Download or read book Dead to the World written by Charlaine Harris and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-05-03 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Psychic Sookie Stackhouse has her hands full with an amnesiac vampire in the fourth seductive novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series—the inspiration for the HBO® original series True Blood. When cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse sees a naked man on the side of the road, she doesn’t just drive on by. Turns out the poor thing hasn’t a clue who he is, but Sookie does. It’s the vampire Eric Northman—but now he’s a kinder, gentler Eric. And a scared Eric, because whoever took his memory now wants his life. Sookie’s investigation into why leads straight into a dangerous battle among witches, vampires, and werewolves. But a greater danger could be to Sookie’s heart—because the kinder, gentler Eric is very difficult to resist...

Download or read book We the Dead written by Brian Michael Murphy and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2022-05-16 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Locked away in refrigerated vaults, sanitized by gas chambers, and secured within bombproof caverns deep under mountains are America's most prized materials: the ever-expanding collection of records that now accompany each of us from birth to death. This data complex backs up and protects our most vital information against decay and destruction, and yet it binds us to corporate and government institutions whose power is also preserved in its bunkers, infrastructures, and sterilized spaces. We the Dead traces the emergence of the data complex in the early twentieth century and guides readers through its expansion in a series of moments when Americans thought they were living just before the end of the world. Depression-era eugenicists feared racial contamination and the downfall of the white American family, while contemporary technologists seek ever denser and more durable materials for storing data, from microetched metal discs to cryptocurrency keys encoded in synthetic DNA. Artfully written and packed with provocative ideas, this haunting book illuminates the dark places of the data complex and the ways it increasingly blurs the lines between human and machine, biological body and data body, life and digital afterlife.

Download or read book The Quick and the Dead written by Joy Williams and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • From one of our most heralded writers comes the “poetic, disturbing, yet very funny” (The Washington Post Book World) life-and-death adventures of three misfit teenagers in the American desert. Alice, Corvus, and Annabel, each a motherless child, are an unlikely circle of friends. One filled with convictions, another with loss, the third with a worldly pragmatism, they traverse an air-conditioned landscape eccentric with signs and portents—from the preservation of the living dead in a nursing home to the presentation of the dead as living in a wildlife museum—accompanied by restless, confounded adults. A father lusts after his handsome gardener even as he's haunted (literally) by his dead wife; a heartbroken dog runs afoul of an angry neighbor; a young stroke victim drifts westward, his luck running from worse to awful; a sickly musician for whom Alice develops an attraction is drawn instead toward darker imaginings and solutions; and an aging big-game hunter finds spiritual renewal through his infatuation with an eight-year-old—the formidable Emily Bliss Pickless. With nature thoroughly routed and the ambiguities of existence on full display, life and death continue in directions both invisible and apparent. Gloriously funny and wonderfully serious, The Quick and the Dead limns the vagaries of love, the thirst for meaning, and the peculiar paths by which all creatures are led to their destiny. A panorama of contemporary life and an endlessly surprising tour de force: penetrating and magical, ominous and comic, this is the most astonishing book yet in Joy Williams's illustrious career. Joy Williams belongs, James Salter has written, "in the company of Céline, Flannery O'Connor, and Margaret Atwood."

Download or read book The Work of the Dead written by Thomas W. Laqueur and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The meaning of our concern for mortal remains—from antiquity through the twentieth century The Greek philosopher Diogenes said that when he died his body should be tossed over the city walls for beasts to scavenge. Why should he or anyone else care what became of his corpse? In The Work of the Dead, acclaimed cultural historian Thomas Laqueur examines why humanity has universally rejected Diogenes's argument. No culture has been indifferent to mortal remains. Even in our supposedly disenchanted scientific age, the dead body still matters—for individuals, communities, and nations. A remarkably ambitious history, The Work of the Dead offers a compelling and richly detailed account of how and why the living have cared for the dead, from antiquity to the twentieth century. The book draws on a vast range of sources—from mortuary archaeology, medical tracts, letters, songs, poems, and novels to painting and landscapes in order to recover the work that the dead do for the living: making human communities that connect the past and the future. Laqueur shows how the churchyard became the dominant resting place of the dead during the Middle Ages and why the cemetery largely supplanted it during the modern period. He traces how and why since the nineteenth century we have come to gather the names of the dead on great lists and memorials and why being buried without a name has become so disturbing. And finally, he tells how modern cremation, begun as a fantasy of stripping death of its history, ultimately failed—and how even the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust have been preserved in culture. A fascinating chronicle of how we shape the dead and are in turn shaped by them, this is a landmark work of cultural history.

