Surrounded By Ghosts

As a newborn, Janet Larkin died and came back to life. Then her sister drove over her skull with a tractor. And when she was eight years old, she had a conversation with her grandmother who had died before Janet was born. So began a life full of ghostly encounters. When she was still a girl, Janet received foreknowledge of a double homicide next door, and then she saw the ghost of one of the victims. In a Memphis hotel room, she experienced a terrifying demon posing as her husband. She even telepathically communicated with the soul of her unborn daughter. Janet has seen more than her fair share of spirits and spooks throughout her life, and especially in her haunted house on Pogey Point. In Surrounded by Ghosts, Janet recalls her creepiest stories and grapples to make sense of a life overflowing with unexplained phenomena.

Ghosts and spirits populate the world around us. We just need to be sensitive or psychic enough to hear and see them. In this book, author Paul Roland examines a fascinating assortment of recorded sightings from as far back in history as Roman times. This serious look at ghosts presents them not as chain-rattling spooks or clouds of cold, swirling mist, but as entities with which we share a greater reality. A comprehensive exploration of the realm of the supernatural, from ghost ships and poltergeists to out-of-body experiences and the idea of spirits as the manifestation of people still living, The Complete Book of Ghosts will challenge your beliefs and preconceptions as never before.

In Aboriginal and Māori literature, the circle and the spiral are the symbolic metaphors for a never-ending journey of discovery and rediscovery. The journey itself, with its indigenous perspectives and sense of orientation, is the most significant act of cultural recuperation. The present study outlines the fields of indigenous writing in Australia and New Zealand in the crucial period between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s - particularly eventful years in which postcolonial theory attempted to 'centre the margins' and indigenous writers were keen to escape the particular centering offered in search of other positions more in tune with their creative sensibilities. Indigenous writing relinquished its narrative preference for social realism in favour of traversing old territory in new spiritual ways; roots converted into routes. Standard postcolonial readings of indigenous texts often overwrite the 'difference' they seek to locate because critical orthodoxy predetermines what 'difference' can be. Critical evaluations still tend to eclipse the ontological grounds of Aboriginal and Māori traditions and specific ways of moving through and behaving in cultural landscapes and social contexts. Hence the corrective applied in Circles and Spirals - to look for locally and culturally specific tracks and traces that lead in other directions than those catalogued by postcolonial convention. This agenda is pursued by means of searching enquiries into the historical, anthropological, political and cultural determinants of the present state of Aboriginal and Māori writing (principally fiction). Independent yet interrelated exemplary analyses of works by Keri Hulme and Patricia Grace and Mudrooroo and Sam Watson (Australia) provided the 'thick description' that illuminates the author's central theses, with comparative side-glances at Witi Ihimaera, Heretaunga Pat Baker and Alan Duff (New Zealand) and Archie Weller and Sally Morgan (Australia).

Master storyteller Bob Hartman uses the gospel of Luke as a basis for 70 stories about Jesus, His birth, life, teaching, death, and resurrection. Bob uses a wide variety of narrative forms to produce stories that will delight new Christians and Bible veterans alike. There are stories for individual and group performances, stories for the major festivals, and stories for a variety of age groups.

A BRAND-NEW BATTLEFIELD AWAITS! The fifth Squad Jam has had one surprise twist after another, and it’s finally reaching a climax. Other teams have proven they’re more interested in Llenn’s hundred-million-credit bounty than winning the competition! It doesn’t help that even her friends are tempted to take her out as well. Thanks to the target on her back, Llenn’s allies are dropping like flies. It all comes down to a game of tower defense—will Llenn persevere when she’s caught between a hail of bullets and a ten-thousand-foot drop?!

In November 2018, Baptist preacher Mark Harris beat the odds, narrowly fending off a blue wave in the sprawling Ninth District of North Carolina. But word soon got around that something fishy was going on in rural Bladen County. At the center of the mess was a local political operative named McCrae Dowless. Dowless had learned the ins and outs of the absentee ballot system from Democrats before switching over to the Republican Party. Bladen County's vote-collecting cottage industry made national headlines, led to multiple election fraud indictments, toppled North Carolina GOP leadership, and left hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians without congressional representation for nearly a year. In The Vote Collectors, Michael Graff and Nick Ochsner tell the story of the political shenanigans in Bladen County, exposing the shocking vulnerability of local elections and explaining why our present systems are powerless to monitor and prevent fraud. In their hands, this tale of rural corruption becomes a fascinating narrative of the long clash of racism and electioneering—and a larger story about the challenges to democracy in the rural South. At a time rife with accusations of election fraud, The Vote Collectors shows the reality of election stealing in one southern county, where democracy was undermined the old-fashioned way: one absentee ballot at a time.

The "hilarious and compelling" breakout surprise of 2017 has an even-more-addictive sequel! It’s been seven years since all the ghosts came back. Now, in four days, they’ll all be invisible again. The clock is ticking. Meanwhile the ghost of Abraham Lincoln has been prominently annihilated in mid-speech. And he’s not the only one; other ghosts are also being obliterated from the face of the Earth. All the evidence points to the Post-Mortal Services Clinic, where Ryan Matney happens to be a lowly, bored lab assistant. So Ryan and the brilliant scientist Margie join forces with their incompetent and semi-corporeal detective Lowell and a sketchy psychic medium whose powers truly are medium at best. Together they race to stop the Clinic from falling into the wrong hands before the lights go out on the haunted world. And maybe, just maybe, Ryan won’t die this time. Yes he will. More than once. The second book in the series that has been called “crazy-fun and cleverly written”, “hugely imaginative”, and “the most fun I've had in fiction in a long time”.

Part high-adventure tale, part autobiography, this page-turner recounts the eerie experiences that convinced brothers Brad and Barry Klinge, founders of Everyday Paranormal and stars of the TV series Ghost Lab on Discovery Channel, that ghosts really do walk among us Brad and Barry Klinge have been investigating paranormal occurrences for the last twenty years, and in Chasing Ghosts, Texas Style, they divulge some of their most exciting ghost encounters and analyze the science behind their paranormal hunts. Each chapter of this fascinating book focuses on the Klinge brothers' investigations into the creepiest of places, and explains how they have been able to capture both audio and video of paranormal occurrences using their high tech tools, and a healthy dose of common sense. Even when faced with mysterious slamming doors and haunting pleas for help, these brothers never shy away from a bone-chilling encounter or another chance to investigate a centuries-old haunting. Whether they are simply looking for a frightening ghost story or are more interested in the science behind ghost hunting, readers will not be able to put this gripping book down. In fact, they may even be inspired to take up ghosthunting themselves.