The fragile beauty of glass has ensured its popularity through the ages in forms ranging from simple beakers to ornate decorative masterpieces. This beautifully illustrated book traces the story of glass from its origins in Mesopotamia some 5000 years ago to the creation of the elegant vessels of the Islamic Near East the superb mastery of Renaissance Venice & the creation of modern glassware for daily use. ...

Over recent years there has been considerable interest in the creative potential of printing onto alternative surfaces. Glass in particular offers incredible potential for the artist due to its transparency & flexibility. This handbook provides all the necessary information to create high quality prints on glass. It begins with relatively basic processes & then introduces more sophisticated methods in subsequent chapters offering new creative methods of working across the main areas of glass art: Kiln glass Hot glass & Architectural glass. Throughout the specific materials mediums & methods are explained. A range of works by international artists are also shown to demonstrate the exciting creative potential & diversity of approach possible in this area. ...

In the remote Kingdom of Castalia the scholars of the Twenty Third century play the Glass Bead Game. The elaborately coded game is a fusion of all human knowledge
- of maths music philosophy science & art. Intrigued as a school boy Joseph Knecht becomes consumed with mastering the game as an adult. As Knecht fulfils his life-long quest he must contend with unexpected dilemmas & the longing for a life beyond the ivory tower.
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G.W. Dahlquists The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters" the first in the series of adventures of Miss Temple Cardinal Chang & Dr Svenson & followed by " The Dark Volume" & " The Chemickal Marriage" is a rip-roaring tale like no other. In " The Glass Books of The Dream Eaters" three most unlikely but nevertheless extraordinary heroes become inadvertently involved in the diabolical machinations of a cabal bent upon enslaving thousands through a devilish process: Miss Temple is a feisty young woman with corkscrew curls who wishes to learn why her fiance Roger broke off their engagement... Cardinal Chang was asked to kill a man but finding his quarry already dead he is determined to learn who beat him to it & why... And Dr Svenson is chaperone to a dissolute Prince who has become involved with some most unsavoury individuals... An adventure like no other in a mysterious city few have travelled to featuring a heroine & two heroes you will never forget. " Fantastic. Somewhere between Dickens Sherlock Holmes & Rider Haggard. I was in seventh heaven". (Kate Mosse author of " Labyrinth"). "A page-turner a rollicking ride. As stupendous as it is stupefying". (Giles Foden " Guardian"). " An erotically charged rip-roaring adventure for adults with scarcely a dull moment to be had which defies its great length to keep the reader on the edge of his seat". (" Daily Mail"). G.W. Dahlquist fell asleep when trapped by a snowstorm & " The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters" came to him in his dreams. He is the author of the " The Dark Volume" & " The Chemickal Marriage" the next books in the series." ...

This is a startling memoir of a successful journalists journey from the deserted & dusty mining towns of the American Southwest to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic & adventurous childhood with her dreaming brilliant but alcoholic parents. At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education & civilisation her parents sought to escape Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the mundane middle class existence she had always craved. In her apartment overlooked by a portrait of someone elses ancestor she recounts poignant remembered images of star watching with her father juxtaposed with recollections of irregular meals accidents & police-car chases & reveals her complex feelings of shame guilt pity & pride toward her parents. ...

Sharon Li: apprentice shaman & community support officer for the magically inclined. It wasn't the career Sharon had in mind but she's getting used to running Magicals Anonymous & learning how to Be One With The City. When the Midnight Mayor goes missing leaving only a suspiciously innocent-looking umbrella behind him Sharon finds herself promoted. Her first task: find the Midnight Mayor. The only clues she has are a city dryad's cryptic warning & several pairs of abandoned shoes... Suddenly Sharon's job feels a whole lot harder. ...

College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation where the popular girls never let her forget just where she ranks in the school's social scene: somewhere less than zero. When Claire heads off-campus the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new roommates don't show many signs of life but they come out fighting when the town's deepest secrets come crawling out hungry for fresh blood... ...

Kit Mc Mahon lives in the small Irish town of Lough Glass where everyone knows everyone; children who walk to school together grow up & become sweethearts & marry people gossip & grumble & dream their lives away. For it is a place where change comes slowly. Until one day beautiful mysterious Helen Mc Mahon disappears presumed drowned in the lake & then the gossip runs wild. The consequences for Helen's husband her son but above all for her daughter Kit are unimaginable & will leave not one of their lives unchanged. ...

Abandoned by her husband Amanda Wingfield comforts herself with recollections of her earlier more gracious life in Blue Mountain when she was pursued by gentleman callers. Her son Tom a poet with a job in a warehouse longs for adventure & escape from his mothers suffocating embrace while Laura her shy crippled daughter has her glass menagerie & her memories. Amanda is desperate to find her daughter a husband but when the long-awaited gentleman caller does arrive Lauras romantic illusions are crushed. ...

In a tiny stained-glass shop hidden in the backstreets of Westminster lies the cracked sparkling image of an angel. The owners of Minster Glass have also been broken: Fran Morrisons mother died when she was a baby; a painful event never mentioned by her difficult secretive father Edward. Fran left home to pursue a career in foreign cities as a classical musician. But now Edward is dangerously ill & its time to return. Taking her fathers place in the shop she & his craftsman Zac accept a beguiling commission
- to restore a shattered glass picture of an exquisite angel belonging to a local church. As they reassemble the dazzling shards of coloured glass they uncover an extraordinary love story from the Victorian past sparked by the windows creation. Slowly Fran begins to see her own reflection in its themes of passion tragedy & redemption. Frans journey will lead her on a search for the truth about her mother through mysteries of past times & the anguish of unrequited love to reconciliation & renewal.
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