Ghost Eaters

“A Gothic-punk graveyard tale about what haunts history and what haunts the human soul. An addicting read that draws you into its descent from the first page.”—Chuck Wendig, New York Times best-selling author of The Book of Accidents One of Vulture's Best Horror Novels of 2022, this terrifying supernatural page-turner will make you think twice about opening doors to the unknown. Erin hasn’t been able to set a single boundary with her charismatic but reckless college ex-boyfriend, Silas. When he asks her to bail him out of rehab—again—she knows she needs to cut him off. But days after he gets out, Silas turns up dead of an overdose in their hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and Erin’s world falls apart. Then a friend tells her about Ghost, a new drug that allows users to see the dead. Wanna get haunted? he asks. Grieving and desperate for closure with Silas, Erin agrees to a pill-popping “séance.” But the drug has unfathomable side effects—and once you take it, you can never go back.

A riveting thriller, Ghost Eater marks the introduction of an intense new voice in seafaring adventure. Moored in a wintry Asian harbor at the turn of the twentieth century, Captain Ulysses Vanders experiences a revelation. A ferryman brings a mysterious gift--a wine at once rare and familiar that brings the sailor back to a moment in Sumatra thirty years before. "I closed my eyes, remembering where I had last tasted this liquor, remembering back across the years, remembering how steady the hand had been that held out the cup to me, and how desperate the circumstances. With a stab, her face rose before me--beautiful, tantalizing, terrible to behold." This haunting memory leads the sailor back to his first command and a desperate river journey to rescue missionaries along a remote jungle river. Captain of an aging steamboat, Vanders soon finds himself burdened with a set of unexpected, mysterious passengers, each traveling to the mission outpost known as "Light of the World" for reasons of his or her own. The island world Vanders discovers is a ghostly place, darkly lit with the flames of social upheaval, a world of superstition and strife, as age-old ways of life are swept away in the murderous rampage of a tribe gone mad. At the edge of civilization, the young American captain learns not only the challenge of command but the courage to confront his own illusions, beautiful and terrible to behold.

Spanning myth, history, and contemporary culture, a terrifying and illuminating excavation of the meaning of cannibalism. Every culture has monsters that eat us, and every culture repels in horror when we eat ourselves. From Grendel to medieval Scottish cannibal Sawney Bean, and from the Ghuls of ancient Persia to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, tales of being consumed are both universal and universally terrifying. In this book, Kevin J. Wetmore Jr. explores the full range of monsters that eat the dead: ghouls, cannibals, wendigos, and other beings that feast on human flesh. Moving from myth through history to contemporary popular culture, Wetmore considers everything from ancient Greek myths of feeding humans to the gods, through sky burial in Tibet and Zoroastrianism, to actual cases of cannibalism in modern societies. By examining these seemingly inhuman acts, Eaters of the Dead reveals that those who consume corpses can teach us a great deal about human nature—and our deepest human fears.

Since he began to practice at the age of seven, Xie Aoyu has been hit again and again. His practice is the hardest, and his family uses the most medicinal materials for him, but others have cultivated quarrelling in one year. What about him

Why is it called this name? Because before I was born, my parents, who were superstitious and liked to look for fortune tellers to tell divination, asked someone to pinch their fingers, and didn't ask who the fortune teller was. I didn't know. I heard my grandmother say that it was the result of a very popular fortune teller who went to the next village. This question can be calculated.

The timely Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence brings together an international, interdisciplinary group of scholars who provide a coherent state of the art overview of the complex relationships between religion and violence. This companion tackles one of the most important topics in the field of Religion in the twenty-first century, pulling together a unique collection of cutting-edge work A focused collection of high-quality scholarship provides readers with a state-of-the-art account of the latest work in this field The contributors are broad-ranging, international, and interdisciplinary, and include historians, political scientists, religious studies scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, theologians, scholars of women's and gender studies and communication

There's a strong interest in reading for pleasure or self-improvement in America, as shown by the popularity of Harry Potter, and book clubs, including Oprah Winfrey's. Although recent government reports show a decline in recreational reading, the same reports show a strong correlation between interest in reading and academic acheivement. This set provides a snapshot of the current state of popular American literature, including various types and genres. The volume presents alphabetically arranged entries on more than 70 diverse literary categories, such as cyberpunk, fantasy literature, flash fiction, GLBTQ literature, graphic novels, manga and anime, and zines. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and provides a definition of the genre, an overview of its history, a look at trends and themes, a discussion of how the literary form engages contemporary issues, a review of the genre's reception, a discussion of authors and works, and suggestions for further reading. Sidebars provide fascinating details, and the set closes with a selected, general bibliography. Reading in America for pleasure and knowledge continues to be popular, even while other media compete for attention. While students continue to read many of the standard classics, new genres have emerged. These have captured the attention of general readers and are also playing a critical role in the language arts classroom. This book maps the state of popular literature and reading in America today, including the growth of new genres, such as cyberpunk, zines, flash fiction, GLBTQ literature, and other topics. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and provides a definition of the genre, an overview of its history, a look at trends and themes, a discussion of how the literary form engages contemporary issues, a review of the genre's critical reception, a discussion of authors and works, and suggestions for further reading. Sidebars provide fascinating details, and the set closes with a selected, general bibliography. Students will find this book a valuable guide to what they're reading today and will appreciate its illumination of popular culture and contemporary social issues.