query
stringclasses 249
values | book_title
stringlengths 3
200
| description
stringlengths 203
9.3k
| query_id
int64 0
248
| row_id
int64 0
2.59k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
Cursed artifact search | Curse the Dark | Return to the magical world of the Retrievers and the Cosa Nostradamus, in book 2 of this popular series by Laura Anne Gilman. Once more Wren Valere’s game plan has taken an unexpected direction. She made a bargain with a supersecret magic-watching outfit to protect her and her partner on their last job, but now the Silence is trying to wedge them apart. And ever since she and Sergei began to talk about their "relationship," things have been tricky. Still…they’re a team, and a force to be reckoned with when danger is near. So now they are off to Italy in search of a missing artifact, without any information other than that it’s very old, very dangerous and everyone who gets too close disappears. Compared with what’s going on at home (lonejacks banding together, a jealous demon, tracking bugs needing fumigation…) maybe disappearing wouldn’t be so bad! Originally published in 2005 | 33 | 335 |
Cursed artifact search | Unchronicled | Auron Sypher lives a normal life as a twenty-five year old game developer with his girlfriend, Angie Maldano. After a long week at work, Auron, Angie, and a group of their close friends decide to have a relaxing evening out in Seattle. The night is enjoyable as usual, but the drive home drags them out of their simple lives and forces them into a vortex of confusion and despair. After almost being involved in a nearly fatal car crash, they find that a curse has begun flowing through their veins. Now, the only way to cure themselves is to investigate the life and death of the man who nearly drove his truck into them. Who is this strange man, and what is his connection to this unexpected curse? Auron doesnt realize his true nature until the unimaginable happens. How far will he go to save his friends and the love of his life? What will he discover about himself when he is put through his worst fears? | 33 | 336 |
Cursed artifact search | Above the Curse | She's just trying to stop her friend from marrying a blood-sucking leech, and from the way everyone is treating her, you would think she was the bad guy! Phaedra doesn't like leeches, so when one from her past shows up unexpectedly, she's got her stake at the ready. But he's fast, he's slick, and he's got a taste for her blood. Can she escape him when he seems to have all the advantages? Maybe, just maybe, but only with the help of a necromancer and his ghost ship, and a little diversion care of a fire-breathing dragon… Fae Wilds Series Twist & Turns Curse of the Fae Force the Truth Crown & Glory Enemy & Rivals Light in the Dark Dusk and Shadows Called by Midnight Dark Memories Above the Curse Myths and Muses Chase and Hunt USA Today Bestselling Author, W.J. May creates a new paranormal series with a world of Fae and Magic. Escape into a realm of fantasy creatures, love and deception, betrayal and jealousy. Search terms: Fae, fantasy witches, fantasy new adult, paranormal shifter romance, shifter romance, coming of age, vampires, vampires and witches, shifters, shifter, dark fantasy, superhero fantasy ebooks, witches, superhero, paranormal fantasy, paranormal romance, New Adult & College Romance Paranormal, Fairy, new adult, new adult and college, New Adult & College Romance, w.j. may, chronicles of kerrigan, supernatural, romance, mystery, superpowers, paranormal, series, magic, fairytale, fairy tale, sequel series, sequel, Arthurian, dragons | 33 | 337 |
Cursed artifact search | Cursed Objects | Beware...this book is cursed! These strange but true stories of the world’s most infamous items will appeal to true believers as well as history buffs, horror fans, and anyone who loves a good spine-tingling tale. They’re lurking in museums, graveyards, and private homes. Their often tragic and always bizarre stories have inspired countless horror movies, reality TV shows, novels, and campfire tales. They’re cursed objects, and all they need to unleash a wave of misfortune is . . . you. Many of these unfortunate items have intersected with some of the most notable events and people in history, leaving death and destruction in their wake. But never before have the true stories of these eerie oddities been compiled into a fascinating and chilling volume. Inside, readers will learn about: • Annabelle the Doll, a Raggedy Ann doll that featured in the horror franchise The Conjuring • The Unlucky Mummy, which is rumored to have sunk the Titanic and kick-started World War I • The Dybbuk box, which was sold on eBay and spawned the horror film The Possession • The Conjured Chest, which has been blamed for fifteen deaths within a single family • The Ring of Silvianus, a Roman artifact believed to have inspired J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit • And many more! | 33 | 338 |
Cursed artifact search | Cursed Artifacts | Cursed Artifacts explores the captivating world of objects believed to carry misfortune, blending historical context, cultural beliefs, and psychological factors to understand our fascination with cursed objects. It examines how societies throughout history have imbued objects with spiritual significance, sometimes attributing malevolent power to them. The book argues that the perception of an object as cursed arises from a complex interplay of historical circumstances, cultural narratives, and individual psychological suggestion, not necessarily from inherent evil within the object itself. The book progresses from introducing the concept of cursed artifacts to detailed case studies, like the Hope Diamond and Tutankhamun's Tomb, analyzing how legends and documented events contribute to their cursed reputations. It further delves into psychological phenomena such as confirmation bias and the nocebo effect, illustrating how our minds can shape our experiences. By adopting a balanced and analytical approach, Cursed Artifacts provides a thought-provoking exploration of the human relationship with objects and the stories we tell about them. | 33 | 339 |
Cursed artifact search | The Serpent's Curse | "Esta and Harte race through time and across the country to steal back the remaining elemental stones needed to bind the book's power, stop the Order, and save the future of the Mageus"--Provided by publisher. | 33 | 340 |
Cursed family estate | Malice | An explosive new Conspiracy 365 adventure! Cal, Winter, Ryan, and Boges lived through the 365 days it took to solve the Ormond Singularity, and then barely escaped from a lunatic bent on revenge. Now, a secret from Winter's mysterious past has come back to haunt them . . . With Cal away at flight school and a dangerous mystery to solve, will Winter be able to survive her own 30-day countdown? The clock is ticking, and any second could be her last. | 34 | 341 |
Cursed family estate | Fallen Gods (The Complete Series) | The enemy has infiltrated the empire and gained enough political and military influence to subvert it from within. The venom of darkness spills from the heart of the kingdom. Politicians and civilians alike have been tamed and subdued, rendered incapable of recognizing right from wrong, good from evil. Evil spreads like a terminal disease—unchallenged, unhindered, and unrestrained. In a small village on the outskirts of the kingdom, an innocent young shepherd tends to his sheep and helps on the family farm. His family’s estate is hastening toward economic ruin due to the untimely death of his grandfather. It all falls on him to honor his family’s legacy. When the young shepherd sets off on a seemingly dull journey to a nearby village, he encounters a terrible darkness. His quest will become an epic battle of survival, love, and ultimate sacrifice. As he accepts the call to arms, his innocence will be lost. He must save his country and awaken his people from slumber. Will he be in time to save them all? | 34 | 342 |
Cursed family estate | ArtCurious | A wildly entertaining and surprisingly educational dive into art history as you've never seen it before, from the host of the beloved ArtCurious podcast We're all familiar with the works of Claude Monet, thanks in no small part to the ubiquitous reproductions of his water lilies on umbrellas, handbags, scarves, and dorm-room posters. But did you also know that Monet and his cohort were trailblazing rebels whose works were originally deemed unbelievably ugly and vulgar? And while you probably know the tale of Vincent van Gogh's suicide, you may not be aware that there's pretty compelling evidence that the artist didn't die by his own hand but was accidentally killed--or even murdered. Or how about the fact that one of Andy Warhol's most enduring legacies involves Caroline Kennedy's moldy birthday cake and a collection of toenail clippings? ArtCurious is a colorful look at the world of art history, revealing some of the strangest, funniest, and most fascinating stories behind the world's great artists and masterpieces. Through these and other incredible, weird, and wonderful tales, ArtCurious presents an engaging look at why art history is, and continues to be, a riveting and relevant world to explore. | 34 | 343 |
Cursed family estate | Awoken by Revenge | Get swept up in this dramatic enemies-to-lovers romance novel. All he wants is revenge…until he wants her. Claiming Easton House will be billionaire Matteo Bainbridge’s revenge on the family that rejected him. Evicting the home’s sole occupant? A minor detail. Then he meets Louisa Cameron and realizes his hunger for her could be the chink in his ruthless plan for vengeance. Hidden away on the grand estate, innocent Louisa escapes her traumatic childhood by illustrating beautiful fairy-tale realms. Then the outside world intrudes in the form of tycoon Matteo and the astonishing passion he awakens in her. Will surrendering to him destroy her—or set this Cinderella free? From Harlequin Presents: Escape to exotic locations where passion knows no bounds. | 34 | 344 |
Cursed family estate | Secret Houses of the Cotswolds | Secret Houses of the Cotswolds is a private tour of 20 of the most beguiling castles, estates, palaces and manor houses in this much-loved region including Asthall Manor, Broughton Castle, Stanway, Sudeley Castle and Hilles House. | 34 | 345 |
Cursed family estate | A Study Guide to Edgar Allan Poe's Fall of the House of Usher | A Study Guide to Edgar Allan Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students series. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs. | 34 | 346 |
Cursed family estate | The Amityville Horror | “A fascinating and frightening book” (Los Angeles Times)—the bestselling true story about a house possessed by evil spirits, haunted by psychic phenomena almost too terrible to describe. In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property—complete with boathouse and swimming pool—and the price had been too good to pass up. Twenty-eight days later, the entire Lutz family fled in terror. This is the spellbinding, shocking true story that gripped the nation about an American dream that turned into a nightmare beyond imagining—“this book will scare the hell out of you” (Kansas City Star). | 34 | 347 |
Cursed family estate | Cursed Objects | Beware...this book is cursed! These strange but true stories of the world’s most infamous items will appeal to true believers as well as history buffs, horror fans, and anyone who loves a good spine-tingling tale. They’re lurking in museums, graveyards, and private homes. Their often tragic and always bizarre stories have inspired countless horror movies, reality TV shows, novels, and campfire tales. They’re cursed objects, and all they need to unleash a wave of misfortune is . . . you. Many of these unfortunate items have intersected with some of the most notable events and people in history, leaving death and destruction in their wake. But never before have the true stories of these eerie oddities been compiled into a fascinating and chilling volume. Inside, readers will learn about: • Annabelle the Doll, a Raggedy Ann doll that featured in the horror franchise The Conjuring • The Unlucky Mummy, which is rumored to have sunk the Titanic and kick-started World War I • The Dybbuk box, which was sold on eBay and spawned the horror film The Possession • The Conjured Chest, which has been blamed for fifteen deaths within a single family • The Ring of Silvianus, a Roman artifact believed to have inspired J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit • And many more! | 34 | 348 |
Cursed family estate | A Family Cursed | Chronicles the case of the brutal murders of two brothers--Robert Kissel, drugged and beaten to death, a crime for which his wife was convicted, and Andrew Kissel, found stabbed to death in his mansion more than two years later. | 34 | 349 |
Cursed family estate | The Poe Estate | Sukie braves the twists and turns of the spooky Poe Annex at the New-York Circulating Material Repository to untangle ancient family secrets, find hidden treasure, and help the ghosts who are haunting her house. | 34 | 350 |
Cyberpunk heist thriller | Neon Horizon - Books 1 - 3: A Cyberpunk Thriller | COULD YOU BETRAY EVERYONE YOU CARE ABOUT TO PREVENT A WAR? The Blind Spot exists in defiance of Scala City’s dystopian big brother regime. It occupies a small sector in the city, and those who live there believe in the right to privacy. Scala City believe if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. But the Blind Spot have hackers that could bring the larger city to its knees. This is why it’s never spilled over into all-out war. Until now ... A terrorist attack on Scala City’s main plaza has tipped the delicate balance. There is only one person who can halt the conflict before it begins ... Marcie Hugo, daughter of the Blind Spot’s leader, and the district’s best kept secret. Cybernetically enhanced, she’s faster, stronger, and smarter than most. But more importantly, she’s invisible. Protected and hidden away by her father for the majority of her life, she’s in the unique position to move between the Blind Spot and Scala City unnoticed. With the best hacker in the city on her side, and while the rest of the Blind Spot prepares for a bloody war, Marcie gets to work ... To avoid total annihilation, she will have to betray everyone she loves, starting with her father ... And even then, her chances of success are slim ... Join Marcie in a race against time as she turns over every neon-lit inch of Scala City and The Blind Spot in a quest to discover who’s trying to destroy her home and why. And even if she is successful, with the number of ties she’s severed, how much of a life will she have left to return to? Neon Horizon Books 1 - 3 are the first books in a series of fast-paced cyberpunk thrillers. If you like dazzling neon dystopian landscapes, where entertainment, credits, and the latest street drugs are all worth more than human life, then you’ll love this hard-hitting grimy glimpse into the hyper-cities of the future. This box set includes: The Blind Spot - Neon Horizon Book One. Prime City - Neon Horizon Book Two. Bounty Hunter - Neon Horizon Book Three. | 35 | 351 |
