Sexy, secretive, yet clear-eyed, Duncan brings pop, high, and low cultures together in one handy sometimes amusing sometimes harsh A-to-Z which every bibliophile and armchair adventurer will find to be a necessary guidebook through the temerarious pages of international literature.

Meet the Scruffians, workhouse tykes and street arabs scrobbled by the Waiftaker General, dragged to the Institute and put to the Stamp that writes your very soul into your skin. Meet the waifs of Ripper Vicky's Empire, Fixed forever as they are, never ageing, never starving, ever bouncing back to exactly how they were Fixed... the perfect child labour. Now escaped from their chimney sweep and mill owner masters, hiding out in their rookery cribs, surviving as thieves and beggars... and fighting back. Meet Flashjack the hellion and Puckerscruff the urchin; Squirlet Nicely and Vermintrude Toerag; Yapper, the Scruffian who learned to speak Dog; Whelp, the dog Fixed as a Scruffian; and Rake Jake Scallion, not a Scruffian, but the finest friend any scruff ever had. Meet Gobfabbler, the fabbler of this here crib, with his fabbles of Christmas spirit, canine spifflication, and why, only the most important fabble of em all... the fabble of how the Scruffians took the Stamp!

From Jeff VanderMeer, the author of Borne and Annihilation, comes the paperback reissue of his cult classic City of Saints and Madmen. In this reinvention of the literature of the fantastic, you hold in your hands an invitation to a place unlike any you’ve ever visited—an invitation delivered by one of our most audacious and astonishing literary magicians. City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervor and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading—and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced that he’s made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago . . . By turns sensuous and terrifying, filled with exotica and eroticism, this interwoven collection of stories, histories, and “eyewitness” reports invokes a universe within a puzzle box where you can lose—and find—yourself again.

A fiery spirit dances from the pages of the Great Book. She brings the aroma of scorched sand and ozone. She has a story to tell.... The Book of Phoenix is a unique work of magical futurism. A prequel to the highly acclaimed, World Fantasy Award-winning novel, Who Fears Death, it features the rise of another of Nnedi Okorafor’s powerful, memorable, superhuman women. Phoenix was grown and raised among other genetic experiments in New York’s Tower 7. She is an “accelerated woman”—only two years old but with the body and mind of an adult, Phoenix’s abilities far exceed those of a normal human. Still innocent and inexperienced in the ways of the world, she is content living in her room speed reading e-books, running on her treadmill, and basking in the love of Saeed, another biologically altered human of Tower 7. Then one evening, Saeed witnesses something so terrible that he takes his own life. Devastated by his death and Tower 7’s refusal to answer her questions, Phoenix finally begins to realize that her home is really her prison, and she becomes desperate to escape. But Phoenix’s escape, and her destruction of Tower 7, is just the beginning of her story. Before her story ends, Phoenix will travel from the United States to Africa and back, changing the entire course of humanity’s future.

A radical combination of emerging and established Mexican authors of original tales of the fantastic.

"Twelve-year-old AZ dreams of becoming the world's greatest explorer. Instead, he's stuck in summer school with just Odd Uncle Arthur for company. Little does AZ know that this summer will be his most thrilling--and dangerous--adventure yet. After a time-traveling mishap, AZ finds himself in Ophir, a lost city full of wonder, secrets... and cursed tombs. AZ must rely on his new friends and his gut to get him home. But first, he must summon the courage to guard magic artifacts from a repulsive villain. Will blood-thirsty crocodiles, turbulent rapids, and a stomach-churning feast stand in his way? Or does he have what it takes to join the Alliance of World Explorers?"--

Introducing Great Escapes: Selective guides for travelers who want to find quick trips and getaways within a specific locale. They take away the drudgery of sifting through online and printed travel info by listing only the most worthwhile events, activities, and places to stay and eat. Great Escapes: Arizona is for anyone who loves to explore and who wants to discover Arizona in a new and exciting way! Here's just a taste: a drive along historic Route 66; an unbelievable February fireworks display; stargazing at a national observatory; a re-enactment of the Civil War's "westernmost" battles; a visit to the O.K. Corral where Wyatt Earp made his legendary stand; an ostrich festival; and a search for the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine.