What's the point? There's so much else to read. With these essays, Lizzie Skurnick has answered those questions. It's as if a kindly psychiatrist suddenly appeared with a sheaf of missing brain scans. Does the mere mention of a mink-trimmed coat make you secretly swoon, even though you are rabidly anti-fur? You have 'A Little Princess' complex. Do you long to cover your enemies with leeches? You're having a 'Little House' flashback... So stretch out on Dr. Lizzie's couch and find out why you think it would be kind of cozy to be locked up in an attic with your brother. Or learn to dissect the subtle class consciousness of Judy Blume's New Jersey. Ponder the way that Lois Duncan's characters come into unexpected powers, natural and supernatural alike, as they enter adolesence. And most of all, enjoy.

     Starved and beaten, the little boy's world was a darkened room that measured just eight feet by ten with a single makeshift bed, bare light bulb, and a solitary table. Steve would spend his days conjuring up an imaginary world full of monsters he would draw to try and block out the physical and mental torture inflicted on him by his brutal father. Apart from a few admissions to hospital as a result of his 'imprisonment', Steve remained in the coal cellar of the family home where he was deprived of daylight, his childhood, school, and human contact until he'd reached his teenage years. Eventually, he escaped only to fall prey to the instigators of two of the worst cases of institutional abuse in the UK at Aston Hall hospital and St. William's Catholic School. The Boy in the Cellar is a horrifying true story of torture and cruelty, that reveals a human's full capacity to fight for survival and search out happiness and hope.

    I was hooked from A to Z." - James HerbertWho were the Maccabees? A pop group? Or a mother and her seven sons who suffered racking, skinning, burning, amputation and having their tongues pulled out and fried? And what was foot roasting? A way of keeping warm in the winter? Or a technique from the Spanish Inquisition that involved coating the prisoner’s feet in fat and toasting them over hot coals? From Amputation to Zero Tolerance, ‘The A-Z of Punishment & Torture’ is a grisly yet mesmerising compendium of the horrors inflicted on the human body over the centuries.A fascinating social history, it provides as a wealth of weird folklore, such as the power of the hanged man's hand; astounding tales, like Mary Hamilton, the cross-dressing 14-times bigamist; to more recent outrages, such as the use of ‘squassation’ at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. “Fascinating from beginning to end.” – Robert Foster, best-selling author of ‘The Lunar Code’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher.

    For the seventeenth-century aristocratic Frenchman, it meant changing his shirt once a day, using perfume to obliterate both his own aroma and everyone else’s, but never immersing himself in – horrors! – water. By the early 1900s, an extraordinary idea took hold in North America – that frequent bathing, perhaps even a daily bath, was advisable. Not since the Roman Empire had people been so clean, and standards became even more extreme as the millennium approached. Now we live in a deodorized world where germophobes shake hands with their elbows and where sales of hand sanitizers, wipes and sprays are skyrocketing.The apparently routine task of taking up soap and water (or not) is Katherine Ashenburg’s starting point for a unique exploration of Western culture, which yields surprising insights into our notions of privacy, health, individuality, religion and sexuality.Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, medieval steam baths, castles and tenements, and in bathrooms of every description. She reveals the bizarre rescriptions of history’s doctors as well as the hygienic peccadilloes of kings, mistresses, monks and ordinary citizens, and guides us through the twists and turns to our own understanding of clean, which is no more rational than the rest. Filled with amusing anecdotes and quotations from the great bathers of history, The Dirt on Clean takes us on a journey that is by turns intriguing, humorous, startling and not always for the squeamish. Ashenburg’s tour of history’s baths and bathrooms reveals much about our changing and most intimate selves – what we desire, what we ignore, what we fear, and a significant part of who we are.

    Heavy Words Lightly Thrown provides a fascinating history lesson, teases out some alarming Freudian interpretations, and makes astonishing connections to contemporary popular culture. Striking and spooky silhouettes of nursery rhyme characters accompany the rhymes. You’ll never see Mother Goose in the same way again. BACKCOVER:

    Government smashed a bacteria-laden lightbulb in a New York subway station in 1966 to see how long it would take to travel throughout the entire system? You will after reading the Book of Secrets. Everybody loves secrets and the world is full of them. And now the most interesting secrets are unleashed in Book of Secrets. Full of fascinating facts, this is one read you won't be able to put down! The clandestine, the covert, the surreptitious, furtive, and hush-hush are all revealed. Government secrets, religious secrets, food secrets, economic secrets, sexual secrets, secret societies, secret recipes-they're all in here.Within the pages of this book, one can find practical secrets revealed, such as how to guarantee a better seat on an airplane and how to win friends and influence people. Book of Secrets also contains some not-so-practical tidbits (all the more intriguing) such as famous American members of the Freemasons.Each book is bound with an irrestistible black leatherette flexicover with ribbon marker.