Cyberpunk heist thriller | Halting State | “Halting State [is] a near-future story that is at once over-the-top and compellingly believable.” – Vernor Vinge, author of Rainbows End In the year 2018, Sergeant Sue Smith of the Edinburgh constabulary is called in on a special case. A daring bank robbery has taken place at Hayek Associates—a dot-com start-up company that’s just floated onto the London stock exchange. But this crime may be a bit beyond Smith’s expertise. The prime suspects are a band of marauding orcs with a dragon in tow for fire support. The bank is located within the virtual reality land of Avalon Four, and the robbery was supposed to be impossible. When word gets out, Hayek Associates and all its virtual “economies” are going to crash hard. For Smith, the investigation seems pointless. But the deeper she digs, the bigger the case gets. There are powerful players—both real and pixelated—who are watching her every move. Because there is far more at stake than just some game-head’s fantasy financial security… | 35 | 352 |
Cyberpunk heist thriller | The Quantum Thief | “A stellar debut” with “elegant worldbuilding,” this sci-fi fantasy features a hunted thief challenged to complete a heist on Mars (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy—from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he’s confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him. Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turned singularity lights the night. What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self-in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed. As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur. . . . Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride through the solar system several centuries hence. But for all its wonders, it is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy. It is a stunning debut. “The next big thing in hard SF.” —Charles Stross, Hugo Award–winning author of the Laundry Files series “Brilliant.” —John Clute | 35 | 353 |
Cyberpunk heist thriller | Crime Fiction | Crime Fiction provides a lively introduction to what is both a wide-ranging and hugely popular literary genre. Using examples from a variety of novels, short stories, films and televisions series, John Scaggs: presents a concise history of crime fiction - from biblical narratives to James Ellroy - broadening the genre to include revenge tragedy and the gothic novel explores the key sub-genres of crime fiction, such as 'Rational Criminal Investigation', The Hard-Boiled Mode', 'The Police Procedural' and 'Historical Crime Fiction' locates texts and their recurring themes and motifs in a wider social and historical context outlines the various critical concepts that are central to the study of crime fiction, including gender, narrative theory and film theory considers contemporary television series like C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation alongside the 'classic' whodunnits of Agatha Christie. Accessible and clear, this comprehensive overview is the essential guide for all those studying crime fiction and concludes with a look at future directions for the genre in the twentieth-first century. | 35 | 354 |
Cyberpunk heist thriller | Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture | A collection of engaging essays on some of the most significant figures in cyberpunk culture, this outstanding guide charts the rich and varied landscape of cyberpunk from the 1970s to present day. The collection features key figures from a variety of disciplines, from novelists, critical and cultural theorists, philosophers, and scholars, to filmmakers, comic book artists, game creators, and television writers. Important and influential names discussed include: J. G. Ballard, Jean Baudrillard, Rosi Braidotti, Charlie Brooker, Pat Cadigan, William Gibson, Donna J. Haraway, Nalo Hopkinson, Janelle Monáe, Annalee Newitz, Katsuhiro Ōtomo, Sadie Plant, Mike Pondsmith, Ridley Scott, Bruce Sterling, and the Wachowskis. The editors also include an afterword of ‘Honorable Mentions’ to highlight additional figures and groups of note that have played a role in shaping cyberpunk. This accessible guide will be of interest to students and scholars of cultural studies, film studies, literature, media studies, as well as anyone with an interest in cyberpunk culture and science fiction. | 35 | 355 |
Cyberpunk heist thriller | The Light and the Dark: A Comprehensive Guide to Film Noir on Video | Journey into the dark and captivating world of film noir with this comprehensive guide. Explore the genre's origins, key elements, and lasting impact on cinema and popular culture. From its birth in the post-war era to its enduring legacy, film noir has captivated audiences with its shadowy atmosphere, complex characters, and gripping narratives. This book delves into the genre's rich history, examining the major directors, iconic films, and defining characteristics that make film noir so distinctive. Through insightful analysis and commentary, this guide provides a deeper understanding of the genre's visual style, narrative structure, character archetypes, and thematic preoccupations. It also explores the relationship between film noir and other art forms, such as literature and music, highlighting the cross-pollination of ideas and techniques that have shaped the genre. The book delves into the social and historical context that influenced the development of film noir, examining how the genre reflected the anxieties and aspirations of post-war America. It also explores the legacy of film noir, its impact on subsequent film genres, and its enduring appeal to audiences worldwide. With its comprehensive approach and engaging writing style, this guide is an essential resource for film noir enthusiasts, students of cinema, and anyone interested in the history and evolution of one of the most captivating genres in film history. Step into the shadows and discover the world of film noir, where light and dark collide, and where the boundaries between good and evil are blurred. This book is your guide to the genre's greatest films, its defining characteristics, and its lasting impact on cinema and culture. If you like this book, write a review! | 35 | 356 |
Cyberpunk heist thriller | The Cyber Heist Files - Books 1 to 3: A Techno-SciFi Thriller Complete Series Box Set | A Cyber Crime Thriller Series The next war will be fought in the virtual front lines. ***Due to adult content and language that some may find offensive, this book is intended for mature readers only*** This complete set contains Books 1 to 3 Book 1 - Cyber Heist The entire financial industry of the World Government is at risk when a weaponized virus is covertly uploaded into the computer system. Faced with an imminent crisis, the government releases the whistle blower, Tyler Wilkens, in exchange for eradicating the virus that has infected their computer systems. Something malevolent is afoot and Wilkens is the best chance the government has to combat it. Will Wilkens be able to eradicate the infection? Book 2 - Kill Code When Tyler Wilkens fails to completely eradicate the virus, he is put back in prison and his competitor, another tech company, is tasked with finishing the job. As circumstances turn dire, Wilkens is released once again to do the government's bidding. But what he finds within the computer system is something ominous and unexpected. Will Wilkens be able to save the World Government from complete financial collapse? Or will he die trying? Book 3 - Coup D’état Tasked with finding evidence to save the former government, Wilkens falls deep down the rabbit hole. With the help of Monica Franchette, Wilkens uncovers a conspiracy that leads him to multiple assassinations and the highest levels of authority. The burden of truth does not come without its risks. What will Wilkens do with his newfound knowledge? Will he be a marked man with a target on his back for the rest of his life? Download the complete set to read the entire series. (Freddie Kim box set, Cyber Heist Files complete series, Cyberpunk box set, Techno thriller series, Cyber Heist Files bundle, Cyber warfare books, Science fiction thrillers, Cybercrime novels, Digital heist fiction, Hacker books series, Cyber thriller set, Cyber espionage novels, High-tech crime series, Artificial intelligence fiction, Government conspiracy books, Technological thrillers, Computer virus fiction, Freddie Kim sci-fi series, Cyber security novels, Data breach thrillers, Virtual reality series, Techno thriller box set, Freddie Kim novels, Cyber Heist trilogy, Best cyberpunk series, New techno thrillers, Future tech series, Cyberpunk thriller books, Sci-fi crime series, Cyberpunk novel series box) | 35 | 357 |
Cyberpunk heist thriller | Repairing the World | Grieving over the sudden death of her best friend, eleven-year-old Daisy finds it hard to get excited about things like her new baby sister and her community service project for Hebrew school, but new middle school friends and supportive family members help Daisy discover a way to move forward. | 35 | 358 |
Cyberpunk rebellion story | Neon City | Special Agent Hector Ramirez is a seasoned FBI agent who is stationed at the Las Vegas field office. He is currently working on a high-stakes case involving a carjacking ring that has been plaguing the city for weeks. The perpetrators are cunning and selective, targeting only one type of car, which has made it difficult for law enforcement to track them down. Hector's mission is clear: save the child and apprehend the suspects. But as he delves deeper into the investigation, he begins to question whether the child was merely a victim of circumstance or if the carjackers had targeted the child all along. The tension builds as Hector follows each lead, never sure who he can trust. As Hector races against time to solve the case, he discovers that the parents of the abducted child may have something to hide. Could they be connected to the carjacking ring? Or is there something else going on that he hasn't yet uncovered? The conflict intensifies as Hector realizes that the carjacking ring is just the tip of the iceberg. There are larger forces at play, and he must navigate his way through a complex web of deceit and corruption to get to the truth. With each new twist and turn, Hector's life is put in danger, but he remains determined to see justice served. | 36 | 359 |
Cyberpunk rebellion story | The Stars My Destination | #5 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written. “Science fiction has only produced a few works of actual genius, and this is one of them.” —Joe Haldeman #5 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written. “Science fiction has only produced a few works of actual genius, and this is one of them.” —Joe Haldeman "Bester at the peak of his powers is, quite simply, unbeatable” —James Lovegrove Marooned in outer space after an attack on his ship, Nomad, Gulliver Foyle lives to obsessively pursue the crew of a rescue vessel that had intended to leave him to die. When it comes to pop culture, Alfred Bester (1913-1987) is something of an unsung hero. He wrote radio scripts, screenplays, and comic books (in which capacity he created the original Green Lantern Oath). But Bester is best known for his science-fiction novels, and The Stars My Destination may be his finest creation. With its sly potshotting at corporate skullduggery, The Stars My Destination seems utterly contemporary, and has maintained its status as an underground classic for fifty years. (Bester fans should also note that iBooks has reprinted ReDemolished, which won the very first Hugo Award in 1953.) | 36 | 360 |
Cyberpunk rebellion story | Online Communication | Online Communication provides an introduction to both the technologies of the Internet Age and their social implications. This innovative and timely textbook brings together current work in communication, political science, philosophy, popular culture, history, economics, and the humanities to present an examination of the theoretical and critical issues in the study of computer-mediated communication. Continuing the model of the best-selling first edition, authors Andrew F. Wood and Matthew J. Smith introduce computer-mediated communication (CMC) as a subject of academic research as well as a lens through which to examine contemporary trends in society. This second edition of Online Communication covers online identity, mediated relationships, virtual communities, electronic commerce, the digital divide, spaces of resistance, and other topics related to CMC. The text also examines how the Internet has affected contemporary culture and presents the critiques being made to those changes. Special features of the text include: *Hyperlinks--presenting greater detail on topics from the chapter *Ethical Ethical Inquiry--posing questions on the nature of human communication and conduct online *Online Communication and the Law--examining the legal ramifications of CMC issues Advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers interested in the field of computer-mediated communication, as well as those studying issues of technology and culture, will find Online Communication to be an insightful resource for studying the role of technology and mediated communication in today's society. | 36 | 361 |
Cyberpunk rebellion story | Cyberpunk Style Design: Theoretical Analysis and Practical Exploration | In an era of rapid development in digital technology, the Cyberpunk style finds in-creasingly broad applications in various artistic domains, greatly appealing to the younger generation. Compared to the well-developed research on the Cyberpunk lit-erary genre, there is still a lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework for study-ing Cyberpunk style visual imagery, leaving ample room for exploration across inter-disciplinary media expressions. Simultaneously, with the ongoing digitalization and smartification trends in the new energy vehicle industry, the user base for new energy vehicles is becoming younger, with a growing demand for novel driving experiences. Currently, personalized design in new energy vehicles mainly focuses on exterior aesthetics, with limited research on dashboard interface design. | 36 | 362 |
Cyberpunk rebellion story | Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture | A collection of engaging essays on some of the most significant figures in cyberpunk culture, this outstanding guide charts the rich and varied landscape of cyberpunk from the 1970s to present day. The collection features key figures from a variety of disciplines, from novelists, critical and cultural theorists, philosophers, and scholars, to filmmakers, comic book artists, game creators, and television writers. Important and influential names discussed include: J. G. Ballard, Jean Baudrillard, Rosi Braidotti, Charlie Brooker, Pat Cadigan, William Gibson, Donna J. Haraway, Nalo Hopkinson, Janelle Monáe, Annalee Newitz, Katsuhiro Ōtomo, Sadie Plant, Mike Pondsmith, Ridley Scott, Bruce Sterling, and the Wachowskis. The editors also include an afterword of ‘Honorable Mentions’ to highlight additional figures and groups of note that have played a role in shaping cyberpunk. This accessible guide will be of interest to students and scholars of cultural studies, film studies, literature, media studies, as well as anyone with an interest in cyberpunk culture and science fiction. | 36 | 363 |
