Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes

Get this: Cronus liked to eat babies. Narcissus probably should have just learned to masturbate. Odin got construction discounts with bestiality. Isis had bad taste in jewelry. Ganesh was the very definition of an unplanned pregnancy. And Abraham was totally cool about stabbing his kid in the face. All our lives, we’ve been fed watered-down, PC versions of the classic myths. In reality, mythology is more screwed up than a schizophrenic shaman doing hits of unidentified…wait, it all makes sense now. In Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes, Cory O’Brien, creator of Myths RETOLD!, sets the stories straight. These are rude, crude, totally sacred texts told the way they were meant to be told: loudly, and with lots of four-letter words. Skeptical? Here are a few more gems to consider: • Zeus once stuffed an unborn fetus inside his thigh to save its life after he exploded its mother by being too good in bed. • The entire Egyptian universe was saved because Sekhmet just got too hammered to keep murdering everyone. • The Hindu universe is run by a married couple who only stop murdering in order to throw sweet dance parties…on the corpses of their enemies. • The Norse goddess Freyja once consented to a four-dwarf gangbang in exchange for one shiny necklace. And there’s more dysfunctional goodness where that came from.

From the creator of Myths Retold comes a hilarious collection of Greek, Norse, Chinese and even Sumerian myths retold in their purest, bawdiest forms! All our lives, we’ve been fed watered-down, PC versions of the classic myths. In reality, mythology is more screwed up than a schizophrenic shaman doing hits of unidentified…wait, it all makes sense now. In Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes, Cory O’Brien, creator of Myths RETOLD!, sets the stories straight. These are rude, crude, totally sacred texts told the way they were meant to be told: loudly, and with lots of four-letter words. Did you know? Cronus liked to eat babies. Narcissus probably should have just learned to masturbate. Odin got construction discounts with bestiality. Isis had bad taste in jewelry. Ganesh was the very definition of an unplanned pregnancy. And Abraham was totally cool about stabbing his kid in the face. Still skeptical? Here are a few more gems to consider: • Zeus once stuffed an unborn fetus inside his thigh to save its life after he exploded its mother by being too good in bed. • The entire Egyptian universe was saved because Sekhmet just got too hammered to keep murdering everyone. • The Hindu universe is run by a married couple who only stop murdering in order to throw sweet dance parties…on the corpses of their enemies. • The Norse goddess Freyja once consented to a four-dwarf gangbang in exchange for one shiny necklace. And there’s more dysfunctional goodness where that came from.

PREPARE TO BE BEAKED BY THE MAJESTIC EAGLE OF HISTORY Most of us are familiar with the greatest hits and legendary heroes of US history. In George Washington Is Cash Money, Cory O’Brien, author of Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes, does away with the pomp and circumstance and calls America’s history what it is: one long, violent soap opera. In his signature clever, crude, and cuss-ridden style, O’Brien reminds us that: · Teddy Roosevelt stopped bullets with his manly chest · Harriet Tubman avoided danger by having prophetic seizures. · Joseph Smith invented Mormonism by staring into a hat full of rocks. · Billy the Kid was finally defeated by the smell of fresh bacon. And there’s plenty more Star Spangled stupidity where that came from.

Modern technology is pitted against ancient dinosaurs in this scientific thriller James Rollins calls “Jurassic Park set amid the paradox of time travel.” Paleontologist Richard Leyster is perfectly content in his position with the Smithsonian excavating dinosaur fossil sites and publishing his findings . . . until the mysterious Harry Griffin appears in his office with a cooler containing the head of a freshly killed Stegosaurus. The enigmatic stranger offers Leyster the opportunity to travel back in time to study living dinosaurs in their original habitats—but with strings attached. Soon, the paleontologist finds himself, along with a select team of colleagues—including his chief rival, the ambitious and often ruthless Dr. Gertrude Salley—making discoveries that would prove impossible working from fossils alone. But when Leyster and his team are stranded in the Cretaceous, they must learn to survive while still keeping alive the joy of scientific discovery. This shocking novel spans hundreds of millions of years and deals with the ultimate fate not only of the dinosaurs but also of all humankind. Nominated for the Locus Award, the Hugo Award, and the Nebula Award for Best Novel, Bones of the Earth cements author Michael Swanwick as an author who “proves that sci-fi has plenty of room for wonder and literary values” (San Francisco Chronicle).

