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Now an esoteric of legal and criminal history, A Hangman's Diary gives a year-by-year breakdown on all of Master Franz Schmidt's executions, which included hangings, beheadings, and other methods, as well as details of each capital crime and the reason for the punishment.

One of Joseph Campbell’s most popular, most quoted works, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration, thought-provoking in its depth, poetic in its scope. Drawn from a month-long workshop at the world-famous Esalen Institute, the Joseph Campbell Companion captures Campbell at his best: wise, funny, intelligent, and inspiring.

For millennia, societies have told tales of their fears incarnate—otherworldly couriers of plague, death, temptation, and moral decline. The Penguin Book of Demons summons these supernatural creatures—and the humans who have hunted and been haunted by them—across cultures and continents.

Rumors of deception have surrounded claims of Jesus' resurrection ever since the soldiers appointed to guard his tomb made their report to the Jewish authorities. But no one has led the philosophic charge against miracles quite as influentially as David Hume with his 1748 essay "Of Miracles." Refined, revised, restated, his arguments still affect philosophic discussions of miracles today.

Is Raistlin truly dead? The answer lies in the new Dragonlance novella by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, which gazes into the future of Caramon and his mage-son, and into the dark nether-past of Raistlin. Tales of sea monsters, dark elves, ice bears, hideous hydra-headed serpents, and loathsome draconian troops.

Further adventures of the kender Tas; the innkeepr Otic and young Tika; the dwarf Flint and Tanis, leader of the companions; Caramon and Raistlin, twin brothers, one, a genial warrior, the other, a sickly magician and scholar.

For as long as language and communication have existed, humans have invented ways to mask their messages from prying eyes. One could be forgiven for assuming there are no ciphers left unsolved. On the contrary, a diverse array of both ancient and modern cryptographic challenges, which have stumped even the most seasoned code crackers of today, exist, and may exist for generations to come. Among the most famous of these memorandums is a 600-year-old document that continues to mystify: the Voynich Manuscript.

The rhythm, ritual, and pleasure of knitting are celebrated in this new collection for lovers of both knitting and literature. In Knitting Pearls, two dozen writers write about the transformative and healing powers of knitting. Lily King remembers the year her family lived in Italy, and a knitted hat that helped her daughter adjust to her new home. Laura Lippman explores how converting to Judaism changed not only Christmas but also her mother's gift of a knitted stocking.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is a towering figure of modern Western philosophy, someone whose thought continues to exert an influence across all areas of the discipline. His work is characterized by both breadth and unity: he writes powerfully about mind, epistemology, metaphysics, logic, mathematics, natural science, ethics, politics, aesthetics, education, and more. The Oxford Handbook of Kant provides an up-to-date account of recent scholarship on Kant's philosophy, taking in all areas of his writings.

Uranium is best known for the destructive power of the atom bombs, which ushered in the nuclear era at the end of World War II, but given the effectiveness of nuclear power, nuclear power plants were constructed around the developed world during the second half of the 20th century. While nuclear power plants were previously not an option and thus opened the door to new, more efficient, and more affordable forms of energy for domestic consumption, the use of nuclear energy understandably unnerved people living during the Cold War and amidst ongoing nuclear detonations.

While the Western was dying a slow death across the cultural landscape, it was blazing back to life as a video game in the early twenty-first century. Rockstar Games' Red Dead franchise, beginning with Red Dead Revolver in 2004, has grown into one of the most critically acclaimed video game franchises of the twenty-first century. Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West offers a critical, interdisciplinary look at this cultural phenomenon at the intersection of game studies and American history.

Pericles "Perry" Christo is a P.I. with a past. A one-time NYPD homicide cop, Perry has been struggling since he lost his badge, and his marriage, in a notorious corruption scandal. So when wealthy Upper East Side matron Julia Drusilla calls him one cold February night, he jumps at the chance to work what seems to be a straightforward (and lucrative) case. Julia needs Perry to track down the whereabouts of her beautiful yet aimless daughter, Angelina, who is about to become a very wealthy young heiress.

Simple. Neat. Orderly. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Karmen Handel's life growing up had been anything but quiet and simple. A deadbeat father, a mother who never wanted her, and a grandmother who could care less created the perfect recipe to ensure Karmen built a wall around herself and never let anyone in. When her past comes back to haunt her, Karmen has no one to help her. Until Nickel.

Featuring stories from R.L. Stine and Madeleine Roux, this middle-grade horror anthology, curated by New York Times best-selling author and master of macabre Jonathan Maberry, is a chilling tribute to Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Flesh-hungry ogres? Brains full of spiders? Haunted houses you can’t escape? This collection of 35 terrifying stories from the Horror Writers Association has it all, including ghastly illustrations from Iris Compiet that will absolutely chill listeners to the bone.

The Sepher Yetzirah or Book of Formation is perhaps the oldest rabbinical treatise of Kabbalistic philosophy which is still extant. This thoroughly re-edited and revised version helps bring this text to life.

If it was the dawn of a new world order in the 1990s, it was one of American unilateralism. Throughout the decade America's unrivaled power and the globalization of the world through technology like the Internet offered Americans a sense of security and a belief that the United States could accomplish anything. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was the world's only remaining superpower, and communism around the world began to decline.

As the Sixties came to a close, Paul McCartney was faced with the daunting prospect of being a solo artist for the first time. Wings’ ascension to the top of the charts with classic albums including Band on the Run, Venus and Mars and At the Speed of Sound, along with the band’s stadium-filling live shows, would prove to critics and fans that not all great acts are impossible to follow. Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run is a rousing, stereophonic celebration of the songs, collaborations and performances that would shape the soundtrack of the late 20th century.

You don't have to starve to be an artist. Build a career doing what you love. In this practical guide, professional artist Lisa Congdon reveals the many ways you can earn a living by making art - through illustration, licensing, fine art sales, print sales, teaching, and beyond. Including industry advice from such successful art-world pros as Nikki McClure, Mark Hearld, Paula Scher, and more, Art, Inc. will equip you with the tools - and the confidence - to turn your passion into a profitable business.

While he was one of the most influential men in the ancient world, research on Cyrus the Great is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating. Of course, this reality has deepened the mystique that surrounds Cyrus even to this day, and it has elevated his status from conqueror and king to enlightened humanist monarch and ideal ruler. Whatever the underlying issues, the incredible achievements of Cyrus distinguish him as one of the greatest kings in history, and his life, conquests, reforms, and rule continue to be of great interest over 2,500 years later.

In Rip-Off!, 13 of today’s best and most honored writers of speculative fiction face a challenge even they would be hard-pressed to conceive: Pick your favorite opening line from a classic piece of fiction (or even non-fiction) - then use it as the first sentence of an entirely original short story.

The vast expanses of southern Russia and the Ukraine provided the Eastern Front arena where the armies of Third Reich dictator Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin wrestled lethally for supremacy in 1943. Endless rolling plains - ideal "tank country" - vast forests, sprawling cities, and enormous tracts of agricultural land formed the environment over which millions of men and thousands of the era's most formidable military vehicles fought for their respective overlords and ideologies.