Cyberpunk rebellion story | Into Neon | Moss' life is going nowhere until a mysterious woman knocks on his door and leaves him with the key to take down one of the world's largest corporations. When he discovers a familial connection to the stranger, Moss leaves the comfort of his home with his best friend for the sprawling megacity. There, he joins a group of ruffians dedicated to freeing people from the yoke of the evil companies. Police-for-hire, motorcycle gangs and betrayal threaten them at every turn. Can Moss help this small group of rebels fight the power before it's too late? Find out in Into Neon: A Cyberpunk Saga. | 36 | 364 |
Cyberpunk rebellion story | Cyberpunk | Using the exploits of three international hackers, Cyberpunk explores the world of high-tech computer rebels and the subculture they've created. In a book as exciting as any Ludlum novel, the authors show how these young outlaws have learned to penetrate the most sensitive computer networks and how difficult it is to stop them. | 36 | 365 |
Cyberpunk rebellion story | Storming the Reality Studio | The term "cyberpunk" entered the literary landscape in 1984 to describe William Gibson's pathbreaking novel Neuromancer. Cyberpunks are now among the shock troops of postmodernism, Larry McCaffery argues in Storming the Reality Studio, marshalling the resources of a fragmentary culture to create a startling new form. Artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, multinational machinations, frenetic bursts of prose, collisions of style, celebrations of texture: although emerging largely from science fiction, these features of cyberpunk writing are, as this volume makes clear, integrally related to the aims and innovations of the literary avant-garde. By bringing together original fiction by well-known contemporary writers (William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Kathy Acker, J. G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany), critical commentary by some of the major theorists of postmodern art and culture (Jacques Derrida, Fredric Jameson, Timothy Leary, Jean-François Lyotard), and work by major practitioners of cyberpunk (William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, Pat Cadigan, Bruce Sterling), Storming the Reality Studio reveals a fascinating ongoing dialog in contemporary culture. What emerges most strikingly from the colloquy is a shared preoccupation with the force of technology in shaping modern life. It is precisely this concern, according to McCaffery, that has put science fiction, typically the province of technological art, at the forefront of creative explorations of our unique age. A rich opporunity for reading across genres, this anthology offers a new perspective on the evolution of postmodern culture and ultimately shows how deeply technological developments have influenced our vision and our art. Selected Fiction contributors: Kathy Acker, J. G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, Pat Cadigan, Samuel R. Delany, Don DeLillo, William Gibson, Harold Jaffe, Richard Kadrey, Marc Laidlaw, Mark Leyner, Joseph McElroy, Misha, Ted Mooney, Thomas Pynchon, Rudy Rucker, Lucius Shepard, Lewis Shiner, John Shirley, Bruce Sterling, William Vollman Selected Non-Fiction contributors: Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Fredric Jameson, Arthur Kroker and David Cook, Timothy Leary, Jean-François Lyotard, Larry McCaffery, Brian McHale, Dave Porush, Bruce Sterling, Darko Suvin, Takayuki Tatsumi | 36 | 366 |
Dark academia mystery | Where Sleeping Girls Lie | A haunting and compulsive new Dark Academia mystery of secrets, lies and revenge, from the award-winning, bestselling author of Ace of Spades, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. Perfect for fans of Holly Jackson and Maureen Johnson. "Dark academia fans, this novel is for you." Cosmopolitan "The slow-burn mystery, imbued with a terrible sense of menace, is worth every page." The Observer "Àbíké-Íyímídé is an incisive force - and a total vibe." Olivie Blake, NYT bestselling author of THE ATLAS SIX This was a mistake, the voice in her head whispered. You should never have come... Sade Hussein is the new girl at the prestigious Alfred Nobel Academy. She has no idea what to expect of her mysterious new boarding school - an institution steeped in tradition and secrets. But she certainly didn't imagine her roommate, Elizabeth, to go missing on her first night. Or for people to think Sade had something to do with it. Suddenly everyone is talking about Sade, including the Unholy Trinity: the three most popular girls at school. Swept up in their circle, Sade can't shake the sense that there's more to Elizabeth's disappearance - especially as the teachers don't seem to care. And then a student is found dead. It's clear there's more to Alfred Nobel Academy and its students than Sade could have imagined - and she must race to uncover the truth. But secrets lurk around every corner and beneath every surface...secrets that rival even her own. "With a shock slow-burning reveal at its core, it's also an uplifting story of survival and hope." Stylist Praise for Ace of Spades "A heart-racing and twisty thriller." Alice Oseman "Heart-pounding suspense." Marie Claire "Strong Gossip Girl vibes and a whole lot of mystery." Buzzfeed | 37 | 380 |
Dark academia mystery | I Have Some Questions for You | A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Named a Best Book of 2023 by The Washington Post, People, USA Today, NPR, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Real Simple, The Boston Globe, CrimeReads and more “A twisty, immersive whodunit perfect for fans of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.” —People "Spellbinding." —The New York Times Book Review "[An] irresistible literary page-turner." —The Boston Globe The riveting new novel — "part true-crime page-turner, part campus coming-of-age" (San Francisco Chronicle) — from the author of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist The Great Believers A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past—the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the murder of her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s death and the conviction of the school’s athletic trainer, Omar Evans, are hotly debated online, Bodie prefers—needs—to let sleeping dogs lie. But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn’t as much of an outsider at Granby as she’d thought—if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case. In I Have Some Questions for You, award-winning author Rebecca Makkai has crafted her most irresistible novel yet: a stirring investigation into collective memory and a deeply felt examination of one woman’s reckoning with her past, with a transfixing mystery at its heart. Timely, hypnotic, and populated with a cast of unforgettable characters, I Have Some Questions for You is at once a compulsive page-turner and a literary triumph. | 37 | 381 |
Dark academia mystery | Writers' Handbook 2025 | The 2025 edition of firstwriter.com’s annual directory for writers is the perfect book for anyone searching for literary agents, book publishers, or magazines. It contains over 1,500 listings, including revised and updated listings from the 2024 edition, and over 300 brand new entries. Finding the information you need is now quicker and easier than ever before, with multiple tables and a detailed index, and unique paragraph numbers to help you get to the listings you’re looking for. The variety of tables helps you navigate the listings in different ways, and includes a Table of Authors, which lists over 6,000 authors and tells you who represents them, or who publishes them, or both. The number of genres in the index has expanded to over 900. So, for example, while there was only one option for “Romance” in previous editions, you can now narrow this down to Historical Romance, Fantasy Romance, Supernatural / Paranormal Romance, Contemporary Romance, Diverse Romance, Erotic Romance, Feminist Romance, Christian Romance, or even Amish Romance. The new edition includes: · Over 650 literary agents and agencies; · Over 450 magazines; and · Over 500 publishers that don’t charge fees. International markets become more accessible than ever, with listings that cover both the main publishing centres of New York and London, as well as markets in other English-speaking countries. With more and more agents, publishers, and magazines accepting submissions online, this international outlook is now more important than ever. There are no adverts, no advertorials, and no obscure listings padding out hundreds of pages. By including only what’s important to writers – contact details for literary agents, publishers, and magazines – this directory is able to provide more listings than its competitors, at a lower price. The book also allows you to create a subscription to the firstwriter.com website for free until 2026. This means you can get free access to the firstwriter.com website, where you can find even more listings, and also benefit from other features such as advanced searches, daily email updates, feedback from users about the markets featured, saved searches, competitions listings, searchable personal notes, and more. “I know firsthand how lonely and dispiriting trying to find an agent and publisher can be. So it's great to find a resource like firstwriter.com that provides contacts, advice and encouragement to aspiring writers. I've been recommending it for years now!” ~ Robin Wade; literary agent at the Wade & Doherty Literary Agency Ltd, and long-term firstwriter.com subscriber | 37 | 382 |
Dark academia mystery | In These Hallowed Halls: A Dark Academia anthology | ENROLLMENT BEGINS NOW A beguiling, sinister collection of 12 dark academia short stories from masters of the genre, including Olivie Blake, M.L. Rio, Susie Yang and more! In these stories, dear student, retribution visits a lothario lecturer; the sinister truth is revealed about a missing professor; a forsaken lover uses a séance for revenge; an obsession blooms about a possible illicit affair; two graduates exhume the secrets of a reclusive scholar; horrors are uncovered in an obscure academic department; five hopeful initiates must complete a murderous task and much more! Featuring brand-new stories from: Olivie Blake M.L. Rio David Bell Susie Yang Layne Fargo J.T. Ellison James Tate Hill Kelly Andrew Phoebe Wynne Kate Weinberg Helen Grant Tori Bovalino Definition of dark academia in English: dark academia 1. An internet subculture concerned with higher education, the arts, and literature, or an idealised version thereof with a focus on the pursuit of knowledge and an exploration of death. 2. A set of aesthetic principles. Scholarly with a gothic edge – tweed blazers, vintage cardigans, scuffed loafers, a worn leather satchel full of brooding poetry. Enthusiasts are usually found in museums and darkened libraries. | 37 | 383 |
Dark academia mystery | The Cloisters | A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick This instant New York Times bestseller that is “captivating in every sense of the word” (Sarah Pearse, New York Times bestselling author) follows a group of researchers uncovering a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York’s famed Met Cloisters. When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination. Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when she discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs. A haunting and magical blend of genres, The Cloisters is a “masterwork of literary suspense that surges to an otherworldly conclusion” (Mark Prins, author of The Latinist). | 37 | 384 |
Dark academia mystery | The Archivist | A November Book Pick from The New York Times When archivist Nadia Fontaine is found dead of an apparent drowning, Emily Snow is hired by Regents University to finish the job she started—to organize and process the papers of Raymond West, a famous Pulitzer Prize–winning author who has been short-listed for the Nobel. Emily’s job comes with its inherent pressures. West’s wife, Elizabeth, is an heiress who’s about to donate $25 million to the Memorial Library—an eight-story architectural marvel that is the crown jewel of the university. The inaugural event in just a few months will be a gala for the who’s who of San Diego to celebrate the unveiling of the Raymond West Collection and the financial gift that made it all possible. As Emily sets to work on the West papers, it begins to dawn on her that several items have gone missing from the collection. To trace their whereabouts, she gains unsupervised access to the highly restricted “dark archives,” in which she opens a Pandora’s box of erotically and intellectually charged correspondence between Raymond West and the late Nadia Fontaine. Through their archived emails, Emily goes back a year in time and relives the tragic trajectory of their passionate love affair. Did Nadia really drown accidentally, as the police report concluded, or could it have been suicide, or, even worse, murder? Compelled to complete the collection and find the truth, Emily unwittingly morphs into an adult Nancy Drew and a one-woman archivist crusader on a mission to right the historical record. Twisting slowly like a tourniquet, The Archivist turns into a suspenseful murder mystery with multiple and intersecting layers. Not just a whodunit, it is also a profound meditation on love, privacy, and the ethics of destroying or preserving materials of a highly personal nature. | 37 | 385 |
Dark academia mystery | People Like Us | "Mean Girls meets Donna Tartt's The Secret History with a little bit of Riverdale mixed in. So yeah, it's epic."--HelloGiggles "In People Like Us, Dana Mele delivers the Gossip Girl meets Pretty Little Liars young adult novel you've been waiting for."--Bustle Kay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she's reinvented herself entirely. Now she's a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl's body is found in the lake, Kay's carefully constructed life begins to topple. The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay's finally backed into a corner, she'll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make...not something that happened. Debut author Dana Mele has written a taut, sophisticated suspense novel that will keep readers guessing until the very end. | 37 | 386 |
Dark academia mystery | The Murder Game | For fans of The Secret History and How to Get Away With Murder comes an exciting new voice in suspense fiction.Ten years working as a prosecutor have left Meredith Delay jaded and unsure of what she wants out of life. She's good at her job, but it haunts her. Her boyfriend wants her to commit, but she keeps him at arm's length. Then Meredith is assigned to a high-profile prosecution involving the violent murder of a fallen hockey star. At first, it appears to be just another case to work. But when her old friend Julian is accused of the murder, it takes on a whole new dimension.Meredith, Julian, Jonathan, and Lily were a tight-knit group in law school. But now, Jonathan's defending Julian, and Lily's loyalties aren't clear. And when Julian invokes a rare-and risky-defense, Meredith is forced to confront their past.Has something they played at as students finally been brought to death? | 37 | 387 |
