Weird England

Focusing on the bizarre, a collection of entertaining, illustrated travel guides features a host of oddball curiosities, ghosts and haunted places, local legends, cursed roads, crazy characters, and unusual roadside attractions that can be found in England.

"It may seem like clambakes, the Red Sox, and the Patriots define New England, but boy did the Pilgrims land in one very strange spot! These six states are filled with odd curiosities and bizarre legends, such as the elusive Vermont hum, the hibernating hill folk, hillside whale tales, and the Holy Land (yes, you read that right). Tongue-in-cheek and filled with dry wit, this is a journey you'll not soon forget."--P. [4] of cover.

Bizarre England is an intriguing tour of England's weirdest and most fascinating sights. Places like Devon's Gnome Reserve, Britain's smallest pub, a church for dragon slayers, a subterranean ballroom and much more. From weird buildings to eccentric museums and from mystical superstitions to remnants of magical rites, this is a guide to England like no other.

The mammoth 85th Anniversary Issue of The Unique Magazine features: FICTION: "Heart of Ice" by Tanith Lee; "Creature" by Ramsey Shehadeh; "The Yellow Dressing Gown" by Sarah Monette; "The Talion Moth" by John Kirk; "Detours on the Way to Nothing" by Rachel Swirsky; "Black Petals" (new Elric novella) by Michael Moorock. SPECIAL FEATURE: The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years. POETRY: "A Compleynte on the Deth of Sir William Thatcher, Sumtyme Ycleped Ulrich of Lichtenstein" by Geoffrey Chaucer. NONFICTION: Interview: Jeff VanderMeer chats with weird fantasy novelist China Mieville; Weirdism: Stephen Geigen-Miller on his pulp-fiction heritage; Lost Pages: Ira Marcks presents a snapshot of modern Innsmouth...; Lost in Lovecraft: ...and Kenneth Hite explores why H.P.L.'s characters sought asylum in Arkham; Excerpt: Csilla Csori discusses the science of Dune's gholas and how to raise the dead; The Bazaar: Cherie Priest meets a steampunk Cthulhoid amulet crafter; The Cryptic: Darrell Schweitzer on the enduring power of the Blob; The Library: Book reviews.

Did you know that a hoard of gold is probably buried somewhere under Bristol? Did you know that a statue in Bristol actually depicts the moment a king is about to die? Based on the popular Twitter feed from acclaimed author Charlie Revelle-Smith, Weird Bristol is an adventure through the dark, mysterious and secret history of an ancient city. From plagues, wars, ghosts and pirates to inventors, fraudsters, suffragettes and radicals. Only one thing is certain, you'll never look at Bristol in quite the same way again...

In the Hugo-award winning, epic New York Times Bestseller and basis for the BBC miniseries, two men change England's history when they bring magic back into the world. In the midst of the Napoleonic Wars in 1806, most people believe magic to have long since disappeared from England - until the reclusive Mr. Norrell reveals his powers and becomes an overnight celebrity. Another practicing magician then emerges: the young and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell's pupil, and the two join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wild, most perilous forms of magic, and he soon risks sacrificing his partnership with Norrell and everything else he holds dear. Susanna Clarke's brilliant first novel is an utterly compelling epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two magicians who, first as teacher and pupil and then as rivals, emerge to change its history.

There is Britain before 1965 and Britain after 1965 - and they are not the same thing. 1965 was the year Britain democratised education, it was the year pop culture began to be taken as seriously as high art, the time when comedians and television shows imported the methods of modernism into their work. It was when communications across the Atlantic became instantaneous, the year when, for the first time in a century, British artists took American gallery-goers by storm. In 1965 the Beatles proved that rock and roll could be art, it was when we went car crazy, and craziness was held to be the only sane reaction to an insane society. It was the year feminism went mainstream, the year, did she but know it, that the Thatcher revolution began, the year taboos were talked up - and trashed. It was when racial discrimination was outlawed and the death penalty abolished; it marked the appointment of Roy Jenkins as Home Secretary, who became chief architect in legislating homosexuality, divorce, abortion and censorship. It was the moment that our culture, reeling from what are still the most shocking killings of the century, realised it was a less innocent, less spiritual place than it had been kidding itself. It was the year of consumerist relativism that gave us the country we live in today and the year the idea of a home full of cultural artefacts - books, records, magazines - was born. It was the year when everything changed - and the year that everyone knew it.

A noted British cultural critic takes on some of the strangest works of art from the 20th century and dissects our fascination with the unsettling in popular music, film, and writing What exactly are the Weird and the Eerie? Two closely related but distinct modes, and each possesses its own distinct properties. Both have often been associated with Horror, but this genre alone does not fully encapsulate the pull of the outside and the unknown. In several essays, Mark Fisher argues that a proper understanding of the human condition requires examination of transitory concepts such as the Weird and the Eerie. Featuring discussion of the works of: H. P. Lovecraft, H. G. Wells, M.R. James, Christopher Priest, Joan Lindsay, Nigel Kneale, Daphne Du Maurier, Alan Garner and Margaret Atwood, and films by Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer and Christopher Nolan.