Codex 632: The Secret of Christopher Columbus, written by Jose Rodrigues Dos Santos four years ago, got published in English two years ago, and the mass paperback edition came out this summer. Here is Booklists’s short summary:

Thomas Noronha, Portuguese history professor and cryptanalyst, receives a call from a shadowy American foundation, and before you can say Da Vinci Code, he’s deep into an investigation of the research done by a fellow scholar, recently deceased. Although ostensibly looking into the European discovery of Brazil, the other scholar was on the trail of a mystery related to Christopher Columbus, and Noronha’s own pursuit takes him to New York, Brazil, and Jerusalem, decoding clues from kabbalah and the symbology of the Knights Templar.

And the reason this book is mentioned here can be found on Israpundit‘s blog/review:

Columbus was a Jew named Salvador Fernando Zarco and was among those expelled from Spain in 1492, a rare triangular Kabbalistic signet indicates.

Joshua Cohen‘s review in Tablet magazine, of Georges Perec‘s 1978 book, Life: A User’s Manual, just republished in a new translation, argues that Perec followed a kabbalistic tradition:

Forget that each chapter’s length is predetermined, that each chapter’s people are predetermined; forget each list of activities, of physical positions, and reading material; what’s most kabbalistic about Perec, and about the best of Oulipo, is not this technical aspect but the transmutation: the magical turning of one thing, a dead word, into another, a living person.

Kabbalistic practice—which, our sages hold, created angels and golems, animals for food and labor in the fields and even, once, in an experiment the Talmud attributes to Rabba, a walking talking human being—became, by the time fiction and poetry came to be written, a cultural act in which letters and words didn’t create life, but merely simulated it.

In 1992 Hebrew University’s Magnes Press produced a limited edition Zohar. It was a facsimile edition containing Gershom Scholem’s annotations. The publisher describes the artifact with these words:

[…] at the end of each volume, follow notes which were found in the books, on loose slips of paper. Scholem deals with expressions which are singular to the Zohar. He points to their origin in the Midrashim or in medieval literature or in foreign languages. Scholem’s comments are not confined to pointing our parallels. Sometimes Scholem himself interprets a statement of the Zohar, occasionally he continues the logic of the Zohar, deriving from it theological conclusions. Other times he relies in the work of others, referring to the scholarly literature.

A couple of weeks ago The Iconic Books Blog reviewed this book and found it a Pseudo Relic. What disturbed them was the fact that Scholem’s handwritten notes were reproduced in their handwritten form, making the “book pretending to be a relic by way of mass reproduction.”

Hot Indie News‘ review of Heather Mendel‘s new book, “Dancing in the Footsteps of Eve: Retrieving the Healing Gift of the Sacred Feminine for the Human Family through Myth and Mysticism”, devotes one paragraph to the description of the book after the intorudction and three contains the review itself. The majority of the entry is made up of the six endorsements; from Thomas Moore, Riane Eisler, Lawrence Kushner, Rami Shapior, Alice O. Howell and Bettina Aptheker. This is the description section:

There are four sections in the book that represent the Four Worlds of Kabbalah— Intuition, Thought, Emotion, and Action. The interaction of the archetypes that correspond to each of these levels reveal that the Sacred Feminine is present in the Jewish texts, moving elusively in and out of our awareness, both revealing and concealing clues to the mysteries of our past and future and our understanding of God.

More details abut the book is at its own site: dancinginthefootstepsofeve.com

Bibliofreak points out in his review of Umberto Eco‘s The Search for the Perfect Language in August:

Chapter one discusses Bible stories, and chapter two gets into Kabbalah and Gematria.  People interested in Gematria and it’s mathematico-linguistic mysteries should not miss this.  I think I just “mathematico” up…but don’t you always us “o” and not “al” in the first word in a double adjective hyphen?  Sadly, Eco does not answer this.  Chapter six will pick up on Kabbalah again.