Dark academia mystery | Potterversity | Potterversity: Essays Exploring the World of Harry Potter presents a written companion to the popular, "Hermione-Approved" MuggleNet podcast by the same name. Selected from the top Potter Studies scholars in the field, the diverse authors in the volume provide a range of interpretations of wizarding world stories. Essays include analysis of genre conventions, literary and religious symbolism, the role of games in the series, pedagogical approaches, and politically challenging issues like U.S. race relations, colonialism, and gender and sexuality--including direct attention to J.K. Rowling's controversial statements about trans people. Grouped into the sections "Occult Knowledge," "Ancient Magic," "A Question of Character," "Self and Other," "Playing Potter," and "Teaching, the Hogwarts Way," partnered essays precede transcripts of podcast conversations, led by the hosts of Potterversity. The book's essays and conversations aim to engage not only the mind but the spirit as well--the emotional, personal, and moral responses the Potterverse has evoked in so many people around the world. Fundamentally, this book demonstrates that the characters, stories, and situations of the magical realm promote thinking that helps us navigate our more mundane but no less dangerous world. Perhaps even more importantly, they help us to recognize the magic amid our everyday Muggle realities. | 37 | 388 |
Dark academia mystery | AESTHETIC: A Dark Academia Anthology | AESTHETIC: A Dark Academia Anthology is full of Young Adult and New Adult fiction set in academic settings! The included genres span Murder Mysteries, Thrillers, Dark Romance, Fantasy, Paranormal, and Sci-Fi all written by 25+ authors from around the globe. | 37 | 389 |
Dark academia secrets | Where Sleeping Girls Lie | A haunting and compulsive new Dark Academia mystery of secrets, lies and revenge, from the award-winning, bestselling author of Ace of Spades, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. Perfect for fans of Holly Jackson and Maureen Johnson. "Dark academia fans, this novel is for you." Cosmopolitan "The slow-burn mystery, imbued with a terrible sense of menace, is worth every page." The Observer "Àbíké-Íyímídé is an incisive force - and a total vibe." Olivie Blake, NYT bestselling author of THE ATLAS SIX This was a mistake, the voice in her head whispered. You should never have come... Sade Hussein is the new girl at the prestigious Alfred Nobel Academy. She has no idea what to expect of her mysterious new boarding school - an institution steeped in tradition and secrets. But she certainly didn't imagine her roommate, Elizabeth, to go missing on her first night. Or for people to think Sade had something to do with it. Suddenly everyone is talking about Sade, including the Unholy Trinity: the three most popular girls at school. Swept up in their circle, Sade can't shake the sense that there's more to Elizabeth's disappearance - especially as the teachers don't seem to care. And then a student is found dead. It's clear there's more to Alfred Nobel Academy and its students than Sade could have imagined - and she must race to uncover the truth. But secrets lurk around every corner and beneath every surface...secrets that rival even her own. "With a shock slow-burning reveal at its core, it's also an uplifting story of survival and hope." Stylist Praise for Ace of Spades "A heart-racing and twisty thriller." Alice Oseman "Heart-pounding suspense." Marie Claire "Strong Gossip Girl vibes and a whole lot of mystery." Buzzfeed | 38 | 390 |
Dark academia secrets | Cracks in the Ivory Tower | Academics extol high-minded ideals, such as serving the common good and promoting social justice. Universities aim to be centers of learning that find the best and brightest students, treat them fairly, and equip them with the knowledge they need to lead better lives. But as Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness show in Cracks in the Ivory Tower, American universities fall far short of this ideal. At almost every level, they find that students, professors, and administrators are guided by self-interest rather than ethical concerns. College bureaucratic structures also often incentivize and reward bad behavior, while disincentivizing and even punishing good behavior. Most students, faculty, and administrators are out to serve themselves and pass their costs onto others. The problems are deep and pervasive: most academic marketing and advertising is semi-fraudulent. To justify their own pay raises and higher budgets, administrators hire expensive and unnecessary staff. Faculty exploit students for tuition dollars through gen-ed requirements. Students hardly learn anything and cheating is pervasive. At every level, academics disguise their pursuit of self-interest with high-faluting moral language. Marshaling an array of data, Brennan and Magness expose many of the ethical failings of academia and in turn reshape our understanding of how such high power institutions run their business. Everyone knows academia is dysfunctional. Brennan and Magness show the problems are worse than anyone realized. Academics have only themselves to blame. | 38 | 391 |
Dark academia secrets | For Your Own Good | INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER “Witty and macabre.”—Caroline Kepnes "Slick and chilling."—Megan Miranda “I read all of her [books]. I've read everything.”—Cecily Strong from SNL for Vanity Fair “A perfect summer book.”—NPR USA Today bestselling author Samantha Downing is back with her latest sneaky thriller set at a prestigious private school—complete with interfering parents, overeager students, and one teacher who just wants to teach them all a lesson… Teddy Crutcher has won Teacher of the Year at the prestigious Belmont Academy, home to the best and brightest. He says his wife couldn’t be more proud—though no one has seen her in a while. Teddy really can’t be bothered with a few mysterious deaths on campus that’re looking more and more like murder or with the student digging a little too deep into Teddy’s personal life. His main focus is pushing these kids to their full academic potential. All he wants is for his colleagues—and the endlessly meddlesome parents—to stay out of his way. If not, well, they’ll get what they deserve. It’s really too bad that sometimes excellence can come at such a high cost. | 38 | 392 |
Dark academia secrets | Academic Diary | Sharp and witty observations of academic life that range from the local to the global, from PowerPoint to the halls of power. Is a university education still relevant? What are the forces that threaten it? Should academics ever be allowed near Twitter? In Academic Diary, Les Back has chronicled three decades of his academic career, turning his sharp and often satirical eye to the everyday aspects of life on campus and the larger forces that are reshaping it. Presented as a collection of entries from a single academic year, the diary moves from the local to the global, from PowerPoint to the halls of power. With entries like “Ivory Towers” and “The Library Angel,” these smart, humorous, and sometimes absurd campus tales not only demystify the opaque rituals of scholarship but also offer a personal perspective on the far-reaching issues of university life. Commenting on topics that range from the impact of commercialization and fee increases to measurement and auditing research, the diary offers a critical analysis of higher education today. At the same time, it is a passionate argument for the life of the mind, the importance of collaborative thinking, and the reasons that scholarship and writing are still vital for making sense of our troubled and divided world. | 38 | 393 |
Dark academia secrets | Mistborn: The Wax & Wayne Series | From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, the Mistborn: Wax & Wayne series is a heist story of political intrigue and magical, martial-arts action--now including its epic conclusion, The Lost Metal. Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds. The Alloy of Law Waxillium Ladrian, a rare Twinborn, can Push on metals with his Allomancy and use Feruchemy to become lighter or heavier at will. After twenty years in the Roughs, Wax has been forced by family tragedy to return to the metropolis of Elendel. Now he must reluctantly put away his guns and assume the duties and dignity incumbent upon the head of a noble house. Or so he thinks, until he learns the hard way that the mansions and elegant tree-lined streets of the city can be even more dangerous than the dusty plains of the Roughs. Shadows of Self This bustling, optimistic, but still shaky society will now face its first test by terrorism and assassination, crimes intended to stir up labor strife and religious conflict. Wax, his eccentric sidekick Wayne, and brilliant, beautiful young Marasi, now officially part of the constabulary, must unravel the conspiracy before civil strife can stop Scadrial’s progress in its tracks. The Bands of Mourning The Bands of Mourning are the mythical metal minds owned by the Lord Ruler, said to grant anyone who wears them the powers that the Lord Ruler had at his command. Hardly anyone thinks they really exist. A kandra researcher has returned to Elendel with images that seem to depict the Bands, as well as writings in a language that no one can read. Waxillium Ladrian is recruited to travel south to the city of New Seran to investigate. Along the way he discovers hints that point to the true goals of his uncle Edwarn and the shadowy organization known as The Set. The Lost Metal For years, frontier lawman turned big-city senator Waxillium Ladrian has hunted the shadowy organization the Set—with his late uncle and his sister among their leaders—since they started kidnapping people with the power of Allomancy in their bloodlines. When Detective Marasi Colms and her partner Wayne find stockpiled weapons bound for the Outer City of Bilming, this opens a new lead. Conflict between Elendel and the Outer Cities only favors the Set, and their tendrils now reach to the Elendel Senate—whose corruption Wax and Steris have sought to expose—and Bilming is even more entangled. After Wax discovers a new type of explosive that can unleash unprecedented destruction and realizes that the Set must already have it, an immortal kandra serving Scadrial’s god, Harmony, reveals that Bilming has fallen under the influence of another god: Trell, worshipped by the Set. And Trell isn’t the only factor at play from the larger Cosmere—Marasi is recruited by offworlders with strange abilities who claim their goal is to protect Scadrial...at any cost. Wax must choose whether to set aside his rocky relationship with God and once again become the Sword that Harmony has groomed him to be. If no one steps forward to be the hero Scadrial needs, the planet and its millions of people will come to a sudden and calamitous ruin. Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson The Cosmere The Stormlight Archive The Way of Kings Words of Radiance Edgedancer (Novella) Oathbringer Dawnshard (Novella) Rhythm of War The Mistborn trilogy Mistborn: The Final Empire The Well of Ascension The Hero of Ages Mistborn: The Wax and Wayne series Alloy of Law Shadows of Self Bands of Mourning The Lost Metal Collection Arcanum Unbounded Other Cosmere novels Elantris Warbreaker The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians The Scrivener's Bones The Knights of Crystallia The Shattered Lens The Dark Talent The Rithmatist series The Rithmatist Other books by Brandon Sanderson The Reckoners Steelheart Firefight Calamity At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. | 38 | 394 |
Dark academia secrets | The Lake of Dead Languages | “A gothic and elegant page-turner.”—The Boston Globe Twenty years ago, Jane Hudson fled the Heart Lake School for Girls in the Adirondacks after a terrible tragedy. The week before her graduation, in that sheltered wonderland, three lives were taken, all victims of suicide. Only Jane was left to carry the burden of a mystery that has stayed hidden in the depths of Heart Lake for more than two decades. Now Jane has returned to the school as a Latin teacher, recently separated and hoping to make a fresh start with her young daughter. But ominous messages from the past dredge up forgotten memories. And young, troubled girls are beginning to die again–as piece by piece the shattering truth slowly floats to the surface. . . . | 38 | 395 |
Dark academia secrets | Potterversity | Potterversity: Essays Exploring the World of Harry Potter presents a written companion to the popular, "Hermione-Approved" MuggleNet podcast by the same name. Selected from the top Potter Studies scholars in the field, the diverse authors in the volume provide a range of interpretations of wizarding world stories. Essays include analysis of genre conventions, literary and religious symbolism, the role of games in the series, pedagogical approaches, and politically challenging issues like U.S. race relations, colonialism, and gender and sexuality--including direct attention to J.K. Rowling's controversial statements about trans people. Grouped into the sections "Occult Knowledge," "Ancient Magic," "A Question of Character," "Self and Other," "Playing Potter," and "Teaching, the Hogwarts Way," partnered essays precede transcripts of podcast conversations, led by the hosts of Potterversity. The book's essays and conversations aim to engage not only the mind but the spirit as well--the emotional, personal, and moral responses the Potterverse has evoked in so many people around the world. Fundamentally, this book demonstrates that the characters, stories, and situations of the magical realm promote thinking that helps us navigate our more mundane but no less dangerous world. Perhaps even more importantly, they help us to recognize the magic amid our everyday Muggle realities. | 38 | 396 |
Dark academia secrets | Reading Literature and Theory at the Intersections of Queer and Class | Reading Literature and Theory at the Intersections of Queer and Class focuses on the crossover of queer and class, examining a range of texts across languages and genres and spanning nearly a century. This collection of chapters considers the intersection of queer and class in relation to literary aesthetics, a locus in which the interaction between sexuality and class is rendered with lucidity. Each chapter puts forward class and its manifestations as central to queer analysis of literary and cultural texts in historical and contemporary contexts. The readings adopt Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectional paradigm by pointing to its activist as well as literary precedents and elaborations. These chapters emerged from a long-standing collaboration among three Central European universities whose faculty and graduate students established a joint queer literature and theory research seminar. They are supplemented by a roundtable discussion in which the contributing authors and their colleagues discuss how the concepts of queer and class in theory and (academic) practice have informed their current and previous work. Reading Literature and Theory at the Intersections of Queer and Class is intended for scholars in gender and queer studies. | 38 | 397 |
