seduction and Beyond Billionaire. This sequel seamlessly continues the irresistibly thrilling story of a brilliant Beverly Hills businessman that is forced to move his family to Israel where he amasses an enormous fortune and by destiny finds himself as the nation’s head-of-state. The Premier is a first-rate action mystery that educates as well as entertains while featuring an ensemble of vivid characters with clever humour and a provocative secret. You’ll keep reading from the very first line and won’t be able to put it down.

The Price

High school is usually a rough time, but imagine having to frequently move and join in the middle of the term. Who is Julia really? Why did she have to move so often? Can Julia face the horrifying fate that awaits her?

The Reluctant Imposter

Willie regrets promising to take her friend’s place at the Earl of Grenmoor’s estate in Cornwall for a few days and tries to back out, but her sense of duty holds her firm. Pretending to be someone she’s not goes against all her principles, and Willie eventually confesses her deception. Surprisingly, the earl’s grandmother accepts her confession and sets her sights on matchmaking Willie with her grandson, Lucien Barkley.

Neither Willie nor Lucien are aware of this scheme, and they don’t initially like each other. Willie, the daughter of a vicar, feels out of place among the elites, while Lucien finds her outspokenness off-putting. Despite this, Grandy is determined to bring them together. Willie repeatedly finds herself in one predicament after another, unbeknownst to the earl.

Lucien remains unaware of Willie’s deception until she unexpectedly saves his life. Sparks fly, but Willie mistakes Lucien’s admiration for humiliation and runs away. While Grandy is ready to give up, the earl is not. They clash, yet are irresistibly drawn to each other.

The Return

The Return is a sequel to The Gatekeepers in a new series by Susan B. A. Hofmann.

Damion Tingley has returned to claim his rightful position as the most powerful Gatekeeper the underworld has ever known. His return is fraught with many unexpected setbacks. Yet he is determined to be given the coveted Gatekeeper's Robe as well as the Book of Spells and Incantations. The Gatekeeper's Robe and the Book of Spells and Incantations have been handed down to all previous Gatekeepers.

Throughout the centuries and from around the world, all the former Gatekeepers and coven heads have given the power they possessed to the Gatekeeper's Robe. All the knowledge of spells and incantations they possessed has been recorded in The Book of Spells and Incantations. These two powerful items will be given to Damion Tingley as the most powerful Gatekeeper to date.

The Rise and Fall of Roy Weston

Roy Weston was born into a wealthy family and raised in a big stone house on a hill overlooking the poor, coal-mining village of Brexley in North Yorkshire, England. Having nearly died of meningitis at the age of three years old, he is bullied by the kids at school until his mother pulls him out of school at the age of ten. His education from that point forward consists of what he learns himself by roaming the streets of the village in the dark and peeping through people's windows. At the age of fourteen, he watches through a window as his football hero, John Finley, attacks a pedophile, meaning to kill him. His friend leaves the building thinking he has done exactly that, but Roy enters afterward, realizes the man is still alive, and finishes the job. And so begins his life of crime.