There is a short description and recommendations by three known (non-Chabad) authors (Lawrence Schiffman, Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Arthur Kurzweil) about the newly published book at chabad.info:

This volume brings together classical Jewish discussion of Maimonides’ sixth and seventh principles dealing with the phenomenon of prophecy and the prophecy of Moses.  Gathered here are the views of classical Jewish thinkers on the issues raised by Maimonides and the detailed discussions of these questions by the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

The combination of this material with Rabbi Chaim Miller’s pedagogical, analytical and translation skills presents the reader with an entrée into the lively dialogue on Jewish theological issues that has bridged the difficult gap between rational philosophy and a religion of faith for Jews throughout the ages.

Back in July The Jewish Publication Society posted an entry in which “Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi recommends ten books about Jewish spirituality.” They are:

1. Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow, by Arthur Green
2. The Path of Blessing: Experiencing the Energy and Abundance of the Divine, by Marcia Prager
3. Jewish Views of the Afterlife, by Simcha Paull Raphael
4. Inner Space: Introduction to Kabbalah, Meditation and Prophecy, by Aryeh Kaplan
5. The Tanya: Bi-Lingual Edition, by Shneur Zalman of Liadi
6. Your Word Is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer, by Arthur Green and Barry W. Holtz
7. Jewish With Feeling: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice, by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
8. Spiritual Intimacy: A Study of Counseling in Hasidism, by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
9. Meditation and Kabbalah, by Aryeh Kaplan
10. God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism, by David Cooper

Jewish Mysticism by Joshua Abelson got published as an iPhone application a couple of months ago. This weekend version 1.2 of the applicatin came out with bug fixes. It was developed by AppsPublisher. See cover screenshot below.

The following 8 books were added. They were all found on DiscountSeforim.com.

• Ben Zion, Raphael: The Anthology of Jewish Mysticism
• Dubov, Nissan Dovid: Inward Bound: A Guide to Understanding Kabbalah
• Erlanger, Gad: Signs of the Times: The Zodiac in Jewish Tradition
• Luzzatto, Moses Hayyim: Secrets of the Redemption
• Safran, Alexandre: Wisdom of the Kabbalah
• Tatz, Akiva: Living Inspired
• Winkler, Gershon: Dybbuk
• Winkler, Gershon: The Soul of the Matter: A Jewish-Kabbalistic Perspective on the Human Soul Before, During, and After Life

• Abrahami, Abe: Ethics and Meta-Kabala
• Arad, Kobi: The Secrets Of Kabbalah: Manifest Your Deepest Fantasies !!!
• Barron, Paul Harry: A Collection of Magical Secrets & A Treatise of Mixed Cabalah
• Cohn, Tzvi Meir : Baal Shem Tov: Divine Light
• Ginsburgh, Yitzchak: A Sense of the Supernatural – Interpretation of Dreams and Paranormal Experiences
• Ginsburgh, Yitzchak: Anatomy of the Soul
• Hoffman, Edward: The Kabbalah Reader: A Sourcebook of Visionary Judaism
• Koreis, Voyen: The Kabbalah – a timeless philosophy of life
• Littlewood, John: The Way: A Celtic Qabalah
• Meir, Rivka Bat: Meneket Rivkah: A Manual of Wisdom and Piety
• Mohorosh of Heichal Hakodesh Breslov: Positive Living. The Best of Breslov on Positive Living.
• Pinson, DovBer: Thirty-Two Gates of Wisdom: Awakening Through Kabbalah
• Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman, Netanel Miles-Yepez (editors): A Heart Afire: Stories and Teachings of the Early Hasidic Masters
• Schneider, Sarah Yehudit: You Are What You Hate: A Spiritually Productive Approach to Enemies
• Scovitch, Joseph: JFK’s Death and the Kabbalah
• Shadrach, Nineveh: Magic Squares and Tree of Life: Western Mandalas of Power
• Trugman, Avraham Arieh: Return Again: The Dynamics of Reincarnation
• Weor, Samael Aun: Alchemy & Kabbalah: The Keys of Radical Spiritual Transformation