Download or read book Plight of the Living Dead written by Matt Simon and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brain-bending exploration of real-life zombies and mind controllers, and what they reveal to us about nature—and ourselves Zombieism isn’t just the stuff of movies and TV shows like The Walking Dead. It’s real, and it’s happening in the world around us, from wasps and worms to dogs and moose—and even humans. In Plight of the Living Dead, science journalist Matt Simon documents his journey through the bizarre evolutionary history of mind control. Along the way, he visits a lab where scientists infect ants with zombifying fungi, joins the search for kamikaze crickets in the hills of New Mexico, and travels to Israel to meet the wasp that stings cockroaches in the brain before leading them to their doom. Nothing Hollywood dreams up can match the brilliant, horrific zombies that natural selection has produced time and time again. Plight of the Living Dead is a surreal dive into a world that would be totally unbelievable if very smart scientists didn’t happen to be proving it’s real, and most troublingly—or maybe intriguingly—of all: how even we humans are affected. “Fantastic . . . You'll be thinking about this book long after you're done reading it.” —Kelly Weinersmith, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Soonish

Download or read book This Party s Dead written by Erica Buist and published by Unbound Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-18 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if we responded to death... by throwing a party? By the time Erica Buist’s father-in-law Chris was discovered, upstairs in his bed, his book resting on his chest, he had been dead for over a week. She searched for answers (the artery-clogging cheeses in his fridge?) and tried to reason with herself (does daughter-in-law even feature in the grief hierarchy?) and eventually landed on an inevitable, uncomfortable truth: everybody dies. While her husband maintained a semblance of grace and poise, Erica found herself consumed by her grief, descending into a bout of pyjama-clad agoraphobia, stalking friends online to ascertain whether any of them had also dropped dead without warning, unable to extract herself from the spiral of death anxiety... until one day she decided to reclaim control. With Mexico’s Day of the Dead festivities as a starting point, Erica decided to confront death head-on by visiting seven death festivals around the world – one for every day they didn’t find Chris. From Mexico to Nepal, Sicily, Thailand, Madagascar, Japan and finally Indonesia – with a stopover in New Orleans, where the dead outnumber the living ten to one – Erica searched for the answers to both fundamental and unexpected questions around death anxiety. This Party’s Deadis the account of her journey to understand how other cultures deal with mortal terror, how they move past the knowledge that they’re going to die in order to live happily day-to-day, how they celebrate rather than shy away from the topic of death – and how when this openness and acceptance are passed down through the generations, death suddenly doesn’t seem so scary after all.

Download or read book Journey Through the Afterlife written by John H. Taylor and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With contributions from leading scholars and detailed catalog entries that interpret the spells and painted scenes, this fascinating and important work affords a greater understanding of ancient Egyptian belief systems and poignantly reveals the hopes and fears about the world beyond death.

Download or read book Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead written by Emily Austin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Gilda, a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she's there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace. In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace's old friend. She can't bear to ignore the kindly old woman, who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can't bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace's death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence."--Amazon.

Download or read book The Dead Gentleman written by Matthew Cody and published by Yearling. This book was released on 2012-10-09 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dead Gentleman is a wild ride between parallel New York City timestreams—1901 and today. Eleven-year-old Tommy Learner is a street orphan and an unlikely protege to the Explorers, a secret group dedicated to exploring portals—the hidden doorways to other worlds. But while investigating an attercop (man-eating spider) in the basement of an old hotel, Tommy is betrayed—and trapped. And it's then that his world collides with that of modern-day Jezebel Lemon, who, until the day she decides to explore her building's basement, had no bigger worries than homework and boys. Now, Jezebel and Tommy must thwart the Dead Gentleman, a legendary villain whose last unconquered world is our own planet Earth, a realm where the dead stay dead. Until now. Can two kids put an end to this ancient evil and his legions of Gravewalkers?