Dark fairy tale | Once Upon a Darkened Night 7-9 | Enjoy this collection of twisted fairy tale retellings by USA Today bestselling author Nicole Zoltack where classical fairytale heroes are now the villians. What if Hansel and Gretel, Alice of Wonderland, Dorothy were the villains? Find out in this collection of twisted fairy tales. Included is an exclusive short story, the Cost of Adoration, a retelling of Thumbelina. KEYWORDS: Hansel and Gretel, Alice of Wonderland, Dorothy, Oz, fairytale fantasy, fantasy romance, romantic fantasy, slow burn romance, supernatural powers, magic, come into powers, dark fantasy romance, clean fantasy, king, prince, royal, historical fantasy, Free Royal, Raven Kennedy, Kelly St. Clare, Caroline Peckham, Susanne Valenti, C.N Crawford, Elise Kova, Robin D. Mahle, Elle Madison, D.K. Holmberg, Cordelia Castel, Kay L Moody, Alisha Klaphe | 39 | 398 |
Dark fairy tale | Once Upon a Darkened Night 10-12 | Enjoy this collection of twisted fairy tale retellings by USA Today bestselling author Nicole Zoltack where classic fairytale heroes are now the villians. What if the Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks, and Jack and the Beanstalk were the villains? Find out in this collection of twisted fairy tales. Included is an exclusive short story, the Cost of Thievery, a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. KEYWORDS: Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks, and Jack and the Beanstalk, fairytale fantasy, fantasy romance, romantic fantasy, slow burn romance, supernatural powers, magic, come into powers, dark fantasy romance, clean fantasy, king, prince, royal, historical fantasy, Free Royal, Raven Kennedy, Kelly St. Clare, Caroline Peckham, Susanne Valenti, C.N Crawford, Elise Kova, Robin D. Mahle, Elle Madison, D.K. Holmberg, Cordelia Castel, Kay L Moody, Alisha Klaphe | 39 | 399 |
Dark fairy tale | Once Upon a Darkened Night 1-3 | Enjoy this collection of twisted fairy tale retellings by USA Today bestselling author Nicole Zoltack where Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast all feature their villains as the heroes. What if the evil stepmother had a reason for locking Cinderella away? What if Sleeping Beauty was cursed to protect her kingdom? What if the beast truly was a beast? Find out in this collection of twisted fairy tales. Included is a never before published, brand new twisted short story, the Cost of Intemperance, a twisted retelling of Twelve Dancing Princess. KEYWORDS: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast, fairytale fantasy, fantasy romance, romantic fantasy, slow burn romance, supernatural powers, magic, come into powers, dark fantasy romance, clean fantasy, king, prince, royal, historical fantasy, Free Royal, Raven Kennedy, Kelly St. Clare, Caroline Peckham, Susanne Valenti, C.N Crawford, Elise Kova, Robin D. Mahle, Elle Madison, D.K. Holmberg, Cordelia Castel, Kay L Moody, Alisha Klaphe | 39 | 400 |
Dark fairy tale | Grimm's Fairy Tales | Once Upon a Time...Grimm's Fairy Tales have brought magic and delight to millions, throughout the generations all over the world. They collected the oral folktales of their time, which are slightly dark in origin, different from the fairy tales you are used to hearing. In this book, there are timeless classics such as: Little Red-Cap (Little Red Riding Hood) Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) Beauty and the Beast Hansel and Grethel Rumpelstiltskin Snow White Tom ThumbCinderellaRapunzel and 55 others...Collected here are 64 of the most popular stories by the Brothers Grimm with 55 black-and-white illustrations and photos, and a free online link to 62 audio files. | 39 | 401 |
Dark fairy tale | The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales | Once upon a time in a fairy tale world, There were magical mirrors and golden slippers;Castles and fields and mountains of glass,Houses of bread and windows of sugar.Frogs transformed into handsome Princes,And big bad wolves into innocent grandmothers.There were evil queens and wicked stepmothers;Sweethearts, true brides, and secret lovers. In the same fairy world, A poor boy has found a golden key and an iron chest, and " We must wait until he has quite unlocked it and opened the lid . . ." A classic collection of timeless folk tales by Grimm Brothers, Grimm' s Fairy Tales are not only enchanting, mysterious, and amusing, but also frightening and intriguing. Delighting children and adults alike, these tales have undergone several adaptations over the decades. This edition with black-and-white illustrations is a translation by Margaret Hunt. | 39 | 402 |
Dark fairy tale | Dark Fairy Tales of Fearless Women | Enter a world in which magic exists, hope wins and every woman's heart is alive with courage! This global feast of ancient tales features valiant women overcoming every kind of obstacle and danger to fulfil their destinies. Travel through Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and the Pacific. Shudder, cheer and laugh out loud as the heroines deal with trolls, faeries, dragons and ghosts; admire their knowledge, wit and cunning; marvel at shapeshifting and other manifestations of the supernatural. A rich collection of fairy tales, beautifully illustrated throughout with Joe McClaren woodcuts, this book is stitched together like a series of Scheherazade stories. It is story-telling at its best, pitch perfect fairy tales of fearless women for readers everywhere. | 39 | 403 |
Dark fairy tale | A Tale Dark & Grimm | In this mischievous and utterly original debut, Hansel and Gretel walk out of their own story and into eight other classic Grimm-inspired tales. As readers follow the siblings through a forest brimming with menacing foes, they learn the true story behind (and beyond) the bread crumbs, edible houses, and outwitted witches. Fairy tales have never been more irreverent or subversive as Hansel and Gretel learn to take charge of their destinies and become the clever architects of their own happily ever after. | 39 | 404 |
Dark fairy tale | Dark Fairy Tales | Discover the original macabre stories of your most beloved classics in this collection of disturbingly dark fairy tales. ‘Story-telling is one of the most ancient and universal of arts.’ – Laura F. Kready, A Study of Fairy Tales, 1916 ‘The instruments of darkness tell us truths.’ – William Shakespeare, Macbeth, 1623 This twisted treasury presents over forty of the world’s most wicked fairy tales, including the original versions of stories you thought you knew, such as ‘Cinderella’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, and ‘Snow White’. Relish in the morbid darkness of these early classics, alongside many other tales you haven't heard before. From renowned storytellers of the fairy tale genre, this collection sources works from the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen, and many more. Dark Fairy Tales is woven with themes of lost innocence, beastly bonds, and haunted hearts, aiming to inspire, caution, and illuminate valuable aspects of the human experience. Be warned, for these stories are not for the faint of heart and happy endings cannot be guaranteed. | 39 | 405 |
Dark fairy tale | Once Upon a Darkened Night 13-15 | Enjoy this collection of twisted fairy tale retellings by USA Today bestselling author Nicole Zoltack where Aladdin, the Little Mermaid, and Peter Pan all feature their villains as the heroes. What if Aladdin didn't have a heart of gold? What if the Little Mermaid and her father were the villains? What if Peter Pan was the one to bring terror to the high seas of Neverland? Find out in this collection of twisted fairy tales. Included is an exclusive twisted short story, the Cost of Judgment, a twisted retelling of The Ugly Duckling. KEYWORDS: Aladdin, the Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, fairytale fantasy, fantasy romance, romantic fantasy, slow burn romance, supernatural powers, magic, come into powers, dark fantasy romance, clean fantasy, king, prince, royal, historical fantasy, Free Royal, Raven Kennedy, Kelly St. Clare, Caroline Peckham, Susanne Valenti, C.N Crawford, Elise Kova, Robin D. Mahle, Elle Madison, D.K. Holmberg, Cordelia Castel, Kay L Moody, Alisha Klaphe | 39 | 406 |
Dark psychological suspense | Watch Me | "Riveting, chilling, and page-turning. Be prepared to stay up all night." -- New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline For fans of dark and twisty psychological thrillers, Watch Me is a riveting novel of suspense about how far obsession can go. Kate Youngblood is disappearing. Muddling through her late 30s as a creative writing professor at Blackwood college, she’s dangerously close to never being noticed again. The follow-up novel to her successful debut tanked. Her husband left her for a woman ten years younger. She’s always been bright, beautiful, independent and a little wild, but now her glow is starting to vanish. She’s heading into an age where her eyes are less blue, her charm worn out, and soon no one will ever truly look at her, want to know her, again. Except one. Sam Grist is Kate’s most promising student. An unflinching writer with razor-sharp clarity who gravitates towards dark themes and twisted plots, his raw talent is something Kate wants to nurture into literary success. But he’s not there solely to be the best writer. He’s been watching her. Wanting her. Working his way to her for years. As Sam slowly makes his way into Kate’s life, they enter a deadly web of dangerous lies and forbidden desire. But how far will his fixation go? And how far will she allow it? A gripping novel exploring intense obsession and illicit attraction, Jody Gehrman introduces a world where what you desire most may be the most dangerous thing of all. | 40 | 407 |
Dark psychological suspense | Just Like You | You have everything she ever wanted. How far will she go to take it? When swimming instructor Isabel meets up-and-coming actor Iain, the attraction is instantaneous. The pair fall hard for one another and, just a few months later, they are starting to imagine a future together. But everyone has a past... Heartbroken Nicky is convinced that Isabel has stolen the life she was meant to lead. Soon Nicky finds herself becoming fixated on Iain's new girlfriend, and envy quickly turns into a dark, dangerous obsession, with devastating consequences. A chilling psychological thriller that explores love, jealousy and obsession, perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter, Lisa Gray and Robert Dugoni. ********** 'A taut psychological thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. A delicious sense of uneasiness settles in and refuses to be shaken. This one will give you chills' Netgalley reviewer 'WOW! What a twisty thriller!' Netgalley reviewer 'I loved this book . . . keeps you on the edge of your seat' Netgalley reviewer | 40 | 408 |
Dark psychological suspense | The Edge of Sanity | A new drug will give you your best—and last—high in this “amazing follow up to Enter the Dark . . . Fast-paced, gruesome and very dark” (The Book Magnet). In a derelict squat, the Smart Man watches as the new narcotic developed by his shadowy organisation wreaks havoc on its unsuspecting victims. The drug is now ready for sale on their exclusive darknet marketplace. Meanwhile, former detective Pete Harris had started a new life away from the Cyber Crimes Unit with his daughter and begins to rekindle his relationship with a former colleague. Unknown to Pete, the retired head of the unit has sought out crime boss Curtis Slater and offered him information—for a price. With his life seemingly complete, Pete’s world comes crashing down as he is drawn into Slater’s game with fatal consequences. He must join forces with his old enemies in a race against time. But can Pete save his loved ones from the clutches of Slater, the Smart Man . . . and a sinister ringmaster? “An action-packed story! Interesting plot threads cleverly woven together, with plenty to keep the reader turning the pages.” —Bibliophile Book Club | 40 | 409 |
Dark psychological suspense | BORN EVIL | WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU FOUND OUT YOUR CHILD IS A PSYCHOPATH? One night when Jennifer Hanson returns home, she catches her 12-year-old son Shane stabbing their cat to death. Thankfully, he doesn't see her. Having long known Shane has a brain with psychopathic tendencies, her worst fears may be confirmed. Ever since he accidentally shot his father to death at age six, she has done everything she can to ensure Shane doesn't become a full-blown psychopath. He has behaved normally up until now. Have her efforts been in vain? She can tell he's changing, becoming increasingly dangerous, but she can't stomach putting him in a psych ward. But then she finds pics of a dead girl in his phone, a girl everyone thought had died accidentally... NOTE: BORN EVIL is a stand-alone psychological thriller with no sex and little violence. CRIME THRILLER, TWIST, GONE GIRL FANS, GILLIAN FLYNN FANS, DARK, TRILOGY, SUSPENSE, SERIAL KILLER, MURDER, MYSTERY | 40 | 410 |
Dark psychological suspense | Bad Games | The final game is here...A decade has passed. The Lambert family is thriving. Amy Lambert is a successful entrepreneur and in a promising relationship with Allan Brown. Caleb Lambert is a respected member of the United States Marine Corps. Carrie Lambert is a flourishing college student.Or so they wish. Nothing could be further from the truth.Caleb's increasingly violent temper sees him discharged from the Corps. Carrie is failing at her second attempt at college. Amy's relationship with Allan is anything but functional. Aftermath, it would seem, plays the cruelest game of all.The only thing that is true, however, is Amy Lambert's success. Numerous public appearances and even a bestseller chronicling her family's horrific ordeals over the years have brought some unwanted attention Amy's way. Two fledgling killers who happen to idolize the infamous serial killers Arty and Jim Fannelli have been paying attention-and these two killers are eager to show the Lamberts just how much they truly admire their idols...with the help of Arty and Jim themselves?Find out how such a horrifying prospect comes to fruition by grabbing the fifth and final book in the critically acclaimed Bad Games series today-and prepare yourself for the game to end all games.What readers are saying about Jeff Menapace and the Bad Games series: "Will scare you to death...Menapace will become a household name along with Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Richard Laymon." ★★★★★"Outstanding...I have read horror before like John Saul, Dean Koontz and Stephen King, and they never bothered me as Bad Games did." ★★★★★"Jeffery Deaver look out...this guy plays with your head." ★★★★★"I have been a lifetime reader of Dean Koontz, Stephen King, James Patterson, Lisa Gardner, and various other suspense and horror authors...I have found a new author to add to my list of greats." ★★★★★"I love the Prey series by John Sandford, and the Michael Bennett series by James Patterson. If any of these appeal to you, I strongly suggest reading this RIGHT NOW!!" ★★★★★"If you like Stephen King, Blake Crouch, or Dean Koontz, then you'll love Jeff Menapace. ★★★★★"I had to keep reading even though I knew it was going to get more twisted. Jeff Menapace is right up there with Stephen King." ★★★★★"If you love J.A. Konrath, Jack Kilborn, and Blake Crouch, you'll love Jeff Menapace." ★★★★★ "Compares to my favorite writers Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and John Saul." ★★★★★"A great page-turner with shades of Konrath and King!" ★★★★★ I hope you enjoy the Bad Games series, my friends. This series is ideal for fans of authors across several different blends of dark fiction! Authors like: Stephen King, Dean Koontz, James Patterson, Karin Slaughter, Lisa Gardner, Jeffery Deaver, John Sandford, L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain, Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, John Saul, J. A. Konrath, Blake Crouch, Darcy Coates, Patrick Logan, Willow Rose, and many more. Happy Reading! | 40 | 411 |