    This e-book contains 16 patterns written from 2009 to 2013. Included are a piggy hat, a Cheshire cat headband for the kids, flower balls to decorate the house, winter hats, scarfs and many other beautiful patterns. Sayjai is best known for her Amigurumi: the pink lady doll, monster rabbit, plus a little witch, nurse and mermaid. The patterns in this book are mostly easy, but you have to know the basic crochet stitches to read them.

    In 1614, Hungarian countess Elizabeth Báthory died, sealed in a tiny closet in her castle. Her crimes? She was rumored to have bathed in the blood of her victims, which may have numbered in the hundreds. More recently, Russia’s Andrei Chikatilo, the United States’ Ted Bundy, and Great Britain’s Peter Sutcliffe added to the horrors humans inflict upon their fellow man. Featuring maps, callouts, and facts that follow these criminals’ trails of crime, Evil is a groundbreaking volume. It explores some of the most famous crime cases of real-life murder and mayhem.In this epic account of history’s most infamous murder cases, leading true-crime researcher and writer Colin Wilson teams up with his son Damon Wilson to masterfully recount the shocking details of more than sixty cases of murder and mayhem. Illustrated with hundreds of color and black-and-white photos, Evil features images of criminals, forensic evidence, and key personalities and places that put each crime in historical context.In a continuing search for the meaning in murder, the Wilsons create one of the definitive books in the field of criminology.

    Full of striking, singular art, this collection also contains infographics about relevant topics such as lab equipment, rates of women currently working in STEM fields, and an illustrated scientific glossary. The women profiled include well-known figures like primatologist Jane Goodall, as well as lesser-known pioneers such as Katherine Johnson, the African-American physicist and mathematician who calculated the trajectory of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon.

    We are only just discovering the reality of our avian adversaries, with their reptilian brains, their appetites for mayhem and the fact that they fly mostly to spite us. To ignore the information found within this volume may be at the peril of your very life.

    The stories of dozens of people who are remembered for their brilliant contributions to fields from art and literature, to science and entertainment, but who were also really strange, are told here by Carl Posey and drawn by dozens of well-known cartoonists.

    Whether you want to know how to beat an alligator in a fight, ways to speak in secret code, which insects are edible, or what the heck scolionophobia means, this is the book for readers both young and old.

    Some of our most memorable historical figures were outspoken, dramatic, brave, feisty, rebellious and downright ornery.Cranky Ladies of History is a celebration of 22 women who challenged conventional wisdom about appropriate female behaviour, from the ancient world all the way through to the twentieth century. Some of our protagonists are infamous and iconic, while others have been all but forgotten under the heavy weight of history.Sometimes you have to break the rules before the rules break you.CONTENTS:Introduction by Tansy Rayner Roberts Queenside by Liz Barr The Company Of Women by Garth Nix Mary, Mary by Kirstyn McDermottA Song For Sacagawea by Jane Yolen Look How Cold My Hands Are by Deborah BiancottiBright Moon by Foz MeadowsCharmed Life by Joyce ChngA Beautiful Stream by Nisi Shawl Neter Nefer by Amanda Pillar The Dragon, The Terror, The Sea by Stephanie Lai Due Care And Attention by Sylvia Kelso Theodora by Barbara Robson For So Great A Misdeed by Lisa L. Hannett The Pasha, The Girl And The Dagger by Havva Murat Granuaile by Dirk Flinthart Little Battles by L.M. Myles Another Week In The Future, An Excerpt by Kaaron Warren The Lioness by Laura Lam Cora Crane And The Trouble With Me by Sandra McDonald Vintana by Thoraiya Dyer Hallowed Ground by Juliet MarillierGlorious by Faith Mudge

    Unicornucopia is here!Packed full of over 200 enchanting pages of legends, spells, facts, crafts, and unicorn food recipes, Unicornucopia: The Little Book of Unicorns is the ultimate compendium of all things unicorn.DID YOU KNOW?The existence of unicorns wasn’t disproved until as late as 1825*A recipe for how best to cook unicorn was discovered in a medieval cookbook*Throughout history, unicorns have been described as everything from mice with horns to magical rhinoceros*Unicorn horns were believed to cure fevers, purify poisons, prolong youth, and act as an aphrodisiacFull of gorgeous full-colour illustrations and plenty of joyful whimsy throughout, Unicornucopia includes everything you could ever want to know about these magical creatures, all in a gorgeous, covetable, rainbow-edged package. It’s the perfect gift for every unicorn lover in your life!

    Novel following the endeavours of a young woman who marries a penniless dramatist and then devotes her life to making him a successful playwright.