The Age of Wild Ghosts


Book Description

Annotation. Contemporary Chinese history from the Great Leap Famine of the 1950s to the 1990s is traced in this text. This era saw great changes in the way that communities were run, including the reintroduction of the headman-ship system.




TechGnosis


Book Description

TechGnosis is a cult classic of media studies that straddles the line between academic discourse and popular culture; it appeals to both those secular and spiritual, to fans of cyberpunk and hacker literature and culture as much as new-thought adherents and spiritual seekers How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? In TechGnosis—a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword—Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.




The Phantom of the Opera


Book Description

The story of a man named Erik, an eccentric, physically deformed genius who terrorizes the Opera Garnier in Paris. He builds his home beneath it and takes the love of his life, a beautiful soprano, under his wing.




The Essential Phantom of the Opera


Book Description

Presents a comprehensive, fully annotated edition about the classic 1911 horror novel about a demented musician who haunts the nineteenth-century Paris Opera House.




Phantom


Book Description

An imaginative and sensitive story of the life of the Phantom of the Opera; winner of the Boots Romantic Novel Award.




The Phantom of Manhattan


Book Description

The stunning continuation of the timeless classic The Phantom of the Opera. In The Phantom of Manhattan, acclaimed, bestselling suspense novelist Frederick Forsyth pens a magnificent work of historical fiction, rife with the insights and sounds of turn-of-the-century New York City, while continuing the dramatic saga which began with Gaston Leroux's brilliant novel The Phantom of the Opera... More than two decades have passed since Antoinette Giry, the mistress of the corps de ballet at the Paris Opera, rescued a hideously disfigured boy named Erik from a carnival and brought him to live in the labyrinthine cellars of the opera house. Soon thereafter, his intense, unrequited love for a beautiful chorus girl set in motion a tragic string of events, forcing him to flee Paris forever. Now, as she lies dying in a convent, Madam Giry tells the untold story of the Phantom and his clandestine journey to New York City to start anew, where he would become a wealthy entrepreneur and build the glorious Manhattan Opera House...all so he could see his beloved, now a famous diva, once again. But the outcome of her visit would prove even more devastating than before-- and yet, would allow the Phantom to know, for the first time in his brutal life, the true meaning of love...




I Am Not Who You Think I Am


Book Description

A New York Times Best Thriller of the Year An Amazon Best Book of the Month An Apple Best Book of the Month “A tale not just of profound misunderstanding but dynastic wealth and dysfunction, of how money and power can warp a community...[A] shocker of a finale.” —New York Times ''Wicked and smart. Everything you want in a great thriller.'' —Adrian McKinty, New York Times bestselling author of The Chain One secret.Eight cryptic words.Lifetimes of ruin. From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author Wayland Maynard is just eight years old when he sees his father kill himself, finds a note that reads I am not who you think I am, and is left reeling with grief and shock. Who was his father if not the loving man Wayland knew? Terrified, Wayland keeps the note a secret, but his reasons for being afraid are just beginning. Eight years later, Wayland makes a shocking discovery and becomes certain the note is the key to unlocking a past his mother and others in his town want to keep buried. With the help of two friends, Wayland searches for the truth. Together they uncover strange messages scribbled in his father’s old books, a sinister history behind the town’s most powerful family, and a bizarre tragedy possibly linked to Wayland’s birth. Each revelation raises more questions and deepens Wayland’s suspicions of everyone around him. Soon, he’ll regret he ever found the note, trusted his friends, or believed in such a thing as the truth. I Am Not Who You Think I Am is an ingenious, addictive, and shattering tale of grief, obsession, and fate as eight words lead to lifetimes of ruin.




Love Never Dies


Book Description

Dana Reardon was sure her life ended too the day her husband, Michael, was killed. One year later, with the help of friend Brady Williams, she vows to accept Michael's death, gain back her health, and find a job. Brady had been Michael's law partner and best friend. Falling in love with Brady was not what Dana expected. Learning that he was in love with her was even more of a shock. They felt they were betraying Michael's memory when they made plans for their future together. When Dana's twin sister, Della, comes into the picture Dana and Brady have to put their feelings on hold. Brady is convinced that Della is trouble and almost loses Dana to prove it. Dana is sure she has lost Brady, because of not believing in him, even though she is carrying his child. She has loving memories of her deceased husband, but now she's in love with Brady. She has learned that you can love two men at the same time because Love Never Dies.




In the Pines


Book Description

The murder ballad holds a rock-solid position in US roots music and the Great American Songbook for decades. Telling the stories of sometimes true and often not-so-true-crimes and other horrific events, they are raw stories full of unrequited love, betrayal, life, and death. The song form stems from the Anglo-Saxon ballad tradition, where stories were orally passed on to a mostly illiterate population. Dutch cartoonist Erik Kriek was inspired by five old and new murder ballads — including songs by modern masters such as Nick Cave, Steve Earle, and Gillian Welch — and used them as a launching point for five special and ruthless graphic narratives that dig deep into the darkness of Americana, in which guns and religion maintain an uneasy balance.




Haunting Experiences


Book Description

Ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are widely represented throughout modern culture. They can be found in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts, but popular media or commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from the beliefs people hold about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Personal belief and cultural tradition on the one hand, and popular and commercial representation on the other, nevertheless continually feed each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists seek to broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from a variety of angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously, as they draw on contemporary scholarship that emphasizes both the basis of belief in experience (rather than mere fantasy) and the usefulness of ghost stories. They look closely at the narrative role of such lore in matters such as socialization and gender. And they unravel the complex mix of mass media, commodification, and popular culture that today puts old spirits into new contexts.