The Infernal Library

"A mesmerizing study of books by despots great and small, from the familiar to the largely unknown." —The Washington Post A darkly humorous tour of "dictator literature" in the twentieth century, featuring the soul-killing prose and poetry of Hitler, Mao, and many more, which shows how books have sometimes shaped the world for the worse Since the days of the Roman Empire dictators have written books. But in the twentieth-century despots enjoyed unprecedented print runs to (literally) captive audiences. The titans of the genre—Stalin, Mussolini, and Khomeini among them—produced theoretical works, spiritual manifestos, poetry, memoirs, and even the occasional romance novel and established a literary tradition of boundless tedium that continues to this day. How did the production of literature become central to the running of regimes? What do these books reveal about the dictatorial soul? And how can books and literacy, most often viewed as inherently positive, cause immense and lasting harm? Putting daunting research to revelatory use, Daniel Kalder asks and brilliantly answers these questions. Marshalled upon the beleaguered shelves of The Infernal Library are the books and commissioned works of the century’s most notorious figures. Their words led to the deaths of millions. Their conviction in the significance of their own thoughts brooked no argument. It is perhaps no wonder then, as Kalder argues, that many dictators began their careers as writers.

A Book of the Year for The Times and the Sunday Times ‘The writer is the engineer of the human soul,’ claimed Stalin. Although one wonders how many found nourishment in Turkmenbashi’s Book of the Soul (once required reading for driving tests in Turkmenistan), not to mention Stalin’s own poetry. Certainly, to be considered great, a dictator must write, and write a lot. Mao had his Little Red Book, Mussolini and Saddam Hussein their romance novels, Kim Jong-il his treatise on the art of film, Hitler his hate-filled tracts. What do these texts reveal about their authors, the worst people imaginable? And how did they shape twentieth-century history? To find out, Daniel Kalder read them all – the badly written and the astonishingly badly written – so that you don’t have to. This is the untold history of books so terrible they should have been crimes.

Based on the award-winning The Elder Scrolls, The Infernal City is the first of two exhilarating novels following events that continue the story from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, named 2006 Game of the Year. Four decades after the Oblivion Crisis, Tamriel is threatened anew by an ancient and all-consuming evil. It is Umbriel, a floating city that casts a terrifying shadow—for wherever it falls, people die and rise again. And it is in Umbriel’s shadow that a great adventure begins, and a group of unlikely heroes meet. A legendary prince with a secret. A spy on the trail of a vast conspiracy. A mage obsessed with his desire for revenge. And Annaig, a young girl in whose hands the fate of Tamriel may rest . . . .

A wonderful antidote to rose-tinted travel writing

All three books in the #1 New York Times bestselling Infernal Devices trilogy are now together in one boxed set! Step back in time with the Shadowhunters with this eBook collection of the New York Times bestselling Infernal Devices trilogy. Passion. Power. Secrets. Enchantment. The Shadowhunters of the Victorian Age delve into all of these—in addition to darkness and danger—in the Infernal Devices trilogy, packaged in an eBook collection that includes Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, and Clockwork Princess.

This concise book by the well-known Serbian writer and literary researcher summarizes his decade-long experience of teaching creative writing at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. Always offering attendees four good reasons for not attending his course, or, in a broader perspective, discouraging them from professional writing altogether, the author reflects ultimately on what it really takes to become a writer of literary fiction. This essay, which makes up the first part of this work, is complemented by a selection of witty short stories, forming the second part, and which have been used as templates in the teaching context.

Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak is a hunted man. Escaping from the Black Library of the eldar, Czevak steals the Atlas Infernal - a living map of the Webway. With this fabled artefact & his supreme intellect, Czevak foils the predations of the Harlequins sent to apprehend him & thwarts his enemies within the Inquisition who want him dead.

The classic illustrations of Demons! Published in 1818-1863, the original Dictionnaire Infernal remains the ultimate source for images of the most famous demons of demonology! Written by Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy, and illustrated by Louis Le Breton, this classic work was printed in 6 editions, with the final edition of 1863 containing the famous demon images. The text and images of the spirits, from the 1863 edition are presented here, in this Infernal Dictionary. A must have for the library of any serious student of the Black arts and witchcraft!