Throughout history, the ideas of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft have never been as fixed or universal as many assume. Instead, they are fluid concepts—shaped, reshaped, and continually reinterpreted by the societies that use them. This book explores how these terms have evolved across time and culture, arguing that our understanding of magical practices is inseparable from the social environments in which we live. Folklore, religion, politics, and collective memory all play a role in deter...

**An epic comedy about the quest for transcendence in an anything-but-transcendent America, set amid the gorgeous landscapes of the American west: A “spiritual journey” full of “fun, joy, love, courage and compassion” (**Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Powers) from the author of the perennial cult bestsellers The River Why and The Brothers K.A random bolt from a DC-8 falls from the sky, killing a child and throwing the faith...

"Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, the 19 stories in this new best-of annual anthology feature episodes of graphic gore and violence--including torture, dismemberment, self-mutilation, and home abortion--that are designed to push buttons as well as boundaries...strictly for hardcore horror fans." --Publishers WeeklyExcerpt from the Introduction:Editors Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax put the call out to horror writers and editors of...

Before the first story, before the first shadow moved across the Void, there was a question.Not how the world began—but whether beginnings are ever truly ours to claim.In this prequel to the Skinwalker Saga, D. James invites readers into a realm where Creation is not a fixed moment but a living, shifting mystery. Through vivid narrative verse, this work explores the ancient struggle between destiny and choice, and the fragile, luminous force we call free will.Here, ...

This book is a wound that laughs. It is a collection of poems that grin through broken teeth, raise a chipped glass to the apocalypse, and sip a bitter vintage with unnerving delight. Here, satire is not a polite smirk or a knowing wink—it is a scalpel. Sharp. Precise. Unflinching. These verses do not soothe, nor do they seek to. They are not balm, nor the opposite of balm. They are the smoke that lingers after the blaze, the ash that sketches the outline of what once stood, the echo of a ...

The Absurdist’s Field Guide to Everything and Nothing is a book that promises everything, explains nothing, and delivers precisely what it intends: a gloriously useless, wildly entertaining poetic atlas of the absurd. This is not a guide in any conventional sense. It is a compass that spins without direction, pointing toward sock rebellions, spoon elopements, and the sacred ambiguity of lint. It offers a taxonomy of nonsense for the existentially curious, a survival manual for those who su...

From the editors of Lost Signals comes the new volume in technological horror. Nineteen authors, both respected and new to the genre, team up to deliver a collection of terrifying, eclectic stories guaranteed to unsettle its readers. In Lost Films, a deranged group of lunatics hold an annual film festival, the lost series finale of The Simpsons corrupts a young boy’s sanity, and a VCR threatens to destroy reality. All of that and much more, with fiction from Brian Evenson, Gemma Files, Kel...

A Spoonful of Nonsense Helps the Ennui Go Down is a poetic tonic for the beautifully bored, the philosophically exhausted, and anyone who has ever stared into the void and wished it would wink back. This collection offers lyrical absurdity as an antidote to existential heaviness—each poem a playful jab at meaninglessness, a mischievous grin aimed directly at the grey fog of modern malaise. Here, socks elope with spoons, drawers unfold into metaphysical labyrinths, and melancholy is treated...

The Emperor’s New Metaphors is a book for readers who have peered through the shimmering veil of poetic pretence and discovered satire smirking beneath the silk. This is a collection that parades its pageantry with nothing on—each poem a cheeky twist on vanity, illusion, and the irresistible human urge to sound profound even when we’re secretly dressed in nonsense. These verses strut, preen, and occasionally trip over their own enjambment, daring you to applaud the invisible cloak of metap...

The Laughing Lobotomist is a book for readers who have misplaced their seriousness—and discovered something far stranger in the lost‑and‑found. This collection of darkly satirical, surreal poems giggles in the face of logic, pirouettes through pathology, and stitches absurdity directly into the folds of the cerebral cortex. Here, nonsense is medicinal, humour is a scalpel, and the mind is both patient and punchline.Your journey begins in the Clinic of Cognitive Whimsy, a sterile ha...

A British naval officer details life as a prisoner of war and his courageous and suspenseful escape attempts during World War II.David James was in Motor Gunboats (with Robert Hichens of Gunboat Command). Captured in February 1943 after abandoning ship due to fierce engagement with three German armed trawlers in the North Sea, he was imprisoned in Dulag Marlag.His first tunnel was discovered before completion. In December 1943 he succeeded in escapin...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKOnce in a great while a writer comes along who can truly capture the drama and passion of the life of a family. David James Duncan, author of the novel The River Why and the collection River Teeth, is just such a writer. And in The Brothers K he tells a story both striking and in its originality and poignant in its universality.This touching, uplifting novel spans decades of loyalty, anger, re...