A book about how Shakespeare became fascinated with the world, and how the world became fascinated with Shakespeare Ranging ambitiously across four continents and four hundred years, Worlds Elsewhere is an eye-opening account of how Shakespeare went global. Seizing inspiration from the playwright’s own fascination with travel, foreignness, and distant worlds—worlds Shakespeare never himself explored—Andrew Dickson takes us on an extraordinary journey: from Hamlet performed by English actors tramping through the Baltic states in the early sixteen hundreds to the skyscrapers of twenty-first-century Beijing and Shanghai, where “Shashibiya” survived Mao’s Cultural Revolution to become a revered Chinese author. En route, Dickson traces Nazi Germany’s strange love affair with, and attempted nationalization of, the Bard, and delves deep into the history of Bollywood, where Shakespearean stories helped give birth to Indian cinema. In Johannesburg, we discover how Shakespeare was enlisted in the fight to end apartheid. In nineteenth-century California, we encounter shoestring performances of Richard III and Othello in the dusty mining camps and saloon bars of the Gold Rush. No other writer’s work has been performed, translated, adapted, and altered in such a remarkable variety of cultures and languages. Both a cultural history and a literary travelogue, Worlds Elsewhere is an attempt to understand how Shakespeare has become the international phenomenon he is—and why.

Startling stories center the bodies, memories, myths, and relationships of Asian American women in “a voracious, probing collection, proof of how exhilarating the short story can be” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice)—from the National Book Award “5 Under 35” honoree and author of Bestiary “Wise, energetic, funny, and wild, Gods of Want displays a boundless imagination anchored by the weight of ancestors and history.”—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina and Woman of Light WINNER OF THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Them, Book Riot In “Auntland,” a steady stream of aunts adjust to American life by sneaking surreptitious kisses from women at temple, buying tubs of vanilla ice cream to prepare for citizenship tests, and hatching plans to name their daughters “Dog.” In “The Chorus of Dead Cousins,” ghost-cousins cross space, seas, and skies to haunt their live-cousin, wife to a storm chaser. In “Xífù,” a mother-in-law tortures a wife in increasingly unsuccessful attempts to rid the house of her. In “Mariela,” two girls explore one another’s bodies for the first time in the belly of a plastic shark, while in “Virginia Slims,” a woman from a cigarette ad comes to life. And in “Resident Aliens,” a former slaughterhouse serves as a residence to a series of widows, each harboring her own calamitous secrets. With each tale, K-Ming Chang gives us her own take on a surrealism that mixes myth and migration, corporeality and ghostliness, queerness and the quotidian. Stunningly told in her feminist fabulist style, these are uncanny stories peeling back greater questions of power and memory.

It's an absorbing introduction to the lore of Albion, but readers will also enjoy teasing out similarities between these tales and more familiar ones." — Publishers Weekly Perilous quests, true love, and animals that talk: The traditional stories of Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, and Wales transport us to the fantastical world of Celtic folklore. • This Celtic mythology book features 16 stores that were translated and transcribed by folklorists in the late 19th and 20th centuries that focus on themes such as Tricksters, The Sea, Quests, and Romance and mythological creatures. • These timeless tales brim with wit and magic, and each one is brought to life with elegant silhouette art in this special illustrated edition • Celtic Tales is an extraordinary collection that conjures forgotten realms and rare magical creatures in vivid prose Discover the impactful and stunning illustrations by Kate Forrester in this special edition that is sure to impress any true fan of cultural and mythological literature. Discover delightfully entertaining tales such as Master and Man, The Soul Cages, The Red-Etin, and The Witch of Lok Island. Celtic Tales makes an impressive gift for any fan of greek mythology, roman mythology, Chinese mythology, and folklore and cultural studies from around the globe.

Stranger and more momentous than the strangest of scientific theories is the appearance of God on the intellectual horizon of contemporary science. From Einstein, Planck, and Heisenberg, to Margenau, Hawking, and Eccles, some of the most penetrating modern minds have needed God in order to make sense of the cosmos.