Watkins Publishing

Our new catalogue is now available

We are pleased to announce that our latest catalogue with new titles publishing between July 2011 and January 2012 is available for download.

We have some exciting new books including Screwing Mother Nature for Profit, by Elaine Smitha – a critique of globalism and a new template for business based on nature’s harmony. Equally revolutionary in its own field is The Out-of-Body Experience, which explains this phenomenon through a new concept of consciousness. Would-be philosophers will find their questions answered (often by further questions) in The Five-Minute Philosopher, by Gerald Benedict.

Tobias Churton has done a prodigious job of original research to produce his authoritative 500-page biography of Aleister Crowley, the notorious yet misunderstood British occultist. Raunchy and witty, like the man himself, this is a life packed with adventure and intrigue.

The Secret Language of Astrology is a richly illustrated book that offers exclusive access to a website enabling you to cast a birth chart within minutes; then, following the book’s expert guidance, you can interpret every aspect of the chart – sign, aspects, houses, planets.

Our illustrated editions of The Art of War (by Sun Tzu) and The Art of Peace (including the whole of Gibran’s The Prophet) are given a fresh lease of life in a new luxury paperback format.

Taken from Mario's hugely sucessful blog http://blog.marioreading.com/blog/:

Miraculous Lemons!

Everyone loves the fresh aroma and tangy taste of lemons – but now discover their many ‘miraculous’ properties. Lemons are a natural remedy, a versatile beauty aid – and will keep your home sparkling clean. Here are our top five beauty and household tips from The Miracle of Lemons, plus a recipe for the aptly named ‘Lemon Delicious’, one of many mouth-watering ways to add a touch of lemon magic to sweet and savoury dishes:

• Exfoliating: Get rid of dead cells by rubbing damp skin with lemon-scented salt in a warm bath. Make it by putting ¾ cup of sea-salt (of the type used in a salt grinder) into a bowl and stirring in half a teaspoon of lemon essential oil. Keep the mixture in a screw-top jar
• Moisturizing: Smooth lemon juice over your skin, wait for half an hour, then rinse. Or, to soften hard elbows, sit with each one in a squeezed out half-lemon shell for the same length of time.
• Manicure or pedicure: Soften cuticles and whiten stained hands and nails by soaking them for 10 minutes in a bowl of warm water containing the juice of half a lemon. Gently push back your cuticles. Then rub a strip of lemon peel on your nails to make them shine.
• Keep your fridge smelling sweet by adding half a lemon on a saucer
• Put strips of dried lemon peel into a little muslin bag and place in cupboards and drawers to repel clothes moths.

LEMON DELICIOUS

This favourite dessert has various other names – including lemon surprise pudding – reflecting its enduring popularity.

As it cooks, the lemony mixture separates into a fluffy sponge set over a light citrus sauce.

175g/6oz/¾ cup caster (superfine) sugar
75g/3oz/6 tbsp butter, at room temperature
4 eggs
grated zest and juice of 3 lemons
50g/2oz/½cup plain (all-purpose) flour
300ml/10fl oz/1¼cups milk
sifted icing (confectioner’s) sugar, to dust

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4.

Beat the sugar and butter in a bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, then stir in the lemon zest and flour. Add the lemon juice and milk, and whisk until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks, then fold them lightly into the lemon mixture. Spoon the mixture into a buttered soufflé dish. Place the dish in a baking tin and pour hot water into the tin so it comes halfway up the sides of the dish. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the top is light brown and just set when tested with a fine skewer. Dust with sifted icing (confectioner’s) sugar.

Joe O’Leary, a successful survival skills instructor, explains the fundamental techniques required in a genuine ‘wilderness survival situation’ – while at the same time showing you how to enhance any out-of-doors experience, from a walk in the country to an ambitious camping expedition. This book encourages the values of improvisation and self-reliance in extreme situations – a form of escapism enjoyed by  viewers of TV survival shows. More...

Certain special places move us at a profound level – with a kind of inner beauty that puts us in direct touch with the spirit. It might be a temple, a church, a commemorative monument, a wayside shrine or a landscape feature that is saturated in the ambience of ancient sacred traditions. Such places are worth taking the trouble to visit. They add meaning to our lives, awakening a sense of awe, beauty or tranquillity.

From the prehistoric megaliths of Carnac in Brittany to the Buddhist temple-complex of Borobodur in Java, from the giant medicine wheel at Bighorn, Wyoming in the USA to the Confucian Temple of Heaven in Beijing, this book guides the reader on a journey around a hand-picked selection of 100 of the world’s most spiritually uplifting sites.

Accompanying the superb photographs are evocative descriptions of each place, many of them from esteemed writers who share with us their personal responses in their inimitable style. For anyone who wishes to seek out some of these places for themselves, there is a helpful gazetteer at the back of the book giving key facts for visitors. By immersing ourselves in those special places where landscape, art and spirit meet in a radiant intersection, we enlarge our perspective on life. This book gives us the inspiration and knowledge to do so. More...