Also of note are "Children of the Black Meadow" where a bereaved mother resurrects her deceased kids as blackberry bramble homunculi; cyclical damnation tale "The Coal Man and the Creature" and the paranoia-inducing sucker punch "The Watcher From the Village" ... this is a collection that strongly invites a second reading.." - STARBURST MAGAZINE "A banquet of weirdness..." - Hypnobobs"...visceral dread slowly rises from its mustiness..." - Mythogeography"A fine piece of British Hauntology" - Gareth Rees Author of Marshland"Properly spooky and really well written." - Sebastian Baczkiewicz - Creator of Radio 4's Pilgrim"Tales from the Black Meadow" features a blend of weird and disturbing short stories. This collection is well worth checking out for its originality and chilling tone." - Phil Syphe Author of Cash 'n' Carrots and other capers"very atmospheric black and white illustrations courtesy of Mr Nigel Wilson" - Hypnobobs"Lambert manages to create genuine atmosphere and spine-tingling moments... but he also injects some black humour and much appreciated wit." Steevan Glover - Author of The Frog and the ScorpionWhen Professor R. Mullins of the University of York went missing in 1972 on the site of the area known as Black Meadow atop of the North Yorkshire Moors, he left behind him an extensive body of work that provided a great insight into the folklore of this mysterious place.Writer Chris Lambert has been rooting through Mullins' files for over ten years and now presents this collection of weird and macabre tales.Marvel at tales such as The Rag and Bone Man, The Meadow Hag, The Fog House, The Land Spheres and The Children of the Black Meadow.What is the mystery surrounding The Coalman and the Creature?Who or what is The Watcher in the Village?What is the significance of the Shining Apples?Why is it dangerous to watch the Horsemen dance?Beautifully illustrated by Nigel Wilson these tales will haunt you for a long time to come."Can you tell me, maiden fair Can you tell me if or where I shall see my child again Walk upon the fields of men? Will she ever stumble back From the meadow all a'black?

    Recollections of Farrar's father are prominent throughout the stories. Ultimately, it is music and musicians that are given the most space and the final word since music has been the creative impetus and driving force for the past 35 years of his life.In writing these stories, he found a natural inclination to focus on very specific experiences; a method analogous to the songwriting process. The highlights and pivotal experiences from that musical journey are all represented as the binding thread in these stories, illustrated throughout with photography from his life. If life is a movie, then these stories are the still frames.

    This book contains 400 question covering all eight of the Harry Potter movies. Questions range from Siriusly easy to Riddikulusly difficult. There's also a round of tiebreakers to settle any disputes. Will you score 10 points for Gryffindor or will you Slytherin to last place?

    29 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more – everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Naked. This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on Naked by David Sedaris.

    

    That is, until the circus of Dr. Lao arrives and immensely and irrevocably changes the lives of everyone drawn to its tents. Expecting a sideshow spectacle, the citizens of Abalone instead confront and learn profound lessons from the mythical made real--a chimera, a Medusa, a talking sphinx, a sea serpent, witches, the Hound of the Hedges, a werewolf, a mermaid, an ancient god, and the elusive, ever-changing Dr. Lao. The circus unfolds, spinning magical, dark strands that ensnare the town's populace: the sea serpent's tale shatters love's illusions; the fortune-teller's shocking pronouncements toll the tedium and secret dread of every person's life; sensual undercurrents pour forth for men and women alike; and the dead walk again. Dazzling and macabre, literary and philosophical, The Circus of Dr. Lao has been acclaimed as a masterpiece of speculative fiction and influenced such writers as Ray Bradbury. This Bison Frontiers of Imagination edition features a new introduction by noted fantasy writer John Marco and striking illustrations by Boris Artzybasheff from the first edition.

    Featuring new fiction by Mary Robinette Kowal, E. Lily Yu, Shveta Thakrar, Charlie Jane Anders, Delilah S. Dawson, and Sarah Monette, classic fiction by Scott Lynch, essays by Natalie Luhrs, Sofia Samatar, Michael R. Underwood, and Caitlín Rosberg, poetry by C. S. E. Cooney, Bryan Thao Worra, and Sonya Taaffe, interviews with E. Lily Yu and Delilah S. Dawson by Deborah Stanish, a cover by Antonio Caparo, and an editoral by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas.

    His humor and short fiction appear in various publications throughout the Southeast.