Dark psychological suspense | What Lies in the Dark | Suspicion and paranoia engulf a community while a police detective hunts for a serial killer. One murder can make a town nervous. Two brings fear. Add three, four, or even more, and neighbors will start to turn on one another . . . Victoria Bullrush is a stickler for rules and tries to maintain a faultless investigation. But with each grisly killing, the urgency grows greater, and it soon becomes impossible to ignore the public’s growing anger . . . Who is behind the killings? And why are they targeting this community? What Lies in the Dark is a breathtaking debut crime thriller. | 40 | 412 |
Dark psychological suspense | Mother | Christopher would never hurt anyone. Not intentionally. Even after everything that's happened I still believe that... Christopher Harris is a lonely boy. A boy who has never fitted in to his family. Who has always felt something was missing from his life. Until one day, when he discovers a suitcase in his family's attic. And a secret about his mother that changes everything... Mother will hold you breathless until the very last page and leave you reeling. Perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train, The Sister and Apple Tree Yard. What readers are saying about S.E. Lynes: 'An intelligent psychological drama with a gasp-making twist.' Good Housekeeping 'Up there with the big hitters. Move over Gone Girl you've got company on the top shelf.' Read & Rated Book Reviews 'Breathlessly exciting.' Linda's Book Bag 'A sinister, deliciously wicked foray into the dark recesses of our personality. Lynes is a promising addition to the prolific list of stellar writers of psychological thrillers which includes Gillian Flynn, S J Watson, Louise Doughty, Elizabeth Haynes et al.' NB Magazine 'Sent chills down my spine... completely enticing.' Damp Pebbles 'Oozes with atmospheric tones, vivid descriptions and pure, haunting emotions.' Reviewed the Book 'S.E. Lynes has raised the bar when it comes to phenomenal story telling.' Between Dreams I Read | 40 | 413 |
Dark psychological suspense | Isolation | As a deadly epidemic sends the nation into quarantine, one family must face a killer in their home in this tense and timely mystery thriller. Seemingly out of nowhere, a vicious virus puts all of America on lockdown. In their opulent mansion, the wealthy Stone family is better off than most. But they’re not without their problems. Mark, a former tech industry giant, is now an invalid close to death. His wife Brenna is unravelling more each day. And the children are terrified by the constantly shifting news. Then a member of the household staff starts showing symptoms. As paranoia builds, the family’s fragile bonds are put to the test. But the virus is the least of their worries. Because someone has chosen to use this crisis to take the ultimate revenge . . . | 40 | 414 |
Dark psychological suspense | Over My Shoulder | Falling in love with the perfect man leads a young woman into a terrifying trap in this “addictive and intriguing” psychological thriller (Linda Huber, bestselling author of Baby Dear). When Freya meets Kane, he charms her off her feet and whisks her away into his lavish life. Falling in love with him is a dream come true. But as time goes by, his subtle manipulations escalate into something far worse. And as her new life becomes increasingly intolerable, Freya realises escape is out of reach. Kane is deeply controlling, dangerous, and unpredictable. And he’s convinced that Freya has done him wrong. She knows that when she least expects it, he will make good his promise to exact revenge. Freya is no fool, but will she ever be free? | 40 | 415 |
Death and meaning | Finding Meaning | In this groundbreaking new work, David Kessler—an expert on grief and the coauthor with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross of the iconic On Grief and Grieving—journeys beyond the classic five stages to discover a sixth stage: meaning. In 1969, Elisabeth Kübler Ross first identified the stages of dying in her transformative book On Death and Dying. Decades later, she and David Kessler wrote the classic On Grief and Grieving, introducing the stages of grief with the same transformative pragmatism and compassion. Now, based on hard-earned personal experiences, as well as knowledge and wisdom earned through decades of work with the grieving, Kessler introduces a critical sixth stage. Many people look for “closure” after a loss. Kessler argues that it’s finding meaning beyond the stages of grief most of us are familiar with—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—that can transform grief into a more peaceful and hopeful experience. In this book, Kessler gives readers a roadmap to remembering those who have died with more love than pain; he shows us how to move forward in a way that honors our loved ones. Kessler’s insight is both professional and intensely personal. His journey with grief began when, as a child, he witnessed a mass shooting at the same time his mother was dying. For most of his life, Kessler taught physicians, nurses, counselors, police, and first responders about end of life, trauma, and grief, as well as leading talks and retreats for those experiencing grief. Despite his knowledge, his life was upended by the sudden death of his twenty-one-year-old son. How does the grief expert handle such a tragic loss? He knew he had to find a way through this unexpected, devastating loss, a way that would honor his son. That, ultimately, was the sixth state of grief—meaning. In Finding Meaning, Kessler shares the insights, collective wisdom, and powerful tools that will help those experiencing loss. Finding Meaning is a necessary addition to grief literature and a vital guide to healing from tremendous loss. This is an inspiring, deeply intelligent must-read for anyone looking to journey away from suffering, through loss, and towards meaning. | 41 | 416 |
Death and meaning | Life, Death, and Meaning | Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar’s distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses. While many philosophers in the "continental tradition"—those known as "existentialists"—have engaged these issues at length and often with great popular appeal, English-speaking philosophers have had relatively little to say on these important questions. Yet, the methodology they bring to philosophical questions can, and occasionally has, been applied usefully to "existential" questions. This volume draws together a representative sample of primarily English-speaking philosophers' reflections on life's big questions, divided into six sections, covering (1) the meaning of life, (2) creating people, (3) death, (4) suicide, (5) immortality, and (6) optimism and pessimism. These key readings are supplemented with helpful introductions, study questions, and suggestions for further reading, making the material accessible and interesting for students. In short, the book provides a singular introduction to the way that philosophy has dealt with the big questions of life that we are all tempted to ask. | 41 | 417 |
Death and meaning | The Death of God and the Meaning of Life | What is the meaning of life? In today's secular, post-religious scientific world, this question has become a serious preoccupation. But it also has a long history: many major philosophers have thought deeply about it, as Julian Young so vividly illustrates in this thought-provoking second edition of The Death of God and the Meaning of Life. Three new chapters explore Søren Kierkegaard’s attempts to preserve a Christian answer to the question of the meaning of life, Karl Marx's attempt to translate this answer into naturalistic and atheistic terms, and Sigmund Freud’s deep pessimism about the possibility of any version of such an answer. Part 1 presents an historical overview of philosophers from Plato to Marx who have believed in a meaning of life, either in some supposed ‘other’ world or in the future of this world. Part 2 assesses what happened when the traditional structures that give life meaning began to erode. With nothing to take their place, these structures gave way to the threat of nihilism, to the appearance that life is meaningless. Young looks at the responses to this threat in chapters on Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, Foucault and Derrida. Fully revised and updated throughout, this highly engaging exploration of fundamental issues will captivate anyone who’s ever asked themselves where life’s meaning (if there is one) really lies. It also makes a perfect historical introduction to philosophy, particularly to the continental tradition. | 41 | 418 |
Death and meaning | Determinism, Death, and Meaning | This book offers new arguments for determinism. It draws novel and surprising consequences from determinism for our attitudes toward such things as death, regret, grief, and the meaning of life. The book argues that rationalism is the right attitude to take toward reality. It then shows that rationalism implies determinism and that determinism has surprising and far-reaching consequences. The author contends that the existence of all of humanity almost certainly depends on the precise time and manner of your death and mine; that purely retrospective regret, relief, gratitude, and grief are irrational for all but those who hold extreme values; and that everyone’s life has an unending impact on the future and thereby achieves the strongest kind of meaning that it makes sense to desire. Written in a direct and accessible style, Determinism, Death, and Meaning will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and value theory, as well as general readers with a serious interest in these topics. | 41 | 419 |
Death and meaning | The Meaning of Life and Death | What is the point of living? If we are all going to die anyway, if nothing will remain of whatever we achieve in this life, why should we bother trying to achieve anything in the first place? Can we be mortal and still live a meaningful life? Questions such as these have been asked for a long time, but nobody has found a conclusive answer yet. The connection between death and meaning, however, has taken centre stage in the philosophical and literary work of some of the world's greatest writers: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Soren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Herman Melville, Friedrich Nietzsche, William James, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Marcel Proust, and Albert Camus. This book explores their ideas, weaving a rich tapestry of concepts, voices and images, helping the reader to understand the concerns at the heart of those writers' work and uncovering common themes and stark contrasts in their understanding of what kind of world we live in and what really matters in life. | 41 | 420 |
Death and meaning | Meaning and Mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger | Death is one of those few topics that attract the attention of just about every significant thinker in the history of Western philosophy, and this attention has resulted in diverse and complex views on death and what comes after. In Meaning and Mortality, Adam Buben offers a remarkably useful new framework for understanding the ways in which philosophy has discussed death by focusing first on two traditional strains in the discussion, the Platonic and the Epicurean. After providing a thorough account of this ancient dichotomy, he describes the development of an alternative means of handling death in Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, whose work on death tends to overshadow Kierkegaard's despite the undeniable influence exerted on him by the nineteenth-century Dane. Buben argues that Kierkegaard and Heidegger prescribe a peculiar way of living with death that offers a kind of compromise between the Platonic and the Epicurean strains. | 41 | 421 |
Death and meaning | Death and Spirituality | An elderly Chinese immigrant, hospitalized with terminal disease, requests to burn incense. A 30-year-old Roman Catholic gay male, dying of AIDS, is consumed by deepening moral guilt, troubled by beliefs he thought he abandoned years ago. A mother whose teenage son died of an aneurism is angry at God over his death yet fearful of expressing that anger lest He 'punish her again.' A young widower seemingly has difficulty expressing grief believing it to be a sign of weak faith. All of these examples illustrate the kinds of issues that clinicians and counselors constantly encounter. For although North American society has long been characterized as secular, this does not deny the potency of spiritual concerns and religious values on the individual level. Polls affirm that vast majorities of North Americans both believe in God and consider religion important in their lives. This is clearly evident when one faces the crisis of dying or bereavement. For, one of the strengths of belief is that it provides support and succor at a time when secular explanations are largely silent. For these reasons, educators and clinicians have long recognized the significance that religious and spiritual themes have in counseling with the dying and bereaved. Yet, in cultures as religiously diverse as the U.S. and Canada, caregivers and educators may feel inadequate to the task. Death and Spirituality addresses this need. Specifically it seeks to reach two, perhaps overlapping, audiences. First, it considers the needs death-related counselors and educators, seeking to provide them with both a sense of the norm of religious tradition and the religious and spiritual issues that might arise in illness and bereavement, as well as suitable interventions, approaches, and resources that might be useful in assisting clients in examining and resolving such issues. The book also speaks to the complementary needs of clergy who also may wish to assist parishioners and others as they face the spiritual and psychological crisis of dying and grief. | 41 | 422 |
