A Storm of Witchcraft


Book Description

Presents an historical analysis of the Salem witch trials, examining the factors that may have led to the mass hysteria, including a possible occurrence of ergot poisoning, a frontier war in Maine, and local political rivalries.




PERSUASION


Book Description

Persuasion is a novel written by a famous British writer Jane Austen. It is a story about the life of Anne Elliot, a middle daughter of baronet Sir Walter, a spender and bluffer. Due to these features of his character, he found himself in a difficult financial position. He has to rent a family estate Kellynch Hall in order to pay his debts. Meanwhile, his most smart and considerate daughter Anne goes to Uppercross to look after a sick sister. In the days of her youth she was mutually in love with Frederick Wentworth, but because of a fear of a poor marriage, “reasons of conscience” and on the insistence of a “family friend” Lady Russel Anne stopped her relationship with him. But now after eight years, some incredible coincidence happens. The family that rents Kellynch Hall is related to Frederick Wentworth. Is the old-time love still alive in the hearts of Anne and Frederick?




The Doll-Master


Book Description

This Bram Stoker Award–winning collection is “certain to stick in your mind long after you’ve turned the last page” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Includes “Big Momma,” a finalist for the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Short Story Here are six of Joyce Carol Oates’s most “frightening—and deeply disturbing—short stories” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). In the titular story, a boy becomes obsessed with his cousin’s doll after her tragic death. As he grows older, he begins to collect “found dolls” from surrounding neighborhoods . . . each with its own sinister significance. In “Gun Accident,” a teenage girl is delighted to house-sit for her favorite teacher, until an intruder forces his way inside—changing more than one life forever. The collection closes with the taut tale of a mystery bookstore owner whose designs on a rare bookshop in scenic New Hampshire devolve into a menacing game with real-life consequences. “At the heart of each story is a predator-prey relationship, and what makes them so terrifying is that most of us can easily picture ourselves as the prey, at least at some time during our lives” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). “Everything she writes, in whatever genre, has an air of dread, because she deals in vulnerabilities and inevitabilities, in the desperate needs that drive people . . . to their fates. A sense of helplessness is the essence of horror, and Oates conveys that feeling as well as any writer around.” —Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times Book Review “One of the stranger parts of the human condition may be our deep fascination, and at times troubling exploration, of the darker aspects of our nature . . . No other author explores the ugly, and at times, blazingly unapologetic underbelly of these impulses quite like Joyce Carol Oates in The Doll-Master.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “In her new collection . . . [Oates] relishes moments of gothic melodrama, while rooting them firmly in grindingly ordinary American lives.” —The Guardian “Oates convincingly demonstrates her mastery of the macabre with this superlative story collection . . . This devil’s half-dozen of dread and suspense is a must read.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review







The Birds


Book Description

This classic Christmas story by the author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm features a child as memorable and charitable as Dickens







Screening Love and Sex in the Ancient World


Book Description

This dynamic collection of essays by international film scholars and classicists addresses the provocative representation of sexuality in the ancient world on screen. A critical reader on approaches used to examine sexuality in classical settings, contributors use case studies from films and television series spanning from the 1920s to the present.




Cracks


Book Description

An “eerie, elliptical masterpiece set in a South African boarding school in the early 1960s. . . . First-rate psychological suspense . . . played out flawlessly” (Kirkus Reviews). The members of an elite girls swim team are the reigning queens at their South African boarding school. And then Italian student Fiamma Coronna joins their ranks. Beautiful, athletic, and suddenly commanding all the coach’s attention, Fiamma is the envy of every girl on the team—until the summer she walks into the rural grasslands surrounding the school and disappears. Forty years later, the former teammates return to the school for a reunion, and the memory of that summer emerges like a long buried secret, the shocking, violent truth of what really happened to Fiamma no longer able to be contained . . . “Riveting . . . while evocative of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Picnic at Hanging Rock, Kohler’s writing is so smoothly confident and erotic that she has produced a tale resonant with a chilling power all its own.” —Elle “A stunning and singular tale of the passion and tribalism of adolescence, Cracks lays bare the violence that lurks in the heart of even the most innocent. Shocking, reminiscent of Lord of the Flies . . . conjures up the wildness of the veld and the passion and drama of adolescence . . . peculiarly satisfying.” —The Times Literary Supplement “A disturbing, note-perfect novel. Dissection of evil has rarely been so extravagantly executed.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Polished, compact and chilling . . . Powerful.” —Publishers Weekly A Library Journal and Newsday Best Book of the Year, now a major motion picture starring Eva Green




The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction, 1950-2000


Book Description

In this introduction to post-war fiction in Britain, Dominic Head shows how the novel yields a special insight into the important areas of social and cultural history in the second half of the twentieth century. Head's study is the most exhaustive survey of post-war British fiction available. It includes chapters on the state and the novel, class and social change, gender and sexual identity, national identity and multiculturalism. Throughout Head places novels in their social and historical context. He highlights the emergence and prominence of particular genres and links these developments to the wider cultural context. He also provides provocative readings of important individual novelists, particularly those who remain staple reference points in the study of the subject. Accessible, wide-ranging and designed specifically for use on courses, this is the most current introduction to the subject available. An invaluable resource for students and teachers alike.




The Essential Whole Earth Catalog


Book Description

Taking its place beside the instant classic bestseller The Whole Earth Catalog, this new, practical, comprehensive and profusely illustrated guide will prove invaluable to all consumers looking for a quick, efficient route to the very best information. Over 1,000 black-and-white illustrations.