    After his death, the contents of his studio, including thousands of glass negatives, were sold off for five dollars. For years the fragile negatives sat forgotten and deteriorating in cardboard boxes in an open carport. How did it happen, then, that the most implausible of events took place? That Disfarmer’s haunting portraits were retrieved from oblivion, that today they sell for upwards of $12,000 each at posh New York art galleries; his photographs proclaimed works of art by prestigious critics and journals and exhibited around the world? The story of Disfarmer’s rise to fame is a colorful, improbable, and ultimately fascinating one that involves an unlikely assortment of individuals. Would any of this have happened if a young New York photographer hadn't been so in love with a pretty model that he was willing to give up his career for her; if a preacher’s son from Arkansas hadn't spent 30 years in the Army Corps of Engineers mapping the U.S. from an airplane; if a magazine editor hadn't felt a strange and powerful connection to the work? The cast of characters includes these, plus a restless and wealthy young Chicago aristocrat and even a grandson of FDR. It’s a compelling story which reveals how these diverse people were part of a chain of events whose far-reaching consequences none of them could have foreseen, least of all the strange and reclusive genius of Heber Springs. Until now, the whole story has not been told.

    Now this complete illustrated collection of the commentaries that have aired on NPR?s Morning Edition presents Black?s latest dose of medicine for animal and human alike. Ranging from a riotous account of two cowboys chasing down a cow in the nude to a very touching piece about a rancher who loses his wife to cancer and finds out the true worth of his friends and neighbors, Cactus Tracks & Cowboy Philosophy brings together Black?s best-known and most adored work.

    

    Told in eloquent, honest prose, Art’s Cello is a story about coming to terms with the past and letting go of the failures we allow to define us — and, in the process, honoring the lives of those we’ve lost. Jim McKean is an international award-winning violinmaker, author, and corresponding editor of Strings Magazine. He is a graduate of the first violinmaking school in America and the former president of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers. His novel, Quattrocento, was published in 2002. Cover design by Evan Twohy.

    From Spenser's The Fairie Queene to Wells's The Time Machine to Murakami's 1Q84 it explores the timeless and captivating features of fiction's imagined worlds including the relevance of the writer's own life to the creation of the story, influential contemporary events and philosophies, and the meaning that can be extracted from the details of the work. With hundreds of pieces of original artwork, illustration and cartography, as well as a detailed overview of the plot and a "Dramatis Personae" for each work, Literary Wonderlands is a fascinating read for lovers of literature, fantasy, and science fiction.

    Reza Negarestani bridges the appalling vistas of contemporary world politics and the War on Terror with the archeologies of the Middle East and the natural history of the Earth itself. CYCLONOPEDIA is a middle-eastern Odyssey, populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers, Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, corpses of ancient gods and other puppets. The journey to the Underworld begins with petroleum basins and the rotting Sun, continuing along the tentacled pipelines of oil, and at last unfolding in the desert, where monotheism meets the Earth's tarry dreams of insurrection against the Sun. 'The Middle East is a sentient entity - it is alive!' concludes renegade Iranian archeologist Dr. Hamid Parsani, before disappearing under mysterious circumstances. The disordered notes he leaves behind testify to an increasingly deranged preoccupation with oil as the 'lubricant' of historical and political narratives. A young American woman arrives in Istanbul to meet a pseudonymous online acquaintance who never arrives. Discovering a strange manuscript in her hotel room, she follows up its cryptic clues only to discover more plot-holes, and begins to wonder whether her friend was a fictional quantity all along. Meanwhile, as the War on Terror escalates, the US is dragged into an asymmetrical engagement with occultures whose principles are ancient, obscure, and saturated in oil. It is as if war itself is feeding upon the warmachines, leveling cities into the desert, seducing the aggressors into the dark heart of oil ...

    They hid in the bowels of the Earth, in the water and in space and remained dormant for eons. In the 20th century of the Christian era, however, some of them reappeared in different forms to plague the Earth with Wars and illnesses. At the end of his war with Ravana, Rama had asked Hanuman to raise and train a contingent of warriors who would take birth multiple times on Earth, to contain the demons. Aishani and adheesh are two such warriors, blessed with divine weapons and powers to fight the world’s evils at present times. Read this exciting story to know who finally wins. The good or the evil? The demons of jaitraya is the first book of the trilogy of the war between demons and humans.