Death and meaning | Supernatural | Humans--even those who consider themselves secular or atheists--are utterly seduced by supernatural beliefs. Clay Routledge, an experimental social psychologist who grew up in a deeply religious environment, argues that belief or trust in forces beyond our understanding is natural and rooted in our fears of death. In Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World, Routledge argues that supernatural thinking is adaptive, even healthy, and that it should unite and not divide us. | 41 | 423 |
Demi-god’s epic quest | The Quest for Forbidden Lands | The Quest for Forbidden Lands: Nikolai Przhevalskii and his Followers on Inner Asian Tracks is a collection of biographical essays of outstanding Russian explorers of Inner Asia of the late nineteenth – early twentieth century, Nikolai Przhevalskii, Vsevolod Roborovskii, Mikhail Pevtsov, Petr Kozlov, Grigorii Grumm-Grzhimailo and Bronislav Grombchevskii, almost all senior army officers. Their expeditions were organized by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society with some assistance from the military department with a view of exploring and mapping the vast uncharted territories of Inner Asia, being the Western periphery of the Manchu-Chinese Empire. The journeys of these pioneers were a great success and gained world renown for their many discoveries and the valuable collections they brought from the region. | 42 | 424 |
Demi-god’s epic quest | Futureface | From the host of MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight, “a rich and revealing memoir” (The New York Times) about her travels around the globe to solve the mystery of her ancestry, confronting the question at the heart of the American experience of immigration, race, and identity: Who are my people? “A thoughtful, beautiful meditation on what makes us who we are . . . and the values and ideals that bind us together as Americans.”—Barack Obama The daughter of a Burmese mother and a white American father, Alex Wagner grew up thinking of herself as a “futureface”—an avatar of a mixed-race future when all races would merge into a brown singularity. But when one family mystery leads to another, Wagner’s post-racial ideals fray as she becomes obsessed with the specifics of her own family’s racial and ethnic history. Drawn into the wild world of ancestry, she embarks upon a quest around the world—and into her own DNA—to answer the ultimate questions of who she really is and where she belongs. The journey takes her from Burma to Luxembourg, from ruined colonial capitals with records written on banana leaves to Mormon databases, genetic labs, and the rest of the twenty-first-century genealogy complex. But soon she begins to grapple with a deeper question: Does it matter? Is our enduring obsession with blood and land, race and identity, worth all the trouble it’s caused us? Wagner weaves together fascinating history, genetic science, and sociology but is really after deeper stuff than her own ancestry: in a time of conflict over who we are as a country, she tries to find the story where we all belong. Praise for Futureface “Smart, searching . . . Meditating on our ancestors, as Wagner’s own story shows, can suggest better ways of being ourselves.”—Maud Newton, The New York Times Book Review “Sincere and instructive . . . This timely reflection on American identity, with a bonus exposé of DNA ancestry testing, deserves a wide audience.”—Library Journal “The narrative is part Mary Roach–style participation-heavy research, part family history, and part exploration of existential loneliness. . . . The journey is worth taking.”—Kirkus Reviews “[A] ruminative exploration of ethnicity and identity . . . Wagner’s odyssey is an effective riposte to anti-immigrant politics.”—Publishers Weekly | 42 | 425 |
Demi-god’s epic quest | Percy Jackson Demigod Collection | A book of firsts! One epic collection containing the first book from three different New York Times #1 best-selling series by Rick Riordan. THE LIGHTNING THIEF: Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen and Percy Jackson is the prime suspect. He and his friends have ten days to find and return it and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. To succeed, Percy has come to terms with the father who abandoned him, solve the riddle of the Oracle that warns of betrayal by a friend, and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves. THE LOST HERO: Jason, Piper, and Leo find themselves at Camp Half-Blood where people won't stop talking about a curse and a camper named Percy who's gone AWOL.These three friends must rely on one another and their newfound demigod gifts as they embark on an epic quest to save Mount Olympus. THE HIDDEN ORACLE: Apollo, once the glorious god of the sun, music, and poetry, has been cast down to Earth in punishment by Zeus. Now, as awkward mortal teenager Lester Papadopoulos, he's been tasked with restoring five Oracles that have gone dark in order to regain his place on Mount Olympus. How is he supposed to accomplish that without any godly powers? He needs help, and a demigod named Percy Jackson shows him where to find it: at a training camp on Long Island called Camp Half-Blood. This primer of heroes and demigods will start readers on three unforgettable adventures. Bonus first chapters from two other amazing series promise more exciting journeys. | 42 | 426 |
Demi-god’s epic quest | Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes | From the creator of Myths Retold comes a hilarious collection of Greek, Norse, Chinese and even Sumerian myths retold in their purest, bawdiest forms! All our lives, we’ve been fed watered-down, PC versions of the classic myths. In reality, mythology is more screwed up than a schizophrenic shaman doing hits of unidentified…wait, it all makes sense now. In Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes, Cory O’Brien, creator of Myths RETOLD!, sets the stories straight. These are rude, crude, totally sacred texts told the way they were meant to be told: loudly, and with lots of four-letter words. Did you know? Cronus liked to eat babies. Narcissus probably should have just learned to masturbate. Odin got construction discounts with bestiality. Isis had bad taste in jewelry. Ganesh was the very definition of an unplanned pregnancy. And Abraham was totally cool about stabbing his kid in the face. Still skeptical? Here are a few more gems to consider: • Zeus once stuffed an unborn fetus inside his thigh to save its life after he exploded its mother by being too good in bed. • The entire Egyptian universe was saved because Sekhmet just got too hammered to keep murdering everyone. • The Hindu universe is run by a married couple who only stop murdering in order to throw sweet dance parties…on the corpses of their enemies. • The Norse goddess Freyja once consented to a four-dwarf gangbang in exchange for one shiny necklace. And there’s more dysfunctional goodness where that came from. | 42 | 427 |
Demi-god’s epic quest | The Quest for Epic in Contemporary American Fiction | This volume explores the confluences between two types of literature in contemporary America: the novel and the epic. It analyses the tradition of the epic as it has evolved from antiquity, through Joyce to its American manifestations and describes how this tradition has impacted upon contemporary American writing. | 42 | 428 |
Demi-god’s epic quest | A Quest for Remembrance | A Quest for Remembrance: The Underworld in Classical and Modern literature brings together a range of arguments exploring connections between the descent into the underworld, also known as katabasis, and various forms of memory. Its chapters investigate the uses of the descent topos both in antiquity and in the reception of classical literature in the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. In the process, the volume explores how the hero’s quest into the underworld engages with the theme of recovering memories from the past. At the same time, we aim to foreground how the narrative format itself is concerned with forms of commemoration ranging from trans-cultural memory, remembering the literary and intellectual canon, to commemorating important historical events that might otherwise be forgotten. Through highlighting this duality this collection aims to introduce the descent narrative as its own literary genre, a ‘memorious genre’ related to but distinct from the quest narrative. | 42 | 429 |
Demi-god’s epic quest | Epics of Early Civilization | For centuries, the epics, legends and myths of Mesopotamia's ancient civilization lay buried under the desert sands, along with great cities like Babylon, Nineveh, Ur, and Ashur, waiting for the day when archaeologists would reveal them to the modern world. These myths represent some of the earliest literature ever found. Peopled with characters like the goddess Ishtar and the warrior-king Gilgamesh, they are filled with universal themes that resonate even today. | 42 | 430 |
Demi-god’s epic quest | Silver Surfer Epic Collection | Collects Silver Surfer (1987) #39-50, Annual #3; Thanos Quest #1-2 and material from Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #50. The Mad Titan is on a quest for Death! The Silver Surfer may believe he has killed Thanos, but the terrible truth is that the Mad Titan still lives and thats bad news for the Marvel Universe, because Thanos great love has sent him on a space-faring search for the Infinity Gems! Meanwhile, the Surfer tackles a deadly life-form and deals with the madness of Dynamo City! But when Thanos returns from his quest, glove on hand and hell-bent for revenge, do the Surfer, Galactus and Drax the Destroyer stand a chance? And whose side will Mephisto be on? Norrin Radd must face his past as events build to a confrontation that sets the stage for the cosmic epic known as INFINITY GAUNTLET! | 42 | 431 |
Demonic possession terror | Beware the Night | A sixteen-year NYPD veteran, Ralph Sarchie works out of the 46th Precinct in New York's south Bronx. But it is his other job that he calls "the Work": investigating cases of demonic possession and assisting in the exorcisms of humanity's most ancient--and most dangerous--foes. Now he discloses for the first time his investigation into incredible true crimes an inhuman evil that were never explained, solved, or understood except by Sarchie and his partner. Schooled in the rituals of exorcism, and an eyewitness to the reality of demonic possession, Ralph Sarchie has documented a riveting chronicle of the inexplicable that gives a new shape to the shadows in the dark. In Beware the Night, he takes readers into the very hierarchy of a hell on earth to expose the grisly rituals of a Palo Mayombe priest; a young girl whose innocence is violated by an incubus; a home invaded by the malevolent spirit of a supposedly murdered ninteenth-century bride; the dark side of a couple who were literally, the neighbors from hell; and more. Ralph Sarchie's NYPD revelations are a powerful and disturbing documented link between the true-crime realities of life and the blood-chilling ice-grip of a supernatural terror. | 43 | 432 |
Demonic possession terror | My Best Friend's Exorcism | Soon to be a major motion picture. This ENHANCED DIGITAL EDITION features TONS of TOTALLY AWESOME ’80s bonus materials—including Satanic Panic educational pamphlets, a do-it-yourself exorcism cheat sheet, a Spotify playlist of awesome ’80s tunes, animated cover artwork, and much more! From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, this unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist blends teen angst and unspeakable horrors into a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller. The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act…different. She’s moody. She’s irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she’s nearby. Abby’s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries—and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil? | 43 | 433 |
Demonic possession terror | Possessed | "The Exorcist", a 1973 movie about a twelve-year-old girl possessed by the Devil, frightened people more than any horror film ever did. Many moviegoers sought therapy to rid themselves of fears they could not explain. Psychiatrists coined the term "cinematic neurosis" for patients who left the movie feeling a terrifying presence of demons. At the Washington premiere, a young woman stood outside the theater, trembling. "I come out here in the sunlight," she said, "and I see people's eyes, and they frighten me." Among the few moviegoers unmoved by the horror were two priests, Father William S. Bowdern and Father Walter Halloran, members of the Jesuit community at St. Louis University. "Billy came out shaking his head about the little girl bouncing on the bed and urinating on the crucifix," Halloran remembers. "He was kind of angry. 'There is a good message that can be given by this thing,' he said. The message was the fact that evil spirits operate in our world." Bowdern and Halloran knew that the movie was fictional veneer masking a terrible reality. Night after night in March and April 1949, Bowdern had been an exorcist, with Halloran assisting. Bowdern fervently believed that he had driven a demon from a tormented soul. The victim had been a thirteen-year-old boy strangely lured to St. Louis from a Maryland suburb of Washington. Bowdern's exorcism had been the inspiration for the movie. The true story of this possession, told in Possessed, is based on a diary kept by a Jesuit priest assisting Father Bowdern. The diary, the most complete account of an exorcism since the Middle Ages, is published for the first time in this revised edition of Possessed. | 43 | 434 |
Demonic possession terror | The Holy Water Incident | From an Innocent Teenage Life ... ... To a Nightmare of Torment and Pain William Dorian and his daughter Brittany learned the hard way that demonic possession is very real. This captivating book tells the shocking story of Brittany's possession that began at age fifteen, recounting the overwhelming trauma that evil entities can wreak on a family's quiet life. The Holy Water Incident reveals the heartache, frustration, and sheer terror that results when the family receives a cold shoulder from the local religious authorities and when the medical establishment's only solution is confinement in a psychiatric unit. With little help from ministers or doctors, Brittany and her father desperately seek allies in a grueling spiritual battle that forever alters the lives of all who are involved. Beginning with an innocent session with a spirit communication board and building in intensity to the point where multiple demons take hold of an innocent teenager's life, this story shines a light on the traumatic wounds a possession can inflict ... and the extreme measures a family will take to save their daughter from evil entities that are hell-bent on chaos and destruction. | 43 | 435 |
