New Ghosts Old Tricks

Harper Harlow-Monroe has everything she's ever wanted. She has a husband she loves, a best friend who is only irritating fifty percent of the time, and a daughter who refuses to be "normal." So, basically, she has it all. Then the unthinkable happens. During an afternoon picnic with her husband and daughter, Harper's yard is flooded with ghosts ... right as five bodies float by on the river. Harper's daughter Poe is finally in the thick of things because she's the only one who can communicate with the ghostly newcomers. Worried, Harper calls in her friends Rowan, Maddie, and Ivy. Together, the foursome is going to figure out what's haunting Poe ... one way or another. There's not much to be found regarding the victims. They were adventurers, making a name for themselves finding treasure at the bottoms of oceans and lakes. They were hired by a local billionaire, but nobody can figure out why and the man in question is being cagey. Harper always knew her daughter would turn out gifted. The reality is different from the fantasy, however. Poe's magic is already strong, and when she gets a little encouragement from her friends, things begin to spiral. It's an all-hands-on-deck situation for this battle, and only the strong will survive.

I have always been interested in rhyming poetry. I even have a tattered copy of the old, One Hundred One Famous Poems, where there is to my way of thinking some of the greatest use of the language other than the Holy Bible. Such poems as 'Trees' by Kipling; and Laugh and the World Laughs With You' have been an inspiration to me for many years. Every where I have been, in church, schools, work or Lodge over the past seventy years, I have written poetry about something. In this book, I have written about many things I have either seen in my office, remembered from my past or have seen out my office window.

Influential Ghosts: A Study of Auden's Sources explores some of the most important literary and philosophical influences on W.H. Auden's poetry. The study attempts to show that Auden's poetry derives much of its interest from the vast range of authors on whom he drew for inspiration. But it also suggest that his relationship to these writers was marked by a fascinating ambivalence. In chapters on Auden's relationship to Hardy and Kierkegaard, the study shows how, after lovingly apprenticing himself to their work and often borrowing stylistic or thematic features from it - Hardy's sweeping "hawk's vision," Kierkegaard's urgent "leap of faith" - he began to criticize the very things he had previously striven to emulate. In a chapter on Auden's elegies, the author argues that, alone among examples of this poetic genre, they both reverently mourn and harshly scrutinize their subjects (Yeats, Freud, Henry James and others). In a chapter on "structural allusion" in Auden's early poetry, the study posits that Auden singlehandedly invented a new kind of allusion in which he alludes to the form and subject matter of entire poems. But while doing so, he also finds fault with the attitudes (passivity, despair) depicted in them. In these structurally allusive poems - as with his relationship to Hardy, Kierkegaard and his elegies' subjects - Auden's sometimes accepting, sometimes skeptical attitude toward his poetic models is on powerful display, and finds a perfect counterpart in the tension between imitative form and critical content.

The Age of Irreverence tells the story of why ChinaÕs entry into the modern age was not just traumatic, but uproarious. As the Qing dynasty slumped toward extinction, prominent writers compiled jokes into collections they called Òhistories of laughter.Ó In the first years of the Republic, novelists, essayists and illustrators alike used humorous allegories to make veiled critiques of the new government. But, again and again, political and cultural discussion erupted into invective, as critics gleefully jeered and derided rivals in public. Farceurs drew followings in the popular press, promoting a culture of practical joking and buffoonery. Eventually, these various expressions of hilarity proved so offensive to high-brow writers that they launched a concerted campaign to transform the tone of public discourse, hoping to displace the old forms of mirth with a new one they called youmo (humor). Christopher Rea argues that this periodÑfrom the 1890s to the 1930sÑtransformed how Chinese people thought and talked about what is funny. Focusing on five cultural expressions of laughterÑjokes, play, mockery, farce, and humorÑhe reveals the textures of comedy that were a part of everyday life during modern ChinaÕs first Òage of irreverence.Ó This new history of laughter not only offers an unprecedented and up-close look at a neglected facet of Chinese cultural modernity, but also reveals its lasting legacy in the Chinese language of the comic today and its implications for our understanding of humor as a part of human culture.

Behind the crumbling walls, under the ancient bricks and the nearly forgotten streetcar tracks, the ghosts of Chicago live on. From Resurrection Mary and Al Capone to the Murder Castle of H. H. Holmes and the funeral train of Abraham Lincoln, the spine-tingling sights and sounds of Chicago's yesteryear are still with us...and so are its ghosts. Seeking to find out what we really know about the ghastly past of this famously haunted metropolis, professional ghost hunter and historian Adam Selzer pieces together the truth behind Chicago's ghosts, and brings to light dozens of never-before-told firsthand accounts. Take a historical tour of the famous and not-so-famous haunts around town, from the Alley of Death and Mutilation to Satan's Mile and beyond. Sometimes the real story is far different from the urban legend—and most of the time it's even gorier.

Werewolf Kitty Norville returns in this action-packed story of paranormal investigations, full moons, curses,and cults -- sometimes what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas. Kitty and Ben flee The City That Never Sleeps, thinking they are finished with the dangers there -- but the sadistic cult of lycanthropes, led by a vampire priestess, has cursed Kitty in retaliation for the disruption of its rituals. She enlists the help of a group of TV paranormal investigators -- one of whom has real psychic abilities -- to help her get to the bottom of the curse that's been laid on her. Rick, the Master vampire of Denver, believes a deeper plot lies behind the curse, and he and Kitty argue about whether or not to accept the help of a professional demon hunter -- and vampire -- named Roman, who arrives a little too conveniently in the nick of time. Unable to rely on Rick, and unwilling to accept Roman's offer of help for a price, Kitty and her band of allies, including Vegas magician Odysseus Grant and Kitty's own radio audience, mount a trap for the supernatural being behind the curse, a destructive force summoned by the vengeful cult, a supernatural being that none of them ever thought to face.

The first book in an exciting new Victorian murder mystery series featuring a young female detectiveIn 19th century Brighton, England spirit mediums are all the fashion—especially Miss Eustace, a psychic who claims to produce apparitions of the dead, and oleaginous Mr. Bradley, a self-proclaimed spirit healer. Diminutive Mina Scarletti, a writer of horror stories, is sure that her widowed mother and friends are in the hands of cheats and extortionists so she enlists the help of Daniel Hamid, an Anglo-Indian doctor, her charming but disreputable brother, Richard, and Richard's mistress, Nellie, to expose the frauds. But the scheming criminals have spread their nets wide, and dramatic séances easily convince and captivate the vulnerable, including Daniel's disabled sister Eliza. When Mina's determined campaign backfires she only succeeds in adding to Miss Eustace's fame. With chaos reigning in the Scarletti house, Mina and Richard must turn to desperate methods to outwit the illusionists and reveal the truth.