Download or read book Kings of a Dead World written by Jamie Mollart and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2024-04-18 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel set in a near-future world of hunger and hibernation: “[An] intriguing and timely premise . . . executed with verve.” —Alison Moore, Man Booker Prize finalist and author of Missing The Earth’s resources are dwindling. The solution is The Sleep. Inside a hibernating city, Ben struggles with his limited waking time and the disease stealing his wife from him. Watching over the sleepers, lonely janitor Peruzzi craves the family he never knew. Everywhere, dissatisfaction is growing. And the city is about to wake . . . “A haunting vision of the near-future with expert world-building and rich complex characters.” —Temi Oh, Alex Award–winning author of More Perfect “A challenging dystopia for our time.” —Aliya Whiteley, Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist and author of Skyward Inn

Download or read book The Rock And Roll Book Of The Dead written by David Comfort and published by Kensington Publishing Corp.. This book was released on 2009-08-25 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once you're dead, you're made for life. --Jimi Hendrix Hendrix. Janis. Morrison. Elvis. Lennon. Cobain. Garcia. Their reckless brilliance held the key to their self-destruction. Their deaths had much in common--and, surprisingly, so did their lives. From lonely childhoods marred by loss to groundbreaking music and turbulent careers that ended tragically and suspiciously, David Comfort explodes the myths as he probes: • The sinister roles of Hendrix's manager and girlfriend in his death and subsequent cover-up • The bizarre odyssey of Jim Morrison's corpse • Why Kurt Cobain was worth more dead than alive to Courtney Love • The twisted motives that caused John Lennon to sail through the Devil's Triangle to Bermuda--nearly going down in a storm--shortly before he was fatally shot • The crippling disease and "miracle" drug that drove Elvis to suicide Charismatic and gifted, but also isolated and conflicted, these are not the rock icons you thought you knew. Here are their larger-than-life stories of turmoil and excess that led to their early deaths and ultimate immortality. It's a wild ride to the other side of fame. "Fame is the soul eater." --Jerry Garcia "Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground." --John Lennon Includes Rare Photos David Comfort is the author of three bestselling nonfiction books. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, including Eclectic Literary Forum, Pacific Review, Coe Review, and Belletrist Review. He has been the recipient of several literary prizes and a finalist for such prestigious awards as the Nelson Algren Award and America's Best. A former rock musician, he has spent over 30 years studying rock music, particularly the revolutionary and fatalistic pioneers of the 1960s. He lives in Santa Rosa, California.

Download or read book The Modern Book of the Dead written by Ptolemy Tompkins and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern, all-encompassing exploration of what happens after death combines spirituality with philosophy, history, and science, all of which guide readers toward the timeless truth that human consciousness lives on after death.

Download or read book The Library of the Dead written by T. L. Huchu and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a USA TODAY bestseller! "An absolute delight . . . kept me totally hooked." – Genevieve Cogman, bestselling author of The Invisible Library Sixth Sense meets Stranger Things in T. L. Huchu's The Library of the Dead, a sharp contemporary fantasy following a precocious and cynical teen as she explores the shadowy magical underside of modern Edinburgh. WHEN GHOSTS TALK SHE WILL LISTEN Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker – and they sure do love to talk. Now she speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to those they left behind. A girl’s gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone’s bewitching children – leaving them husks, empty of joy and strength. It’s on Ropa’s patch, so she feels honor-bound to investigate. But what she learns will rock her world. Ropa will dice with death as she calls on Zimbabwean magic and Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. And although underground Edinburgh hides a wealth of dark secrets, she also discovers an occult library, a magical mentor and some unexpected allies. Yet as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted? "A fast-moving and entertaining tale, beautifully written." – Ben Aaronovitch, bestselling author of Rivers of London At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book Dead in the Water written by Matthew Campbell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Financial Times Book of the Year An Economist Best Book of the Year “A triumph of investigative journalism.” —Tom Wright, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Billion Dollar Whale “A fascinating read. Highly recommended!”-John Carreyrou, bestselling author of Bad Blood "Truly one of the most nail-biting, page-turning, terrifying true-crime books I've ever read." —Nick Bilton, New York Times bestselling author of American Kingpin From award-winning journalists Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel, the gripping, true-crime story of a notorious maritime hijacking at the heart of a massive conspiracy—and the unsolved murder that threatened to unravel it all. In July 2011, the oil tanker Brillante Virtuoso was drifting through the treacherous Gulf of Aden when a crew of pirates attacked and set her ablaze in a devastating explosion. But when David Mockett, a maritime surveyor working for Lloyd’s of London, inspected the damaged vessel, he was left with more questions than answers. How had the pirates gotten aboard so easily? And if they wanted to steal the ship and bargain for its return, then why did they destroy it? The questions didn’t add up—and Mockett would never answer them. Soon after his inspection, David Mockett was murdered. Dead in the Water is a shocking expose of the criminal inner workings of international shipping, told through the lens of the Brillante hijacking and its aftermath. Through first-hand accounts of those who lived it—from members of the ship’s crew and witnesses to the attacks, to the ex-London detectives turned private investigators seeking to solve Mockett’s murder and bring justice to his family—award-winning Bloomberg reporters Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel piece together the astounding truth behind one of the most brazen financial frauds in history. The ambitious culmination of more than four years of reporting, Dead in the Water uncovers an intricate web of conspiracy amidst the lawless, old-world industry at the backbone of our new global economy.

Download or read book Magic Is Dead written by Ian Frisch and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the vein of Neil Strauss’ The Game and Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein comes the fascinating story of one man’s colorful, mysterious, and personal journey into the world of magic, and his unlikely invitation into an underground secret society of revolutionary magicians from around the world. Magic Is Dead is Ian Frisch’s head-first dive into a hidden world full of extraordinary characters and highly guarded secrets. It is a story of imagination, deception, and art that spotlights today’s most brilliant young magicians—a mysterious club known as the52, who are revolutionizing an ancient artform under the mantra Magic Is Dead. Ian brings us with him as he not only gets to know this fascinating world, but also becomes an integral part of it. We meet the52’s founding members—Laura London, Daniel Madison, and Chris Ramsay—and explore their personal demons, professional aspirations, and what drew them to their craft. We join them at private gatherings of the most extraordinary magicians working today, follow them to magic conventions in Las Vegas and England, and discover some of the best tricks of the trade. We also encounter David Blaine; hang out with Penn Jillette; meet Dynamo, the U.K.’s most famous magician; and go behind the scenes of a Netflix magic show. Magic Is Dead is also a chronicle of magic’s rich history and how it has changed in the internet age, as the young guns embrace social media and move away from the old-school take on the craft. As he tells the story of the52, and his role as its most unlikely member, Ian reveals his own connection with trickery and deceit and how he first learned the elements that make magic work from his poker-playing mother. He recalls their adventures in card rooms and casinos after his father’s sudden death, and shares a touching moment that he had, as a working journalist, with his childhood idol Shaquille O’Neal. “Magic—the romanticism of the inexplicable, the awe and admiration of the unexpected—is an underlying force in how we view the world and its myriad possibilities,” Ian writes. As his journey continues, Ian not only becomes a performer and creator of magic—even fooling the late Anthony Bourdain during a chance encounter—he also cements a new brotherhood, and begins to understand his relationship with his father, fifteen years after his death. Written with psychological acuity and a keen eye for detail, Magic Is Dead is an engrossing tale full of wonder and surprise.

Download or read book The Brief History of the Dead written by Kevin Brockmeier and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2006-02-14 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Kevin Brockmeier, one of this generation's most inventive young writers, comes a striking new novel about death, life, and the mysterious place in between. The City is inhabited by those who have departed Earth but are still remembered by the living. They will reside in this afterlife until they are completely forgotten. But the City is shrinking, and the residents clearing out. Some of the holdouts, like Luka Sims, who produces the City’s only newspaper, are wondering what exactly is going on. Others, like Coleman Kinzler, believe it is the beginning of the end. Meanwhile, Laura Byrd is trapped in an Antarctic research station, her supplies are running low, her radio finds only static, and the power is failing. With little choice, Laura sets out across the ice to look for help, but time is running out. Kevin Brockmeier alternates these two storylines to create a lyrical and haunting story about love, loss and the power of memory.

Download or read book The Dead Roam the Earth written by Alasdair Wickham and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Captivating true accounts of the paranormal from all over the world Do you believe in ghosts? From incubi in Sumatra to exorcism in Sudan to spirits in our own backyard, The Dead Roam the Earth explores the fascinating variety—and uncanny similarity—of supernatural encounters in every corner of the planet, providing chilling accounts of real-life ghost sightings, haunted places, poltergeists, possessions, Mothmen, demons, witchcraft, ritualistic killings, and much more. Could so many people in so many places just be imagining things? In addition to its wealth of testimonials from ordinary people witnessing extraordinary things, this engrossing book presents the latest scientific attempts to make sense of the supernatural—including how electronic equipment has revolutionized spiritual communication—and finds the devil in the details.