Demonic possession terror | The Devil in Connecticut | The true story that is the basis for The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It opening in theaters June 4, 2021. It began with the lust of demons and the corruption of a young boy named David Glatzel. It ended with a murder trial that made headlines across the country--the trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, accused of brutally knifing a friend to death. Johnson's defense startled the nation: not guilty, by reason of demonic possession. Here is the horrifying true story of what happened on terrible summer in the sleepy town of Brookfield, Connecticut. How the Glatzels, an average suburban family, came under a terrifying demonic attack that changed their lives. How their eleven-year-old son, David, suffered monstrous visitations by an entity he could only identify as "the Beast." How a close friend, Arne Cheyenne Johnson, became the tragic victim of forces beyond anyone's control...and how the Glatzels' ordeal has still not ended. | 43 | 436 |
Demonic possession terror | The Last Days of Jack Sparks | "Ingenious and funny . . . Magnificent." -- Alan Moore, creator of Watchmen and V for Vendetta Jack Sparks died while writing this book. It was no secret that journalist Jack Sparks had been researching the occult for his new book. No stranger to controversy, he'd already triggered a furious Twitter storm by mocking an exorcism he witnessed. Then there was that video: forty seconds of chilling footage that Jack repeatedly claimed was not of his making, yet was posted from his own YouTube account. Nobody knew what happened to Jack in the days that followed -- until now. "Wow. Seriously hard to put down." -- M. R. Carey, author of The Girl With All the Gifts | 43 | 437 |
Demonic possession terror | The Penguin Book of Exorcisms | Haunting accounts of real-life exorcisms through the centuries and around the world, from ancient Egypt and the biblical Middle East to colonial America and twentieth-century South Africa A Penguin Classic Levitation. Feats of superhuman strength. Speaking in tongues. A hateful, glowing stare. The signs of spirit possession have been documented for thousands of years and across religions and cultures, even into our time: In 2019 the Vatican convened 250 priests from 50 countries for a weeklong seminar on exorcism. The Penguin Book of Exorcisms brings together the most astonishing accounts: Saint Anthony set upon by demons in the form of a lion, a bull, and a panther, who are no match for his devotion and prayer; the Prophet Muhammad casting an enemy of God out of a young boy; fox spirits in medieval China and Japan; a headless bear assaulting a woman in sixteenth-century England; the possession in the French town of Loudun of an entire convent of Ursuline nuns; a Zulu woman who floated to a height of five feet almost daily; a previously unpublished account of an exorcism in Earling, Iowa, in 1928--an important inspiration for the movie The Exorcist; poltergeist activity at a home in Maryland in 1949--the basis for William Peter Blatty's novel The Exorcist; a Filipina girl "bitten by devils"; and a rare example of a priest's letter requesting permission of a bishop to perform an exorcism--after witnessing a boy walk backward up a wall. Fifty-seven percent of Americans profess to believe in demonic possession; after reading this book, you may too. For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. | 43 | 438 |
Demonic possession terror | The Devil Within | A fascinating, wide-ranging survey of the history of demon possession and exorcism through the ages. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the era of the Reformation, thousands of Europeans were thought to be possessed by demons. In response to their horrifying symptoms—violent convulsions, displays of preternatural strength, vomiting of foreign objects, displaying contempt for sacred objects, and others—exorcists were summoned to expel the evil spirits from victims’ bodies. This compelling book focuses on possession and exorcism in the Reformation period, but also reaches back to the fifteenth century and forward to our own times. Entire convents of nuns in French, Italian, and Spanish towns, thirty boys in an Amsterdam orphanage, a small group of young girls in Salem, Massachusetts—these are among the instances of demon possession in the United States and throughout Europe that Brian Levack closely examines, taking into account the diverse interpretations of generations of theologians, biblical scholars, pastors, physicians, anthropologists, psychiatrists, and historians. Challenging the commonly held belief that possession signals physical or mental illness, the author argues that demoniacs and exorcists—consciously or not—are following their various religious cultures, and their performances can only be understood in those contexts. “Riveting [and] readable . . . must-reading for students of history, psychology and religion.” —Publishers Weekly “Levak, a distinguished historian of early modern witchcraft, now sets exorcism in a long historical perspective, providing the most comprehensive and scholarly overview of the theme yet published.” —Peter Marshall, Times Literary Supplement | 43 | 439 |
Demonic possession terror | Demonic Foes | The world’s leading psychiatric authority on demonic possession delves into the hidden world of exorcisms and his own transformation from cynic to believer over the course of his twenty-five-year career. Successful New York psychiatrist Richard Gallagher was skeptical yet intrigued when a hard-nosed, no-nonsense Catholic priest asked him to examine a woman for a possible exorcism. Meeting her, Gallagher was astonished. The woman’s behavior defied logic. In an instant, she could pinpoint a person’s secret weaknesses. She knew how individuals she’d never known had died, including Gallagher’s own mother, who passed away after a lengthy battle with ovarian cancer. She spoke fluently in multiple languages, including Latin—but only when she was in a trance. This was not psychosis, Gallagher concluded. It was, in his scientific estimation, what could only be describe as paranormal ability. The woman wasn’t mentally disturbed—she was possessed. This remarkable case was the first of many that Gallagher would encounter. Sought after today by leaders of all faiths—ministers, priests, rabbis and imams, Gallagher has spent a quarter-century studying demonic activity and exorcisms throughout history and has witnessed more cases than any other psychiatrist in the world today. In this eerie and enthralling book, Gallagher chronicles his most famous cases for the first time, including: A professional who claimed her spiritualist mother had “assigned” her a spirit who “turned on her.” A petite woman—”90 pounds soaking wet”—who threw a 200-pound Lutheran deacon across the room to the horror of onlookers in a church hall; And “Julia,” the so-called Satanic queen and self-described witch, who exhibited “the most harrowing” case, a “once-in-a-century” possession. Going beyond horror movies and novels, Demonic Foes takes you deep into this hidden world, sharing in full details of these true-life tales of demonic possession. | 43 | 440 |
Demonic possession terror | The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess | From an electrifying voice in horror comes the haunting tale of a woman whose life begins to unravel after a home invasion. “Marino offers horrors both existential and visceral. From a stunning opening, the sense of dread just builds and builds.” —M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts "Odd and dark and fascinating . . . Not quite like anything I've ever read before. A strange, compelling, late-night page-turner. It kept me reading way past my bedtime." —T. Kingfisher, author of The Hollow Places Possession is an addiction. Sydney's spent years burying her past and building a better life for herself and her young son. A respectable marketing job, a house with reclaimed and sustainable furniture, and a boyfriend who loves her son and accepts her, flaws and all. But when she opens her front door, and a masked intruder knocks her briefly unconscious, everything begins to unravel. She wakes in the hospital and tells a harrowing story of escape. Of dashing out a broken window. Of running into her neighbors' yard and calling the police. The cops tell her a different story. Because the intruder is now lying dead in her guest room—murdered in a way that looks intimately personal. Sydney can't remember killing the man. No one believes her. Back home, as horrific memories surface, an unnatural darkness begins whispering in her ear. Urging her back to old addictions and a past she's buried to build a better life for herself and her son. As Sydney searches for truth among the wreckage of a past that won't stay buried for long, the unquiet darkness begins to grow. To change into something unimaginable. To reveal terrible cravings of its own. “Admirers of the works of Tana French, Megan Abbott, and Zoje Stage will devour this book.” —Booklist | 43 | 441 |
Demonic possession thriller | Demon | Scott King's podcast investigates the 1995 cold case of a demon possession in a rural Yorkshire village, where a 12-year-old boy was murdered in cold blood by two children. Book six in the chilling, award-winning Six Stories series. _______________________ In 1995, the picture-perfect village of Ussalthwaite was the site of one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, in a case that shocked the world. Twelve-year-old Sidney Parsons was savagely murdered by two boys his own age. No reason was ever given for this terrible crime, and the 'Demonic Duo' who killed him were imprisoned until their release in 2002, when they were given new identities and lifetime anonymity. Elusive online journalist Scott King investigates the lead-up and aftermath of the killing, uncovering dark and fanciful stories of demonic possession, and encountering a village torn apart by this unspeakable act. And, as episodes of his Six Stories podcast begin to air, King himself becomes a target, with dreadful secrets from his own past dredged up and threats escalating to a terrifying level. It becomes clear that whatever drove those two boys to kill is still there, lurking, and the campaign of horror has just begun... _______________________ | 44 | 442 |
Demonic possession thriller | The Last Days of Jack Sparks | "Ingenious and funny . . . Magnificent." -- Alan Moore, creator of Watchmen and V for Vendetta Jack Sparks died while writing this book. It was no secret that journalist Jack Sparks had been researching the occult for his new book. No stranger to controversy, he'd already triggered a furious Twitter storm by mocking an exorcism he witnessed. Then there was that video: forty seconds of chilling footage that Jack repeatedly claimed was not of his making, yet was posted from his own YouTube account. Nobody knew what happened to Jack in the days that followed -- until now. "Wow. Seriously hard to put down." -- M. R. Carey, author of The Girl With All the Gifts | 44 | 443 |
Demonic possession thriller | The Rite | The inspiration for the film starring Anthony Hopkins, journalist Matt Baglio uses the astonishing story of one American priest's training as an exorcist to reveal that the phenomena of possession, demons, the Devil, and exorcism are not merely a remnant of the archaic past, but remain a fearsome power in many people's lives even today. Father Gary Thomas was working as a parish priest in California when he was asked by his bishop to travel to Rome for training in the rite of exorcism. Though initially surprised, and slightly reluctant, he accepted this call, and enrolled in a new exorcism course at a Vatican-affiliated university, which taught him, among other things, how to distinguish between a genuine possession and mental illness. Eventually he would go on to participate in more than eighty exorcisms as an apprentice to a veteran Italian exorcist. His experiences profoundly changed the way he viewed the spiritual world, and as he moved from rational skeptic to practicing exorcist he came to understand the battle between good and evil in a whole new light. Journalist Matt Baglio had full access to Father Gary over the course of his training, and much of what he learned defies explanation. The Rite provides fascinating vignettes from the lives of exorcists and people possessed by demons, including firsthand accounts of exorcists at work casting out demons, culminating in Father Gary's own confrontations with the Devil. Baglio also traces the history of exorcism, revealing its rites and rituals, explaining what the Catholic Church really teaches about demonic possession, and delving into such related topics as the hierarchy of angels and demons, satanic cults, black masses, curses, and the various theories used by modern scientists and anthropologists who seek to quantify such phenomena. Written with an investigative eye that will captivate both skeptics and believers alike, The Rite shows that the truth about demonic possession is not only stranger than fiction, but also far more chilling. | 44 | 444 |
Demonic possession thriller | The Perfect Possession | For centuries, demons have possessed vulnerable and unsuspecting people. But this time, they're aiming to seize an entire town. Rand Casey, demonologist and paranormal investigator, returns to face a new threat unlike anything he's ever seen. Mere weeks after his last case, Rand is physically and spiritually drained. The elite demon Shindael has vowed to haunt Rand forever--a punishment for all the times he has been victorious over the forces of hell. Seeking the protection of God, Rand visits a new church in the small town of Finnick, Louisiana, pastored by the charismatic Deckard Arcan. When Rand witnesses unexplainable miracles from Deckard, Rand is skeptical. With the entire population of Finnick worshipping this preacher, Rand knows he must discover the truth about Deckard Arcan--is he a true messenger of God or a charlatan? What Rand discovers is a deception so vile that it can only be the work of supernatural, evil spirits. With the devil's tactics disguised as the miracles of God, it will take all of Rand's strength, cunning, and determination to rescue the town of Finnick from the darkness that threatens it. This time, hundreds of lives and souls are depending on Rand. Does he have what it takes to save the town of Finnick from the clutches of hell? The Perfect Possession is a supernatural horror thriller for readers who love stories about hauntings and battles with the demonic--the truest form of evil that exists in our world. | 44 | 445 |
Demonic possession thriller | Come Closer | Instead of a book she had ordered by mail, Amanda receives "Demon Possession, Past and Present." Soon after, something seems to take her over, and she wonders if she has been possessed by a female demon known to students of the Kabbalah as Naamah. | 44 | 446 |
Demonic possession thriller | The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film | Thirty-five years in the making, and destined to be the last word in fanta-film references! This incredible 1,017-page resource provides vital credits on over 9,000 films (1896-1999) of horror, fantasy, mystery, science fiction, heavy melodrama, and film noir. Comprehensive cast lists include: directors, writers, cinematographers, and composers. Also includes plot synopses, critiques, re-title/translation information, running times, photographs, and several cross-referenced indexes (by artist, year, song, etc.). Paperback. | 44 | 447 |
Subsets and Splits